Nigeness

From a book I'm reading for review (of which more in due course, no doubt), I learn of a surprising business venture undertaken by Daniel Defoe, a man full of bright ideas but entirely devoid of commercial nous.

Last night, roaming among the more remote and obscure outlying TV channels, I happened upon that greatest of all the Ealing comedies, Kind Hearts and Coronets, which I happily watched to the end – it never palls.

Born on this day in 1683 was the great French composer (and music theorist) Jean-Philippe Rameau.

I was delighted to learn that talks about returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece have collapsed, apparently because the Greek government is insisting the return must be permanent, and the British Museum is (fortunately) prevented by law from giving away its

After a spectacular butterfly summer, there has been very little action since the rains and winds of early autumn put a sudden end to the season.

One of the regular treats of my boyhood was going to see the latest Peter Sellers film as it came out.

Today is the birthday of Samuel Johnson (born 1709).

Radio 3 this morning was getting very excited about Radio 6 Music's T-Shirt Day (not to be confused with International T-Shirt Day or National T-Shirt Day – heaven knows what thrills await us on those dates).

Here are the 'always excellent Dick Davis' and the 'right decent geezer' Samuel Johnson back already.

'Natural rights is simple nonsense,' declared Jeremy Bentham: 'natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense – nonsense upon stilts.'

Having spent too long reading little but non-fiction (much of it for review), I turned back to fiction recently, reading A Wreath of Roses by Elizabeth Taylor, recommended and lent to me by my cousin.

Time for a poem.

The day before yesterday I was walking around the Samuel Johnson birthplace museum with my brother and walking friends (their first time, and they were impressed).

Yesterday I finally made it to London for a much postponed lunch with an old friend and a visit to the Whistler exhibition at Tate Britain ('the Tate', as it will always be to me).

I was sorry to hear of the death of that gifted comic actor Chris Langham, whose career ended too soon and all too ignominiously.

On this day in 1939, Britain declared war on Germany, and we were launched into the Second World War.

Well, it's high time I posted something, but I have little of consequence to impart.

I don't like to boast, but yesterday Lichfield, according to the Met Office, was the wettest place in the country, with 52.8mm of rain – that's two inches in the old money – falling in a four-hour period in the morning.

I've just realised that today is the 450th anniversary of the death of the greatest of all Venetian painters, if not of all painters – Tiziano Vecello, aka Titian.

Born on this day in 1899 (in Cairo, under the name Cecil Smith) was C.S.

Recently Johnson's ballad parody, 'I put my hat upon my head', turned up on this blog, apropos Marianne Moore's tin ear for meter.

At least three literary birthdays today – Max Beerbohm (born 1872, a birthday I've marked more than once on this blog), Jean Rhys (born 1890, on the Caribbean island of Dominica) and Jorge Luis Borges, mentioned here the other day as a literary librarian.

Busy times, with much family activity, but I did manage to get away for a day's walking in the Cotswolds with my brother and friends, in the course of which I revisited the monument to the Bray children in Great Barrington church – 'one of the finest in E…

As a former librarian, I am always keen to learn of writers, artists and musicians vastly more illustrious than me who also worked as librarians at some point in their lives.

The weather has cooled off at last, and there was even a little rain last night, creating the first puddles I've seen in weeks – a welcome sight.

Born 100 years ago today was Valerie Eliot (née Fletcher), the second wife of the poet, and apparently the one who made him happy.

Last night's Gardeners' World included a report from Farringford, Tennyson's estate on the Isle of Wight, where the garden, which had been entirely lost, has been restored to something very like its original appearance – much like an English cottage garden

Well, here in Lichfield, we had a typically English eclipse – which is to say that a magnificent bank of cloud (something scarcely seen in the past three weeks) rolled into place bang on time, right in front of the eclipsing sun, and in an otherwise large…

Last night I strayed from my usual listening home on Radio 3 to my former home, Radio 4, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the current Book at Bedtime is Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield, one of those classics that these days hardly anybo…

I've been reading Wodehouse at bedtime – actually dipping into this volume – and this morning, browsing on Facebook, I came across a Wodehouse anecdote.

Here is a little August nocturne by Thomas Hardy, a man who has been strangely present to me since my recent reading of Max Gate (in which he is, for the most part, strangely absent).

Well, I can't really let Tennyson's birthday go unmarked (he was born on this day in 1809, at the rectory of Somersby in the beautiful Lincolnshire Wolds).

I see that my old university has given a professorship to a fantasist and plagiarist (both 'alleged', m'lud), for reasons that are all too painfully obvious.

Born on this day in 1867 was Ernest Dowson, a minor poet, Decadent and doomed – but he left the English language three fine, musical phrases that have long survived him.

Every time I post about having seen my last swift of the year, I do so with an unspoken hope of tempting benign fate into granting me a further sighting, or maybe more.

Blog posts might be a little sparser over the next few weeks, as my daughter and family are visiting from Canada (via Rome).

In the chapter devoted to Marianne Moore in Their Ancient Glittering Eyes, Donald Hall examines the structure of Moore's verse, which basically comes in two forms: syllabic verse and free verse.