It was 20 years ago yesterday. I took my usual route to the British Library where I had worked since 1997: Herne Hill to King’s Cross Thameslink, a station that no longer exists - or, rather, trains no longer stop there since St Pancras International opened in 2007. I emerged on Pentonville Road and immediately…
I’ve been thinking about 1982... down Memory Lane, along a tortuous, circuitous, cul-de-sac, but such is the way my mind seems to work. Bruce Taylor has written a biography of my former Spanish professor, Sir Peter Russell, who died in 2006. I’ve just reviewed it for the The Queen’s College website. Sir Peter, his pupil…
It was hot - well over 30c - when the Arta Line catamaran from Split docked at Hvar (the trip takes exactly an hour). The Pjaca, or Trg, one of the largest squares in Croatia, is surrounded by fine Venetian buildings and the Cathedral of Saint Stephen. There were plenty of souvenir shops and restaurants but…
Unlike Hungary, Croatia is a country we had already visited: in 2013 to the Istrian peninsula (Pula, Rovinj, Montovun, Beram, Poreč etc.), and in 1989, before the start of the Yugoslav Wars, to Dalmatia (Dubrovnik, Korčula and Split). Of course a sizeable chunk of Croatia's population has no memory of life in "Yugoslavia". Another thing…
We awoke to a dry and cool morning in Vienna following a very wet evening. Lingering over breakfast at a nearby Herr Mann bakery, we nearly missed our train (the wonderful Railjet). Two and a half quiet and comfortable hours later we pulled into Budapest Keleti. Tuesday 4 June Arriving at Budapest Keleti Our first…
I refer to the so-called Festive Season. Myself, I quite enjoyed it - although it wasn't so good for Anne and her father, who both caught Norovirus. Somehow I avoided it. We went up to Wirral to see Mum before Christmas, then endured a long and complicated train journey home (storm damage to the overhead…
Is November the most miserable month of the year? Dark (even in London) by four in the afternoon, raining more often than not, and often surprisingly cold. That the clocks have just gone back hardly alleviates the gloomy atmosphere. And the knowledge that winter hasn't even started yet. Oh dear. Only a couple of months…
Perhaps winter is nearly over. Perhaps not. It's not easy to tell in Britain, or anywhere in Europe for that matter. January seems to go on for an extraordinarily long time, followed by February, with its treacherous glimmers of spring, quickly and cruelly cancelled. It lifts the spirits to get away at this time of year.…
If you were to say “You always seem to be on holiday, mate,” I could hardly argue otherwise. But Anne is recently retired, as I have been for more than seven years. So why not, so long as funds and good health allow? So it's back to La Bréchoire, where nothing much seems to happen yet…
I received my first Covid jab on 28 January and I was waiting to get a date for the follow-up. After hearing nothing for 10 weeks I cracked and rang my GP; to be told, more or less, to sit tight and wait for the call that would soon come. A week later I'd still…
The Wight Stuff 