Friday, December 15, 2006

Lord Kitchener

Classical diplomatic stuff, courtesy Duff Coopper, Esq.



Of all the books this blogger of yours bought in Cambridge University territory while awaiting patiently the end of a daughterly interviewing process, the "Duff Cooper Diaries" is the real treat. Duff Cooper is the very epithome of the diplomat-as-witness-of-History-in-the-making. Plus, he was a top class lady-izer, a sybarite and a charming fellow. As a metaphorical carrot that will make the Right Honourable Reader run to his nearest amazon.com site, I'm considering quoting a couple of nuggets of the said diaries.
Think of today's Mesopotamia (Irak) and just enjoy this entry:


July 11, 1916

(…) Dined at 10 Downing Street (…) At first I felt very uncomfortable , alone with three Cabinet Ministers who I feared would say things I should not hear. But they seem quite unaware of my presence. The talked about the campaign in Mesopotamia. The mismanagement they said was all due to (…) .The decision to attempt the capture of Baghdad was entirely due to the military experts. Kitchener said that we might take it but couldn’t hold it. Even so he thought it worth doing from a political point of view. Curzon said: “Don’t take it unless you can hold it”.. (…)
Deliciously ironical, no?...

Monday, December 11, 2006

Saint John the Evangelist

A most educational trip to Cambridge University...



A young lady who has the stamina and resilience to go all the way to an interview to an Oxbridge institution for Higher Education is in itself something that deserves praise.. When that young lady happens to be a daughter of this blogger of yours, opening therefore a ready-made alibi to one's return to dear England, what can one say?
Father-and-Daughter bonding can't go much better than this...

Stelios Haji-Ioannou



Comics-like graphism in use at an airport near you...

Jonathan Littell

A one-book library on the Holocaust? ...



I've finnished reading "Les Bienvéillantes". One week ago, in fact. No time for a proper blog-reviewing. Just a brief thought. One has to concentrate oneself on a few crucial historical events and try to understand it at some deep level rather than trying to attain an encyclopaedic, inevitably superficial, knowledge of History. I've been trying to understand politics by concentrating on the Russian Revolution, for instance; or I've been trying to understand contemporary international relations mainly by focusing on post-1922 Middle East.
A crucial historic-philosophic interrogation one has to deal with is, obviously, the Holocaust. Sometimes you need literature rather than non-fiction to capture the essence of a given historical period. This book by J. Littell must surely be seen, from now on, as essential reading on the subject...

Stanley Kubrick


The luggage net in the back of an airline passenger seat...

Eugène Delacroix


A tapas-bar in Zafra evoked a laid-back Orientalist sensuality...

Archie C. West


Floor of the Cinema Ideal, when the movie session ends...

( Archie C. West is regarded as the inventor of Doritos)

John Coltrane


An Englishjazzman amongst sextet Spaniards, at the Cafe Central, in Madrid...

François Rabelais

Eating out in Zafra..



The restaurant " La Rebotica" in Zafra ( Badajoz Province), Spain


The creative amuse-gueule, the outstanding foiegras-related starter, the sheer quality of the local solomillo, the refreshing freshness of the merluza, the awesome chocolate postre... All good reasons to return there...
(Not everyday one is attended by the chef himself... The lack of punctuality of the camareros in showing themselves to work that day had something to do with it... )

Adam Smith


Industrial decay ...

Giorgio Armani

Old new trends in morning-coat fashion...


100% Cotton, pure white, size 16, XLS...


One never knows if, shirt-wise, there is a new trendy way to wear the marriage outfit known as morning-coat. Who could be better suited to give a frank opinion than the manager of "Ede and Ravenscroft" at Cambridge? Centuries of "by appointments", a bastion of dress-code orthodoxy...

"Plain white is very much the acceptable thing, Sir" - he said. The advice was duly followed..

The "XLS", one can spot under the label, reminds one of a tunning-prone motorcar but indicates, in fact, the generosity of the shirt-maker in providing Extra Long Sleeves...

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Paul of Tarsus

On the road to Damascus, Syrian Deligts...








A user of the services provided by the workplace of this blogger of yours decided to offer a token of his appreciation for the way he was treated. A chocolate-box, a tray of custar-pies, a Christmas Cake wrapped in Christmas-red: all that we've seen before. But baclava from Damascus? Well worth to blog about it...