No Returns

Much culture this week. First in the form of an Imagine film about David Hockney which concentrates on the last few years where he paints many scenes of the countryside around Yorkshire including the fantastic Bigger Trees Near Warter which could wallpaper our entire house - well the east wing anyway. It was impossible to pick a favourite, though we are trying to get away from such gradings because daughter is continuously asking what our favourite Doctor Who Episode/Cast Member/Doctor is and it is beginning to get annoying.

Sunday will have us braving the elements for an outdoor version of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the grounds of Crosby Hall. Must iron my Oxford Bags and all that. See you all.

It's a Herring and it's Red

We're all reading Walden here. Well maybe not but we talk the talk don't we? I guess it must be spring what done it. I was thinking this morning that the view from the windows that face me in this office is very like that giant painting of trees by David Hockney. Rather fantastic that was I thought. Anyway, in the spring light, the unclothed trees that surround the car park are rather nice. It would be good to have a camera to take a panoramic shot of the view each day at first light and then to display the sequence in some way. I couldn't even do that at home because there are a good few days in the winter when I leave the house before dawn and get back after night has fallen. Which is not nice.

There was one of those surprise programmes on BBC4 last night - one that doesn't get trailed but is intensely interesting. It was a personal view of the MP and libertine Tom Driberg by William G. Stewart (of 15 to 1) who once worked as Driberg's private secretary - spending the early months fighting off advances. It was a chatty overview and for a man with so much experience of the world it obviously skimmed over quite a lot of stuff but it was a nugget of interest in the sea of dross.