Nigeness
Nice
Nige, who, like Mr Kenneth Horne, prefers to remain anonymous, was also a founder blogger of The Dabbler and a co-blogger on the Bryan Appleyard Thought Experiments blog. He is the sole blogger on this one, and his principal aim is to share various of life's pleasures. These tend to relate to books, art, poems, butterflies, birds, churches, music, walking, weather, drink, etc, with occasional references to the passing scene. His book, The Mother of Beauty: On the Golden Age of English Church Monuments, and Other Matters of Life and Death, is available on Amazon or direct from the author.
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All posts (221)
Edward FitzGerald (who's appeared on this blog before) was a staunch friend and supporter of Tennyson, but he was not initially much impressed by In Memoriam. Writing to Tennyson's brother Frederick, he declared that 'it seems to be with him now, at least to me, the Impetus, the Lyrical oestrus is gone...' Richard...
So, who wrote this? 'O that we might, for one brief hour,Forget that we are bound apart,And lie within each other's arms,Mouth pressed on mouth, and heart on heart.For just one hour, from all our life,To sink unchained through passion's deepAnd, cast upon the farther shore,To lie entwined in tender sleep!'It has a...
Sad to hear that Bob Weir, co-founder, with Jerry Garcia, of the Grateful Dead, has gone to join the great celestial jam session. There is now only one member of the original line-up alive – drummer Bill Kreutzmann, who will be 80 this year. Among other things, Weir co-wrote with lyricist Robert Hunter the jaunty...
L'Arpeggiata's CD of improvisations on Purcell, Music for a While, ends with a bonus track – not another Purcell, but, rather surprisingly, Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah', given a very distinctive treatment by alto Vincenzo Capezzuto and members of the company. I can't say that I like Capezzuto's voice very much (he...
Dennis Wheatley (born on this day in 1897)was a phenomenally successful and prolific novelist, one of the world's best-selling writers from the 1930s through to the 1960s – after which his star sank swiftly below the horizon. He specialised in thrillers with occult themes, of which The Devil Rides Out is perhaps the...
Five years ago today – on the very day of Epiphany – I got up in the morning and found myself apparently unable to see with my left eye. I say 'apparently' because, when I covered my right eye, I found I could see perfectly well with my left; the problem, as I soon discovered, was with my brain. In fact, I had had a...
It's Epiphany Sunday today. Here is something typically chastening from our best religious poet of recent times, R.S. Thomas – EpiphanyThree kings? Not even oneany more. Royaltyhas gone to ground, its journeyingsover. Who now will bringgifts and to what place? Inthe manger there are only the toysand the tinsel. The...
Well, here's a little Christmas mystery. Looking out of the window this frosty morning, I saw a scatter of white feathers on the lawn, and an avian corpse of some kind – a pigeon, I assumed, fallen victim to one of Lichfield's ubiquitous sparrowhawks. But no – when I went out to investigate, I found that what I had...
Happy New Year to all who browse here (and no, I've no idea what's going on in this image – something deeply French, no doubt). I managed to see 2026 in, despite relapsing into prostration more than once during the day. My first wish of the new year is for this cold/flu/whatever to go away and leave me in peace. As...
Year's end, and I'm still coughing and still prostrated by this wretched 'cold' or whatever it is.I thought I might post a poem – last year it was Richard Wilbur's wonderful Year's End – but this year it's going to be, of all the unlikely candidates, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, whose poem 'The Year' seems to me blessedly...
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