Nigeness
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.
Latest Posts
Manet Day again – the great Edouard's 194th birthday – and I realise that I've never posted on the subject of one of his best-known and most mysterious paintings, Le Déjeuner sur l'Herbe. There might be a reason for this, as I'm not sure...
The dismal weather of this interminable January – grey days, relentless rain, damp cold (the worst sort) – is only to be expected, I suppose, but it does depress the spirits and eat into the soul. It's time for a cheering poem,...
This morning Radio 3 noted the 65th anniversary of the first performance of Francis Poulenc's Gloria, in Boston, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The ever chirpy Tom McKinney marked the occasion by playing the first two movements of the...
One of the minor regrettable features of modern life (and there are plenty of major ones, heaven knows, but I'm not going there) is the prevalence of whiskers on men's faces: from the full-on righteous hipster beard to carefully curated...
Every morning these days, when I stare blearily out of my bedroom window – which commands a wide view of the trees all around – I see dozens of crows, lined up ominously on every branch, as if auditioning for Hitchcock's The Birds. There...
Life, in twelve short lines, by the wonderful (and still with us) Dick Davis –A Mystery Novel Alone and diffident You enter what is there: The world that does not care For your predicament, For mysteries of who You must become, or what...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...