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
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...
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...
I don't like to repeat myself too often, but I see that on this day five years ago I was writing about John Gray's rather wonderful Feline Philosophy: Cats and the Meaning of Life. I'm looking after (i.e. feeding) the Lichfield family's...
Last night I watched It's A Wonderful Life again. I see that I last watched it at the start of this year, and wrote about it here, under the title 'It's a Wonderful Film'...'This wretched flu continues to toy with me mercilessly, one day...
Well, my festive 'cold' reached something of a peak (or trough) yesterday, and I had to absent myself from the festivities for a chunk of the afternoon and lie down in a darkened room. It was just like the old days, i.e. the days of my...
Here, by way of food for Christmas thought, are two Nativity poems by the great R.S. Thomas.First –'Christmas Eve! Fivehundred poets waited, penpoised above paper,for the poem to arrive,bells ringing. It was becausethe chimney was too...
Apologies for the hiatus. I was away at the weekend and, since coming back, have been afflicted with a stinking 'cold' – yes, just in time for the festivities, though I'm hoping it might be a short-lived one. Anyway, I see that today is...