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 (242)
Yesterday I accompanied Mrs N – who is rather keener on this sort of thing than I am – to an event in the cathedral titled 'Keeping the Faith: Can Christianity Save the West?' Three good guest speakers were lined up – Jamie Franklin, author of The Great Return: Why Only a Restoration of Christianity Can Save Western...
Here's my latest piece in Literary Review – a round-up of recent books about death and longevity [the wording differs very slightly from the printed version]...End of the Line‘It is the strangest of all truths. We will all die. We all know we will die. But few of us truly believe we will die, few of us can imagine...
Born on this day in 1920 was Walter Matthau (who was not, as he liked to claim, born Walter Foghorn Matuschanskyasky, but plain Walter John Matthow). With his hangdog face and wisecracking cynicism, he was the perfect foil to his friend Jack Lemmon, with whom he made ten films. Here is my favourite Matthau anecdote:...
From a book I'm reading for review (of which more in due course, no doubt), I learn of a surprising business venture undertaken by Daniel Defoe, a man full of bright ideas but entirely devoid of commercial nous. Finding himself broke and heavily in debt in 1692, having run through his wife's considerable fortune and...
Last night, roaming among the more remote and obscure outlying TV channels, I happened upon that greatest of all the Ealing comedies, Kind Hearts and Coronets, which I happily watched to the end – it never palls. Next up after that was another fine Ealing comedy, The Ladykillers, featuring another extraordinary...
Born on this day in 1683 was the great French composer (and music theorist) Jean-Philippe Rameau. His father was an organist in Dijon, and Jean-Philippe was taught music before he could read or write. It wasn't until he was nearly 50 that he began to compose the extraordinary operas for which he is best remembered...
I was delighted to learn that talks about returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece have collapsed, apparently because the Greek government is insisting the return must be permanent, and the British Museum is (fortunately) prevented by law from giving away its treasures. Of course the marbles should stay where they are,...
After a spectacular butterfly summer, there has been very little action since the rains and winds of early autumn put a sudden end to the season. Even now, when we're enjoying a little taste of Indian summer (here, at least), there is little flying, apart from the indomitable whites, speckled woods and red admirals....
One of the regular treats of my boyhood was going to see the latest Peter Sellers film as it came out. My father was a huge fan, and so was I, right from the get-go. I remember seeing a string of wonderful comedies – I'm All Right Jack, Two Way Stretch, The Wrong Arm of the Law, Heavens Above!, Dr Strangelove, the...
Today is the birthday of Samuel Johnson (born 1709). Over on Anecdotal Evidence, Patrick Kurp marks the occasion with a piece on various translations of one of Johnson's Latin verses, a memory of swimming in the waters of Stowe Pool in Lichfield, a 'meditation on memory, time's bittersweet passing, and lost youth'....
Radio 3 this morning was getting very excited about Radio 6 Music's T-Shirt Day (not to be confused with International T-Shirt Day or National T-Shirt Day – heaven knows what thrills await us on those dates). This is the kind of thing that tends to happen on the once sedate Radio 3 (what would Piers Burton-Page...
Here are the 'always excellent Dick Davis' and the 'right decent geezer' Samuel Johnson back already. Davis is writing (to fellow poet R.L. Barth) about Johnson's Lives of the Poets – and about Johnson the man...With Johnson's Lives of the PoetsHe wrote these quick biographiesTo be instructive and to please; In them...
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