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)
An American friend inquires – as well he might – what 'a Herbert Spencer of a cold' might mean. As I told him, I'm probably the only person on the planet who still uses the phrase (to universal bafflement). I came across it years ago in, I think, a novel by H.G. Wells (Love and Mr Lewisham?), where a character says...
I spent the weekend with my cousin amid the floriferous glory of Derbyshire at the turn of summer, with sunshine (much of the time) to heighten the beauty. However, along the way I discovered that, annoyingly, I was developing a stinking cold – which is now, on my return to Lichfield, in full dismal swing, a real...
G.K. Chesterton was born on this day in 1874. Max Beerbohm first met him in 1902 and described him as 'like a mountain, and a volcanic one – constant stream of talk flowing down – paradoxes flung up into the air – very magnificent.' They became friends, and Beerbohm admired him – within limits: 'I am not nearly as...
So there I was, in the supermarket car park, gazing happily at a tough-looking low-growing shrub covered with tiny white flowers (maybe a Contoneaster of some kind) – and there, drinking their fill of nectar, were three glorious Painted Lady butterflies, all in my field of vision at once. Some years that is as many...
Today is the day of the Lichfield Bower, a curiously named celebration dating back to the reign of Henry II. Originally it was a muster or array, a way of finding out how many men could be called upon to fight if needed. All those capable of bearing arms would parade through the streets, accompanied by dancers and...
Aggrade. There's a word we're all familiar with, I'm sure... No? Me neither.It means to build up or raise the level of a land surface by depositing sediment, and I mention it because it was the word that knocked my 11-year-old grandson out of the Canadian national spelling bee junior finals last night. Thanks to the...
Yesterday was World Bee Day (not to be confused with World Bidet) – and, by chance, I had in my change a £1 coin I'd never seen before, with the face of our King on one side and on the other an attractive design featuring... two bees. Today – how they keep on coming – is International Tea Day. And why not? Tea, if...
Last night I watched an episode of Andrew Graham-Dixon's The Art of Scandinavia. The subject was Danish art, so I was expecting good stuff. Alas, I was disappointed: for one thing, this was more a potted cultural history of Denmark, from Christian IV and the Frederiksborg Palace to the original Legoland, by way of...
I see that the charity Butterfly Conservation is running a poll to find Britain's Favourite Butterfly. At present, the Peacock is leading the vote, unsurprisingly, and in second place I'm delighted to see the Orange Tip, ahead of the Red Admiral. Has anyone voted for the Dingy Skipper, Britain's dullest butterfly, I...
And here, by way of counterweight to the International Day of Light, is a poem by Edward Thomas. As with the Donald Justice, it is one of his last and most beautiful (and untitled), written on his last Christmas at home with his family. A few months later, on Easter Monday 1917, Thomas was killed in action at Arras,...
I'm sure it can't have escaped your attention that today is International Day of Light. I must admit it was passing me by until it got a mention on the radio this morning. I've no clear idea what it is – some kind of Unesco invention, it seems – but it gives me the perfect pretext to post again one of my favourite...
The mid-May Weather here has been unseasonally cold, with sudden violent showers of rain and hail. The swifts have withdrawn to await better things; only the doughtiest butterflies – holly blues (amazingly abundant this year) and speckled woods – are showing themselves, in the rare moments of relative warmth; and...
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