Other Men's Flowers

No 12 in an occasional series of extracts from The Postcard Century June 1957: D. Underwood in Blackpool to Miss Vosper in Plymouth: Hope...

I am enjoying The Audacity of Hope . It cannot have been easy for Obama to find truthful but nice things to write about his predecessor, but...

Looking for old posts to recycle, I was grubbing around among those I had written in 2004 when I came across a rather feeble and facetious p...

"It's The Wild again" John Donegan, 1987 (The Best of Punch )

I suddenly had this thought: Why have I never written anything about American cheese? Perhaps not all of my readers would find this among th...

No 11 in an occasional series of extracts from The Postcard Century August 1951: Peggy writes to Ian Morris and Betty Trowbridge in London...

Here are the names of twenty-three fictional characters who appeared in films, and two who appeared on TV. Who played them, and in what? (Th...

...whatever that means. Interesting word, cranky; when it was applied to me in a blokeish blog the other day, I did not take offence, for in...

The Tudors provided five sovereigns who reigned over us, one after another, for 118 years. The first, Henry VII , was perhaps the cleverest...

In 1960 a book was published containing 53 photos of Peter Ustinov masquerading as assorted diplomats addressing the UN. Here are some of th...

I was recently described online as follows: ... The cranky old so-and-so is a bit of a cheat in some ways, since many of his posts simply re...

On January 31st 1939 there was a revival of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Globe Theatre. The doyen of English theatre critics at t...

More recycled posts from 2004 music How we sang twenty love songs royals Anniversary for a lion cinema Enduring memory of a fleeting moment

No 10 in an occasional series of extracts from The Postcard Century November 1947: Ruthie in Syracuse, NY, to Priscilla Clarke in Marlboro...

Some blogs cater exclusively for those with particular professional or cultural interests: if you are a proctologist, say, or a Karlheinz St...

Edwin (suddenly, after a long pause): 'Darling!' Angelina: 'Yes, darling?' Edwin: 'Nothing, darling. Only darling, darli...

In 2005 I lost contact with an internet friend; his blog had disappeared and his email address became inactive. He had set out to travel fro...

It is hardly surprising that nobody outside Norway knows much about römmegröt, which is porridge enriched with sour cream ( römme ). Sour...