Other Men's Flowers

Earlier in the month I published a post about Renoir's film La Bête Humaine and my happy discovery on the net of a song from it togeth...

There has been no announcement yet and details are hard to come by, but experienced kirkwatchers have picked up rumours of a generous offer ...

Other Men's Flowers is sometimes accused of making up anecdotes about music or the theatre and publishing them in such a way as to sugge...

...and quick answer required. Suppose you are a manufacturer of wall calendars showing days and dates for twelve months (as calendars do). Y...

What is the English title of the old song known to the French as Les adieux du soldat ? It goes: C'est l'adieu, petite mère De ton g...

Went to a violin and piano recital last Friday in a beautiful Georgian church, now an arts centre. The auditorium is huge, so for a recital ...

No 24 in an occasional series of extracts from The Postcard Century Aug 1908: America conquers Europe in this defining image in the public...

The other day Prince Philip gave an interview celebrating the 50th anniversary of a Design Council prize which bears his name, and it was g...

The expression probably first appeared in print around 1837: it was applied to slaves who had been troublesome to their masters in the north...

...and what's his game? For weeks now my tracker has been telling me that a Mac user whose ISP is based somewhere near Dartford in Kent ...

Zola's 1890 novel has been much filmed but the only memorable version was made by Jean Renoir in 1938; this greatly simplifies the plot...

Except when they are selling cars, post-war Germans have generally played down their reputation for efficiency, not wanting to be associated...

This was the name of a company started in 1946 by Harry Alan Towers, producer of cheap films, horror movies and soft-porn, and his mother. I...

...to the Hundred Acre Wood. Well, he never went away, really: the last line of The House at Pooh Corner is : "... in that enchanted p...

Recycled posts from 2005: personal Sleeping on a train with Emmanuel Lasker words Newsreader is maliciously joyful (and read Samira’s commen...

I was not greatly impressed by Evelyn Waugh's 1945 novel, which is not surprising as it "deals with the unmerited and unilateral ac...

The Companion to British History defines this as suspect linguistic usage in which familiar expressions convey different concepts from those...

By special request, another hippopotamus. This one is James Thurber's. "What have you done with Dr Millmoss?"

...or, avoid all unnecessary complication and elaboration. This was Escoffier's advice to chefs but it applies to websites as well as it...

Inhabited by some of the most warlike peoples on the face of the earth, the country has always been glowering, secretive and veiled in intr...