Hitler's mountain retreat was called the Eagle's Nest or similar. This is the winter-flowering jasmine and honeysuckle hedge, where our large family of sparrows nest. Taking a very loose link with Spot-The-Ball as a model, I might offer a prize to who spots the most sparrows.And apologies to Ray but clicking on each sparrow won't give you the key to something else.
Watched a lovely programme about Betjeman and 'his buildings' by Dan Cruikshank which we had recorded. Dan Cruikshank usually manages to annoy me but on this occasion he was fine and I warmed to him. The architect Gavin Stamp was interviewed, and he is one of my favourite commentators. In real life he is very tall, but here he was sitting down so one didn't notice. Betjeman was a brilliant preservation-campaigner and we could do with him today; to deal with people who want to demolish Victorian Terraces and replace them with tat, for instance.
I dropped Y at the Tram and called in for some milk and that has been about the sum total of my day's activities. The skip is still here. Despite telephone assurances that it would be collected yesterday, and then again today, it wouldn't surprise me if it's still here next week.
Hey Ho !.........................
3 comments:
Yes, that was a great programme, wasn't it. Do you recall the Bedford Park bit? That's near here, we have a son and two daughters living on the fringe of B.Park, and my friend lives in a Norman Shaw house. Gavin Stamp is new to me. I once went to a meeting of the BPark Society with said friend, when Betjeman spoke. Fascincating. Have enjoyed all the Betjeman progs, watched 'Metroland' again on Monday.
Our garden sparrows vanished years ago, along with starlings (though there is a family of them again this year) sparrows are quite unusual in London nowadays.
Good idea, Bungus, putting the skip in the caravan - perhaps it would have been removed quicker by the Council....
I like your Berchtesgaden better, if only because sparrows are nicer than Nazis. It appears that our spadger families (one piebald) nest in both a yew and a holly. But they play on a weigelia.
I managed to spot 74 in your photo, some very heavily camouflaged.
I cannot quite be sure why, but, like you, I do not much enjoy watching Dan Cruickshank. I am sure he is a lovely fellow but he does have a knack of making everything sound boring and sanctimonious – rather like watching ‘Songs of Praise’ without the hymns. I found his Betjeman programme generally easy to not watch. One interesting snippet was that that JB, of whom I am very fond as a poet, started off as an anti-Victorian modernist working as a critic on top mag, ‘Architectural Review’ (pity he was turned). I once went to a party at ’High & Over’, the 1930s house at Amersham featured in the programme, when it belonged to Frank Briggs, a partner in Diamond Redfern (Architects) with whom I was an assistant/associate partner in the Nottingham office for 10 years. Tragically another party-going employee (from the London office) dived into the swimming pool, which was empty, and broke his neck.
I take the view that, although some demolished Victorian structures may have been worthy of preservation, very many that have been kept would have better bitten the dust. I certainly much prefer their industrial architecture to the over-embellished grandiose stuff although there are exceptions on both sides.. ‘Less is more’ Mies said.
If you don’t agree with me, blame my guru, the late Gordon Graham, Senior Lecturer at Nottingham School of Architecture and, later, founder of Architects' Design Group, President of the RIBA and a partner at Foster’s.
Not that it would do for us all to agree.
Hot tips:
PREVENTING ALZHEIMERS
(from BBC TV News and other sources)
1) Drink 3 glasses of fruit juice a week.
2) Clean your teeth with your eyes shut.
3) Shower standing on one leg.
4) Complete 2 Sudoku puzzles or 1 jigsaw, or play Bingo twice every week.
I'll try and remember.
I don't know who Bungus is but I stumbled on this blog when I was looking for Frank Briggs. I was at the High & Over party and a student at the time. And I was the one who broke his neck in the swimming pool, which wasn't empty - just not deep enough! Frank gave me my first job after doing measured drawings of H & O, which I am donating to Amersham Museum next Monday! I survived enough to pursue a full career as an architect - very lucky! I agree with Bungus about Cruickshank!
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