Recent Posts
Other Men's Flowers
Return To Blog Listing
Comments on language, literature, politics, the arts and almost anything else, but mostly quotations. "I have gathered a posie of other men's flowers, and nothing but the thread that binds them is my own" (Montaigne, 1533-1592)
Recent Posts Tagged With 'people'
The Gang of Ten
I started making comments—friendly, mocking, complimentary, contentious or ribald—on other peoples' blogs soon after I started writing my own. Sometimes I used pseudonyms and then I realised that it would be amusing to link these to blogs which I...
15,000 notes on 2,000 years
I enjoy reading obituaries, not so much in a morbid way, or with schadenfreude (good, I've outlasted him), but to marvel at the extraordinary things that have been achieved by people of whom I have never heard: Farewell then, whoever you were.Anyway,...
No Brunel
I have already described why I would never have made an engineer; it is a sad story, but I was cheered recently by reading the biography of a man who did have some talent in this direction but who is remembered chiefly for the many things he construc...
Ayo gorkhali!
In these dark times it was heartwarming to hear yesterday that Joanna Lumley has been granted the right to take up permanent residence in England. After weeks reading about the unsavoury exploits of a bunch of unattractive people, a news item featuri...
Baker's dozen
The following thirteen (fairly) eminent people have two things in common. What are they?Christopher Fry, playwrightJim Callaghan, prime ministerMargaretta Scott, actress Cyril Fletcher, comedian and impresarioMoura Lympany, pianistDavid Kossoff, acto...
Ancient lineage
Fictional characters are rarely the subject of genealogical research, but the ancestors of Pilot-Officer Prune were thoroughly investigated in a scholarly 1942 treatise by Anthony Armstrong.Percy Prune was a World War 2 fighter pilot who was noted fo...
The Public Library smells of galanga
In a comment to a post published in Other Men's Flowers (by mistake) on March 19th, I mentioned a Balinese dancing girl who has become something of an embarrassment to me, and several readers have asked me for further details, preferably salacious on...
The 44th-to-be meets the 43rd
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 he attempts, initially with success, to do so. Here he is describing his early visits to the White House:"Both...
Diplomatic humour
In 1960 a book was published containing 53 photos of Peter Ustinov masquerading as assorted diplomats addressing the UN. Here are some of them from the section called A Small Joke...UNITED STATES"In the immortal words of Millard Fillmore..."FRANCE".....
No news is bad news
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 from Albuquerque to Oaxaca in a camper, and was describing on line, with wit and perception, his adventures and e...
Robert Chambers
Yesterday my wife's nephew died of cancer, aged 41.Known professionally as Wobbly Bob, he was a gifted artist and musician, the guitarist, singer and co-founder with Pete Bennett of a band called Daddy Fantastic, and creator of the cartoon character...
Episcopal charmer
A new biography of Rowan Williams suggests that he was—perhaps still is—very attractive to women, to whom he seemed surrounded by a "great white light" and "gave off an aura". A modest man, he was totally unaware of this, even when one besotted a...
A distinguished bunch...
...who achieved fame in a variety of ways but have one thing in common. What was it?Anne Bancroft, Claire Bloom, Alfred Brendel, Leslie Caron, Christopher Chataway, James Dean, Basil D'Oliveira, Lonnie Donegan, Mikhail Gorbachov, Goswell Frand, Larry...
Two earls and their legacies
It has long been recognised that if the 4th Earl of Sandwich and the 7th Earl of Cardigan had exchanged ideas then we would now be munching ham cardigans while wearing our woollen sandwiches.Lord Cardigan had a full and colourful life, beginning with...
Top knife
It was thought worth noting in the Guardian obituary of a distinguished rabbi who died the other day that his older brother had been for many years "the senior religious slaughterer of the Manchester community and one of the city's leading circumcise...
