Country Life magazine has treated us to its latest strictures for determining if someone is a "gentleman". No. 8 is: 'Believes Roger Moore was the best 007'. So that will be the Venn Diagram where you map "gentlemen" alongside the recently lobotomised.

Should anyone forget that Dominic Shellard spaffed more than 10K to make this abomination of a masturbation exercise, only to be sacked in short order for financial mismanagement and giving spurious jobs to family members, here it is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lznd...

Here's hoping that victory for Lord Watson and the Duke of Sussex in the High Court might lead to the excision of our national cancer. Yes, I mean you Piers Moron.

On the day that the good people of Foula in the Shetland Islands celebrate new year, here are some authentic Foula sheep, photographed by me in 2023.

As someone obsessed with the films of Adam Curtis, I now find it unsettling that we have a UK Prime Minister who sounds exactly like him. So, whenever I hear the PM speak, I expect him to start revealing the knotty contradictions of why our best collective intentions ended in abject calamity.

One of my favourite writers, the Portuguese novelist and diplomat José Maria Eça de Queirós, has finally been laid to rest where he belongs. Good news.
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My highlight of the festive season was sitting down and watching The Holdovers on Christmas Eve while waiting for Midnight Mass. A tradition we have observed for a good few years, previous films have included The Ghost & Mrs Muir, Diehard, and Brief Encounter. The Holdovers joins the happy throng.

Me and the lady-professor-her-outdoors seeing in the New Year with a party and a boogie.

Our dog, Lettie, giving us the come hither look after I'd unwrapped the generously proportioned pork pie of the season. Yes, she got some of it.

Today's treat was watching Grand Theft Hamlet at my favourite cinema venue, Curzon Bloomsbury. An extraordinary film about creativity in lockdown and the possibilities of online gaming. Watch it if you get chance: www.undiscoveredcountryfilm.com

Just spent my Saturday evening re-watching this classic.

Dog at dusk

One of the joys of visiting any UK bookshop at the moment is seeing the serried ranks of unsold copies of Boris Johnson's memoir. It's been at half price more or less since it was published and still no one wants to read it. Truly uplifting.

Took a trip to the Royal Opera and Ballet to watch Maddaddam, the new collaboration between Wayne McGregor and Max Richter. A joy.

Having spent the last few months researching post-natal depression in late-nineteenth-century Spanish novels, a conversation with a colleague has alerted me to this book, which was not on my radar: saludmentalperinatal.es/2023/07/11/l...
Happily, now it is, and I'm very grateful for that.

@nicoabu.bsky.social acabo de terminar este magnífico libro. Qué gusto leerlo y aprender un montón. Gracias.