Glorious

 I love the Baroque in all its forms, art, architecture, music and literature, and I love the France and court of Louis XIV.  This, found on YouTube, is one of the better representations of all of that.

https://youtu.be/ClCe0iZGVK4?si=62uaeF5oErh3leRj

Excellent Woman

 'Crampton Hodnet' was the one novel by Barbara Pym that I hadn't read and now I have rectified that. For a first novel, for any novel, it is quite an achievement. Characterisation is in need of some fleshing out, perhaps, but the dialogue is all one could want, the setting perfectly created, and the humour, dry and observant, already fully fashioned. Now I am embarking on a Pym re-readathon starting with 'Jane and Prudence.' A chap in my position has to grab all the comfort reading he can.

Top Tip

 A soft-boiled egg can be improved in flavour by the addition of a tiny drop of soy sauce. You're welcome.

Felon 47

Being accused of being 'a terrible leader' by the Mango Mussolini is rather like being criticized for slouching by Quasimodo. 

Pictures At An Exhibition

 There is a fine exhibition of self-portraits by John Bellany at the City Art Gallery, Edinburgh, running until September. My son and I paid it a visit in June and were very impressed. I was in Edinburgh on Monday for the 12.20 pm mass at Old Saint Paul's so I took the opportunity of paying it a second visit. There were several paintings which I wanted to see again and to which I wanted to give more time. I spent a good fifteen minutes sitting in front of his massive triptych, 'Homage to John Knox.' [Sadly, I'm unable to put up a photograph for copyright reasons.] Should you be in the capital do not miss this exhibition.

'Amid Laughter And Merriment'

 In 1962 or so, aged 13, I first heard 'Poisoning The Pigeons In The Park' on an LP belonging to the older brother of a schoolfriend. It was love at first hearing; not since listening to my grandfather's 78 rpm records of Gilbert and Sullivan had I heard such witty wordplay. The 'quickenin'/strychnine' rhyme was a delight for a start. Soon there was a little Lehrer fan club at school, a group which also relished the rather amateurishly printed early copies of 'Private Eye.' A year or so later another American giant of wordplay swam into my ken, introduced to me by R. M. Melville, my English teacher: S. J. Perelman. Anyone who could write of his determination to avoid painful visits to the dentist as 'cuspid's last stand' appealed strongly [and he still does after all these years.] I'm sad to hear of Lehrer's death but enormously grateful for the keen delight he gave me by his logodaedalism. May his memory be a blessing.

IYKYK