Fen winter crop
Time wasters for people like you and me
I’ve been reading the letters and diaries of John Bailey1, this one can be filed under the rubric ‘some things never change’.
Triple hep and blue
I was talking to my mum who has early-stage dementia, her short-term memory is shot but she has vivid memories of her glory days (1950s) in and around London. My mum liked jazz and would go out dancing to the swinging sound of English band leader and trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton at the weekend.
Kinda like this:
She told me recently how, at the 100 Club, she was voted ‘hippest chick of the week’ by Lyttelton band. 30 years later I would go to the same club to ‘dance’ to punk bands such as Theatre of Hate and UK Subs.
A class of raki and a spoonful of jam
Raki is an alcoholic drink made of twice-distilled grapes, drunk all over the Balkan peninsular, Greece and Turkey. A fiery tonic that packs a punch, highly recommended.
Bailey was an English literary critic, lecturer, and chairman of the National Trust.