Sunday, August 19, 2018


You have hit the jackpot again, Shandy. After only a moderate amount of thrashing about, I found a series of Neil MacGregor podcasts called, I think, “Living with the Gods”. With their help – three episodes so far – I have polished off the second skein. Presumably when I finish this series, I can find others.

Two skeins have yielded 6 ½”, not much. I will therefore need slightly more than half the yarn to get to the underarm. If I run short, the only solution will be to do the whole yoke in a different yarn. Madtosh dk is a fave of mine. I am ransacking stash, but am so far unsuccessful in finding yarn I know is there.

“Fake or Fortune” tonight, in which I gather we get to hear Fiona Bruce speaking French. (I was impressed with Jamie Oliver’s spoken Italian in his new cookery programme last week, too.) I should get the new skein wound and embarked upon.

My Neil MacGregor story is hardly worth telling. My husband and I were at a small exhibition devoted to Sir George Beaumont, an important patron of, among others, my husband’s artist D*vid W*lkie. I don’t remember where we were – maybe Tate Britain. Nobody much was there. Neil MacGregor came in and said “Hello, Hamish” for that was my husband’s name.

I have met one or two famous people who sort of glow with fame. Aren’t-you-lucky-to-be-talking-to-me sort of thing. Neil MacGregor wasn’t like that. He was alone, wearing an undistinguished raincoat. I doubt if I was in fact introduced. I don’t remember what happened next. Probably they exchanged a few words about Sir George Beaumont and went their separate ways.

At least I knew who he was. We were once in a dealer’s showroom when a man came in, with two friends. The dealer cried “Hello, David!” in great excitement. I had all the clues – he was tanned, and I even caught a faint whiff of homosexuality. When we were safely out on the pavement where I couldn’t do anything embarrassing, my husband told me that it was David Hockney we had just seen.

7 comments:

  1. "Living with the Gods" sounds right up my alley - thanks for mentioning it Jean, I will search it out this winter when gardening and hiking are over and I typically catch up on podcasts.

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  2. I often feel that Radio 4 is the gift that keeps on giving. The cultural pitch is set that much higher than television, for example. As I drive to my knitting group there has been a series of programmes, one about the classified ads on the pages of regional newspapers of the past and another about the symbolic items associated with British Prime Ministers. Short but fascinating programmes.

    Re running out of yarn. I note that on Ravelry a number of people have a couple of skeins of Penny Loafers in the right weight, although no one is offering it for trade or sale. Nevertheless it might be worth dropping some of them a message asking, because, incredibly, this worked for someone from my knitting group who needed one ball of a discontinued colour to complete a child's cardigan. She had never even heard of Ravelry before I explained how the search facility worked and what it made possible.

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  3. Anonymous12:18 AM

    I enjoyed "Living with the Gods"! It's a more recent series.

    I found a link to the 100 objects series.
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nrtd2/episodes/downloads

    Maybe Archie can help you download both Neil MacGregor series to your ipad. Then you can listen whenever you want.

    I find myself daydreaming about Sicily a lot.
    have a good week
    Lisa RR

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  4. The downloads work only as long as the bbc has the programme available. Once it’s not listed available on the website the download doesn’t work. That’s because it’s downloaded not as a mp3 file but a special format.

    Still many of radio 4 programmers have long availability.

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  5. Have you checked in the closet for the yarn? I remember you mentioning once that you keep yarn in there. Which closet? That I don’t know, but in a bag.
    I could be wrong. Our family motto is “Often wrong, but NEVER in doubt”!

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  6. I doubt I would recognize anyone unless they were so famous that they went around with that "hey, look at me! I'm famous" air that you mentioned, but David Hockney! He wears those distinctive glasses.

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  7. I enjoyed Living with the Gods, but not as much as 100 Objects.

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