Sunday, November 17, 2019


I might not be here this evening if I could persuade Netflix to show me the new series of The Crown – but all I can get is the last item in the old one (Churchill and Graham Sutherland). Too much demand?

I didn’t get to Mass this morning because my chauffeuse is suffering from a bad cold. I watched the Andrew Marr show, and then the recording of Prince Andrew’s interview (I didn’t stay up last night, after all). Lots of garter stitch was added to the Dathan hap – when I finish the current long, long row I’ll have 419 stitches (of a desired 597).

The newspapers and radio are so hostile to Prince Andrew that I felt a contrarian sympathy for him. He is a vain and not very clever man, and Epstein must have been both fascinating and flattering. It seems to me entirely possible that he swept the girls out of sight when Andrew was there.

And I need to know more about Ghislane Maxwell – Robert’s daughter, and a major player in this story.  I see from Wikipedia that she is a Balliol man. She may well have overlapped Alexander. He and Prince Andrew are almost exactly the same age – both born in February, 1960. Alexander is aging more successfully. He was at Balliol when the first women were admitted.

FugueStateKnits, of the books you name you must certainly start Trollope with “Barchester Towers”. It’s probably his masterpiece. I tried to reply to your comment, and may have succeeded, but I want to make sure.

Mary Lou, I remember “Wild Swan” from my childhood with great affection, although I had forgotten that she had to spin and knit nettles.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:57 PM

    Ah, and I went to Balliol in 1980, not the first year of women but the second.

    Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest is based on the story of the six swans. Nettles come into it.

    JennyS

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  2. Jenny I’ll have to look for that. I have four brothers, and when I was sewing frantically as a teenager, trying to finishing something at the last minute my mother would always say I was like the girl in the Wild Swans. I am looking forward to seeing Olivia Colman in the Queen’s part. I saw recently a reviewer didn’t think Colman would be good because she had “a left wing face’ what ever that might mean!

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  3. We are anxiously awaiting The Crown tonight here in the US - with the new actor for the Queen. Hopefully we will see it before having to get to bed at a decent hour! Thank you very much, Jean, for the suggestion of Barchester Towers. I will begin this evening!

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  4. Not entirely relevant, but another example of six degrees of separation. When I was in my third year at Somerville I lived out in a shared house. The top floor flat was the domain of Mrs Maxwell who was doing a degree at St Hughes at the time. One of her daughters, but not Ghislaine, lived there.

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