Innholdsfortegnelse for 9-Feb-2022 i Country Life

A light-bulb moment Controversy over replacements for 200-year-old gaslights in Westminster (Town & Country, January 26) has quietened down, as the council launches a year-long consultation Regal envelopes Royal Mail has launched eight stamps to commemorate The Queen's Platinum Jubilee-her was years ago almost to the day (February 6, 1952) Liverpool docks Councillors have refused proposals to infill almost half of historic West Waterloo Dock basin to build three blocks of flats Melodious drives It's 100 years since the first car radio was fitted-taking up a huge amount of passenger space in a Chevrolet. ‘Education and entertainment can be transported to wherever people congregate,' wrote the New York Radio Times in 1922 Digging deeper A lost Oxford college has been unearthed during construction for new Brasenose student flats; St Mary's…

FURNITURE and works of art from the set of Withnail and I, the cult British film that celebrates its 35th anniversary this year (Masterpiece, December 29, 2021), are included in an upcoming auction—‘a great opportunity to re-create Uncle Monty’s eccentric style in your own home,’ says Bellmans director William Pasfield. The late Prof Bernard Nevill inspired his many students at the Royal College of Art, St Martin’s and the Central School of Art and Design, exerting ‘a discreet, but powerful effect on more than half a century of British fashion and decor’. He was also an avid collector of antiques and historic objets, obsessive to the point of rescuing items from skips and filling his houses to the brim. Designing textile prints for Liberty and Yves St Laurent helped to…

SCHOOL events are now under way again. That’s a delight, but, after such a long period of having so little going on outside the home, it’s a bit of a shock to have to accommodate them in the diary, which is otherwise filling rapidly. Added to which, most things connected with school seem to burst into prospect without warning. This week, for example, brought an unexpected invitation to a concert. I got into trouble over breakfast merely for observing that it wasn’t very conveniently timed. But I did go. With little time for preparation, it wasn’t a flawless performance, but it was a joyful one and that counts for a lot at the present. In the meantime, our eldest child is preoccupied by the challenge of choosing their GCSEs. Some…

Dress for the cruise you want QI always enjoy your column, but found the writer of the problem ‘Cruising through life’ (January 12) to be particularly galling in not owning or wishing to wear a suit (or, more appropriately, an evening jacket) aboard Cunard for Gala Evenings. I am a regular passenger of Cunard, spanning decades and usually going two or three times a year (pre-Covid). It’s because of the beautiful ships, history, style, elegance and traditional values (such as dressing for dinner) that we relish the journey as much as the destination. Dressing appropriately and smartly every evening is enjoyable and makes the cruise a special event. It also shows respect for the passengers and excellent crew. Even on a Gala Evening, there are, of course, areas where smart-casual…

Everybody say fromage THE excellent article on cheese (January 26) took me back to a dinner in France 20 years ago, when a rather superior woman remarked that she gathered the English liked ‘fromage en plastique’. About to remonstrate in my rusty French that I was Welsh and that both sides of Offa’s Dyke made excellent cheese, a grand elderly lady came to my rescue. She insisted that she’d eaten wonderful artisanal cheese in England—like many French toffs, she was quite an Anglophile. I have no idea if she was being kind or had encountered some of the products Ned Palmer so vividly describes. I very much hope the latter. Stephen Parry-Jones, Cardiff Up where the air is clear YOUR article on telegraph poles (January 19) brought back fond memories…

ATHENA welcomes the call by Government for beauty in new architecture. No less important, however, is the value placed by almost every other society in history on durability in buildings. My own temple, the Parthenon on the Acropolis, was completed in 438BC, and stood firm for more than two millennia until, in 1687, it received a direct hit from the Venetians when in use as a Turkish munitions store. Yet, for nearly a century, we have increasingly lived in a throwaway society in which sound buildings are disposed of almost as casually as dishwashers or fridges. Make no mistake, this is a massive contributor to increasing CO2 in the atmosphere. The harmful impact of only one much-used building material—cement—is set out in an entertaining volume How Bad are Bananas: the…

For years, Nicholas Hawksmoor (1661–1736) was damned as the low-born assistant of Sir Christopher Wren and Sir John Vanbrugh (he assisted in the design of Wren's St Paul's and his City churches, and of Vanbrugh's Castle Howard in North Yorkshire) and an inferior architect. His six London churches were the most important body of work undertaken in his own name. A placid, reticent man, not given to self-promotion or advancing his ideas about building in print, his heavy blend of the Baroque, the antique and the medieval faded with the advance of the Palladian style. Interest in him did not revive until the threatened demolition of St Mary Woolnoth in the 1920s. Even after a superb biography by Kerry Downes in 1959, Hawksmoor's private life remained obscure, leading to wild…

BEATRIX POTTER loved, respected and, on occasion, in her later life as a Lakeland farmer, feared Nature: boundless curiosity fired her engagement with the world around her. In her own assessment one of the ‘childrenwho-have-never-grown-up’, she retained lifelong the sense of wonder she had conceived as a child. She was fascinated by butterfly wings and ‘white scented funguses’; her pet lizard Judy; the ‘two great cedars’, their branches like ‘outstretched arms’, their green bark splashed with red, that punctuated the velvet lawns of her grandfather’s house in Hertfordshire; and her succession of tame rabbits, trained to perform simple tricks. These culminated in Peter, ‘bought at a very tender age, in the Uxbridge Road, Shepherd’s Bush, for the exorbitant sum of 4/6’ and afterwards immortalised in The Tale of Peter Rabbit,…

• Velvet derives from the Italian word velluto, meaning shaggy • It is surprisingly hard wearing: George IV's velvet coronation robe, originally made in 1821, has survived display at Madame Tussauds and has been used at the coronations of George V, George VI and Elizabeth II • The great Renaissance artist Michelangelo designed several types of velvet and Leonardo da Vinci made a study of velvet looms • A fabric with a looped pile, which originated in ancient Egypt about 4,000 years ago, was similar to, but was not actually, velvet…

Fine line Crafted by hand in Original BTC's factory in Stokeon-Trent, Staffordshire, the Shard chandelier 100, £1,750, is made from 42 fine bone-china tiles suspended on a laser-cut steel frame. ‘The multi-faceted forms work to maximise the material's translucency, luminosity and versatility,' says director Charlie Bowles (020–7351 2130; www.originalbtc.com) Aged style The Archaic Water Jar table lamp, £860, is handmade with an antique finish to accentuate its rustic beauty, from Paolo Moschino (020–7730 8623; www.paolomoschino.com) New globe Celebrating 25 years in business, lighting specialist Hector Finch has a range of new products, including the Hammered Glass Globe pendant light. Available with a signature monk's cap fitting in a choice of finishes and a ceiling rose to match, it costs from £654 for the small 22cm (8½in) diameter size (020–7731 8886;…

PEOPLE don’t grow plants from seed as much as they used to. It’s a pity, because this form of propagation is a good way to stock a large garden on the cheap. But, often enough, the seeds don’t germinate or they succumb to our negligence, typically because we forget to water them. It’s hard to compete with the seed companies and nurserymen that offer fully germinated seedlings to take away the faff of sowing the seeds ourselves. I must say at once that I am as lazy as the next man—I gave up growing sweet peas because mice always ate the seeds and I didn’t grow them again until nurseries started to sell little pots of lusty seedlings. Those little potfuls, however, are usually available only for popular plants, such…

A long-time collector of British ceramics, from Staffordshire figures to contemporary pots, Mr Hearld (above) first tried his hand at decorating china in a ceramic cafe. A fast learner, he was soon designing spongeware for Emma Bridgewater. For his recent ‘Raucous Invention' exhibition at Yorkshire Sculpture Park, he worked with ceramicist Roelof Uys from the legendary Leach Pottery in Cornwall on a series of hand-thrown stoneware platters decorated with birds and animals. When his preprepared stencils ran out, he drew in the wet clay with his finger: ‘Where there's no safety net,' he writes, ‘then there's nothing to lose.'…

I am not altogether surprised that, until very recently, I had never come across the work of the potter and painter Waistel Cooper (1921–2003), whose reputation has swung between acclaim and obscurity. As a student in Scotland, he was a talented portrait painter; in London, he was a leader in the hard-partying artistic set that included Bacon and Freud. After the Second World War, he went to Iceland, where he took to studio ceramics, but moved back when he could not find materials. He not only worked and exhibited alongside Rie and Coper, but was the leading figure as they found their Modernist styles. Subsequently, he exhibited rarely until a major retrospective in 1984. His work was compared to Moore and Hepworth's sculpture, but after his death his reputation faded…

FOLLOWING an unfortunate incident with a pot of double cream and the back seat of my new car, I am once again looking up home remedies for life’s curve balls. Scrolling through fairly predictable tips (baking powder/bicarbonate of soda/ vinegar), I’m really hoping for a bit more of a miracle cure, like ketchup on dogs that have rolled in fox, although I’ve never found this actually to work. The car smell ebbs then flows, depending on minute changes in ambient temperature, but I am trying not to think about the best-known advice for this situation because I keep seeing Toyota Rob in my mind’s eye and the words ‘balloon payment’ coming out of his mouth in slow motion. In other words, as I don’t think I actually own this car,…

PIETER BRUEGHEL THE YOUNGER (1564–1638) is occasionally overshadowed by his father in reputation, but a new exhibition this autumn seeks to rectify that. At Birmingham’s Barber Institute of Fine Arts, multiple versions of Two Peasants binding Faggots (there are about a dozen in total) will be displayed alongside key works by other artists, such as Simon Bening, Marten van Cleve and, of course, Brueghel the Elder. The show, boosted by new research, will highlight how the Younger artist was no mere derivative hanger-on—despite his lucrative work reproducing his father’s paintings—but an entrepreneur in cosmopolitan Antwerp, unafraid to run a trend-savvy mass-market enterprise, not dissimilar to today’s contemporary artists. Two Peasants binding Faggots ‘intrigues for being at once comical and sinister, childlike and sophisticated, engaging and challenging,’ says co-curator Robert Wenley,…

1) What is the female equivalent of an Earl? 2) Which fruit comes from the rose? 3) What ancient unit of length was based on the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger? 4) Which author wrote My Family and Other Animals? 5) What is an elver? Word of the week Malison (noun) A curse Time to buy ‘A person was like a city. You couldn’t let a few less desirable parts put you off the whole’The Midnight Library, Matt Haig Riddle me this A man sits in a cabin in Michigan. Three hours later, he leaves a cabin in Texas. How is this possible? 1) Countess 2) Hip 3) Cubit 4) Gerald Durrell 5) A young eel Riddle me this: It was the cabin of…

‘Unequivocally the finest modern church in all London’ ‘The Builder’ magazine (1846) on St George’s, Bloomsbury ‘Typically compelling and absorbing’ Blue Guide ‘City Guide London’ ‘The replication of such Wonders of the ancient world as Egyptian pyramids and the Halicarnassus mausoleum was certainly without precedent in English architecture… Baroque hardly seems appropriate as a stylistic description of much of Hawksmoor’s work’ Vaughan Hart, ‘Nicholas Hawksmoor: Rebuilding Ancient Wonders’ ‘Whatever is goode in its kinde ought to be preserv’d in respect for antiquity, as well as our present advantage, for destruction can be profitable to none but such as live by it’ Nicholas Hawksmoor…

To a Danish relative, Potter announced: ‘You share your nationality with Hans Christian Andersen. I tell you… my children's stories will one day be as famous and as much read as his.' Nonetheless, long-term success did not go to Potter's head; she was too frank for disingenuousness. She enjoyed the letters she received from children in Britain and abroad, especially Americans, whom she described as ‘perfidiously complimentary'. All contributed to a shrewd assessment of her commercial worth. She had a clear sense, too, of her place in literary history and fitted up Hill Top in Cumbria as a museum to herself and her ‘little books', among which the tales of Tom Kitten and Samuel Whiskers were set in the house and its garden. In her will, she left instructions concerning…

• In Robert Herrick’s poem Hesperides, a feast attended by Queen Titania included ‘beards of mice, a newt’s stew’d thigh, a bloated earwig and a fly’ • The earwig was known as the battle-twig in parts of rural England and was mentioned as such in Tennyson's poem The Spinster’s Sweet Arts • In some areas of Japan, the earwig is known as chinpo-basami, which translates as penis-cutter • Found in Turkey and on a few Aegean islands, King Ferdinand's orchid (Ophrys regis-ferdinandii, right)-named after the early-16th-century Holy Roman Emperor-is, thanks to its appearance, also called the earwig orchid…

VALENTINE’S DAY is thought to be an idea taken from Chaucer’s poem Parliament of Fowls, written in the late 14th century, which describes a group of birds gathering in early spring on ‘seynt valentynes day’ to choose their mates. The poem became popular and sparked a tradition for lovers. The earliest known Valentine’s letter in the English language was written in 1477 by Norfolk-dwelling Margery Brews, to her betrothed John Paston, calling him ‘my right well-beloved Valentine’. If you don’t enjoy Valentine’s Day, consolation can be found in Chaucer’s words—the poem ends with the birds singing, having failed to choose their mates, so deferring until the next year.…

MARK RYLANCE is mesmerising in his new play Dr Semmelweis, in which he plays a doomed, maverick, German-Hungarian physician, who discovers that washing hands saves lives (sound familiar?). Rachel and I were visiting Anna, now in her final year at Bristol university. It has been a strange time to be a student. For much of her first year, lecturers were on strike, then Covid overtook last year and now the lecturers are planning to strike again. However, Anna knows her restaurants and there can be few better places to eat than Bristol. We were spoiled by her knowledge at Wilson’s, Lido and the wonderful cheese and beer emporium Two Belly, before the Oscar winner’s astonishing performance at the Old Vic. In the play, which is based on a true story,…

Salty lemon character Williams & Humbert, Alegria Manzanilla de Sanlúcar, Jerez, Spain. £5.50/37.5cl, Booths, alc 15% With its mouthwatering, yeasty savouriness and smoky, bruised-apple character, this dinky bottle is the perfect addition to any dinner table. Providing succulent and salty lemon character backed by salted almonds, hazelnuts and walnuts, you really can't go wrong. Bordeaux-style white Vergelegen, Sauvignon Blanc, Stellenbosch, South Africa 2020. £10, Tesco, alc 13.5% Made in a fresh, aperitif style. Selected parcels of fruit are vinified separately, with fermentation in a mix of oak, concrete and stainless steel. The result is a Bordeaux-style white with grassy, green-pepper and citrus aromas, as well as riper, more tropical fruit. Flinty freshness Chêne Bleu Le Rosé, Vaucluse, Rhône, France 2020. £19.50, Huntsworth Wine Co, alc 13.5% Rich perfume…

‘This work’s reference to the connection between Earth and Heaven is very personal to me. When I look at it, I see the light, perspective and an abundance of colour. I think it references the external world and the connection between humans and God; the ladder is the connection. The title of this work refers to the Biblical character Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebekah. As described in the Book of Genesis, Jacob had a dream in which he saw a ladder reaching towards Heaven. Speaking about this work, Frankenthaler said: “The picture developed (bit by bit while I was working on it) into shapes symbolic of an exuberant figure and ladder, thereforeJacob’s Ladder”’ Charlotte Mullins comments on Jacob’s Ladder IMAGINE the scale of this oil painting: it is…

July 28, 1866 Helen Beatrix Potter is born at 2, Bolton Gardens, London SW5 1872 Birth of her only sibling, Bertram 1875 At nine, she fills a sketchbook with butterflies, caterpillars and birds 1881 At 15, she begins a secret journal, in a code of her own devising 1882 The Potter family (right) takes its first Lake District holiday 1883–85 Annie Carter (later Moore) becomes Potter's governess. In time, three of Potter's tales begin as ‘story letters' to her former governess's children 1885 Potter is given her first pet rabbit, Benjamin 1887 She contracts rheumatic fever 1890 She sells her first drawings, which are used as images on greetings cards September, 1893 Potter sends Noel and Eric Moore letters telling the stories that become The Tale of Peter Rabbit and…

VELVET. What other fabric is so soft and luxurious? Its sensual comfort and sheen are unrivalled. Velvet clothes and furniture have a timeless elegance and appeal, in that they can be both a classic and yet a contemporary choice. Velvet as we know it possibly originated in China, coming to Europe via invasion and trade by the 13th century, although a cloth called kutuf (Arabic for velvet) was made in Damascus during the late 7th and early 8th centuries AD. Surviving documents from 1311 show that Pope Clement V owned velvet items, including two red pieces made in Lucca, northern Italy. Flourishing near Pisa, Lucca had been famous for silk textiles since the early 12th century, with large-scale velvet production beginning there in the early 14th century. The Tuscan city’s…

BOILED cabbage à l’Anglaise is something compared to which steamed coarse newsprint bought from bankrupt Finnish salvage dealers and heated over smoky oil stoves is an exquisite delicacy,’ the journalist William Connor once sneered. He wasn’t alone in his disgust, because generations of British children were eternally scarred by the pong of sulphur and sorrow, as blameless brassica was brutally over-simmered, transforming crisp leaf into vile, gripey sludge. And it was this institutionally malodorous reek that polluted drab, cold school corridors and gloomy dining rooms alike, food as penance and punishment, to endure rather than enjoy. ‘That, for me, is all part of cabbage’s charm, a vegetable with as much punch as crunch’ It didn’t help that poor cabbage was vilified in children’s literature, too, with Roald Dahl leading the…

Eremurus himalaicus A species that has been turning heads in British gardens since it was introduced from Kashmir in the 1880s. At about 7ft tall, the sparkling-white flowers are spectacular in front of tall yew hedges, as in the Glyndebourne gardens. This is the first of the species to flower, sometimes as early as mid May Eremurus x isabellinus ‘Cleopatra’ In the evening light, the deep-apricot flowers of this hybrid seem to glow and you can understand the origins of the common name of desert candle. The colour is much stronger than that of most hybrids. At about 5ft tall, it is a vigorous plant that, in ideal conditions, spreads quickly to form large clumps Eremurus x isabellinus…

WAS the 1st Viscount Gage the Sue Gray of the 18th century? Perhaps a closer parallel might be Kathryn Stone, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. In the wake of the 1715 Jacobite Rising, a commission was set up to dispose of estates forfeited by rebels. Two of the commissioners, Denis Bond and John Birch, MPs and lawyers both, were responsible for the fraudulent sale of the vast Derwentwater estates. It was an inquiry led by Gage that exposed them in 1731, when the two were expelled from the Commons and the sale annulled. A few weeks later—plus ça change—Bond was mired in another scandal, this one concerning the funds of a charity. Nonetheless, it is recorded that as ‘a pillar of the church as well as of the bar, he…