The 45th anniversary of the assassination of JFK

The sun is setting beyond the Isle of Wight. The sky is calm greys, blues and pinks with a neat fingernail moon over Sussex Heights, voted tallest residential building I can see from my study for the last five years in a row. (Four Peregrine Falcons live on the roof you know).

It was my birthday over a week ago. Partly for that reason and partly because of other reasons a number of lovely people converged on the flat before going on to La Fourchette; fork, what a good time we all had.














Fine Diners















Another Fine Diners















Heart on sleeve















Reminiscing about that Imperial War Museum trip
















Dom reveals the extent of his personal problems















Our esteemed photographer (Dom took some too)















People came from as far away as Slough















Combined age of 89















Dom's chips were enjoyed widely















Adrian hadn't really been enjoying his pudding















Going anywhere nice this year?

(There are more excellent pictures on Dominic Butler's Facebook page or on my Flickr page; there is a link on the right hand side of this page)

Norwegian Wood

Inspired by an episode of Alan Yentob's "Imagine" programme on BBC1 a couple of weeks ago I bought myself a copy of Haruki Murasaki's fourth novel.

This man tells me about the things I see but don't notice. I am still wandering around in his world, slightly beguiled, two days after finishing the book.

"What about the snakes....?"

On a recent drive to Littlehampton I listened to this Radio 4 item (the first 20 minutes or so of the programme Excess Baggage which consits of an interview with someone called Yossi Ghinsberg); click on the link above if you would like your challenges to feel less challenging.