Historical biographer writing about Sir John Vanbrugh and his circle. Member of @SamJohnsonSoc and Associate Fellow of the @RoyalHistSoc. Views my own.
Joined May 2010
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26 Nov 2021
Great Rusty pre-dinner moment; he got @RichardBratby’s attention by somehow wriggling into the curtain loop and then couldn’t get out.
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Trying to paint the gatehouse of the Chateau de Vincennes during a very busy lunch service.
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Legendary art shop Sennelier on the Left Bank - where the Impressionists shopped. Behold the crowds mobbing the counter.
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Went to pay our respects to Edgar Degas at the Montmartre cemetery. I couldn’t leave an offering from my art materials bag because they’re expensive and I use them. He would hopefully understand.
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As @RichardBratby points out, I have unerringly homed in on a strange beverage - lager with a shot of orange liqueur.
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Getting food at Versailles was more of a mission than I thought because of the queues and enormous distances to walk. We had to buy two expensive Ladurée finger pastries to avoid keeling over - a case of let them eat cake?
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A great day at Versailles - as with much of Baroque tourism, you have to be match fit because the enlightened despots did like to build on a large scale. I bruised my foot on some French cobbles yesterday but donned two pairs of socks like a boss!
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Emily in Paris eat your heart out.
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Dr Annette Rubery retweeted
I'm loving the quiet joy of this angel playing the lute, carved from linden wood more than 500 years ago (Bode-Museum, Berlin) (photo: Daderot)
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Sitting talking to my mum this afternoon, I saw a fox - bold as brass - saunter down the middle of her garden, disappear into the bushes and then appear on the fence behind. 😦
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Plas Newydd - home to the Ladies of Llangollen - is a gigantic bicolage of Jacobean furniture and stained glass. Crazy but lovely.
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Got my art materials and a few hours to kill in Llangollen. Got to produce a final project for my contour drawing course too.
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There is a special place in hell for people who put cones outside their house on double yellows (where people don’t park anyway), making your street look unsightly as if permanently under construction. What’s wrong with them?
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Statue of Charles II, Lichfield. The sandstone is so weathered he’s hardly got any features left, though I could just see a thin moustache.
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Dr Annette Rubery retweeted
Having built in a lot of slack, I'm at Lewes an hour early. "You could walk it from here" as @AnnetteRubery would say.
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Dr Annette Rubery retweeted
Jun 3
Omnia sponte fluant, absit violentia rebus — “Let everything flow spontaneously; let violence be absent from things.”
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Dr Annette Rubery retweeted
Double opera review: La fanciulla del West @operahollandpk and Der Rosenkavalier @GarsingtonOpera
spectator.com/article/a-firs…
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