How quickly one forgets! The sweetness of life in London, come June, that is. Let’s start with the good news: Fort Belvedere. It was built as a folly in Windsor Great Park in 1755 by the second Duke of Cumberland, and enlarged by George IV who lent it the appearance of a fort. Edward VIII
I hope Prince William enjoys studying Kiswahili. I certainly did. In my mid-thirties I jacked in a job as a binman, did two A levels in a year, passed both, then studied Kiswahili for three years at the School of Oriental and African Studies in Bloomsbury as part of an African Studies degree. I went
Laikipia Claire came face to face with a leopard last night. She was walking between our office, a thatched mud hut at the bottom of the garden, and the house. It’s a distance of only about 30 paces, but it can get dark out there. Instinct kicked in before she even glimpsed the predator and
Please excuse my returning to the subject of teeth, but I’ve had molars on my mind. Since my trip to America where my British teeth were looked upon with horror, I have been examining them day and night. It would be fair to say that this has become an obsession. In restaurants with friends and
Dear Mary Q. My new wife, I have discovered, has a disturbingly communal disposition. From a large, somewhat boisterous family, boarding-school bred and a once committed Girl Guide, she thinks nothing of barging into the bathroom during my ablutions. Worse still, she seems intent on conversation with me, particularly when I’m on the loo. Without
A kind-hearted reader wondered whether Chinaman might not be a derogatory term. I used it the other week. If you believe the Encarta dictionary, it is not just derogatory – it is offensive. But then, the (mainly Zulu) Encarta (as I like to think of it, in memory of the BBC World Service’s invariable phrase
