Thank you, Sarah

Bedtime Reading

Dieu! Qu'il la fait bon regarder!

A concert by the French choir Accentus (conductor Laurence Equilbey) at Haberdasher's Hall. Transcriptions of Ravel and Debussy, and new pieces by Mantovani and Manoury.

O! ihr stillen Spiegel der Wahrheit.

O Bruder klimmen wir blinde Zeiger gen Mitternacht.

(Quotations from Georg Traxl, set by Manoury)

A bowl of cherries

As I look at these cherries, in a bowl decorated with cherries which D gave to me many years ago, I remember my first visit to Leipzig in 1986. Travelling on the train from Berlin, the girl opposite me was eating cherries: I discovered the cherry season had just started, and for the fortnight I was there, everyone was eating these delicious cherries (much better than I have ever had since).

J.B. Handelsman

I read that the cartoonist Handelsman has died. When I was a teenager his weekly "Freaky Fables" in Punch were the highlight of my week. They were idiosyncratic retellings of classical myths and similar stories: a rather off-beat and ironic humour which, I now realise, must have been a strong influence on my personality. I don't known his more recent work, but the obituary quoted this cartoon:

And it also quoted another of his captions, which captures much of what appeals to me about his work: "We are among those chosen to bear the burden of rebuilding Iraq. A thankless job, with no reward apart from obscene profits."