About Me
I pursue the art of elegance for myself; home; environment. And as it is better to travel in hope than to arrive, so the chase is more exciting than the capture...
I'm Looking For
Elegant,eccentric travellers, francophiles ( and any French people); art & antique collectors esp textiles.
My Interests
Art - I have an atmospheric Japanese watercolour painting of a boat near a bridge on a river with a cherry tree in blossom. Travel - esp following historical routes and cities and sites of splendour and imagination: the silk road; Xanadu; ancient Egypt; India; Zanzibar; all of South East Asia; Japan; and Australia ( current fave).
Music
Er - all sorts of stuff. Indie band, Amsterdam!Listen to - "Does This Train Stop at Merseyside?" - a favorite of the late lamented John Peel. Generally I like rock and pop more than classical but love the theatricality and emotion grabbing sound of opera. As that wonderful old drama queen Noel Coward commented, "Extraordinary how potent cheap music is."
Movies
Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion - Italy 1970. Haunting incidental music to a brilliant crime drama. Liked lots of others since, but few so memorable.
Television
Life on Mars!!! Dr Who. Any good quality drama. QI - Stephen Fry. Have I Got News for You. And RADIO! Desert Island Discs; A Good Read and news and current affairs programmes such as:PM, Broadcasting House. Also The News Quiz; I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue and almost all BBC Radio 4 comedy.
Books
Avid reader. Two to three books a week on average. Favourite travel books: Pattern of Islands by Arthur Grimble; News from Tartary by Peter Fleming: In Xanadu by William Dalrymple: Slow Boats to China by Gavin Young.Space travel (wanted to be an astronaut)was big SF fan but interest now waned. Fiction - drama, mystery, crime. Non-fiction - mainly art, antiques,travel and cookery.
Heroes
My father, Edith Cavell("Patriotism is not enough"), and all people who cope in difficult situations here and all over the world.