The Tall Skinny Latte Philosopher

Why using your hands might be good for you

Martin Roberts — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 16:55:11 +0000

Last week I bought a slightly unusual lawnmower and it took some finding I can tell you. My search started with fruitless visits to the major DIY retailers where my enquiries were met with baffled looks and the kind of sympathetic expressions that are reserved for the mad. I tried a few specialists who did …

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Have we done our best creative work by 30?

Martin Roberts — Mon, 25 Sep 2017 09:47:48 +0000

Age Shall Weary Us The Author under 30. Considering his best creative work. Last year I met the parents of the friend of one my step-children. He was a retired Naval Officer, she a semi-retired nurse. As we stood in the kitchen exchanging small talk over a cup of coffee I was struck how like …

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The Madonna of Sant’Agostino

Martin Roberts — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 18:33:00 +0000

Orinzia asked for the bench to be moved. When she walked out onto the terrace that morning she had noticed that the plumbago, now in full bloom, was not only covering the back and a large part of the seat with its outstretched tendrils of delicate mauve blooms, but that its advance was obscuring the …

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Sutherland’s Churchill

Martin Roberts — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 18:06:37 +0000

In a recent clear out of the Nicholson family attic the following letter between the artist Graham Sutherland, fellow artist and friend Edward Nicholson came to light. Its contents throw new light on an age-old artistic scandal. Hotel Negresco Nice September 1966 My Dear Nicholson Katharine and I have come to Cannes for a few …

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War for the Playstation generation?

Martin Roberts — Fri, 08 Sep 2017 15:06:08 +0000

It may seem a little churlish to want to assess Ernst Jünger’s classic First World War memoires ‘Storm of Steel’ nearly a hundred years after the fact but, as this is a book for all time, then it surely deserves continuous review, not least because, as I read it I began to wonder if it …

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Tattoos: look on my works ye mighty and despair.

Martin Roberts — Mon, 31 Jul 2017 16:46:29 +0000

About a thousand years ago, whilst casting about for the career that, forty years later I am yet to find, I worked as a milkman in north west London. Our yard had a full cast of characters amongst whom was a young lad called Keith. Goodness knows what the intervening years have brought to Keith, …

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