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Cherry Tree Barn

http://www.cherrytreebarn.co.uk I was educated at Monkton Wyld School in Dorset (now Monkton Wyld Community) which specialised in self sufficiency and organic farming. For many years I lived and worked in Malibu, California. I cultivated a three acre, subtropical smallholding. I successfully grew bananas, oranges, lemons, grapefruit, cherimoya and prickly pear. When I left Los Angeles I bought…

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Ana Corbero Redux...

Ana Corbero Redux…

Ana Corbero Carmona One of the text conversations I had with Ana she asked me to write a blog update. A redux. Here it is. You might be wondering why I’m roasting this old chestnut. Ana Corbero? Didn’t you wave goodbye to that old bint in 2017? Didn’t she leave you gasping for air like a freshly caught fish? Well… that’s what should have happened. I should have left well alone but life never…

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Fear and Faith

Easter 2022 Portugal Last night I made Indian food at home for friends. A convivial evening. The weather has been spectacular this week. The religious parades a little lacklustre, they don’t compare with the spectacular opulence of the spanish equivalent. Yet, even though I don’t believe in christianity, I bowed my head before those who do. This morning the apartment is scented with cassia,…

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Sir Tom Croft Architect

Fully blogging once again...

Sir Tom and Max Croft Christmas 2010 If ever there were I time I needed this blog… then now would be that time. Writing has always afforded me the opportunity of untangling the scribble of thoughts and furies in my head. When I was a boy I made sense of complications (secrets and lies) by writing. Setting out the problems and finding solutions. My first attempt at creative writing, a series of…

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Georgina Jenkins

Wonder where I have been?

I haven’t written my blog for a very long time. Life sure has changed these past few years. The Little Dog, after a wonderful life, born on the streets in LA, travelling all over the world… a little dog who loved Paris and knew we were there when ever we arrived… caught his last breath in a veterinary surgery in Canterbury four weeks ago. He was done. The day before he died he staggered into the…

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Covid: My Moral Failing

Covid: My Moral Failing

Portugal. January, 2021 Here I am. Struck down by covid. In bed most days. Discharged from the hospital two weeks ago. Shovelling Xanax down my throat. The panic was real. I can’t breath! At my worst I couldn’t escape convincing thoughts of suicide. Drawn again and again into a black hole. I must have called out to God a thousand times: Take it! Take these thoughts away from me. I am calling…

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Matthew Simmonds, an art historian and architectural stone carver based in Italy, has created a collection of exceptionally beautiful miniature spaces carved from stone. Having worked on a number of restoration projects in the UK – from Westminster Abbey to Ely Cathedral - his skills have been transferred into work of a much smaller, if not more intricate, scale. Hewn from large stone blocks (some of marble), the level of intricacy Simmonds has achieved in the architectural detailing is almost incredible. Capitals, vaults and surfaces all distort and reflect light in a very beguiling way.

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Rat King

The IHRA definition of anti-semitism has been weaponised. Adopted by those who demand any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. However, there is no IHRA definition of homophobia and one might wonder why? Until there is an official definition… those of us who experience homophobia, casual or direct cannot call out the perpetrators with any assurance.

The reason there is no official definition…

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George Platt Lynes (American, 1907-1955), a pair of wool needlepoint cushions depicting Two Male Nudes, c.1940-50. Each approximately 23½ x 25 in.

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Nick Batchelor: Hunted Channel 4

Nick Batchelor: Hunted Channel 4

Since my return to the UK and my discovery of CA (Cocaine Anonymous) in Kent… of all the gruesome freaks I’ve encountered, Nick Batchelor is perhaps the worse. An arrogant, ego maniacal thug working with youth at Switch Youth Services and now on Channel Four in their show Hunted.

He is the kind of white thug who quickly achieves power in any organisation he finds himself, reinventing the…

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Thrupple

1.

The thrupple, along with the cult of Daddy, was a recurring theme throughout the summer.  Three men glued into a happy relationship, usually two older and a younger man working out the sort of relationship most people (straight and gay) may find (not only convenient) but very rewarding.

My friend W met and fell for a couple he met on Fire Island.  They have since become a thrupple.   I like…

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Appendix

Last Monday, adding to my general health woes, I woke up at 2am.  A strange and persistent pain in my upper belly.  Pains I assumed were something to do with the polyps they removed from my colon during a colonoscopy last week or maybe the MRI the day before establishing the size of a tumour on my remaining adrenal gland.

On Monday at 9am I had a meeting in Canterbury with a mental health…

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Lucy Ferry

Lucy Ferry killed herself.  A shot-gun in an Irish village.  Her ‘beloved’ dogs were present.  Her death opening the door to a whole world of grief.  In drawing rooms all over London, in honey stoned country homes in the West Country and Norfolk pearls were clutched and brows furrowed.

The moment I heard the terrible news I called Simon Finch. We gasped in horror.  Oh no.  No.  There was nothing…

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Rosie Duffield MP

Yesterday I met Rosie Duffield the MP for Canterbury and Whitstable.  She was half an hour late for our appointment.  Her train was late.  The taxi wasn’t where they expected it to be.  She runs into the meeting berating the train and the tube.  Rosie is a slight, blond woman who, against all the odds beat long time conservative MP Julian Brazier with a slim 186 majority in a constituency that…

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Margate

Another morning at the hospital.  Another biopsy on another lump. I’m quite sweaty today.  My arms hurt.  The arthritis in my neck makes my arms painful, numb and tingling.  The pain increases when I cough, sneeze or strain.

After the consultant I drove to Margate where I met Jonathan Viner who has famously bought the huge Margate Print Works, partially selling to Tracey Emin and others.  We ate…