For the Silly Season I've set myself the challenge of visiting a different art exhibition on every day of the month and blogging about it. Thursday 6 August Exhibit: Crossroads of Curiosity by David NormalPlace: British Library Piazza A portmante [...]

For the Silly Season I've set myself the challenge of visiting a different art exhibition on every day of the month and blogging about it. Wednesday 5 August Exhibit:  The Great Gallery Place: The Wallace Collection The Great Gallery was added t [...]

For the Silly Season I've set myself the challenge of visiting a different art exhibition on every day of the month and blogging about it. Tuesday 4 August Exhibition: Gabriel OroczoPlace: Marian Goodman Gallery, London These new works by the Mex [...]

For the Silly Season I've set myself the challenge of visiting a different art exhibition on every day of the month and blogging about it. Monday 3 August Exhibition: Cornelius Johnson, Charles I’s Forgotten PainterPlace: National Portrait Gallery [...]

For the Silly Season I've set myself the challenge of visiting a different art exhibition on every day of the month and blogging about it. Sunday 2 AugustExhibit: Christine Mackie: the filtersPlace:  Tate Britain Even as the doors of Tate Britain s [...]

  For the Silly Season I've set myself the challenge of visiting a different art exh bition on every day of the month and posting a blog about it. The shows will be chosen in a reasonably ad hoc way from public and commercial galleries, as well as p [...]

In the second canto of Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Byron agonises over the enslavement of Greece. The hero arrives there at carnival time....But midst the throng of merry masqueradeLurk there no hearts that throb with secret pain,Even through the clo [...]

I doubt readers often pause to wonder how a novel came by its title. Occasionally a title might invite a question, either because it’s obscure (The Quincunx) or archly complicated (The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B). But for the most part we leav [...]

On 15 March 1780, the Wiltshire clergyman-naturalist Gilbert White noted in his diary: “Mrs Snooke buried”. His next entry, a couple of days later, recorded:  “Brought away Mrs Snooke’s old tortoise, Timothy, which she valued much & had treated k [...]

The memoirs of Peter Scott, the prolific high-end-of-society burglar who died last week aged 82, were published as Gentleman Thief. That title was not his preference, and Scott had to be persuaded to adopt it. I think the reason he did not like it wa [...]