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Brilliant skies

It was difficult to tell, looking back, how good a summer that had been. The records gave a statistical answer – at Kew, the century’s fourth best for dryness, the third best in hours of...

The winter begins

The light was poor, the bulbs glowing dully on the inadequate voltage. He ruffled the pages back awkwardly, peering at dates and headlines – back through the early days of scientific reports, dubious prognostications, tucked...

christian persecution jews

We’re a bad lot

‘We’re a bad lot,’ Father Edward said. ‘All of us, Jews or Christians. Christians have persecuted Jews, but they’ve persecuted each other just as much. It’s easier to persecute when you can recognize the ones...

deller madrigals countertenor

The English are manure

Father Edward seemed more at ease here than I was myself. I thought at first that he might have been here before with Siegfried, but his frank, appraising gaze round the walls made that unlikely....

Finish the game

I said to Solly: ‘Where did you turn up from?’ He said: ‘Benno and I enjoy a game of chess together. He wins mostly, but sometimes I run him close.’ They had met, I found,...

time-switch, economy

Cut the necessities

I went up to Liverpool occasionally. I had to, since Dadda would not travel down to see me. His meanness, far from relaxing in the post-war years, grew steadily more pronounced. He would not spend...

Israel marked by God?

I was not angry any longer, and I really was astonished. I had never expected this kind of thing from Siegfried; his very apparent religious devotion had always seemed the ingrowing kind, rather than the...

Coffee with Hilda

While she had breakfast, I had coffee; Jinny’s coffee was wonderful. Jinny herself had by this time reached the stage where she was settling into fatness without any regrets; she had always created an atmosphere...