On behalf of all Spikers, Esther, please secure your invite to Michael Gove's inaugural shindig right now. We need full party deets, part two. Thanking you in advance.
i mean in the shag/friend/marry stakes i think it would be a tough call but would want to friend them both and be able to cackle laughing at them and have them be very impressed by my (non existent) deep historical intelligence. but that is my daytime daydream as i obsessivly listen while making flowers into bouquets (yes it sounds like a rom com but its mostly dirty buckets and not looking anything like an ingenue). best parties always end in cheese of some sort. keep socialising for all of us!
My choice = Dominic Sandbrook, I just love his voice. Going to the Royal Albert Hall soon to check them both out in the flesh. And I adore the London Library, I'm a (recent) member but don't get there nearly as often as I'd like.
I’m so glad you brought up TRIH !! Every episode I can’t stop my mind pondering, briefly, which one I would pick. Because I’m mildly obsessed with them both. They are such terrific company….even though I have never met them. They will no doubt be relieved to know I’m still deciding…
re: Ark of the Covenant - Raiders of the Lost Ark designers pretty much copied the one in 19th century French artist James Tissot's watercolour - he was mostly a glamorous society portraitist but also did lots of illustrated bible work.... https://www.instagram.com/thejewishmuseum/p/C4IwbGmO4ce/
Yes! his paintings are incredible... and he had a romantic interlude in London - built a studio-house in Grove End Rd in St John's Wood that you can still see from the outside - where he lived with his Irish mistress/muse, then left it forever when she died tragically of consumption in her 20s, grief-stricken, and got heavily into spiritualism and religion - hence the bibles. sorry, off topic! TRIH - also love.
Oh I loved this the most of almost everything you have written, and I'm a veteran from Recipe Rifle days! Just glorious and took me back to my bookselling days in Fulham in the late 90's when I worked at the Pan Bookshop and had no money so went to book launches with my friend Sarah, who worked at a casting agents, as a means to feed and water ourselves for free. I'm quite new to TRIH and keep getting T and D muddled up as their voices don't match their faces. But I absolutely loved the idea of TH spending hours watching Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette with his daughters when they were younger and wish I'd had a father who'd have done that kind of thing. I would 100% be best friends with Dom though, he's the kind of chap I was always into at uni.
I love this! I went to one of their summer parties randomly in the garden, which was gorgeous. I pushed my way through to “chat” to Fraser and started going on about how I’m a wine expert. I don’t know what came over me, I’m not. He asked me what I particularly liked about the wine column and I was overcome by terror and said nothing really
“contained a goodly amount of uncollected post” is a splendid phrase. How come you never wrote one of those day in the life / diary of a woman about town columns that they used to have in the broadsheets? You’d have been absolutely brilliant at that Esther.
The part about the Abbey at night made me suddenly and strangely homesick for London. Now I MUST have your go-to cheese on toast recipe please, Esther!
On behalf of all Spikers, Esther, please secure your invite to Michael Gove's inaugural shindig right now. We need full party deets, part two. Thanking you in advance.
I can't believe you didn't err.... get Tom Holland's attention (how???? with what??? to say what???).
That's the problem with hero worshipping. What on earth do you say, and why?
Your comment re Gaston and Beauty and the Beast cracked me up😅
I write for the Spectator and I wasn't invited to the Spec writers party. Going to send Fraser an angry email now.
😂😂❤️🙏
i mean in the shag/friend/marry stakes i think it would be a tough call but would want to friend them both and be able to cackle laughing at them and have them be very impressed by my (non existent) deep historical intelligence. but that is my daytime daydream as i obsessivly listen while making flowers into bouquets (yes it sounds like a rom com but its mostly dirty buckets and not looking anything like an ingenue). best parties always end in cheese of some sort. keep socialising for all of us!
I expect S & K know very well that your "by 10" means "at any time after 9.15" and govern themselves accordingly.
Very impressed that you completed full exfil within 180 seconds!
Your brother-in-law is SO much more than a gameshow host.
Although, as he admitted recently on HIGNFY, that's the only part of his portfolio which excites his accountant.
Companion for your charming piece.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/a-new-home-rich-in-history/
My choice = Dominic Sandbrook, I just love his voice. Going to the Royal Albert Hall soon to check them both out in the flesh. And I adore the London Library, I'm a (recent) member but don't get there nearly as often as I'd like.
I’m so glad you brought up TRIH !! Every episode I can’t stop my mind pondering, briefly, which one I would pick. Because I’m mildly obsessed with them both. They are such terrific company….even though I have never met them. They will no doubt be relieved to know I’m still deciding…
re: Ark of the Covenant - Raiders of the Lost Ark designers pretty much copied the one in 19th century French artist James Tissot's watercolour - he was mostly a glamorous society portraitist but also did lots of illustrated bible work.... https://www.instagram.com/thejewishmuseum/p/C4IwbGmO4ce/
the Ark bearers in this painting though look bored and like they are wearing very bad wigs
Fed up - thought it would be a quick local delivery.
"we have top men working on it right now"
this is so funny
amazing detail
Yes! his paintings are incredible... and he had a romantic interlude in London - built a studio-house in Grove End Rd in St John's Wood that you can still see from the outside - where he lived with his Irish mistress/muse, then left it forever when she died tragically of consumption in her 20s, grief-stricken, and got heavily into spiritualism and religion - hence the bibles. sorry, off topic! TRIH - also love.
Oh I loved this the most of almost everything you have written, and I'm a veteran from Recipe Rifle days! Just glorious and took me back to my bookselling days in Fulham in the late 90's when I worked at the Pan Bookshop and had no money so went to book launches with my friend Sarah, who worked at a casting agents, as a means to feed and water ourselves for free. I'm quite new to TRIH and keep getting T and D muddled up as their voices don't match their faces. But I absolutely loved the idea of TH spending hours watching Kirsten Dunst as Marie Antoinette with his daughters when they were younger and wish I'd had a father who'd have done that kind of thing. I would 100% be best friends with Dom though, he's the kind of chap I was always into at uni.
I love this! I went to one of their summer parties randomly in the garden, which was gorgeous. I pushed my way through to “chat” to Fraser and started going on about how I’m a wine expert. I don’t know what came over me, I’m not. He asked me what I particularly liked about the wine column and I was overcome by terror and said nothing really
have we literally ALL humiliated ourselves in front of Fraser Nelson?
“contained a goodly amount of uncollected post” is a splendid phrase. How come you never wrote one of those day in the life / diary of a woman about town columns that they used to have in the broadsheets? You’d have been absolutely brilliant at that Esther.
bless you I worked at Londoners Diary for 2 years and that was enough xx
The part about the Abbey at night made me suddenly and strangely homesick for London. Now I MUST have your go-to cheese on toast recipe please, Esther!
come back we miss u
so boring. a mixture of gruyère and cheddar on sourdough. lea and perrins SOMETIMES