Best thing since sliced brioche.

At long last...

 Patisserie with pomp. Coffee the French way; Don your couture, light yourself a Gauloise and get down to Ladurée. Oh how wonderful. Sorry, I mean "hideous". 

Ballet Russes

Anna Pavlova...

And I ain't talking posh desserts. 

Next proper post subject: Diaghilev.

1000 words.

Sometimes a photograph can tell you more about a person than words. Especially when you know them well. 

And sometimes stumbling across a photograph of your Grandfather, pseudo molesting the Wall Street bull in a rather fetching pink jumper, is enough to keep you happy all day. Grandfather Buckle: in a nutshell. For me anyway. 

F**k I'm feeling humble. 

We are family

The Mitford sisters

Baron & Baroness Redesdale, Thomas and the six sisters

Probably the most influential aristocratic family of the 20th century. 

Ben Macintyre of the Times condensed the sisters characters effectively in one sentence: "Diana the Fascist, Jessica the Communist, Unity the Hitler-lover; Nancy the Novelist; Deborah the Duchess and Pamela the unobtrusive poultry connoisseur". Who would you invite round for tea first?

The sisters epitomised the high society glamour of the 1930's, brushing off the dowdy, tweedy image of the landed gentry; bringing an element of hollywood exoticism to a grey Britain in the midst of a financial crisis.

Each had their own attraction. Although I'm not sure whether Fascism or indeed a passion for poultry are classified as attractions?

Place one's hand on one's hip. Makes
for a more flattering photograph Diana.

Regardless of the sisters themselves, the family have produced a few of the biggest names in fashion today. Daphne Guinness is the great granddaughter of Diana, wife to British union of fascists leader Sir Oswald Mosley. Stella Tennant, "discovered" by Isabella blow, the best friend of Ms Guinness, is the great granddaughter of Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire.

The girls are collectively and individually fascinating. Hitler and all. Even if they were effectively on giant PR disaster. Oh Unity why did you choose Nazism over poultry!?  

Via ducere

Victorian engineering so good it makes me weak at the knees...

Around Brighton/ hove. Can't exactly remember.

I love viaducts. I'm not entirely sure why. Again I think its because they are built entirely for function and yet are so beautiful and almost elegant in an odd industrial way. 
*Sorry for the awful picture, through a windscreen at 30mph.

Now Voyager

Lauren, Katherine, Lana too

Bette Davis, We love you.

Swiss made

 I love objects that have a sense of utility. I find them the most beautiful.  I think this is what I find so attractive about watches. Jewellery is dead. It merely adorns the body as a status symbol or object of beauty. Of course there is a certain amount of sentiment one can attach to jewellery but for me it'll always be stagnant. 

Longines Trench watch, 1918

Watches manage to embody first of all my love of utility and secondly my love for the mechanical. Winding my manual watch is one of my great simple pleasures; possibly the finest example of micro engineering in history. Batteries die, my watch is over 50 years old and works as well as the day is was made. And there isn't much now that you'll be able to say the same of in a few years time. Let alone 5 decades. 


The above is an example of a trench watch. Yes thats right, these were worn on the fields of the Somme in the great war. The actual casing hasn't changed much from the pocket watch. The idea of adding a strap was purely out of convenience; Much easier to glaze over your wrist than pull out your cumbersome pocket watch from 3 layers of tweed and risk suffering a shot to the head. So actually more necessity than convenience.