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Notwithstanding a career singing on the stage, I’m proud to say my equinoctial-environmental and orbital-cycling efforts have been recognised with a Fellowship of the Royal Geographical Society. In truth, music never extinguished my curiosity for the world we live in: Geography was my first love at school, my degree subject, and my initial career was as elbow-patched teacher (of Hugh Grant, among others) at Latymer Upper School Hammersmith. Continue reading
Pippa and I have at last fulfilled a promise to ourselves and last month completed 72 hours of epic florentine tourism, miraculously unrushed and almost devoid of queuing. Here’s me in the Baptistery, spiritual heart of the city, indicating to where I cleaned the walls of oil-impregnated floodwaters, 52 years ago. Continue reading
This recital was an invitation from Harris Manchester College Oxford*. My old friend Peter Crockford accompanied, as did my son Oliver for a couple of items. Oli was a student at neighbouring Wadham College and we were repeating our partnership at the funerals that inspired the occasion. Continue reading
This is the Seville Orange Marmalade season – and here’s batch one of my celebrated recipe. I’ll let you into the secret; you take the pith and put it into a second pan – the pith pan. The preserving pan takes the juice and peel, Continue reading
I wonder if I will ever perform centre stage at the London Palladium again? Somehow I doubt it, so having just posted a short clip on my Spotlight page, here is the full excerpt from the 1994 Olivier Awards, when the National’s production by Declan Donnellan cleaned up. Continue reading
A month ago I was cornered by Richard Williams and Joanna MacGregor at a mutual friend’s party. “Come to Dartington and do Sweeney Todd!” I havered…but said yes. After all, there were fully five four days of rehearsal for it to come flooding back!
I’m so glad I did for somehow we achieved the impossible under Richard’s less-is-more direction. Joanna sets the tone at Dartington by performing (brilliantly) most evenings in completely different repertoire. Impossible is not an option. Continue reading
I’m chuffed! Rupert Hambly has made me Client of the Month, shortly after he won London Personal Trainer of the Year. Double pat on the Trapezius and Lats, eh? Scroll down the page to find my mugshot and story. I’m astonished that I went for this course, even more amazed Continue reading
I am congenitally incapable of throwing anything away, and sourdough baking requires you to replenish your ‘mother’ starter regularly (FEEEED me!), after discarding some of it. Where? Down the drain? Not possible. Then again, time pressure means it’s not possible to make a sourdough loaf more than once every ten days. Solution: Fake (it’s all the rage) sourdough… Continue reading