Nature's great masterpiece?

"Nature's great masterpiece, an Elephant." - John Donne

“If you do not have a memory like an elephant, leave impressions like one.” - Anon

"I don't know where I learned elephants like their tongues slapped. Whatever turns you on." - Betty White

Elephants of Rajasthan - a festival celebrated every year with spectacular results.

The high life

"How can you live the high life if you do not wear the high heels?" - Sonia Rykiel

From The Telegraph:

As one of the world’s most famous, influential and highest-earning women, we imagine Beyonce doesn’t want for much in life. Except for diamond-encrusted shoes, that is. After all, you can’t buy them in Topshop.

But you can buy them in Birmingham, courtesy of jeweller Chris Shellis, who has just sold a pair to Mrs Knowles-Carter herself for the princely sum of £216,000.

The singer has reportedly snapped up the ‘Princess Constellation’ stilettos from Shellis’s House of Borgezie brand to wear in her next music video. The handcrafted shoes are made entirely of 18ct gold and encrusted with a cool 1,310 diamonds.

How the other half live...

The House of Borgezie

A plethora of Queens...

...and a Handsome Prince!



The photographic exhibition The Queen's People by Hugo Rittson Thomas will be held at Eleven Gallery in Belgravia, London from 19th August to 19th September 2015.

We had more fun

"We had individuality. We did as we pleased. We stayed up late. We dressed the way we wanted. I used to whiz down Sunset Boulevard in my open Kissel, with several red Chow dogs to match my hair. Today, they're sensible and end up with better health. But we had more fun."





"The more I see of men, the more I like dogs."

Clara Gordon Bow (29th July 1905 – 27th September 1965)

I hear leaves drinking rain

I hear leaves drinking rain;
I hear rich leaves on top
Giving the poor beneath
Drop after drop;
'Tis a sweet noise to hear
These green leaves drinking near.

And when the Sun comes out,
After this Rain shall stop,
A wondrous Light will fill
Each dark, round drop;
I hope the Sun shines bright;
'Twill be a lovely sight.
- "The Rain"



WH Davies, author of this paean to the weather - famous for his Autobiography of a Super Tramp, and for his most renowned poem Leisure - was born and brought up in the same street as my maternal grandmother in Newport, South Wales.

He described his childhood home (to Osbert Sitwell, of all people - how fortuitous was his journey from tramp to society poet) thus: "an imbecile brother, a sister, a maidservant, a dog, a cat, a parrot, a dove and a canary bird." I don't think my Nan had any of those (except sisters) - but then again, nor did she go "adventuring" across Britain and America, sleeping rough and losing a leg, until being "discovered" and lauded as a poet by such luminaries as George Bernard Shaw and D.H. Lawrence...

Both she and "WH" would no doubt have been more than used to the unseasonably "Welsh weather" we are experiencing here in London at the moment, however.

William Henry Davies (3rd July 1871 – 26th September 1940)

Halston, Gucci...

...Fiorucci!

Farewell to another of the "creators of the 70s", Studio 54 stalwart and friend to the famous and infamous, including Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and Madonna, Elio Fiorucci.

From his obituary in The Telegraph:

Fiorucci stores were fun...[the] flagship on Manhattan’s East 59th Street near Bloomingdale’s was known as the “daytime Studio 54" not only because it had its own resident DJ, but because of all the clubbers who met there to drink (free) espresso and trade gossip before the evening got going.

Jackie Onassis, Cher, Lauren Bacall and Elizabeth Taylor shopped there – as did Terence Conran and Marc Jacobs. Andy Warhol was a regular and launched Interview magazine at the store in 1980. The New York drag artiste Joey Arias (who then wore his hair punk-style) was the store manager and occasional star of Fiorucci’s “live” window displays – which also featured such crowd-pleasing attractions as a model reclining in a zebra-striped bathtub, reading smutty paperbacks and blowing bubbles at passers-by.

Divine decadence...

Elio Fiorucci (10th June 1935 – 20th July 2015)

Doggy style

Only in America could there be such a thing...

National Hot Dog Day