A slightly thinner month of content, partly due to preparation for leading an in-depth tour of the Barbican for London Historians, but principally and more importantly due to the arrival of Grandson No.2. The 8 month old now has competition, but we will have to allow time for the sub-one month old to show his paces.
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There are two problems about writing on Trump. The first is that the current President of the United States moves so unreliably and unpredictably that anything written about him will be eclipsed within hours by new content; the second is that the man is so horrific in character that any hyperbolic fantasising about his behaviour will be outdone by what we see day to day.
Nevertheless:
POTUS does CBeebies:
'Hello children.
I'm the President of The United States. And I'm very important. Very important.
Now, can you see the chart I've just been given? It's got the names of countries on it.
Do you know where all these countries are? I don't, but that doesn't matter at all. Doesn't matter at all.
Someone told me that one of the countries only has penguins on it. I like penguins. They're cute. But if they stop making America Great Again AGAIN, I don't like them.
I like tariffs. When people send things into the US there are tariffs. Even for the penguin country.
Someone asked me to explain what made me decide how much tariff for every country. That is a nasty question. Very nasty.
And the people who pay tariffs are American companies that import goods. If you point this out to me that makes you nasty too.
So all this makes me look stupid. I don't like looking stupid. I only like nice people. That means people who are nice to me and tell me that I am the most amazing President that there has ever been.
The people who ask me difficult questions are nasty. I don't like nasty people.
Children, I have a lot of sweeties. I have lots more than those nasty people. That matters. I will make these people's lives very difficult unless they start being nice to me.
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Chinese soft power. Zhang v Pang in the Snooker World Championships. Give it ten years and will they have taken over?
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Short postcard from Rome (end of March visit)
A bog standard summary below as no shocks or surprises
Travel
Fiumicino airport is swish and efficient. If you are heading to the southern half of Tuscany use Fiumicino. On no account use Pisa.
Taxis are plentiful and have a set tariff, though a couple of extra Euros tip will go down well.
Where to stay
The popular hotel area is around Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain. Decent restaurants too. Plus perfect if your idea of a City break involves heavy engagement with high-end retail.
An alternative is in the vicinity of Piazza Navona - latter is visitable in its own right.
What to visit
Serious guidebook research needed. Rome does monumental. This should include most of a day for the Colosseum and Forum combined, and most of the day for the Vatican (to include Square, Basilica and Museums). Victor Emmanuel Monument is a good couple of hours, and you need a taste for steps.
Warning; from St Peter's Square to Museums Entrance is 1km walk. From Entrance through each room to Sistine Chapel is a 1km walk. And it's then 1km walk back to Museums Exit. PS bad luck if you are going any time soon and those pesky Cardinals are in Conclave in the Sistine.
...and for the getting around, Rome is walkable but there is a lot of walking. A good compromise is to get an Uber to further away destination, and then take in stuff as you walk back.
Where to eat
So much choice. My standout is Fieramosca in Trastevere, just over the other side of the river. We stumbled upon it at Sunday lunchtime. Loads of families and groups of friends - could not see any non-Italians. But don't be put off - a few of the staff do English comfortably.
And excellent house wine at 13 Euros. Did I say 13 Euros? That could not possibly have swayed my recommendation...
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POTUS at the Funeral:
- The only Head of State wearing a blue bus conductor suit.
- Could not the 15 minute meeting with Zelensky have been conducted in private behind a column? I have been in the Basilica recently. It is big. There are plenty possibilities.
- Trump chauvinistically guiding Melania with his arm behind her back
- Trump chauvinistically Trumpsplaining something to Melania just before the dignitaries sit down.
- Trump's sitting posture, as standard for him. I assume he does it to stop shots of his gut. In any event, it looks as though he is taking a dump.
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Carney wins in Canada. A small ray of hope.
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Sketches from North London:
- My local Sainsbury's has spent three weeks re-fitting. There seems to be the same amount of shelf-space, but there is now an entry and exit gate, and what seems to be a permanent security guard presence. Plus at the automated tills you have a nice CCTV shot of your face. Management bods must have calculated that the investment is worthwhile to counteract the worst impacts of shoplifting.
- Regular readers may recall my story of witnessing a shoplifting raid in Boots, sleepy Belsize Park. So to Dartmouth Park, home of Ed Milliband and Attorney-General Richard Hermer, or more specifically to the enclave known as Swain's Lane on the edge of the lower reaches of Hampstead Heath. It has an acceptable pub, a couple of good cafes (I almost wrote 'nice' but that word with its associations is now verboten) and The London Shell Co, a delightful fish shop cum restaurant. And it hosted a knife attack one recent evening. Question: do you get a better quality of knife attacker in a more prestigious part of town?
- To counterbalance, without straying outside London you can find bluebells in the woods near Kenwood.
- And on the return from Kenwood there was this: a band playing on the roof of a convenience store on Highgate Road, the audience sitting on a grass bank on the other side of the road with traffic toiling up and down. The band helpfully had a banner, so we know that they are The Paisley Daze. Rudimentary research reveals that they are two brothers of Punjabi origin, born in UK, raised in Hong Kong, but now back in London.
They write and perform 'New Age Rockn'Roll, with an emphasis on getting people dancing. It worked on this gig. I could imagine an elf & safety junkie questioning the implications of the performance location. The performers sound like good guys, but I could also imagine them telling the elf & safety junkie to f off.
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The author is a writer, speaker, historian, occasional tour guide, and former Managing Partner of a City law firm.