A Man Of Many Parts (just look in the instructions!)

I had a pretty significant birthday yesterday. One of those ones that really changes your bracket on a survey. In response to this, I am pleased to report being showered with gifts that are both flattering - and indicate that when you hang around for long enough, a few people are going to get to know you pretty well.

The prezzies paint a picture of a guy who admires the ideal of the renaissance man, and hopes to meet him one day and buy him a drink.

(I can’t pretend that Emergency Contact hasn’t played a large part in any of this, but go with me on the story.)

I have been given art.

A manipulated found object by Nicholas Jones, whose specialty is sculpting, using books as the base material. That one doesn’t go in the pool room. That’s on a feature wall in the East Wing.

I have been given an antique copperplate map of Europe, with notation that puts it before the unification of Germany (Prussia, bold as brass right there on the landscape) and a delightfully hazy idea of where the best place to stick Turkey is. Not for the pool room either. I think perhaps above the fireplace in the Drawing Room.

Two quarto books with pages at about 400gsm of Dante’s Inferno and Pergatorio, with opposite page reproductions of Blake for the Inferno and Dali for the Pergatorio. They are so not going in the pool room. In fact for the remainder of this financial year, I will have them on the display table in the library… maybe the conservatory.

And Lego. Yep, a 1,000 piece Lego set and that, my friends, is going in the pool room.

I am an uncompromising blend of brows. I like to work in both high and low.