10 Notable People Who Lived in Cheyne Walk, London

4 George Eliot the novelist spent the last three weeks of her life here

10 David Lloyd George the Welsh prime minister

12 Ralph Vaughan Williams the composer 1905-1928 who wrote symphonies there

13 Bertrand Russell the mathematician and philosopher in 1902

16 Dante Gabriel Rossetti the artist 1860-1882. There is a staute nearby.

21 James Mcneill Whistler the artist 1890–92. (He also lived in 72 (until his death there in 1903), 96 (1866–1878) and 101 (1863))

27 Bram Stoker the writer

93 Elizabeth Gaskell the novelist was born here

104 Hilaire Beloc the writer

119 J M W Turner the artist died here in 1851

(Also Thomas Caryle, I K Brunel, Sol Campbell, various members of The Rolling Stones, etc)

Day Off Week 41 2023

I seem to have missed making a report on my day off on October 3 and can't remember much of it now (althoough I think I bought Yarg and there was cheese blogging and the viewing of BBC documentaries on the Nazis). Anyway, on October 10 I was up early to take Eleri to work as she was not only out all day but had an evening meeting too. On the way back I grabbed a coffee and read my Bible, etc. There was a prayer meetng at 11 am - four of us gathered for a cuppa and a time of prayer. I was reading two art books during the day - one on Degas in the wonderful series I collect and another on Turner in Wales. I had forgotten he had painted Newport Castle. We had house guests so I spent a little time with them but they were out much of the day and soI went to Chipotle for lunch. I bought some ort Salut to reort on at my cheese blog. I also watched the BBC docudrama on Jimmy Savile, which proved to be surprisngy theological on the whole.

Ackroyd on Turner

Watching the recent film stimulated me to pull down the Peter Ackroyd biography on my shelf and read it. The book is cogent and the right length, always forming and never boring but with just enough analysis from time to time. As I thought, it has helped me appreciate the film a little more. The man was clearly a genius well ahead of his time. The only sad thing is his failure to move in his mind from the light that so much fascinated him to the od who is Light and who created what we see here on earth. I do not suggest for a moment, however, that it would necessarily have made him a better painter - just a  safer soul. This has whetted my appetite for a bit more Ackroyd - Blake, More, Poe, Dickens, Collins, Chatterton, Eliot, Pound, Chaucer, etc.

Great Artists with Tim Marlow

I have been catching up recently on Tim Marlow's series (now over 10 years old) on Great Artists. These are under half an hour introductions to various artists that I have been accessing by recording shows on Channel 5 in the middle of the night.
I have now seen

Series 1 - Giotto, Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Michelangelo, Raphael, Titian, Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

Series 2 - El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, Diego Velásquez, Rembrandt van Rijn, Johannes Vermeer, J M W Turner, ...

I'm not sure if I've seen the one on Vincent Van Gogh.

I believe there is another series - on Schiele, Cassatt, Rodin, Whistler, Delacroix, David, Goya, Stubbs,  Caravaggio, Holbein and Piero della Francesca.