They were sailing only frisbees on Horse Guards Parade, on the occasion of a friend's sketching of the Admiralty for this eventual watercolour. An inherently suspicious youth, on grounds of blondness and solitude alone, he was squinting at this 20th Century extension of Cockerell's seat for the Royal Navy, carefully recording the penetrations of its façade in his sketchbook. Such behaviour must and did swiftly draw the zealous attention of MI-5, at the rate of approximately one agent per window - or so it then seemed, given their encirclement.
Accosted to explain himself, he confessed on the spot to Americanness, that trusty exculpation of many an awkward presence, and was restored to the whimsical mercies of flying discs, thence to pursue this study in riotous red. Even the faux Baroque of neo-Queen Anne is better than no Baroque at all; and I have valued this picture enormously, ever since breaking the code of his Facebook page over an al fresco lunch with a good Spätlese riesling one midsummer day. I have no permission whatever to post this recollection, but even worse, no riesling.
Watercolour James Adam Reinhard, 2003
just found your blog - looks wonderful - on the run right now so i'll be back later for a good browse, best, nick
ReplyDeleteI'm so grateful to you for visiting, and for 'nicking' this particular entry on your way. I just liked it, myself, for some reason, and always thought it warranted a notch of some kind. I sometimes wish one's blog could be like a table in one's college pub or the ceiling at "21" (a place for gouging if ever there were one), a kind of tablet for its readers, too.
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