The latest on the potential closure of Leila’s:-

It needs as many people as possible from Tower Hamlets to sign the petition (see below).

The new rent has been set based on the rents in Redchurch Street.  But Redchurch Street is different from Calvert Avenue.  Calvert Avenue has a community feel to it.

The council should not be punishing success.  Leila has helped the regeneration of Arnold Circus and the surrounding neighbourhood.  The Council should – at the very least – look at a strategy for Calvert Avenue, given its importance to the area, not farm it out to a rackrenting agency.

Actually, they should consult Leila about the strategy.

https://share.google/pRXno6aIuKoJoVJpS

I went to see the exhibition celebrating 25 years of the Royal Drawing School, which is vastly much easier to appreciate in Charlotte Road than St. James’s Palace: an interesting mix of artists from recent graduates to David Hockney, with their thoughts on drawing and its importance.

It’s well worth seeing.

Also, the new corporate identity designed – beautifully – by Harry Pearce and Romilly Winter of Pentagram, with a specially designed typeface:-

I have been encouraged by Rupert Thomas, the Director of Dennis Severs’ House in Folgate Street, to post information about their Summer Fund-raising Party.

I know from experience that it is easy to let the years roll by without visiting it because you have to book. But now is your chance. All it requires is to become a Friend or make a donation. I always love going.

If you want to know more about the virtues and distinctiveness of Leila’s Shop, I recommend the attached article by Emily King:-

https://share.google/l3bDvQX1QTyDOKaco

I have just been sent the petition to save Leila’s Shop.

I have loved Leila’s over a long period of time, but especially during and since COVID, when I properly discovered the pleasures of her shop: her cheese which comes from Neal’s Yard; her bread from E5; her apples which she sources herself; her deep knowledge of the food she serves and where it comes from.

There is a strong sense that she is at the heart of the local community and Tower Hamlets should be putting a preservation order on her, not evicting her.

Please sign.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeKxXvMWf74d7Yg2I7tQ3AxWnW-RJGHzZSX_oR41H1bdbOTlw/viewform?fbclid=PAQ0xDSwLOjlBleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABp7k3VVCz3LIyTcENUpbM9hT2Nfy5l9g1fWM5Sx8W-F749YdtqezKk4LD4Mvw_aem_S8Uwocq5r4Jvj0gyMsNleg

You may be wondering what is happening about my book, John Vanbrugh: The Drama of Architecture.

The truth is that I have been a bit superstitious about saying too much about it until it was all ready, done and dusted and off to the printer in Bosnia.

It will be published by Lund Humphries on Thursday 20th. November with a lunchtime talk at the Wigmore Hall, thanks to John Gilhooly and his team.

I hope that as many as possible of you will come. Booking opened yesterday (https://www.wigmore-hall.org.uk/whats-on/202511201200).

Yesterday was a very full-on day with Romilly getting her OBE from the Princess Royal at Buckingham Palace.

Here she is with Aneta in the courtyard afterwards:-

Then lunch at the Arlington and the Queen of Spades at Garsington.

It was a big day !

Last night was an event to celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary of the Royal Drawing School.  25 artists had been asked to contribute work, including the King and Rufus Wainwright who performed Hallelujah on the piano.  It was hard to get a chance to see the work, but it will be shown at the Royal Drawing School in Charlotte Road from next Tuesday and is commemorated in a beautifully produced large book, designed by Pentagram.  It shows the work, together with quotations about the importance of drawing.

I particularly like the comment by Tim Burton:-

Drawings are like an abstract diary for me…a time, a place, a feeling.  Nothing literal, but a memory.

https://royaldrawingschool.org/events/25

I always love visiting Boughton – the sense of a French château lost in the Northamptonshire countryside; but I have never previously had the Duke’s tour which made sense of the complex history of the Montagus.

Sir Edward Montagu acquired the estate in 1528.

The 3rd. Sir Edward Montagu was made a peer in 1528.

After the Restoration, Ralph Montagu becomes Ambassador in Paris, develops Francophile tastes and builds Boughton – architect unknown – in the 1680s.  He became a Duke in 1705:-

John Montagu, the second Duke, was more of an aesthete, ‘a most amiable man’ according to Horace Walpole.

This is the north front attached to and wrapped around the Tudor hall:-

The inside full of wonderful things:-

And then we had a brisk walk round the gardens:-

Schubert’s Piano Sonata in A Minor played fortissimo by Elisabeth Leonskaja on the top floor of the Ragged School Museum last night must rank as one of the more memorable musical experiences. She is nearly 80, trained in Russia, plays Schubert in a way that does not feel Schubertian, but with such power and intensity of feeling. It didn’t seem to matter at all that there was another concert going on in the park next door because everyone was rapt. Not to mention Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy playing together and a performance of the Piano Trio in B flat major with Elisabeth Leonskaja on the piano. Quite an evening.