After taking my usual handful of pills around four o’clock this morning – don’t ask me what they are, I have no idea – I consciously decided to succumb to the reputed soporific effect of one of them. By which I mean, I intended to linger in the virginal lair as long as the analgesic kept me there.  Specifically – and, admittedly, knowing that the weather was forecast to be cloudy – there would be none of the customary urgency to prepare myself for a cycle on the beach; or, as has lately been the inclination, a swim in the pool. Instead today would be a day of quiet repose and inactivity devoted to sipping coffee and continuing to read the History of England as seen through the learned and cultivated eyes of Thomas Babington Macaulay.

Continue reading →

There’s a most unusual sky
Not a sign of a cloud passing by
And if I want to sing, throw my heart in the ring
It’s a most unusual day

There are people meeting people
There is sunshine everywhere
There are people greeting people
And a feeling of Spring in the air

It’s a most unusual time
I keep feeling my temperature climb
If my heart won’t behave in the usual way
Well, there’s only one thing to say
It’s a most unusual, most unusual, most unusual day

Songwriters: Harold Adamson / Jimmy McHugh
It’s a Most Unusual Day lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Continue reading →

The Sea Pines Resort Harbour Town Pool is located just steps across Lighthouse Lane (on which our residence at Cutter Court is located) and adjacent the Club House of the golf course where the RBC Heritage Classic PGA tournament is held in early April.

Use of the Harbour Town Pool is complimentary for registered guests of The Sea Pines Resort with the Guest Amenity Card and Sea Pines property owners with a CSA ID card

The RBC Heritage, known for much of its history as the Heritage Classic or simply the Heritage, is a PGA Tour event in South Carolina, first played 53 years ago in 1969. It is currently played in mid-April, the week after The Masters in Augusta, Georgia.

The venue for its entire existence has been the Harbour Town Golf Links at the Sea Pines Resort on Hilton Head Island. The Harbour Town course, which frequently appears on several “Best Courses” lists, was designed by famed golf course architect Pete Dye, with assistance from Jack Nicklaus. In 1972, the first two rounds were played on both the Harbour Town Golf Links and the Ocean course at Sea Pines, with the final two rounds at Harbour Town.

Continue reading →

Few sentences have been quoted more often than the aphorism: “Justice must not only be done, but must also be seen to be done”. This dictum was laid down by Lord Hewart, the then Lord Chief Justice of England in the case of Rex v. Sussex Justices, [1924] 1 KB 256. This landmark ruling has been the basis of several decisions in administrative and other branches of law where even the appearance of something improper has been a ground to set aside an order of a court, tribunal or quasi-judicial authority

Lord Hewart was a remarkable English judge. He was born in not very affluent circumstances and had to initially work as a journalist before he joined the Bar in 1902, at the age of 32. But his rise in the profession was meteoric and he became King’s Counsel in just ten years (1912). Within the next four years became Solicitor General (1916) and Attorney General three years later. He was appointed as the Lord Chief Justice in 1922 and continued in office for 18 years. He resigned in October, 1940.

Continue reading →

Listening to the news is not what I would normally recommend as a good choice. Certainly it is informative; and, it is an important additive to other social communications.  But to dignify the shadowing as a handpicked decision with the imperative and paramountcy implied by the word choice I would not call a life-changing pursuit. Yet the recent insight on CNN into the senate examination of a presidential nominee to the Supreme Court of the United States has by coincidence critically drawn my attention to this fundamental hallmark of life – choice.

Continue reading →

In 1857, the SS Central America, also known as the “ship of gold”, sank off the coast of the US state of South Carolina, along with some new-found riches from the California Gold Rush.

It was a hurricane that sealed the fate for 425 people returning to the US east coast.

They went down with an estimated 21 tonnes of gold coins and nuggets from prospectors who had struck it rich on the west coast, but some passengers were also carrying something of more personal value – photographs.

Salvaged from the ship’s wreckage in 2014 were daguerreotypes, the first successful commercial form of photography – a one-off picture held on a metal plate – and ambrotypes, a type of glass plate photography.

Continue reading →

When at length and after irresolution I mustered the vigour to elevate myself from the chaise longue and conducted a mixture of waddle and shaky perambulation to the pool, clinging to the railing of the steps then submerging with relief into the cool water, I hadn’t anticipated meeting Mike Hyndman upon surfacing.  He was headed in my direction in the manner of a swimmer of lengths. We both paused in the narrow of the pool and shared the usual social niceties about the weather and the wind. Then he mentioned Montreal and I returned the volley with Ottawa.  We were off!

Continue reading →

Around midnight last night I was awoken by boisterous voices from the balcony of a nearby apartment. Initially I tolerated the late night chatter because it was Friday night and historically I am no one to complain about vacation excesses or uninhited clamour. Though I had retired to bed hours before it nonetheless disturbed me to have to endure their high spirits as deep into the night as two o’clock the following morning. Finally they exhasuted themselves and withdrew from their starry canopy. I slept deeply until 7:00 am this morning.

Continue reading →

The first time I drank a cup of cappuccino was one morning on the Italian riviera. I was about 17 years old. My sister and I were traveling with our parents on a summer excursion from Stockholm, Sweden where they resided at the time.  At the bright and airy bar adjacent the lobby in the hotel where we stayed the smartly outfitted steward served us our morning starter before we headed to the beach. The cubes of brown sugar completed the initiation.

Continue reading →

Breakfast today – a grey day with heavy rainfall – was at Lowcountry Produce Market and Café on nearby Lighthouse Road a short distance from our apartment at Cutter Court and Lighthouse Lane. We drove silently in the rain along the shaded wilting avenue, splashing through shiny black roadside puddles.

Continue reading →