'Tis the season to be jolly!

The happy chatter of children’s voices.

Where does that happen then? Where precisely can you hear this “happy chatter” as opposed to the raucous shouting which punctuated the afternoon as I attempted to read “A Lust for Window Sills” a lover’s guide to British buildings from portcullis to pebble-dash by Harry Mount published by Little, Brown ISBN 978 1 4087 0900 7.

Admittedly some of those children were almost three or four feet apart so anything less than a yell would be incapable of penetrating the sticky air of a beach open to the sea. Furthermore, as if by a malicious twist of municipal fate one of those open weave wigwam rope climbing frames has been plonked not far from our back wall. This acts as a positive encouragement to the neophyte humans to leap about vertically and horizontally emitting high pitched whoops of noisy triumph as they move from level to level.

The devilish construction of these contraptions seems purpose built to obviate the only hope of the aspiring reader in the vicinity that as these creatures scuttle higher and higher they will be claimed by Newtonian physics and be dashed to silence on their plummet to earth. It never happens. Cursed be the political correctness that employs three-dimensional geometry to preserve the lusty vocal chords of these obstreperous pests!

The book, however, did manage to draw me in, in spite of the cacophony on the fringes of my irritation.

The book is written in 31 fairly short chapters with some desperately unfunny chapter headings like ‘1666 and All That – Professor Dr Sir Christopher Wren Arrives’ and ‘Strawberry Hill For Ever – An Eighteenth Century Gothick Romance’ or a studied popularism like ‘The Brideshead Revisited School of Baroque Architecture’ and ‘The Empire Strikes Back – India Comes to Gloucestershire.’ These chapter headings give you a flavour of the book: it tries to wear its learning lightly but it merely comes over as crass.

To be fair Harry Mount encourages his readers in the introduction to dip into the book, “this book is a dipper not a read-straight-througher” – though I read it from beginning to end because it is, quite frankly presented in a narrative form. Mount has constructed the book to include anecdotes and autobiographical snippets and facts and (dreadful) black and white illustrations a style which he hopes will be “like being shown round Edwardian public baths in Harrogate by Alan Bennett.” It isn’t. He lacks Bennett’s seemingly unforced easy wit and perception, he is much more like an over earnest pally teacher trying to make a hard subject palatable.

I did enjoy part of this book and I treasure some of the facts that Mount gives. How have I gone through my life with not knowing that in battlements or crenulations the gap is called a ‘crenel’ and the blocks of stone on either side are know as ‘merlons’?

Mount also makes a telling comment that, “It isn’t surprising that the country that has stayed richer longer than any other in history has a greater variety of architecture than anywhere else.” And the equally telling pendent, “But we refuse to acknowledge it.”

This is a book whose impulse, to popularise the appreciation of architecture on a day to day basis, is laudable – but I don’t think that this is necessarily the book to do it. It’s worth a look, even if it isn’t worth a purchase. I should add that my copy of the book in the publisher’s information states, ‘First published in Great Britain in 2008 by Little, Brown. Reprinted 2008 (twice)’ so what do I know about popularity!

I have had my faith in the Tabac shattered as they did not come up with the goods as far as the replacement of my little white bulb for the Christmas tree lights.

I was met with blank incomprehension with just a tinge of contempt about my presumption in asking for a bulb in the first place. The supermarket was a little more accommodating in so far as I was vouchsafed a dismissive wave of the hand from an assistant and a blank denial of possession from another. No suggestion that I might try anywhere else to obtain a bulb – which is par for the course. Nevertheless I will persist. This bulb is exactly the sort of thing that you would be able to find in Woolworths.

I never thought that I would speak nostalgically about a store like Woolworths, but there again when I was a kid I don’t think that I would ever have thought that a store like Woolworth could ever go bust. When I was younger the Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton was regarded as the Holy Grail for anyone wanting to marry for money!

How times change!