Tat London Journal

By God, she’s done it again. Blue Firth, long-time contributor to Tat London, has a knack for bringing to the surface things that should be so firmly under my nose that I always feel faintly embarrassed not to have known them already, and yet entirely grateful for the introduction. After her essential primer on the work of Lucinda Lambton, she has now made the imperative connection to one of the greatest television presenters of all time, Jonathan Meades.

The signs were there early on. Ian had what might be called the collector gene: first revealed in childhood through an earnest hoard of Corgi and Dinky cars, and later through a formidable vinyl collection shaped by curiosity rather than algorithms. In the days before Spotify, his listening spanned rock, jazz and classical, eventually leading him to opera, a passion he learned to savour during formative years spent in Venice, Florence and Bologna.

I have heard from two very in the know sources that the rich are out of here. Gone. Absconded behind a pair of sunglasses and a chrome suitcase marketed as being able to withstand both the Galápagos and the Arctic, though in reality it is only ever wheeled between Dubai, the South of France and Positano. These sources, an interior designer and a very costly night nurse, told me that their clients are fleeing Britain for kinder tax havens, Monaco chief among them.

The death of publishing has been a protracted subject. Every year a fresh set of doomsayers appears in online columns to announce that soon we will abandon anything printed on a weekly or monthly basis, or anything that does not live entirely on the internet. It has long been a bugbear of mine. As I have admitted before, I am a luddite and proud of it. You have to be made of rather dense material these days not to feel sceptical about the motives of the tech world. One of tho

'Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water; after enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.’  So said the great Taoist thinker Lao Tzu.  I don’t know where I sit on the enlightenment scale, but I have taken his advice and recently found myself chopping a lot of wood.

There has been a rise in chatter about London of late. It seems to have become one of the world’s cesspits — at least, that’s how it’s spoken of. The far right in particular seem to hold a special disdain for the city, convinced that to take any joy in the capital is to somehow endorse the melting pot that it undoubtedly is. I’ve lived here for most of my life, walking more or less the same six-mile radius the entire time. Adventurous? No. But you can take from that a certain

I first met the word “Millennial” on the front of a weekend paper, attached to a tirade about millennial pink. It was hitchhiking on a piece about millennial pink. The very small and secret Tat site wore that exact shade, which tells you everything about zeitgeists. After that, I could not open a paper or a magazine without another indictment of the Millennial generation - Lazy. Naïve. Obsessed with Avocado toast. No work ethic. Too woke. All such tosh to help enrage almost e

Penpont, the family run estate, set on the banks of the River Usk in the heart of the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park, has that tantalising, electric feel.  The estate has been in the family since 1665 and there is a far-reaching sense of hundreds of years of history blended with the youthful energy and dynamism that the current custodians, Gavin and Vina Hogg and their sons Forrest and Josh, are bringing.