K.N. Das Gupta and Margaret Mitchell in an Indian Dramatic Society production of The Maharani of Arakan, 1913?
Jean Ryckaert, May 1916.
Figure from Gauguin’s 1899 painting ‘Tahitian Women with Mango Blossoms’ (left); George Calderon’s pencil sketch ‘Manu’ (right)
Colonel Sir Walter Coote Hedley c. 1920
Book sent to George Calderon in Russia by his mother, Christmas 1895.
Christmas 1901 Cartoon by George Calderon
Frontis piece by Frank Calderon
Unpublished watercolour by George Calderon, Tahiti 1906
Sir Richard Vincent Sutton c. 1913
Monarch Butterfly Madeira
Captain of the 11
Michel and Vera Fokine in “Scheherazade”, 1914 (The Music And Theatre Library of Sweden, creative commons)
George Calderon, 1912
Basic form of the Calderon coat of arms
The entrance to Fort Brockhurst (picture from Britain’s Past)
A happy memory of Trinity College: undergraduates breakfast together in Downy V. Green, p. 77.
Patrick Miles in his summer house, 11 December 2016
George and Kittie Calderon 1905
George Calderon c.1901Recent Comments
- Jim D G Miles on From the diary of a writer-publisher: 28 Excellent entry, Dad. I like the escape room picture, of course, but the story about the Russian and the hole-in-the-wall is exceptional! (28/03/2024 at 9:58 PM)
- Patrick Miles on Short story: ‘Crox’ Thank you, dear anonymous Theo...it is so refreshing to hear the reaction of a Man of the People! Keep a good grip on those cords! 'Part II'?! The rest is secreted in lines (18/12/2023 at 10:33 PM)
- Theo on Short story: ‘Crox’ Delicious! "Are you being Served?" meets "Keeping up Appearances" via Calderotica. But Patrick, you cannot leave us dangling like that just before Christmas! One thing - c (18/12/2023 at 1:35 PM)
- Patrick Miles on Cambridge Tales 8: ‘Black Tie’ Thank you, Damian, for sharing your problem with us. It's difficult to know what to prescribe. Perhaps try examining the facts of the story (e.g. there are not 6 medics in the (20/11/2023 at 9:44 AM)
- Damian Grant on Cambridge Tales 8: ‘Black Tie’ Patrick: I read your story 'Black Tie' on Monday, and knew immediately that it didn't work for me. There was something forced, factitious; something that didn't let the elemen (17/11/2023 at 2:26 PM)
Category Archives: Uncategorized
The magnificent Mary Ann
Long-term followers of Calderonia will recall that I had always had a theory that the person who taught George to speak Russian credibly before he set out for St Petersburg in 1895 was a ‘Mrs Shapter’, but in my biography … Continue reading
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Tagged Alexander I, Andrew Jones, Anton Chekhov, biographies, biography, Camille Silvy, Clara Calderon, Constance Garnett, Evan Hodgson, Exeter, Francke family, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Glasgow Repertory Theatre, Harry Leeke Gibbs, Harvey Pitcher, John Hodgson, John Shapter, Kittie Calderon, Laurence Binyon, Manya Guseva, Mary Ann Shapter, Mary Gibbs Shapter, Michael Pursglove, Mrs Shapter, Museum of the Home, National Portrait Gallery, Nicholas I, Olga Novikoff, oracy, P.H. Calderon, Russia, Sally Jones, silver, sketchbooks, St John's Wood Clique, St Petersburg, The Seagull, The Smiths of Moscow, theatre, Thomas Shapter, toddy ladle, Whishaw family, Yeames family
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Cambridge Tales 7: ‘The Folding Party’
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Tagged Bedroom, Blue Pagoda, Cambridge, Cambridge Tales, Carcanet, Chris Hardie, Friedrich Hölderlin, G.W.F. Hegel, Gitanes, haiku, Helios, John Milton, Julian Slawianski, Karl Marx, Leonard Cohen, parties, Pink Floyd, poetry, poetry magazines, River Cam, students, suicide, Tintagel, undergraduates
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Guest post by Harvey Pitcher: Melikhovo 2004
This recollection goes back almost twenty years, but it does not seem that long ago. As I grow older, time does not slow down, as one might expect, but races away at an alarming rate. Chekhov had died in 1904 … Continue reading
Short story (concluded): ‘My First Communist’
In the Easter holidays Peter went on a skiing trip to Switzerland organised by the headmaster. I could have gone myself, but my parents didn’t have the money. Privately, I was intrigued that the Freres could afford it either, but … Continue reading
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Tagged A.E.U., Body Odour, Brighton, Christianity, Communism, demonstrations, G.C.E., Helen Minter, N.U.M., Russian language, skiing, Switzerland, tortoises, Utopia, Utopianism, zoology
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‘Chekhov’s Gun’ (To be continued)
Sam2 has persuaded me to make four short videos about my recently published short biography of Chekhov and my ra-ther longer 2018 biography of George Calderon. I am completely new to the genre, therefore you should not expect a slick … Continue reading
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Tagged Anton Chekhov, Anton Chekhov: A Short Life, biographies, biography, Chekhov's Gun, comments, dramatic principles, George Calderon, George Calderon: Edwardian Genius, Ivanov, Moscow Art Theatre, Moscow Arts, Sam2, The Seagull, videos, Vladimir Ivanovich Nemirovich-Danchenko, Wikipedia
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A writer-publisher’s Ukrainian diary: 3
11 April 2022 Whilst coming back from the shop with today’s newspaper, I could see a neighbour on the other side of the street who was born at the gates of Mauthausen concentration camp six days before it was liberated … Continue reading
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Tagged 'The Steppe', Anton Chekhov, appeasement, Bellingcat, Bletchley, Cambridge, Crimea, Czechoslovakia, Dnipro, Donbas, Donetsk, FSB, KGB, Mauthausen, Max Hastings, morale, NATO, Nazi Germany, Polonia, Russia, Sergei Beseda, Simferopol, steppeland, tank battles, The Times, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky, Yalta, Yasinovataya, Zhdanov
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Only one subject…
For the West, the most shameful part of the Ukrainian War is that if we had stood by the assurances of security that we gave Ukraine in the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 after negotiating the transfer of its nuclear arsenal to … Continue reading
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Tagged Adolf Hitler, Afghan War, Aleksandr Lukashenko, Belorussia, Brest, Budapest Memorandum, Crimean War, Donbas, International Court of Justice, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Kaliningrad, Luhansk, Mariupol, NATO, Nikita Khrushchev, paranoia, Russia, Russo-Japanese War, Stalin, Sudetenland, The Crimea, threats, Ukraine, Ukrainian SSR, Vladimir Putin, Volodomyr Zelensky, vranë, war criminals
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Cambridge Tales 4: ‘Sleep and Death’
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Tagged 'Sleep and Death', À la recherche du temps perdu, Aligoté, Apollo, Cambridge Tales, cats, Chablis, college life, Dante, death, Don Quixote, Frances Cornford, J.S. Bach, Marcel Proust, May Week, Meursault, paradise, Pimms, Plato, Professor of French, Professor of Italian, Professor of Spanish, professors, Rupert Brooke, Sancho Panza, wine
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Cambridge Tales 2: ‘His Letter’
He had had the honour of presiding at dessert, where he always drank the accepted minimum. He had entertained some of the guests with his account of the council estate on which he had grown up, and his bedder’s perennial … Continue reading
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Tagged 'His Letter', Alan Cook, Cambridge Tales, college life, college servants, guest hours, sex, short story, students, The Fellowship, The Master, undergraduates
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Cambridge Tales 1: ‘Ghoune’
It was a dark, diluvial, owl-infested night. Despite the glass of Aquavit that he had downed at two in the morning after filling out, checking and re-checking his mark sheets, he tossed and turned in his bed. There was nothing … Continue reading
Guest post by Alison Miles: Some geographical aspects of a visit to Japan in 2013
I visited Japan in autumn 2013 and my main reason was to see Jim, who lived there for several years. It was about six months after I retired so a wonderful opportunity to take a long-haul flight (my first ever) … Continue reading
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Tagged Alison Miles, Asakusa, bullet train, Burgess Model, cities, earthquake management, earthquakes, geography, Gion, Hakone, Hoyt Model, Japan, Kaetsu Educational and Cultural Centre, Kyoto, Lake Ashi, Mount Fuji, Nara, Okumura Corporation Commemorative Museum, Owakudani Valley, Pacific Ring of Fire, seismicity, Shinkansen, Tohoku earthquake, Tokyo, tourism, town planning, Toyohashi, trains, urban models, urban structures, volcanicity, volcanoes
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‘Another culture’ (A series of seven posts)
Sam2, aka our son James Miles, worked in Japan as a teacher from 2011 to 2014 (his first job when he got back to England was to set up Calderonia!). My wife Alison visited Jim in Japan in 2013. Jim … Continue reading
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Tagged Alison Miles, Blithe Spirit, Calderonia, chrysanthemums, comments, culture, foreign cultures, guest posts, haiku, honesty pods, HQ Poetry Magazine, James Miles, Japan, Japanese literature, koi carp, Masaoka Shiki, Pleiades, saké, Sam2, senryu, sushi, tea, wasabi
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Guest post by John Pym: One of my first Communists
Patrick Miles named me the dedicatee of his story My First Communist published here in two parts in the spring, so let me return the compliment with this ‘sketch from memory’ of the redoubtable Yvonne Kapp – one of my own … Continue reading →