Bitter Lemons: A Good Read

A good read.

The position of the acropolis is admirably chosen, standing as it does above the road at the very point where it turns inland from the sea. Priest and soldier alike would be satisfied by it. From the summit the eye can travel along the kindlier green of a coast tricked out in vineyards and fading away towards the Cape of Cats and Curium. 

 - Lawrence Durrell, Bitter Lemons

The Durrells: Third Season

A romantic moment between Louisa and Spiro.

ITV has begun promoting Season 3 of The Durrells. The broadcast date is not yet announced but on form its six episodes will start in late April, early May 2018 in Britain and autumn 2018 in America.

Intriguingly the link says ‘The Durrells writer Simon Nye has promised “some exotic new animals” in the upcoming third season, which will be set in 1937’.  But the Durrell family continued to live in Corfu throughout 1938 and well into 1939, so does this mean we can expect a fourth series and maybe even a fifth?

Mary Magdalene: Her Story Will Be Told

The film Mary Magdalene will be released in March this year, the advance poster announcing that 'Her story will be told'.  It is one of the great stories and I will be interested to see how it is told in the film.

Meanwhile I have told her story in my book The Quest for Mary Magdalene.

Here is the official trailer for the film.

And here is a review of my book in The Times.

The Quest for Mary Magdalene is published by Profile Books.

Life After Corfu: Whatever Happened to Margo?

Whatever Happened to Margo?, Margo Durrell's account of her life in Bournemouth after Corfu, will be published by Penguin on 26 April 2018.

Penguin blurb:

In 1947, returning to the UK with two young children to support, Margaret Durrell starts a boarding house in Bournemouth. But any hopes of respectability are dashed as the tenants reveal themselves to be a host of eccentrics: from a painter of nudes to a pair of glamorous young nurses whose late-night shifts combined with an ever-revolving roster of gentleman callers leading to a neighbourhood rumour that Margo is running a brothel. Margo's own two sons, Gerry and Nicholas, prove to be every bit as mischievous as their famous Uncle Gerald - and he himself returns periodically with weird and wonderful animals, from marmosets to monkeys, that are quite unsuitable for life in a Bournemouth garden.

Orthodox Christmas 2018

Coptic worshippers at Orthodox Christmas midnight mass last night
at the Cathedral of Christ's Nativity east of Cairo.

Last night the Orthodox Church round the world, in Greece, in Russia, Ethiopia, Egypt and elsewhere celebrated midnight mass on the eve of Christmas Day 7 January 2018.

New Year's Eve Along the Jurassic Coast

New Year's Eve 2017 at Sidmouth along England's Jurassic Coast.