Everything's connected.  It just takes a little time to see it.  And explain it, of course, but since the Lambda Literary Society is having its luncheon today, as you might imagine I can't possibly go into detail right now.  Plus I know how you feel about very long posts and so I'm afraid in this case you will simply have to be content with the installment plan, as it were.

Where I'd like to begin is with Noel Coward, (who wouldn't?), but although Noel was in the wings, urging me on, what happened last night had a great deal more to do with a phone call from Eduardo, who is currently deep into the revision process of his latest book, and as I happen to be not at that stage in my own writing it was clearly my turn to be supportive and encouraging which I was more than happy to do, at the same time leafing through whatever was readily at hand as one also does in these circumstances.  In this instance what presented itself was the 1968 National Trust publication on Petworth House, home of the Percy-Wyndhams conveyed to the Trust in 1947 by the 3rd Lord Leconfield.   Normally, of course, Eduardo and I might have been on adjoining treadmills or stairmasters for a good thirty minutes worth of sweaty repartee but alas, one more time a scheduling conflict precluded an enjoyable working-out together, possibly with Fox Sports or CNN with clumsy closed-captioning playing overhead, alas.
 
And so instead, phone to ear and while interjecting the occasional insight into the writing process and in general commiserating about the untold discomfort involved, I read:

"The exterior of the late seventeenth-century house remained little altered until 1869-72 when Salvin replanned and rebuilt the south front with marked success and also, less successfully arranged a new entrance on the east front..."

at which point I recalled something James Lees-Milne had observed about the east front of this important stately home, which reminded me of something Barbara Skelton had said in her memoirs to which, as you will recall, I referred the other day and in the next moment even while offering my friend some fairly valuable advice I was rifling the shelves looking for ...

To be continued.