Japanese Airports

Where would you rather be, in an interminable queue at Terminal 3, or at Haneda, Tokyo where despite the crowds, smiling girls help you with your luggage?

The Painted Hall, Greenwich

The Painted Hall at Greenwich - formerly in the Royal Naval College and now part of the National Maritime Museum - is such an impressive room; even more so than the Drapers' Hall It almost rivals the Palazzo Colonna in Rome. This was an RNLI dinner. Click here for some more photos

Favourite Places

No prizes for knowing where this is - but does anyone know of a finer setting for dinner/

Britain's Amazing Welfare System

A friend who hadn't worked for about twenty years and who was finding it hard to maintain herself recently applied for welfare. She now gets her housing paid for (she rents a modest room), plus £60 a week for food and necessaries. National Health Services - doctors, hospitals, medicines, dentists, glasses etc - are of course already free. Libraries, art galleries and museums are free. Tube and bus travel are free to over 60s. And one is allowed £15,000 of savings without affecting these benefits. Whatever anyone says about Britain, one has to be proud of the way its citizens are looked after when they get into difficulties.

Favourite Places - Novington Manor

A timeless scene - my parents at Novington Manor

Japan

Early morming chimes in a Japanese village. The chimes are played at 6.00, 12.00 and 17.00 each day. Click here to hear the evening chimes.

Favourite Paintings

Kei is working in the arts at the moment and has found some lovely watercolours. Click the heading for more.