It’s been quiet on the blog front in recent weeks. Preoccupied with the summer holidays and a whole bunch of other highly pleasurable activities, I just haven’t had time or inclination to settle down to serious writing – or even to frivolous and facetious jotting. If I sound intolerably smug to any reader who has spent the summer overworking, juggling child care and trying to scrape enough cash together for a family trip to somewhere warm – well, please bear in mind that I did all of that too, for nearly 40 years until my retirement.

While there’s been a conspicuous absence of posting on my blog, my tendency to accumulate random treasure has continued unabated. For example, while I was on holiday in Rhode Island, USA, I checked the catalogue of my local auctioneer in Edinburgh and found that he was selling in seven lots a large collection of…