In their wisdom the Department of Homeland Security have recently made it very clear that from now on air travelers must make every effort to insure that the name on their tickets and boarding passes must be exactly the same as they appear in your passport. No doubt this is prudent, but it is also fraught with difficulties. The names in my passport, my names, are (in the right order) Angus Alexander Geoffrey Trumble. The name on my ticket and boarding pass is usually Angus Trumble, occasiona... Read Full Story

Although I travel to London often, this week I realized that I cannot ever have been there in the first week of November—otherwise I am sure I would have noticed the poppies. Huge numbers of people are just now wearing a red poppy in their buttonhole. The custom is not new; it is a gesture to commemorate all the men and women who have died on the field of battle, originally of course in Flanders. More specifically it signifies that the wearer has given a donation to the Royal British Legion ... Read Full Story

Calm motions are essential for the smooth running of a vice-regal establishment, and in this respect Norman was a model aide-de-camp, self-contained, efficient, and apparently unflappable. Even so, the events of the morning that culminated thus far in his interview with Lady Sutherland gave to Norman a sharp burst of forward propulsion. Had one of the footmen seen Norman emerge from Lady Sutherland’s sitting room on the east front of Government House, descend the stairs, cross the hall, dar... Read Full Story

“Come in, Norman.” “Yes, Lady Sutherland.” “Sit down.” “Thank you, Lady Sutherland.” “I gather Foster has found something disagreeable in the motor car.” “Yes, Lady Sutherland.” “A torso, George said. Headless.” “Yes, Lady Sutherland.” “You’re quite sure it is headless?” “Quite, Lady Sutherland.” “Limbs?” “I beg your pardon, Lady Sutherland?” Although dependable and thorough, Norman was at times slow. “Does it have limbs, Norman?” “No, Lady Sutherland.” “How provoking.” “Lady Sutherland?” “A... Read Full Story

Those who say that President Barack Obama’s standing in the world has been damaged by the decision of the International Olympic Committee to eliminate Chicago, Illinois, at the earliest opportunity and to award the games of the XXXI Olympiad of the modern era to Rio de Janeiro would do well to look a little closer at the composition of that unsavory organization.No fewer than twenty members of the I.O.C., between a fifth and a sixth of the entire membership, were not long ago found to have a... Read Full Story

Air travel has been intolerable for years, but this morning the process sank to new depths. Since 9/11 I have navigated security and boarded innumerable aircraft all over the world, but never before have I had my tube of toothpaste confiscated. I suppose I had no choice but to submit to this impertinence today in Montréal, Québec, but the grounds upon which my toothpaste tube was impounded were not that it might conceivably contain plastic explosives—or any other contraband—but simply that i... Read Full Story

My malapropism collection is expanding. To (a) “one foul swoop”—or, I suppose, “one fowl swoop”—(b) “pet noire,” and (c) “it never seems to amaze me,” I can now add “I wish I’d been a flower on the wall,” and my favorite (in connection with something that the utterer really did not like one little bit): “It really sticks in my groin.” The trouble is, I hear them continually but rarely remember to copy them down at once. All of these have Australian provenance, and in the cases of (a) and (b)... Read Full Story

This week I did what I should have done years and years ago—I got rid of the television. The cable man is coming today to disconnect me, and pick up the little black box. It is not simply that among the dozens, even hundreds of channels to which one has access in return for monthly payments of ridiculous sums of money there is nothing at all to watch except rubbish, hysteria, and advertisements. Rather it is, above all, the disgusting feeding frenzy that has unfolded here in New Haven since a... Read Full Story

The snag with checking a large manuscript is that although you get better at it as you go along, you also start to get rather weary. I think you can see this also in the quality of the writing—and that’s an excellent argument for writing out of sequence, if you can manage or organize it that way. In this case I did, more a result of happenstance than of careful planning, and therefore at least in theory only I definitely know which sections came in those last few months of crazy slog, and wh... Read Full Story

Morning tea, again. I am beginning to piece together tiny flecks of detail about my meticulous purple critic and companion. He or she—the gender is unclear at this stage—turns out to be Scottish, alert to the misuse of the word England where Britain should more properly stand. Actually, it’s not always the case that this was an egregious error on my part, unlike that confusion over the sting versus the bite of an ant. Because sometimes I really did mean England, notwithstanding the Act of Un... Read Full Story