a gift from abroad

01/20/09 09:13

Reading foreign publications not only broadens your perspectives, it extends your holidays. (If you still prefer paper.) Last night I finished the Christmas issue of the London Spectator. I subscribed for about two decades, until the cost became too high. It had gone online, and I told myself I could read it there. I never do.

So for the holidays I splurged and bought the special double issue at Bob's News. I started in the back - old habits die hard - with the sports columnist, who hailed 2008 as "one of the best years ever." And he didn't even mention the Super Bowl - or the Phillies winning the World Series. Though I was happy to see that he gave Andy Murray the Robbie Fowler award for attention-seeking celebration for flexing his muscle at Wimbledon.

In the competition you were "invited to submit a carol titled The Last Noel." Celeste Francis wrote: "On the last Noel, when the white snow fell,/All snowmen were banned in a non-racist stand."

The High Life and Low Life columns were joined by Wild Life, Real Life, and Slow Life, which, appropriately, extolled the joys of jigsaw puzzles and pantomime.

I read an appreciation of the Mexican photographer Manuel Alvarez Bravo, a review of a biography of Coco Chanel, a gallery of cartoons by Michael Heath ("I'm afraid Uncle George couldn't make it - no, that's not quite true, we've just eaten him."), Beryl Bainbridge's odd assessment that time "flies when one is young and drags when old."

Paul Johnson remembered the days when you showed respect to bankers and Matthew Parris argued that English journalism is better today than ever. (He didn't say if it was healthier.) Elizabeth Hurley wrote of her "four labradors, two cats, three geese, eight chickens, 49 cows, 63 sheep and 82 pigs" and said that her former beau, "the best ex anyone could ever have: my gorgeous, my angelic, my long-suffering Hugh" had contributed "a dovecote, a hen house and a goose house" for the winged creatures.

Tom Stacey suggested that we need "the occasional war or economic collapse" and Barry Humphries mused that San Franciscans see their homeless as lending "their city its special identity, like flower children of the Sixties." (Though it would have been more interesting if he'd asked the homeless if they agree with Stacey.)

Ten people were invited to give reasons for cheerfulness. Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, mentioned bicycles for hire and bacon sandwiches. Michael Grove, MP, said "Malbec Pinot Noir, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon. Cheddar, Stilton, Shropshire Blue and Red Leicester. ... iTunes, iPods, iBooks, and Apple Macs." Three people - including Joan Collins and the Leader of the House of Lords - noted Obama.

I'm off to an inauguration party. Hope I prolonged your holidays.

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5 comments

Comment from: Eva [Visitor]
Eva

I had the fun of sifting through a few decades of back issues at the British Library a couple of years ago! (My excuse? Graduate research.) I don’t usually agree with its politics, but somehow the Spectator still delights me pretty well without fail.

01/20/09 @ 23:39
Comment from: [Member]
Thomas Swick

Eva,
I agree with you about the Speccie. I started reading it at the British Institute in Warsaw, when Timothy Garton Ash was their Eastern European correspondent and was writing everybody esle under the table. I loved that they paired their High Life column with one on Low Life, then written by the wonderful Jeffrey Bernard, who once wrote, as only a Low Life columnist could: “I wish the police would block off memory lane.”

01/21/09 @ 08:49
Comment from: voyance gratuite [Visitor]
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