Travel has become for me an occasion to buy The Spectator, for it entertains in a way American magazines don’t (or, perhaps because of political correctness, can’t) and it costs a whopping $7.20. Bob’s News was out of copies when I left for Seattle, but I was saved on that long, trans-continental flight by an interesting seatmate who had been a professor of Russian literature.
In Portland I found the April 21st issue, which I read on the flight home from Philadelphia. It contained a review of The End of the French Intellectual, in which I learned the word declinologie, and this sentence from Stephen Bayley’s review of The Space Barons: “It’s estimated that the last launch of Elon Musk’s Space-X resulted in a 560-mile-wide hole torn in the ionosphere, compromising local GPS signals and exposing us to deadly death rays from outer space – and further exposure to Elon’s lethal grin.”
Charles Moore, in “The Spectator’s Notes,” recalled Barbara Bush’s visit to 10 Downing Street as First Lady. On her arrival, Denis Thatcher kissed her hand. On her departure, she kissed his.
