There’s a famous title in American life: “Requiem for a Heavyweight.” I begin my column today with a requiem for a tea party — the movement for fiscal responsibility, adherence to the Constitution, etc. I also have notes on the Gaza war, the Republic of Georgia, Nicaragua, and more. (Bill Buckley once told me he was a “closet Georgist” — meaning an adherent of the political economist Henry George.) If this sounds up your alley, go here.
Yesterday, I had a London journal. If you are tired of London, said Dr. Johnson, you are tired of life. By the mail I received, readers are not tired.
I began my journal with a note or two on language: the difference between British English and ours. A reader writes,
Maybe their English is rubbing off here. Saturday, as I departed an airport parking shuttle in Austin, our driver — a very Texas guy — proclaimed, “Mind the gap.”
Holy moly. Is that legal?
Another reader writes,
I was stationed in London in the 1980s and lived there for five years. . . .
I started a British–American translation guide for new arrivals. Initially, it was maybe two pages long — four columns on each page. People heard about it, would review it, and would point out differences I was missing. By the time I left, the guide was nearly 15 pages, double-sided. I regret not taking a copy with me when I left.
Shoot. I’d like to see it.
A reader writes,
Thanks for the flowers [the pictures of]. Can imagine the scents. There are no gardens like English gardens (in the full British meaning of “garden”)!
Ah, true. To me, a “garden” is a place that has either flowers or vegetables. To them, it’s the yard, or lawn, at large.
Says a reader,
My late wife was amused by a sign she saw as she prepared to emerge from a restroom somewhere in England: “Now wash your hands.”
A fine admonition.
A reader writes,
Have you ever been to the Sir John Soane Museum? It’s one of those quirky, well-worth-a-visit places that London is full of — and that I wouldn’t have known about but for my British brother-in-law. If you haven’t been, then next time you’re in the city, put it on your list.
Cool. It’s on my list. (Soane was an architect who lived from 1753 to 1837).
In my journal, I had a picture of a pub that is meaningful to me. A reader writes,
I once heard a story that when Churchill paid tribute to the R.A.F. with his “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few,” a raffish pilot remarked, “Oh, he must be talkin’ ’bout our pub tabs.”
A reader whose last name is “Lawrence” writes that he visited the Chelsea Old Church — “where our tenth (I believe) great-grandfather is buried.” He says that he may well be related, distantly, to Jennifer Lawrence (the actress). “So, I have that ‘in’ to talk to her if I ever, for example, find myself sitting next to her on an airplane.”
Wouldn’t that be loverly?
Thank you to one and all.