The ear was pricked by news that the Duke of Edinburgh was in hospital. Her Majesty is being kept closely apprised. The Duke and Duchess of Cornwall are on the scene. (The Duke of York’s whereabouts is presently unreported.) The … Continue reading
… I was momentarily stirred to hear there were some handbags between Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer in one of parliament’s corridors after prime minister’s questions on Wednesday… According to some reports, the Labour leader was “puce” and “rattled”… I … Continue reading
In a dispute with the EU, AstraZeneca’s CEO insists their contract requires only “best reasonable efforts” to meet delivery schedules. Lawyers disagreed over the language of the E.U. contract, which was only partly made public.(Steven Erlanger and Matina Stevis-Gridneff, “E.U. … Continue reading
(c) 2020 JMN
There was a fun question in my daily Spanish Quora: ¿Existe en inglés el equivalente a “fulano, mengano y zutano”? The consensus in the answer thread was that “Tom, Dick and Harry” was the closest equivalent. I’m reminded of my … Continue reading
The Guardian reports a crisis fermenting in South Korea: cabbage for making kimchi has run short. Its link to the intrepid cowpoke fleshing street-level USA will not be obvious, but an old snatch from Finnegans Wake helps connect the dots: … Continue reading
I have a fictitious acquaintance with the Chichester locale via Sir Alistair Chichester of Chichesterton-upon-Hogg. There’ll always be a Britain in my fancies. (c) 2020 JMN
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Whenever I feel bad, I go to the library and read controversial periodicals. Though I do not know whether I am a liberal or a conservative, I am nevertheless enlivened by the hatred that one bears for the other. In … Continue reading
“Everyone agrees Tuesday’s debate was a train wreck. A major contributing factor was the moderator Chris Wallace repeatedly interrupting to try to help Joe Biden.” Texas U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R) (c) 2020 JMN
EthicalDative 
The ‘Open-(Ahem)’
The polite, socially acceptable name by which it’s currently known is the medlar. But for the best part of 900 years, the fruit was called the “open-arse” – thought to be a reference to the appearance of its own large … Continue reading →