'Nother Solent

That dry cleaning case.

Letter-writers to the Sacramento Bee don't think much of Rose Fua's and the State of California's heartless and opportunistic decision to prosecute either.

Incidentally, I had never heard of Gray Davis eighteen months ago. But now I see without surprise that he's involved in this murky business too.

Dave Farrell

writes:

The response by the noble nations of the UN to the massacres in the DRC would be laughable if it were not having bloodily grim results. The French have cobbled together not much more than a token force (a few thousand) and Kofi Annan is begging for substantial contributions for a follow-up force in, wait for it .. September. That's three months away. Yoy can get through an awful lot of genocide in three months if you're absolutely set on it.

Why does anyone think the UN is the answer to ANYTHING seriously wrong with the world? It is an impotent captive of demagogues who want to strut their hour upon the world stage.

It will be no satisfaction to me when the French find themselves in the middle of a war they cannot win, not without causing unacceptable casualties and being bogged down in the jungles of the DRC for a very long time. Firm intervention would require something like 30,000 well-armed, fully equipped troops. That corner of the DRC is a hostage to both ethnic factions and neighbours with territorial designs and plenty of greed.

Lord, the world has taken a turn for the horrible these last few days. I haven't even covered Burma or Zimbabwe.

Joseph Katzman writes about the Congo, giving brief case histories of why similar interventions succeeded or failed, not neglecting the fact that the US (and British) armies are overstretched, but concluding that a determined and sufficient force could turn the tide. Only it probably won't. He concludes:

I sense another turning point [in attitudes] on the way - but something tells me this one will owe more to the aftermath of tragedy than the afterglow of triumph.

I am not, in fact, that much of an interventionist. Intervention frequently breeds arrogance in those acting and resentment among those acted upon. It is often harder than we admit to simply tell who, if anyone, is in the right when dealing with an alien culture. But we're talking genocide here.

Environmental laws are there to help us all.

I discovered Zogby blog via this interesting post about Jews flooding into Germany on Instapundit. Then, scrolling down I found a story that, although it involved nothing anyone could call an crime, sickened me. Do you have an elderly relative or neighbour who gets overly distressed at utility bills, official demands and the like? My late grandmother was terribly worried by even so uncontentious a thing as a circular letter from the council asking residents of her block of flats whether they wished to contribute towards having their "unadopted" access road upgraded. Imagine how such a person would feel about being sued by the state for millions. At the ages of 93, 87 and 83 that is the prospect that some elderly former owners of a dry-cleaning business must face thirty to forty years after an alleged pollution offence. The same stress is being inflicted on others who did no more than buy the building without knowing its history.

The California Attorney-General's office don't even pretend that the defendants have anything like that sort of money. They don't even pretend that the defendants had a criminal intent. The defendants claim, in fact, that they did not cause any pollution, but whether they did or not, for once I would say, "let the taxpayer pay." Given that we have taxes, that's what the government claim that they are for: to even out the injustices of life. I imagine that even a purely libertarian community might voluntarily pool together an insurance fund for this sort of thing.

There have been recent cases concerning prosecutions of very old people where I have said, throw the book at them. You know, war crimes. Or treason. But this? What did you put on your law school application, Rose, "I want to become a lawyer to serve the interests of justice and the people around me"? Oh, it's all right, she has sympathy for the defendants. One of whom has Alzheimer's disease, I note. Tell ya what, Ms Fua, concentrate on suing just him, he won't notice.

Not that Rose Fua's keen legal brain has made no attempt to grapple with the issues involved in prosecuting very old people decades after the alleged offence. "If somebody was 85 years old," she points out "and they killed somebody, does the law not apply to them?" The answer to that one was given by Lord Lester of Herne Hill, arguing in the House of Lords that while a change in the law - the passage of the (UK) War Crimes Bill in this case - might take the perpetrators of an actual crime by surprise, "it did not take them by surprise as to the criminality of their horrific acts." That is the difference. The law pursues alleged murderers even after decades because theirs is the most serious and obvious crime in existence. The law should not pursue those allegedly guilty of minor, inadvertent or technical crimes decades ago, because to do so is disproportionate and oppressive.

It is bizarre that I should have to put the inoffensive proprietors of a humble business who at most might be guilty of negligence in the same category as murderers even to defend them. How much more bizarre that a trained lawyer who has achieved public office (perhaps even elected office, since this is the US; I wouldn't know) should not see the eternal distinction.

UPDATE: I was fizzing with anger when I originally wrote this post, and so jumped over some steps of the argument. I have therefore slightly expanded and clarified it since yesterday.

Environmental laws are there to help us all.

I discovered Zogby blog via this interesting post about Jews flooding into Germany on Instapundit. Then, scrolling down I found a story that, although it involved nothing anyone could call an crime, sickened me. Do you have an elderly relative or neighbour who gets overly distressed at utility bills, official demands and the like? My late grandmother was terribly worried by even so uncontentious a thing as a circular letter from the council asking residents of her block of flats whether they wished to contribute towards having their "unadopted" access road upgraded. Imagine how such a person would feel about being sued by the state for millions. At the ages of 93, 87 and 83 that is the prospect that some elderly former owners of a dry-cleaning business must face thirty to forty years after an alleged pollution offence. The same stress is being inflicted on others who did no more than buy the building without knowing its history.

The California Attorney-General's office don't even pretend that the defendants have anything like that sort of money. They don't even pretend that the defendants had a criminal intent. The defendants claim, in fact, that they did not cause any pollution, but whether they did or not, for once I would say, "let the taxpayer pay." Given that we have taxes, that's what the government claim that they are for: to even out the injustices of life. I imagine that even a purely libertarian community might voluntarily pool together an insurance fund for this sort of thing.

There have been recent cases concerning prosecutions of very old people where I have said, throw the book at them. You know, war crimes. Or treason. But this? What did you put on your law school application, Rose, "I want to become a lawyer to serve the interests of justice and the people around me"? Oh, it's all right, she has sympathy for the defendants. One of whom has Alzheimer's disease, I note. Tell ya what, Ms Fua, concentrate on suing just him, he won't notice.

Not that Rose Fua's keen legal brain has made no attempt to grapple with the issues involved in prosecuting very old people decades after the alleged offence. "If somebody was 85 years old," she points out "and they killed somebody, does the law not apply to them?" The answer to that one was given by Lord Lester of Herne Hill, arguing in the House of Lords that while a change in the law - the passage of the (UK) War Crimes Bill in this case - might take the perpetrators of an actual crime by surprise, "it did not take them by surprise as to the criminality of their horrific acts." That is the difference. The law pursues alleged murderers even after decades because theirs is the most serious and obvious crime in existence. The law should not pursue those allegedly guilty of minor, inadvertent or technical crimes decades ago, because to do so is disproportionate and oppressive.

It is bizarre that I should have to put the inoffensive proprietors of a humble business who at most might be guilty of negligence in the same category as murderers even to defend them. How much more bizarre that a trained lawyer who has achieved public office (perhaps even elected office, since this is the US; I wouldn't know) should not see the eternal distinction.

UPDATE: I was fizzing with anger when I originally wrote this post, and so jumped over some steps of the argument. I have therefore slightly expanded and clarified it since yesterday.

Cars blocking drives.

A correspondent, who wishes to remain anonymous for some reason, writes:

Friend had a similar issue, after making heroic and polite efforts to resolve this situation several times he bought a small amount of concrete blocks and borrowed a decent car jack.

10min energetic minutes later (in dead of night) the car drive wheels were not longer in useful contact with the road. And the car in a very stable position.

This caused enourmous pain and mental anguish to the owner of said vehicle. The police eventually showed up and showed remarkably little sympathy. (There were even rumblings of violations of local code against having cars up on blocks.)

I'd recommend a less tiring deflation of the the 2 passenger side tires
myself (No one has 2 spares), but I'm lazier than clever. A Couple of
treatments of this works wonders. I recommend someone with a bicycle to do it so that:
A. It isn't Joe Homeowner with obvious target of Revenge.
B. Quick getaway might be necessary for health reasons.

Encourage delinquency among minors!

I gloat. But, being a blogger and thus determined to moralise, I can't help feeling that it's a bad sign that people have to resort to these measures - and of course timid souls won't, and lose badly thereby.

John Daragon writes

:

Hi. Greetings. Yo, Dude. take your pick...

You write all this important stuff and what do you get feedback on ? Trivia, that's what.

"FN FAL in 7mm-08 Remington" In *what* ?

.308 Remington or 7.62mm(x 51). Both the same thing (unless you're really picky and own a copy of the SAAMI spec).

It's heartwarming to hear about other people behaving like grown-ups on holiday. But this sort of interaction does throw up the odd moral dilemma :

On a pistol range in California last month, hearing my accent and
acknowledging my predilection for John Browning's 1911 masterpiece, the owner offered to swap Tony Blair for Gray Davis and 50 rounds of .45 ACP.

Should I have taken it?

I'm tempted to say that since you were being offered to give up one worthless object in exchange for another worthless object plus a whole 50 plump and shiny rounds then, like, how hard could the decision be? However Mr Blair did show determination over the Iraq thing, so... Hmm. This is hard. Were they new or reloads?

As for your other question, I haven't the faintest idea. I just shoot the things. I have what amounts to a mental block caused by overexposure to all those letters and numbers and calibres and diameters and brand names. I tell you, when I hear all these guys chatting away in Flemish interspersed with the names of various models of firearm, then I have some hope of understanding the Flemish.

Sweet FA.

In the latest issue of the AA magazine (not online) the AA's legal adviser Iain Murray (moonlighting, Iain?) responded to this question put by John Wotton of Hertford: "If a parked car blocks my drive, is it true that I can't take any action against it?" Here is Mr Murray's reply:

It would be hard. Generally the police will not assist in moving it but they can issue a penalty as the parked car is an obstruction (an offence). Local authorities only have a right to remove such a car if it "appears to be abandoned" or is not displaying a current tax disc, but notice periods mean that could take some time. You could try civil law such as a negligence claim against the driver. If you have to arrange alternative transport for an unavoidable appointment but quite frankly, it's unlikely to be successfull and I've certainly never heard of it happening.

In other words, what you can do about it is the title of this post. Don't blame Mr Murray for this. He's only the messenger. Funny how legal aid is available at taxpayer expense to sue over every sort of trivial grievance, yet someone who is denied the use of their car has no practical redress.

Bjørn Stærk

makes a good point:

Racism exists, but so does terrorism. I'm less worried about Norway's racists, who we know a lot about, than Norway's terrorists, who we know almost nothing about. We need to accept that Norwegians are smart enough not to be taken in by racists, but also that if there is anything that does contribute to a public perception of all Muslims as fanatics and terrorists, it is ignorance about who the real terrorists are, an ignorance anti-racism wants to preserve. When Muslim spokesmen themselves confidently claim that there are no al-Qaeda supporters in Norway, while it's obvious to everyone that al-Qaeda has support all over the world, it's easy for casual observers to conclude that the problem is much larger than it really is. Trust the people - give it the facts, not assumptions, and it will sort things out on its own.

"The Hema. The Lendu. Cambodia. Rwanda. Bosnia. The Jews. The world watches. The world does nothing."

Gary Farber of Amygdala makes a powerful plea for something more than the joke intervention currently planned in the Congo. Jeanne of Body and Soul says the same from a left-wing, pro-UN standpoint. I think the UN dirties good clean New York air, but I agree with her comments. 1,400 men is nothing. Worse than nothing, since it gives the impression that action is being taken when all that is being done is that they are arranging cover for when the foreigners have to run for the airport.
The Telegraph report is headed, with staggering optimism, "Euro-army force to stop Congo killing." Would it were so: Chirac looking good would be a small price indeed to pay for stopping the killing. The report also enthuses "They will start moving into action next week, with artillery and fighter jet support, ready to fight pitched battles if necessary." As a friend observed, they mean pitched skirmishes. And somebody tell the Telegraph that Canada and Africa are not in Europe.

All the complaining about the Telegraph is just my trying to distract myself from the grim truth of this situation.

Fraser Nelson

writes in the Scotsman that the G8 fiddled while Africa bleeds. I'm not as great a believer as he is that Bush's billions of aid will do much good, given the lamentable record of government to government aid. But Mr Nelson is certainly right to say that throwing your money on the table and buzzing off was better than the vapidity of most of the debate:

"One Scottish charity sent a delegate to the G8 junket with leaflets stressing how the private sector must not be used to feed the starving. Heaven forbid that professional organisations are hired to bring medicine to the dying, was the implication - as if the starving cared who employs the hand that feeds them."

And

"Obstacles to helping Africa are written into European Union rule books. Take the moratorium on genetically-modified food research, which ranks our dietary preferences ahead of tackling world food shortage. But the worst single offender is the Common Agricultural Policy, which stops our farmers facing competition from Africa and - therefore - stops agricultural investment reaching sub-Saharan shores. "

So where're my archives then?

And yes, I am asking in a <strong> manner. Or bold or whatever, but give me back my archives! <em>, what's with this <em>? There's no hestitation about it, pond life, I want my freaking archives!

UPDATE: they have reappeared.

Journey to Kimland.

Scott Fisher, an American living in South Korea managed to wangle a rare visa to visit the North, and produced this travelogue. He speaks fluent Korean, which freaked out the guides and added to the interest of his account. In his place I'd have been tempted to keep secret his knowledge of the language so as to listen for mistranslations and unguarded comments. Still, he comes across as a straightforward sort of chap, taking a mischievous pleasure in sneaking a picture where it was forbidden, but not the type for sustained duplicity; certainly it would be a hard act to keep up.

Predictably, Mr Fisher saw and heard many fervent declarations of loyalty for the Great Leader, the Dear Leader and the Juche Idea. Less predictably, not all of them came from North Koreans:

The students we saw were part of a North Korea affiliated high school in Japan. While we talked and took pictures they took turns breaking into smaller groups to sing songs eulogizing the two Kims, North Korea, Juche, etc. The singing and, apparently very real, fervor were unbelievable. Even Mr. Baek was giving them some odd looks as they continued their emotional, non-stop singing. To grow up in a place as modern and open as Japan yet still subscribe to this ideology and regime . . . wow. The memory of those earnest young faces fervently singing away is one of the strongest of the whole trip.

...And one small point didn't surprise me at all:

Ever wonder why CNN seems to be the only Western news organization regularly allowed into North Korea? The next room perhaps offered a clue. In the 'Gifts from America' room a whole section of one wall is taken up by gifts from CNN. A few engraved plaques, a coffee cup (yeah, a freaking coffee cup!), a logo ashtray, etc. Probably at most a couple hundred bucks worth of crap that nonetheless get pride of place in the museum - for they reveal obvious signs of respect from a world famous news organization. The people at CNN are certainly using their heads and showing they know how to play the game. Though one wonders how that fits in with journalistic integrity . . .

(Via Sound and Fury.)

Oops.

I appear to have slipped into an alternative universe where Blogger looks different.

Way cool.

A reader describes, along with many recollections of the glory days of the Belgian shooting scene when you could buy an FN FAL in 7mm-08 Remington without any sort of license, this seriously couth experience:

My final shooting act in Belgium was on the evening of Friday 31st May 1996, when at the invitation of a friend I visited the underground range of the Arbalestriers de Notre Dame du Sablon in Brussels, dating from 1213 and by far the oldest shooting club I have ever shot at. My first time with a crossbow. And the third attempt was a bullseye :-). They cut it out, mounted it on a certificate as proof and it stands now in my living room on the mantelpiece.

When I saw that my correspondent was an academic at a well-known university I decided that I had better not say his name, for all that he had not asked for anonymity, since surely he must be living in terror of the thought police discovering his secret life as a shooter...

On second thoughts, he doesn't seem that worried.

Basically

, Rod, Mars is a big, boring, round rock. Big, boring, round rocks are not an endangered species. Preserving their individual patterns of ice formation is not the first duty of man, not least because 99.9-recurring percent of them will be preserved anyway whatever we do. When the universe is as full of low-gravity retirement homes as it is of rocks - i.e. when there are ten-to-the-googleplex retirement homes out there, then we can worry about preserving rocks. In the meantime I think a place with human beings in it, talking, thinking, playing, living, dying, is far more interesting than a rock, even if some of the human beings are old or Nebraskan.

He's good on Ethiopia, though.

You didn't think

David Carr could resist that tasty morsel, did you?

At the rusk of encouraging

some very childish humour, check out the comments to this BBC story of the last days of Farley's Rusks.

UPDATE: the story has disappeared, leaving only the frame.

UPDATE: It's because they are not discontinuing Farley's Rusks after all. Phew, what a relief. The grieving crowds disperse. A day of prayer and thanksgiving is declared by all major denominations. The Independent announces the glad tidings in three inch headlines and drops that boring story about how Robert Fisk personally uncovered a vast underground cache of nukes in Baghdad.

Pity. Some good jokes have now gone wherever dead jokes go. There was one about rusk assessment. There was a comment that puported to be from a baby and said goo ga do gaa. Out, out, brief candle. Better go now. I'm farley pooped and at rusk of sounding maudlin.

This trial balloon floats like an overweight brick excluded from the NHS.

My, this health contract idea has struck a raw nerve. Stephen Pollard blasted off an angry article for the Times, copied to his own site, beginning

It seems Tony Blair forgot a critical sentence in his foreword to the NHS Plan. From the NHS’s creation in 1948, he wrote, “no longer would wealth determine access to healthcare; need, irrespective of ability to pay, would be the criterion”. What he should have added was this: “None of this, however, will be available to you unless you have muesli for breakfast, grilled Dover Sole and broccoli for lunch, and tofu and bamboo shoots for dinner.”

and ending with the question "What did John Prescott have to say?" Indeed. Old Two Jags may have his faults, but I can't imagine him truckling and saying, "thank 'ee kindly for the lesson, Doctor."

Iain Murray says, "...the ideal of universal free healthcare funded by general taxation is revealed as a myth. Health rationing reaches its obvious conclusion, and the case for it crumbles. The case for opt-outs for private insurance is made by this very policy." And, in a later post, "Labour has actually produced a policy that speaks directly against many who are in its core vote, telling them that they're second class citizens because of their lifestyle."

He also links to Medpundit* (who makes the point that homosexuals, single mothers, drug users and adulterers might also be subject to such measures by a future government), to Layman's Logic* ( who says, "And presumably the logical counter-point is that if you don't get the service you've contracted for, or decide to opt for another provider, you don't have to pay the NHS.") and to Harry Hatchet* who strikes blows from the left as mighty as those from the right.

(The asterisks show "drabbled" links in case the Blogger Blug renders the archives inaccessible. Furthermore it allows you to read some excellent other posts. Try out Harry Hatchet, for instance, writing about a book review by William Leith in which Leith wheedles ingratiatingly away about how "clunky" male brains are:

What's really sad about this article is that Leith seems to believe that discussing relationships is in some way superior to talking about traffic. Both can be done with wit and style, both can be utterly dull and suicide-making. The sub-heading of this review states that the inescapable conclusion is that "All men are nerds". By this I assume Leith is alerting us to the propensity for the "male" brain to concentrate on detail and it's capacity for discerning spatial relationships which he at least refers to in his otherwise silly article. He presumably puts Michaelangelo, Da Vinci et al in the "nerds" category because of their single-minded pursuit of reflecting reality in forms different to the original. I suspect he would sneer "trainspotter" at their dedication. I'm almost certain he thinks the inventors of the jet engine, spinning-jenny or tumble-drier would have better used their time discussing their next-door neighbours relationship.

Now, what have I forgotten? Oh, yes:

)

He who pays the piper calls the tune.

The Times reports that new proposals want to make fat people promise to diet in return for medical treatment. Quite soon now two equally absurd trends regarding fat people will cross over. The private sector is being gradually forced by anti-discrimination law and lawyers to treat fat and thin equally however unfair the results, so that, for example, there is pressure to give airline passengers who fill two seats the legal right to force other travellers to pay for the extra seat. Meanwhile the public sector becomes ever more judgemental, interfering and, er, discriminatory about the decisions people make as to what they eat and their resulting weight. I predict that the very day that it becomes illegal to use fitness as a criterion in selecting fitness instructors will be the same day that a government minister signs the order to have refactory and incorrigible fatties excluded from the NHS and named and shamed in the local press.

Returning to the theme below, when medicine is private and our bodies our own, well-mannered people are spared the necessity of making rude and personal remarks.

Oh, the relief

of not having to decide for anyone but oneself.... One of the nicest things about being a libertarian and a supporter of privatised everything is that one is spared all these Lines To Take, as we used to call them in the Civil Service.

• What is the best way to teach reading? Are there too many tests? Is the educational system becoming too feminised?
• Should there be a maximum as well as a minimum recommended dose for B vitamins? What about the levels of fat in our diet?
• Does the additional risk of whiplash injuries if a cycle helmet is worn outweigh the risk of head injuries if it is not? What about the lifetime harm to health caused by people deciding to use a car rather than a cycle if a helmet is required by law?
  
• How should resources be allocated to universities? Should they lower the admissions bar for candidates who have had a defective education? What is the correct balance for academics between teaching and research? How can academic productivity be measured?
  
• Roads, now. How impermeable should the road surface be? Too porous, and the road degrades quickly. Too impermeable and every passing car sends up a curtain of spray, not to mention flooding the fields next to it. What is the correct balance?
  

...and the answer is, I don't know and I don't have to know. Isn't it liberating! Oh, I may have an opinion. In the case of phonics, I certainly do. But I can say with a good conscience and an airy wave of the hand that if you have a different opinion we can all just try our best and in time the truth will emerge. Or maybe it won't, and that's still OK.

Now, pity the poor statist. If he is a powerless statist he has to absorb a whole raft of discussion and diktat as to Current Best Practice: circulars, reminders, reprimands, checklists, with the threat of litigation if he gets it wrong. (Admittedly, libertarians frequently have to do the same under force majeure, but we don't have to pretend to love our chains.) If he is a powerful statist such as a government minister he has to find Best Practice. Not for him the elevated ignorance of a Socrates or scepticism of a Popper; he is obliged to decide, however complex and incomplete the evidence - for does not the education / health / cycle safety / driving safety of millions depend on it, not to mention his next performance review? Indecision is political death, so he must go for some policy, right or wrong, but he's conscientious and he really would like to get it right. Send me a sign, he cries, send me a a sign! And his civil servants do send him signs, but too many, and they contradict each other. "Then came in the magicians, the astrologers, the Chaldeans, and the soothsayers: and I told the dream before them; but they did not make known unto me the interpretation thereof." And his head lies uneasy where mine sleeps sound.

I know, I know, only last Thursday I was saying that everything is political. Now I'm saying, what fun to be able to take the politics out of many decisions. As Walt Whitman said, I contradict myself? Very well, I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes. I'll reconcile the two statements when I have refined my thoughts on the matter. (Translation: figured out how I can wriggle out. I'm sure there's wriggle room there somewhere.)

Revenge of the spammed.

This is funny. And a public service to boot.

In praise of the stip upper lip.

"I also believe that the good god of evolutionary biology gave us brains to judge, repress, distance ourselves and generally keep control over our emotions. This is because our emotions conflict with each other. Indulged in without thought or judgement, they lead us to catastrophe. If they control us, instead of us controlling them, situations that would merely be situations become instead emotional battlefields, and can do incalculable damage and cause incalculable pain. I associate emotional incontinence with poor, unhappy people, and I believe that their emotional incontinence is, above all else, what makes them poor and unhappy. They don't live their lives. Their lives live them."

- writes Brian Micklethwait in Brian's Culture Blog.
I agree. There is hope that the sentiment is becoming general. Women's magazines, always a barometer of culture, have started running articles saying that it's OK to repress your feelings.

How deep the "let it all hang out" rot has spread was illustrated by one article I read which repeatedly used the phrase "deny your feelings" when it clearly meant "decline to express your feelings." However this was in the context of arguing that survivors of disasters who just soldier on seem to recover better than those who re-live every blood-splattered moment from the psychiatrists' couch, so all is forgiven the author.

My personal unfavourite among the fashionable emotional spasms is the "cry for help" - i.e. acting out suicide in order to get attention or outside intervention in one's problems. I'd imagine this directly kills dozens of people every year who get the dosage wrong or misjudge the breaking strain of a rope. I won't dwell on the devastating effects of a person committing suicide on those he or she knew best, partly because it would only depress me and partly because I'm more intellectually interested in the less severe but still harmful aspects of the "dramatic gesture = cry for help" meme. Great numbers of people try out this strategy in the course of marital or family rows. I am fairly sure most have cause to regret it afterwards. They may get help, but they lose the trust of their fellows.

What I Did In My Holidays

Shot pistols.

Some Observations of Belgian Life And Manners

1) We met three whole people who couldn't speak English.

2) They can tell you do speak English by telepathy. Well, actually, they could tell I was English by the towel around my shoulders which I had there for a perfectly sensible reason. Belgian ladies do not wear towels. I don't know how they intuit that towel means English, but they do.

3) Fewer people introduce themselves surname first i.e. "Hi, I'm Smith-Fred" (or Belgian equivalent) than used to be the case.

4) Coffee, food still better than French, and that's saying something.

5) I looked for the weird shop display from last year, but it had gone. I shall preserve its memory here: the front of an antique shop had breen arranged to resemble a gentleman's study. You know, oaken desk, captain's chair, and various props such as slippers, pipe and a folded newspaper. The newspaper was the International Herald Tribune. For September 12, 2001. We never figured this one out. Was it a gesture of sympathy? Was it meant to suggest, in the manner of a Victorian engraving, that the absent owner of the study would never return? Does this sort of thing sell antiques in Belgium?