[Note : This piece was first written almost exactly ten years ago ; the pictures of Ireland in the snow this last week have made it feel relevant once more, and the questions of heritage and history it addresses have not ceased to concern me since …] Flying home to…

LAMENT FOR A LOST WORLD It struck me a few months ago, and I have been struggling with the idea of putting it into words ever since. I did not want to admit that this was true. But the signs are everywhere. There are these phrases that seem to jar…

It’s one of the most endearing things about Paris: the clichés are true. I am even sitting writing this in a garret on the Left Bank, in Saint-Germain-des-Près. The smelly cheeses, the baguettes under their arms, the poodles, the accordionists on street corners: you couldn’t be anywhere else. A short…

VERCINGETORIX VERSUS THE VIKINGS! ~ A Brutey Contest ~ The original “indomitable Gaul”, Vercingetorix, united the Gaulish tribes in the first century BC against Julius Caesar, at that time governer of the Roman province of Gallia Narbonensis (Provence) as he attempted to conquer them. He documented this in what was a standard starter text back when people actually learned…

You’ve all heard it, haven’t you? How now, if you hold a door for a woman, you’re some kind of a “sexist”; how now, if you compliment a woman, or flirt with a woman, or tell a woman she’s looking sexy today, or just gently brush up against her breast…

“Could you direct me to the Euphemism?”: Cross-channel toiletries Just as a smattering of French was once essential to providing a je ne sais quoi to the chattering of a certain class of English speaker, whether in discussing how they liked their pommes de terre, their wine, their clothes, or…

So: Marvel? Detective Comics (you know, DC)? Why do people flock to these movies? Why superheroes? There are many theories. But let me suggest one: they are a simulacrum of what we’re missing. Their heroes are ersatz pagan gods and culture heroes, retrofitted to tell the mythology of capitalism. They…