Symposia is not political (all those wars!!!) but must say that Palin character from Alaska is right out some medieval grotesquerie or comic masque. You could not have invented a more gruesome character!

Symposia is in a quandary -- non-cultural for once. D'une certaine age she has been prescribed Zocor to attack cholesterol by interrupting normal liver functions. She refused all those female drugs from birth control to estrogen thus sparing her The Chop and now wonders if down the road we are going to have massive liver transplants as a result of the........you get the picture.

Re-read West with the Night -- commonplace writing that would be perfect for 1942's Vogue -- and besides no way Ms.Clutterbuck-Markham could have written it. She duped Hem to be sure.

We tried reading Aspects of Aristocracy by David Cannadine, he a product of Cambridge, Oxford, Princeton et.al. So many facts. Such tough slogging. Tres interesante however about the Stricklands -- Symposia often visited (with the other tourists) Sizergh Castle bit south of Kendal Westmorland and would see the current residents looking so tatterdemalion.