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BENTLEY YW 5758—THE RIGHT STUFF PART 1
THE ONLINE CLASSIC & SPORTS CAR HAS A FASCINATING (and extensive) piece about a particular 1927 Bentley 4 1.2-Litre. “History Repeating” describes Bentley plated YW 5758 having a rich competition...
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BENTLEY YW 5758—THE RIGHT STUFF PART 2
YESTERDAY WE BEGAN DISCUSSING Classic & Sports Car’s article by Simon Hucknall about Bentley YW 5758, one of the legendary cars participating in the marque’s 1-4 dominance of the 1929 Le Mans. A...
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ANGLOPHILIC COMMENTARIES PART 1
ENGLISH, AFTER ALL, IS LANGUAGE OF THE BRITS; we only inherited it fair and square at Yorktown in ’81. So it’s not surprising that from time to time my favorite utterances originated in the King’s...
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ANGLOPHILIC COMMENTARIES PART 2
YESTERDAY WE SHARED ENGLISH QUOTES from the likes of Noel Coward, Dorothy Sayers, W. Somerset Maugham, and even Irishman George Bernard Shaw. Today in Part 2, two extended commentaries follow, one...
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NEWS FROM THE CLASSROOMS
THE U.S. CONSTITUTION CAME TO MIND when I read David Dayen in The New York Times, October 22, 2024: “Back in June, Oklahoma’s superintendent for public instruction, Ryan Walters, ordered every...
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AUTOMOTIVE NEWS—A PERSONAL UPDATE
I CONTINUE TO MONITOR Automotive News, though with somewhat different focus in retirement than the weekly in-depth scrutiny of my professional years. These days, I let the issues pile up for awhile...
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JOHN HONEYMAN—GEORGE WASHINGTON’S DOUBLE AGENT PART 1
NUGGETS OF KNOWLEDGE ARE FOUND in a variety of places. Recently on SiriusXM “Radio Classics,” mention was made in a vintage “Lux Theatre” broadcast of a Revolutionary War spy named John Honeyman....
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JOHN HONEYMAN—GEORGE WASHINGTON’S DOUBLE AGENT PART 2
YESTERDAY PART 1 INTRODUCED US TO John Honeyman, George Washington’s double agent who played a crucial role in turning the tide of the American Revolution. Today in Part 2 is the event that did so:...
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HENRY J—A COMPACT CAR WITH HUGE HERITAGE PART 1
“FOR SOME MONTHS,” THE MAGAZINE ENTHUSED in January 1952, “Road and Track [the “&” came along in mid-1954] has been off-handedly touting the virtues of a much under-rated and (we think) wrongly...
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HENRY J—A COMPACT CAR WITH HUGE HERITAGE PART 2
YESTERDAY WE LEFT OUR ROAD AND TRACK STAFFERS trippin’ to Reno in one of industrialist Henry J. Kaiser’s tidy little products. Today we pick up in Part 2 with their foot collectively to the floor....
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THOMAS BOWDLER—AHEAD OF HIS TIME?
THE HYPOCRITICAL WHACKO CONSERVATIVES’ BANNING OF BOOKS got me thinking of Thomas Bowdler, whence the term “bowdlerize,” to expurgate; loosely, “to clean up.” That is, it’s ok for Trump to personify...
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TRIPPIN’ THROUGH KEYBOARDS
I’VE BEEN ENJOYING Michael Arndt’s Snails & Monkey Tails: A Visual Guide to Punctuation & Symbols. One of its chapters is “Typography in the Digital Age,” which begins with that device so...
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PORCINE MATTERS
“PIGS,” WIKIPEDIA DESCRIBES, “have been featured in human culture since Neolithic time, appearing in art and literature for children and adults….” BBC History magazine, October 2024, had a related...
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アンダーグラウンド辞典 The Underground Dictionary Part 1
CERTAIN POLITICAL DISCOURSE OF LATE would profit from an underground dictionary (not to say a mouth-washing). And wouldn’t you know, I have such a dictionary to offer: アンダーグラウンド辞典. It was assembled by...
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アンダーグラウンド辞典 The Underground Dictionary Part 2
THERE’S GOOD LINGUISTIC FUN to be had with vintage international slang, in this case a 1971 Japanese underground dictionary. We continue here in Part 2, beginning below Fourteenth Street. going below...
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MAY I SERVE YOU?
BILL LANCASTER IS A SOCIAL HISTORIAN, author, and reader of London Review of Books. “Are You Being Served?” is a recent contribution of his to the LRB Letters column, October 24, 2024, and prompts me...
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FUN WITH CLERIHEWS
“A CLERIHEW,” MATHEMATICIAN HOWARD EVES WROTE, “is a form of light verse, akin to the limerick, that became popular in England.” Edmund Clerihew, 1875–1956, English novelist and humorist, inventor of...
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L.C. CRESSWELL’S AUTOMOTIVE ART—AND A QUIZ FOR YOU
LAURENCE POMEROY’S THE GRAND PRIX CAR cites no less than Leonardo Da Vinci. It would be typical of Pom to offer this quote in Tuscan dialect, but indeed he favors us with a translation: “How small,”...
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“RADIO CLASSICS” REDUX PART 1
AS RECENTLY SHOWN, MY SIRIUSXM “RADIO CLASSICS” listening habits occasionally lead to additional Internet sleuthing. This time around, it’s a 1944 Suspense! presentation of The Dark Tower, a radio...
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“RADIO CLASSICS” REDUX PART 2
THIS ALL STARTED WITH MY LISTENING TO ORSON WELLES performing in a Suspense! broadcast of The Dark Tower, a Kaufman and Woollcott melodrama. Today in Part 2, there’s the original novel, a Suspense...
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