The place definitely had some cultural currency—to the extent that my grandmother’s stock response in regard to anyone who (in her estimable opinion) had gotten above themself was “Who does she think she is—the Maharani of Cooch Behar?”

Wordle 1,666 2/6 🟩🟨🟩⬜⬜ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 After a run of fives and a broken streak, most encouraging.

I seem to have become a popular target for attractive young Asian women named things like Preston or Schuyler who are seeking ideological soulmates, and all I can ask is: why don’t they ever have brothers… or uncles?

It’s Christmas Day in Egypt, and the television—state and private—is full of festive greetings and messages of peace and shared community spirit. The contrast with…[gestures widely]…is, to say the least, marked.

Watching, unusually for us, the news conference with Gov. Walz and his colleagues. I don’t know enough about the details to know if I agree with every thing they’re doing, but just to hear public officials speaking thoughtfully and answering journalists’ questions respectfully goes a long way.

I would give a great deal for a witty, rueful limited series set within the Benin Chorale and Philharmonic—imagine the gentle drama, the moments of temper, the funny happenings at rehearsal and the fundraising suppers...a side of Afria we too rarely see. www.youtube.com/shorts/M8VMg...

Another day—and lamentably far from the first—in which I sat with myself for a moment or two thanking the gods I retired from communicating on behalf of the US government at the time I did and not one moment later.

End-stage coronary artery disease. I’m a living tribute to modern medicine…

Reading a very funny thread about the terrible-ness of a much-hyped recent record and glad, as I regularly am, that my album of the year is (as it always is) Dame Joan Sutherland’s The Gold Age of Operetta.

The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield

A rose for your New Year’s Eves, my darlings, with hope—even in this low world—for better things to come.

It’s giving very 1992 “Oh, OK, what does this WordArt button do?”

I’m the Queen of the United Kingdom and of the British Dominions and Empress of India. And maybe just a tiny bit of a kleptomaniac.

I once had to pass a message to someone who was staying with “a friend“ in Switzerland. I called and got his hostess, who was charming and almost oddly amused about taking a message. “ Audrey thought it was great fun playing my secretary,” he told me later. He was staying with Audrey Hepburn.

Share a great female villain.

Gertrude, the Baroness B., and Mrs. Woolf.

Christmas catastrophe averted: in the home stretch of prepping the feast, with six or seven things going on at once, I put the carrots on to warm and got back to work. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice that the cork hot pad under them went, too. The smell of burning cork is _not_ pleasant.

Still, I’m sure that both of Gloria Gaynor’s fans thought it was swell.

Having a lovely baked Brie and a glass or two of champagne and—perhaps?—genuinely starting to feel seasonally festive. [Don’t worry—the all-importns bottle for when it happens is still firmly in place at the back of the fridge.]

My older brother, this Christmas season, set himself the task of organizing my mother‘s holiday recipes and testing out, for the first time in many years, all of her cookies. He started simply, with the sugar cookies, cut using her cutters into all the familiar shapes, iced with her trademark…

The Mister has decreed that we are having a proper dinner on Christmas Day. As a result, I braved not one but two supermarkets before 9 AM this morning, arriving home with a 13-pound turkey among a great many and various other groceries. Now, as long-time pals well know, an important element…

Just realized that Usha Vance is going to more or less be the Marlene Dietrich character when it comes time to make the updated version of Judgment at Nuremberg sometime around 2040.

Watch it. We’re going to need so many goddamn Nuremburgs…

Just the thing for our old pal Beverly Leslie and his business associate, Benjy. [IRL I'm afraid there will be a demented number of interested parties in Palm Springs, not least because they keep getting embarrassed when Log Cabin photos are leaked.]

Feeling sprightly this festive holiday season? Well, a few minutes at 35,000 feet with Peg will take care of that, pronto. I don’t know about you, but I had no idea that back in the day PanAm’s first-class cocktail service came with Quaaludes… youtu.be/PWVwBUaz-gM?...

I have just, unsuspecting and God knows unseeking, come across a pornographic AI image of Leonard Bernstein. The creator (or possibly its prompter) was very generous, but even so I think that may be enough internet for the moment.

It’s a funny old world when just the idea of the mayor-elect of New York City can make one sob uncontrollably. We so desperately need good news wherever we can find it…

Perhaps watching TCM Remembers first thing on a Saturday morning wasn’t the smartest way to start the day… With Cora Sue Collins gone, does this mean we’ve seen the last of ‘30s clips in these?

RIP to Sir Humphrey Burton, who more or less created what we think of as quality arts programming on television. A giant in the UK, too-little known in the US. I had the privilege of working with him several times—and even had the honor of having him say something nice about me in one of his books.

My outfit for the day it happens. [either ensemble, although the spangled black crepe is probably wiser…]

I’m spending Hanukkah in Santa Monica… [mit trayf, yes, but still.]

A little leafy abstraction for your Saturday.

What? They made a remake of Supergirl and didn’t offer a touching cameo to Faye Dunaway? An outrage!

Jane Eyre David Copperfield Emma

Quick reminder to my pals in nightlife and music programming: Eartha Kitt and Diana Ross, non-quislings both, have recorded excellent versions of “I Will Survive.” The challenge now is to get Cher to record one.

In fact, I would happily watch a season of anthology-style comedy/dramas across a range of genres, the only unifying element of which is that Queen Victoria appears in the last six minutes or so to sort things out to everyone’s satisfaction.

I wouldn’t _hate_ you, really,* but if you don’t like A Room with a View (and at least put up with me about The Gang’s All Here), I doubt we’ll be close. ___________________ * “We don’t hate, dear; hate is for sin and Hitler.” - My Grandmother

The kind of afternoon when you have to iron and are in desperate need of a little ear candy, so—thinking of his charming waltzes from the Miyazaki pictures—you choose a playlist called “Rediscover Joe Hishaishi” and after a little while Amazon Music is suddenly pelting you with hardcore Steve Reich.

Bess Flowers, please.

I named my fists Regina and Giddens, because I’m not going to fight you; I’m just going to sit quietly and watch you die.

More than anyone, he formed my childhood image of what a boss should be— demanding, bumbling, and with a wife far more interesting than he.

Five concerts yada yada yada Eartha Kitt Peggy Lee Mitzi Gaynor Koko Taylor Mabel Mercer

No turkey for us today: The Mister and I have achieved our dream—a taxi-driver approved Indo-Pak buffet open on Thanksgiving—even if we had to truck over to Fontana. Worth every mile.

As is always the case whenever the great pie debate rears its head, all I can do is sit here wishing I were propping up the bar at Joe Allen with a vodka tonic and a nice big slice of banana cream.

To add insult to injury, it’s entirely possible he spent more than $300 to look that idiotic… peymanumay.com/products/whi...

The Mister has been home sick for three days and I’m still feeling the Covid I’ve had for almost a month now on and off and if he doesn’t go to work tomorrow… Deep breath. Murder doesn’t pay.

Farewell to Alice and Ellen, the Kessler Twins—bright lights of European entertainment for decades and occasional visitors to American variety shows, the sisters decided at the age of 89 to head out together for one more grand adventure. Godspeed to Fabulon… youtu.be/y_G4ejRCDpU?...

OT, but—that’s what Matt Gaetz looks like these days? He looks like a Young Republicans Club’s go at recreating Max Headroom.

What perfect album came out the year you turned 16? [I wouldn’t argue that it’s _good_, necessarily, but of its kind it’s definitely perfect.]

Just got an ad on YT; apparently, Aer Lingus has a new (to me, at least) slogan: “Every airline welcomes you on board; at Aer Lingus, we make you feel it.” For God’s sake road test this nonsense, people; any random teen could have told you this was _not_ a good idea.