Clik here to view.
Churchill in the Restroom
One day shortly after the Second World War ended, Winston Churchill and the newly elected Labour Party Prime Minister Clement Attlee encountered one another at the urinals in the House of Common’s...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Everyday Drinking
“My close personal involvement with drinks and drinking goes back all of fifty years. In that time my experience has been varied and farflung. I have drunk cognac in Cognac, port in Oporto, raki in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sidney Morgenbesser’s Sense of Humor
Sidney Morgenbesser was a prominent figure at Columbia University throughout the latter half of the twentieth century. As the University’s John Dewey Professor of Philosophy, his classes on...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kingsley Amis on How to Host a Party on the Cheap
“The object here is not just to give a party on the cheap, but to get away with it and even end up looking good, or good enough. The traditional strategy is notoriously to offer your guests a flat...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mark Twain’s Hilarious, Furious Letter to an Idiot
Here’s the story: in the winter of 1905, Mark Twain received a package and hand-written letter from a “doctor” out of California named J.H. Todd. After a cursory look at the items, Twain recognized...
View ArticleClik here to view.
I Like Words
Here’s the story: In 1934, a twenty-five-year-old named Robert Pirosh quit his well-paying but tedious job as a copywriter in New York and moved to Hollywood, hoping to kickstart his dream career as a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Martin Amis: The Problem with Political Correctness
“Laughter always forgives… What we eventually run up against are the forces of humourlessness, and let me assure you that the humourless as a bunch don’t just not know what’s funny, they don’t know...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Henry Ford Was a Colossal Moron
“For a man who changed the world, Henry Ford traveled in very small circle. He resided his whole life within a dozen miles of birthplace, a farm in Dearborn, Michigan, just outside Detroit. He saw...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Cleverness of Karl Kraus
“It is better not to express what one means than to express what one does not mean.” “When someone has behaved like an animal, he says: ‘I’m only human!’ But when he is treated like an animal, he...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Hangover Reading
“Begin with verse, if you have any taste for it. Any really gloomy stuff that you admire will do. My own choice would tend to include the final scene of Paradise Lost, Book XII, lines 606 to the end,...
View Article
