For a British ex-pat, even the weather in America is bigger and badder... There is a new four-letter word in the vocabulary of Washingtonians: SNOW. This winter has been remarkable for a continual onslaught of snow and ice storms and record breaking cold. There was no respite. Every week, even as ... Read More...
Dispatches from the Former New World
In today's dispatch, Rita recalls her very own courtroom drama... “Moon pie! Moon pie!” A young man’s voice shouted this nonsensical phrase over and over in the background of the 911 recording as the voice of an elderly woman calmly explained her emergency. Her back door had burst open and a ... Read More...
In this dispatch, Rita explains how the 19th Century poet was responsible for the whole course of her life... If there were one person I could hold responsible for the twist of fate that sent me to live in America, it would have to be Gerard Manley Hopkins. Yes, the Jesuit ... Read More...
A saucy comic book causes Rita to reflect on American attitudes to sex education... The little girls sat in a corner giggling hysterically over a comic book. Not an unusual sight, until I saw the comic book in question. This happened at a large family gathering in Belgium some years ago ... Read More...
Rita celebrates an Art Deco gem in an unlikely location... Where would you expect to find the venerable American Film Institute’s movie theater? There is one in Los Angeles of course, on the non-profit organization’s eight-acre campus in the Hollywood hills. You might expect their second theater to be in New ... Read More...
Rita is struck by a Proustian recollection of her time in an eccentric 1950s orphanage... Last night I dreamt I went to Webbery again. The winding drive with massed rhododendrons on either side, the grey stone manor house shining in the moonlight… I’ve always wanted to write that. And it’s true. I ... Read More...
How did Thanksgiving evolve from a simple religious ceremony into a violent shopping stampede?... Spaniards have their Running of the Bulls at Pamplona; Americans have their Stampede of the Shoppers on Black Friday. Both are high risk, violent sports that frequently end in severe injury or death. Black Friday falls on ... Read More...
Selling Scottish genealogy to Americans is big business. Pity it's mostly a load of bunk... Exploring my father’s bookcase on one of my visits home, I came across a curious little pamphlet entitled 64 Common Errors in Scottish History. My father had quite an extensive library but I had never known ... Read More...
As America shuts down, Rita dreams a dream... I travelled to the nation’s capital recently and found it a much changed city. Streets usually thronged with government workers were deserted, museums shuttered, great monuments to the founders and the fallen barricaded with closed signs. Portents of the end times abounded – ... Read More...
Once claiming to be 'the seafood capital of the world', Crisfield is now virtually a ghost town. Rita reflects on time, place and crab sandwiches... It was a dark and starry night, a peaceful rural silence blanketing the sleeping fields … that is until the shots rang out. We were just ... Read More...