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Well, the Great Transit Strike of 2005 is over with the Transport Workers Union having succeeding in winning for themselves the enmity of the entire city. The Trinidadian Roger Toussaint was elected head of the TWU on a radical platform and radical is what they got. And boy did it blow up in their faces! Listening to the radio the other day I heard stories of decent hard-working people who were waking up at 3:30 in the morning so that they could walk to their jobs and get there on time. Others were sleeping in impromptu locations at their place of employ. All this hassle just because Roger Toussaint wanted his pampered transit workers to retire at 55. Well boo hoo!

One Knickerbocker said: “Roger Toussaint gave up a life of hard work picking sugar cane down in the islands to come up to New York and pick the pockets of decent, hard-working Americans instead!” Well at least it’s all over now, so I can finally catch the Prague exhibit at the Met (oh and the Fra Angelico). I still curse myself for missing the Byzantium exhibit they held; I turned up a day late so I and the young lady who accompanied me assuaged our ire at J.G. Melon’s.

Whilst perusing the British corner of the Hudson Newsstand in Grand Central, waiting for a train home last Sunday after hearing Mass at St Agnes and then attending the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at St Thomas, I chanced upon a copy of This England, a splendid and reactionary quarterly from that green and pleasant land. It was something of a rediscovery as I have somewhere two copies of This England from 1983 and I am happy to report that the magazine has changed very little. It is a wonderful collection of little articles, stories, anecdotes, and charivari about the Mother Country and doesn’t give the slightest hoot for political correctness. A cozy and comfortable quarterly which I believe any traditionalist from the English-speaking world will enjoy. Irritatingly they did not have the Christmas double edition of the beloved Spectator, so I fear I must do without it this year. (And there was much gnashing of teeth…).

The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols was superlative as always. It was interesting to note that in the program/weekly bulletin the word ‘Episcopal’ was nowhere to be found, nor any indication that St. Thomas is a parish of the Episcopal Diocese of New York and likewise the Episcopal Church of the United States of America except a very brief statement mentioning that the parish is “in the Anglican tradition”. A parish in denial? Perhaps, but if you were in their situation would you want to face facts? Ignorance is bliss, and it was a blissful service after all. Much enjoyed. My only complaint was that I thought the choir could’ve put a little more oomph in the final verses of Once in Royal David’s City and O Come All Ye Faithful, perhaps with a little help from the organ, but oh well, I’m no choirmaster, deo gratias.

Almost everyone in our little arrondissement of the web has been chiming in with their thoughts on the recent Chronicles of Narnia film, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I have little to contribute other than to say I found it an enjoyable film which I warmly encourage others to see. We found Father Christmas’s lack of headgear disappointing. A mitre would’ve been most appropriate, but his head was bare; perhaps Saint Nicholas should look to the much-vaunted final word in matters sartorial currently sitting on the throne of Peter.

Speaking of matters sartorial, a kerfuffle recently erupted in Missouri when some Communist enemy of all that good and holy banned a kilted student from a high school dance on the grounds that he was not properly attired. If I can trust my profound study of Scottish history (which consists mostly of the first few minutes of that 1959 biopic of John Paul Johns in which Robert Stack plays the title role) then we recall that the boorish Hanoverians banned the kilt for reasons I have forgotten. (I haven’t seen the film in years, and Robert Stack is dead, r.i.p.). I am certain that my readers and I are united in scorn.

I called up the folks at the New Criterion yesterday and Cricket Farnsworth, that hilarious and ever-charming daughter of Connecticut, answered the phone. I asked if there were any commuting woes and Cricket, the token liberal on the staff, just said “Well of course everyone here thinks the union leaders should all be shot.” “Then all is as it should be, Cricket,” I replied, “all is well in the world.” Happily, they have put one of the Jacksons’ Roger Kimball gingerbread men (or ‘Kimballbreadmen’ as they are calling them) to the side for me to consume when I pop down and visit next week. All is well indeed.

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