Writer, web designer, etc.; born in New York; educated in Argentina, Scotland, and South Africa; now based in London. by JOHN HALDANE
THE SCOTSMAN | Saturday 9 September 2006
A COUPLE of weeks ago St Andrews was treated to the sight of a colourful parade of heralds, hereditary standard bearers, nobility and clan chiefs, representatives of the University, leaders of the Christian churches, and sundry others, processing through the town to the accompaniment of the pipes. The occasion was the opening by the Princess Royal of the 27th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences, featuring the first meeting of European heralds since the middle ages.
This weekend St Andrews sees another ritual procession: this of Knights and Dames of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre gathering for an investiture in the 15th century chapel of St Salvator’s College. Once again gowns, insignia, and banners of medieval inspiration will be on view as Scottish members are joined by representatives from abroad and from the Sovereign Military Order of St John – with the pipes again adding a distinctively Caledonian note.
Such events, and the groups and individuals they bring together can easily be seen as part of a world of childlike, or even childish, fantasy. Trying to live as if in a realm of castles, chivalarous knights, noble heroes, fair ladies, courtly love and sacred adventures, all rendered for posterity in chronicles and ballads.

ONE OF THE finest buildings in all New York is also one of the least-appreciated and most forgotten. The old Police Headquarters at No. 240 Centre Street was built in 1909 on a triangular lot in what was then solidly Little Italy. Arguably, it is today located in the ever-expanding Chinatown, but real estate brokers usually describe its location non-ethnically as Soho, just on the cusp of the area which is increasingly (and most irritatingly) known as NoLIta, ‘North of Little Italy’.
From the basement shooting range to the rooftop observation deck, the building was designed in the monumental Beaux-Arts style by the firm of Hoppin & Koen, “to impress both the officer and the prisoner with the majesty of the law.” The New York Times wrote that “its grandeur contrasted utterly with the little buildings and crooked streets around it.”
The older old Police Headquarters, where reformer Teddy Roosevelt held court as Police Commissioner, was located nearby on Mulberry Street and when the nerve center of the N.Y.P.D. shifted to Centre St. between Broome and Grand, the gun shops, cop saloons, and police reporters followed suit. One restaurant across the street was simply called ‘Headquarters’. With its oak bar and ceiling of carved wood, the ‘Headquarters’ restaurant became a particular favourite among the higher brass of the N.Y.P.D. According to popular lore, a tunnel was actually constructed connecting the restaurant with the actualy Police HQ, in which a number of the Boys in Blue used to enjoy a drink during the trying days of Prohibition. (more…)

A WEEK AGO AFTER the 11 o’clock Sunday Mass at St. Agnes, Dino Marcantonio, Matt Alderman, and I stood in front of the church and fantasized about how we would fix the old place. Well, perhaps ‘old’ isn’t the right word for the place. While the parish was founded in the 1840’s, the current church building only dates from the late 1990’s, built after the old Victorian edifice was consumed by fire. As for design, its heart is in the right place, but as they say the Devil is in the details. The interior is marred by quite obviously large joints between component parts of arches and cornices and the exterior just looks fake. Is craftsmanship dead? No, but it helps to search it out instead of accepting just any old thing.
At any rate, Matt Alderman has thrown together these esquisses of what his St Agnes would look like, and it’s all rather Austrian. (more…)

OUR GOOD FRIEND Tori Truett sends greetings from Buenos Aires where she is visting relatives and her salutation sparked a number of memories from my all-too-short time down there. One of these memories was being relieved upon by a bird whilst pottering about the market of San Telmo one afternoon (it remains the only time I have suffered the indignity of such an aerial bombardment). The good city, however, has more beautiful buildings than the Big Apple, both in quality and quantity. Their good buildings are better than ours, but then their ugly buildings are even uglier. (As terrible as the Whitney Museum is, I doubt it matches the Biblioteca Nacional for sheer vulgarity). (more…)
I work at my computer in a small room here at home, and Jamie has his in the main room alongside. When we are both tapping away busily, our work is punctuated by his pleas for cups of tea (sometimes he just makes a sort of bleating noise – it’s really quite heart-rending) and by the telephone ringing (annoying – so we often leave the answerphone on and deal with calls later). […]
Later, emerging from a tube station on my way to St Mary’s Church in Chelsea where I was due to give a talk to young engaged couples as part of a Marriage Preparation course, I had a most extraordinary and wonderful experience. There are eight million people in London. And there, walking towards me, was the one person dearest to me in all of them: my husband Jamie. He would never normally be in that part of London, and it is unusual for me to be there too. Neither of us had co-ordinated our activities today, just normal busy schedules for us both…….. He had been at some event at Brompton Oratory followed by lunch and a meeting nearby…..it was a chance in eight million that we should both happen to be in Sloane Square at that precise moment.
Just a little snippet from Joanna Bogle’s new blog, Auntie Joanna Writes. Joanna is an author and journalist, as well as being wife to Jamie Bogle (c.f. balls of ’05 and ’06). You can go on a tour of Catholic England by listening to fourteen of Joanna’s ‘Catholic Heritage’ programs available at this address.

Oriana Fallaci, that indomitable and cantankerous Italian, has finally succumbed to cancer in her native land. When she first learnt of her cancer years ago, she kept smoking and refused to treat it because she had “too much writing to do”. Later, when it became difficult to eat solid foods, she drank champagne instead. Her 1972 interview with Henry Kissinger was described by him as “the single most disastrous conversation I have ever had with any member of the press”.
While an ardent leftist, she was an unrepentant foe of what she saw as the Islamic colonization of Europe. Her diatribes against the Muslim immigrants who habitually pissed on the walls of Florence cathedral earned her the ire of many, and legal proceedings were initiated against her in France. The liberal commentator Christopher Hitchens described her work as “an example of how not to write about Islam”. She began writing her infamous The Rage and the Pride, a book teeming with passion and righteous indignation, on September 11, 2001 at her home in New York.
Fallaci said she felt encouraged when Cardinal Ratzinger, another thinker who warned against Western self-loathing, was elected pope. “I feel less alone when I read the books of Ratzinger,” she wrote. The Telegraph reports that the Holy Father granted her a private audience a number of months ago, on the condition that never disclose its contents.
Oriana Fallaci will be buried tommorrow in the family tomb in the Protestant Cemetery in Florence. There will be no funeral; I hope a priest will say a mass for the repose of her soul.
Daily Telegraph obituary
Times of London obituary
‘La journaliste Oriana Fallaci est morte’, Le Figaro
We don’t often like discussing politics because it’s such a filthy business these days, and besides, if there’s anything worth saying about politics, no doubt Daniel Larison has already said it. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see the schadenfreude developing amongst conservatives eager to see the Republican Party wreap what it hath sewn come the midterm elections of November 7 this year. The GOP has really done it this time, or so says the common wisdom, and the combined effect of conservatives staying home on Election Day and of swing voters swinging to the Democrats may very well throw the House of Representatives to the Democrats for the first time in twelve years. The glee conservatives once exhibited only for the most delightful defeats of Democrats is now, in a truly bi-partisan spirit, extended to the Republicans as well.
Why will conservatives stay home on Election Day? Well, that is not the right question, as it is the natural inclination of the conservative to be at home. The question then is: why should a conservative vote Republican? The President, for starters, is an ardent devotée of liberal internationalism abroad and wants to impose it with our military, which he has disgracefully abused as his own little plaything. In Congress, meanwhile, the Republican majorities in both houses have enacted an orgy of spending and goverment largesse as if the concept of self-restraint is foreign and irrelevant, while refusing to act on issues important to conservatives, such as border enforcement.
Voting Republican means we get liberal internationalism at our own expense (in blood, mind you, not just taxes), while at home we get porous borders (despite the terrorist threat), implicitly condoned illegal immigration (it’s good for business!), egregious spending (the ‘compassionate conservatism’ which is neither compassionate nor conservative), and the expansion of the powers of the federal government (continuing and augmenting the flagrant breaches of the Constitution which began in the 1960’s). Such being the case, the real question should be: what kind of self-respecting conservative would support such things with his vote?
But of course there is a silver lining. As much as conservatives may delight in seeing the Republicans thrown from office, in our two-party system the defeat of Republicans means the victory of Democrats. This is most unfortunate. However, with the appointments of Roberts and Alito to the Supreme Court (which will likely be remembered as one of G.W. Bush’s few conservative acts in his eight years as president), there is a feeling that sooner or later the highest court in the land will hear cases which return power to the states, as ordained in the Constitution. Having Democrats in charge, given their traditional predilection for centralization, might further spur such cases to come to the fore.
So farewell, then, GOP majority… and good riddance. Think about what you’ve done and come back in a few years. We are good Christian folk, after all, and forgiving; we will likely give you another chance in the future.
NOTE: I should clarify that we are speaking in this post only about the federal government. No doubt there are many decent conservative and conservative-leaning GOP officeholders on the state and local level.

THE ROYAL BURGH of St Andrews was recently host to the largest gathering of heralds since the Middle Ages for the XXVII International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences. Taking place in the last week of August, the Congress was opened with a grand ceremony in the University’s Younger Hall which was attended and addressed by the XXVII Congress’s patron, the Princess Royal (Scottish arms below). The event lured state heralds, genealogists, heraldists, and other enthusiasts from around the world, as well as local heralds from the Court of Lord Lyon (Scotland’s heraldic authority) and the personal heralds of Scots noble houses. Aside from the ceremonial, a broad variety of lectures were given on various topics in the realm of heraldry and genealogy. We present to you here a number of photographs from the event, which have been taken from the Congress website as well as from the personal collections of Mr. John Gaylor, a member of the Heraldry Society of Scotland, and Mr. David Appleton of the American Heraldry Society.


A most hearty congratulations to Mr. and Mrs. James Panero, who were wed recently in a ceremony on Block Island. The Times carried the announcement.

Scientists informed the media that the combined lightness of all the seersucker and linen suits worn at the ceremony raised Block Island four inches out of the water.

For David Yezzi, poetry is a lonely business…

I recently stumbled upon this image depicting a militia regiment gathered in front of New York’s City Hall. The unit in question is the Jefferson Guards, 38th Regiment, New York State Artillery, amassed in bearskin caps and red-plumed shakos (red being the traditional color of the artillery). I confess I’d never heard of the Jefferson Guards before, but this is not entirely surprising. The Armed Forces of the State of New York – today composed of the New York Army National Guard, the New York Air National Guard, the New York Guard, and the New York Naval Militia – was once composed of a vast array of assorted regiments, battalions, and companies (a quite literal example of the ‘little platoons’ praised by Burke). These militia companies varied greatly in form, from little more than glorified social clubs to the crack units of the day.
As strange as it may seem, considered as a whole they were an almost completely organic military and, while they would be ill-suited to the armed exigencies of today, I refuse to believe that our little realm is better off for their general disappearance. Certainly the V.C.A. and the Old Guard, among others, survive to this day (in a somewhat different form, naturally), but what of the Empire Light Cavalry and the German Horse Guards? The Ulster Guard, the Weschester Chasseurs, and the New York Highlanders? The gallant Seventh Regiment of New York survived even into the 1990’s before its dissolution was ensured by the monotony monitors who now, fifteen years later, seek to destroy the great and blessed monument of an armory on Park Avenue which the Seventh built and guarded for over a century. We mourn their disappearance, just as we detest the continued and increasing disdain for the proud military heritage of the City and State of New York, but the entire culture which created and sustained them is gone, too.

Category: Militaria – New York
“A famous Loyalist said that ‘I would rather be ruled by one tyrant 3,000 miles away, than by 3,000 tyrants not a mile away.’ It is the unique genius of our system (given that D.C. is 3,000 miles away from my home here in Los Angeles) that we are able to have both.”
The Inventor of Toffee
Punch, 28 July, 1920
I never liked Buttinbridge. I considered him a vulgar and pushful fellow. He had thrust himself into membership of my club and he had forced his acquaintance upon me.
I was sitting in the club smoking-room the other day when Buttinbridge came in. His behaviour was characteristic of the man. He walked towards me and said in a loud voice, “Cheerioh, old Sport!”
I drew the little automatic pistol with which I had provided myself in case of just such an emergency, took a quick aim and fired. Buttinbridge gave a convulsive leap, fell face downwards on the hearthrug and lay quite still. It was a beautiful shot—right in the heart.
The room was fairly full at the moment, and at the sound of the shot several members looked up from their newspapers. One young fellow—I fancy he was a country member recently demobilised—who had evidently watched the incident, exclaimed, “Pretty shot, Sir!” But two or three of the older men frowned irritably and said, “Sh-sh-sh!”
Seeing that it was incumbent upon me to apologise, I said, in a tone just loud enough to be audible to all present, “I beg your pardon, gentlemen.” Then I dropped the spent cartridge into an ash-tray, returned the pistol to my pocket and was just stretching out my hand to touch the bell when old Withergreen, the doyen of the club, interposed.
“Pardon me,” he said, “I am a little deaf, but almost simultaneously with the fall of this member upon the hearthrug I fancied I heard the report of a firearm. May I claim an old man’s privilege and ask if I am right in presuming a connection between the two occurrences, and, if so, whether there has been any recent relaxation of our time-honoured rule against assassination on the club premises?”
Shouting into his ear-trumpet, I said, “I fired the shot, Sir, which killed the member now lying upon the hearthrug. I did so because he addressed me in a form of salutation which I regard as peculiarly objectionable. He called me ‘Old Sport,’ an expression used by bookmakers and such.”
“Um! Old Port?” mumbled old Withergreen.
“Old Sport,” I shouted more loudly. Then I stepped to the writing-table, took a dictionary from among the books of reference, found the place I wanted and returned to the ear-trumpet.
“I find here,” I said, for the benefit of the room at large, for all were now [pg 75] listening, though with some impatience, “that in calling me a ‘sport’ the deceased member called me a plaything, a diversion. If he had called me a sportsman, which is here defined as ‘one who hunts, fishes or fowls,’ he would have been not necessarily more accurate but certainly less offensive.”
At this point there stood up a member whom I recognised as one of the committee. “I am sure, Sir,” he said, “that all present are agreed that you fired in defence of the purity of English speech, and that the incident was the outcome of an unfortunate attempt to relieve the financial embarrassment of the club by relaxing our former rigorous exclusiveness. Speaking as one of the committee, I have no doubt that the affair will be dismissed as justifiable homicide.”
Having bowed my acknowledgments I rang the bell. When the waiter appeared I bade him “Bring me a black coffee and then clear away the remains of Mr. Buttinbridge.”
Then I was awakened by the voice of Buttinbridge yelling, “Wake up, old Sport!”

An incident took place at sea on September 14, 2001, just a few days after the attacks on New York and Washington, which has not been widely recounted. In the time leading up to September 11, the U.S.S. Winston S. Churchill was in port in Plymouth, England, where it was moored next to the Lütjens of the German Navy. During their time in port together, the officers and crews of the Churchill and the Lütjens had combined for a number of lively convivial undertakings in the generous spirit of friendship and brotherhood. After the attacks, however, Churchill immediately put to sea to perform a number of drills while maneuvering back in forth in the same area.
“It hasn’t been that fun I must confess,” an ensign aboard the Churchill wrote home, “and to be even more honest, a lot of people are frustrated at the fact that they either can’t be home, or we don’t have more direction right now. We have seen the articles and the photographs, and they are sickening. Being isolated as we are, I don’t think we appreciate the full scope of what is happening back home, but we are definitely feeling the effects.”
“About two hours ago the junior officers were called to the bridge to conduct Shiphandling drills. We were about to do a man overboard when we got a call from the Lutjens. […] Now at sea they called over on bridge-to-bridge, requesting to pass us close up on our port side, to say good-bye.”
“We prepared to render them honors on the bridgewing, and the Captain told the crew to come topside to wish them farewell. As they were making their approach, our Conning Officer announced through her binoculars that they were flying an American flag. As they came even closer, we saw that it was flying at half-mast. The bridgewing was crowded with people as the Boatswain’s Mate blew two whistles – Attention to Port – the ship came up alongside and we saw that the entire crew of the German ship were manning the rails, in their dress blues. They had made up a sign that was displayed on the side that read ‘We Stand By You’.”
As the ensign wrote later in the email, “It’s amazing to think that only a half-century ago things were quite different,” and it’s interesting to note that both ships are named after figures from the Second World War; Winston Churchill the half-American Prime Minister of Great Britain, and Günther Lütjens the admired German Admiral who died aboard the Bismarck.


THE RECENT PURCHASE for the Neue Galerie of Gustav Klimt’s 1907 ‘Adele Bloch-Bauer I’ (above), alledgedly for a record-breaking price of $135,000,000, gives me the perfect opportunity to write a post on the eponymously recent addition to New York’s coterie of art museums. Since its 2001 opening, the Neue Galerie has resided in the handsome 1914 beaux-arts mansion on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 86th Street, designed by Carrère and Hastings (of New York Public Library fame) for industrialist William Starr Miller and later inhabited by Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III. In the time since the construction of No. 1048, the rest of Fifth Avenue has undergone a lamentable transformation from a boulevard of beautiful townhouses and mansions to an avenue predominantly consisting of apartment buildings. While one appreciates the inoffensive design of the pre-war buildings on Fifth, there remain a number of thoroughly opprobrious modern interlopers which offend the graceful avenue. One can’t help but pine for Fifth Avenue before the mansions came down, but we can at least give thanks for holdouts like the Neue Galerie. (more…)

Abigail Hesser once asked me what champagne I preferred and I replied that I’m something of a fan of Veuve-Clicquot. “Veuve-Clicquot? I’ve never heard of it,” saith the Moet et Chandon partisan. Well now the young Miss Hesser (who in less than a year will be the young Mrs. Burke) has revealed herself as a convert to the Veuve cause. “Moet is trite,” she tersely says of her former poison of choice. I sent her a Veuve-Clicquot e-card welcoming her to Veuvianity.

THE HOT SUMMER sun has fled us here in New York, having been replaced by the cooling but somber clouds of rain. My mind can’t help but harken back to an August of just a few years ago when I spent the summer in Argentina. Of course, New York’s summer is Buenos Aires’s winter, but in Argentina winter means prodigious rain and skies of grey, rather than the glorious snows we’re used to in the Big Apple. On the grounds of St. Alban’s College, our happy little school, there was situated the spartan but merry Red Lion Coffee Shoppe.
On many a cold, grey, Argentine August day we would escape the sufferings of education and flee to the Red Lion. There were two points of service at the Red Lion coffee shop: one a window which faced onto the outside (seen above), the other a hole-in-the wall counter which faced onto the little square room which was the shop. It was a simple, sparsely-decorated room with a few chairs and tables, the walls covered with posters lauding South African rugby and New Zealand cricket, and framed prints depicting charming views of other St Alban’s toponyms around the world: the original St. Alban’s in England, St. Alban’s in South Africa, St. Alban’s in Denmark, St. Alban’s just about everywhere. There was only one heater (the Argentines, in their desire to be in all ways like the British, do not heat their buildings properly) mounted onto the side wall opposite the counter and the obvious idea was to sit right next to the heater or else freeze. It was a black moment when one entered the Red Lion only to discover that others – the nerve! – were already situated by the heater. Rest assured, many a rueful glance was exchanged.
Anyhow, while a number of carbonated beverages were on offer, a nice warm cup of tea was much preferred to a cold, refrigerated soda. Tea at the Red Lion, which was invariably Green Hills, was accompanied by chocolate, usually fulfilled by a packet of M&M’s, but occasionally I went for Rhodesia bars which I confess I only ever bought because of their name. (Incidentally, I took a Rhodesia bar home and when I had a fetching young tutor at St Andrews who was one of the last Rhodesians to be born, I gave it to her as a gift at our last tutorial).
I had never been a regular tea drinker before then and am very glad that I acquired the happy habit; it is one which has stood me well throughout the ages. What better companion in Scotland, for example, while reading as the grey tempest of the Caledonian climate brews outside, than a nice cup of warm brew inside? And of course tea need not be a solitary joy. When I think of the hours wasted away in after-rosary cups of tea on weekday afternoons in St Andrews! It would bring scandal to some. Indeed one cold Scottish afternoon the hours of cups of tea gave way to two bottles of port, and then a raid by a gaggle of ne’erdowells on my secret whiskey reserve! (Duly recounted herein).
At any rate, I believe it to be one of summer’s chief deficiencies that it is too hot for the proper, frequent enjoyment of tea, and so I rather look forward to the coming fall and winter seasons. Nestled in a comfy chair with a nice cup of tea and a good book; could there be pleasures more sublime?


Philippe de Villiers is preparing his campaign for the 2007 presidential election, Le Figaro recently reported, after having conducted an informal tour of holiday spots around France to bring his candidacy to vacationing voters. As the articles notes, one of the most important challenges for de Villiers and his Mouvement pour la France (MPF) is carving out a niche in the media for his campaign. Press coverage of the 2007 competition has portrayed the election as a showdown between the Socialist Party’s Ségolène Royal and the UMP’s Nicolas Sarkozy, a lack of fundamental differences between the two candidates on the major issues notwithstanding.
Despite a number of recent high-ranking defections to the MPF from the populist/nationalist Front National, the party which usually takes third place after the UMP and the Socialists, it’s unknown whether a significant portion of the Front‘s electoral base with follow through and vote for de Villiers instead of the FN’s Jean-Marie Le Pen. During last year’s referendum on the EU constitution, de Villiers swept the rug from under Le Pen’s feet by masterfully organizing the right wing of the successful ‘No’ campaign himself. If the Vendéen can repeat such a performance and seize the electoral momentum from the misanthropic FN leader, there’s a chance of both making it to the second electoral round and putting the ugly spectre of Le Penisme in its grave.
Le Figaro: Philippe de Villiers will carry out a tour of France this fall with MPF secretary-general Guillaume Peltier.
In an interview with le Figaro, the MPF’s second-in-command Guillaume Peltier proclaimed that “France needs a candidate who personifies the real Right and who will commit the country to a break with socialism”. When asked about the MPF’s policy on the impôt sur la fortune (ISF) tax on wealth, Peltier refreshingly replied “We propose its repeal, pure and simple”.
“The ISF strikes great fortunes less and less while striking middle-class homeowners more and more,” Peltier claimed. “Because of real estate prices are on fire, one finds farmers who do not even qualify to pay income tax who are stuck with the ISF. The UMP, with the capability for four years, has not done anything to end this unjust situation.”
And Europe? “Instead of an incomprehensible constitution, we propose a European charter on three points: 1) A truly European Europe, without Turkey; 2) A democratic Europe directed by the parliaments and by the peoples, and not by the technocrats of Brussels; and 3) A Europe of free cooperation against terrorism, drug trafficking, and organised crime.” The MPF would also support a referendum on whether to continue France’s participation in the Euro monetary union.
And finally, his prediction for 2007: “I consider that Philippe de Villiers will be in 2007 what the ‘Non’ was in 2005. Villiers is the only candidate of rural France, the candidate of the France of common sense. I’m persuaded he can make it to the second round. I see a Villiers/Royal run-off, the real Right against the real Left.”
Previously: On Walkabout with Philippe de Villiers

WE LIVE IN an age which is almost completely devoid of Christian statesmen. In their stead, we are today ruled by faceless bureaucrats and vapid masters of spin. Gentlemen once sought public office in the hopes of ensuring order and the public good while dark and knavish men sought the same in their lust for power. The politicians of today, meanwhile, tend to be of neither inspiration but rather seem all too often to have engaged upon the ‘career’ of ‘public servant’ because they lack any of the skills necessary to succeed in any real, productive employ, station, or vocation. Given the sad state of affairs in our day, we must look to the past — to another age and indeed another continent — in our search for models of Christian leadership in the temporal realm of a modern republic. In this search, the name of the journalist, scholar, statesman, and saint, President GABRIEL GARCÍA MORENO of Ecuador, stands taller than any other in the Americas. (more…)