by John Mark Reynolds [author, academic]

My most delightful Christmas gift was Life With Jeeves. Nearly as delightful are the video versions which include a young Hugh Laurie (House). My children claim that House is hateful, because Jeeves has left him.

For me, the compilation of three of P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves novels was the perfect antidote to the serious nature of our times.

There is the War.

There is an election coming.

There is poverty and injustice.

On the other hand, the gentleman’s gentleman Jeeves must save Bertie from an ill advised marriage to a woman of the sort who “suddenly asks you out of a blue sky if you don’t sometimes feel that the stars are God’s daisy-chain. . ." [more]

It’s an odd thing about the way in which the two genders deal with their sexual experiences.  Early on, it’s most often males who do all the bragging, even if they have to lie about it.  However, as the years go by, it tends to be the female of the species who does most of the boasting.  I’m not sure whether that’s because as women age, they’re anxious to remind everyone that once upon a time they were hot stuff or whether it’s just that women have better memories and are far more likely to keep diaries.

What brings this to mind is that Barbara Walters, in order to hype her new book, is blabbing all over the place about an affair she and former Massachusetts Senator Edward Brooke carried on during the 70s.  That is, the 1970s, not their seventies, although, in my opinion, that would have been far more newsworthy. [more]

"Is 40 really the New 20?” asks Fox News, reviewing the Sex And The City hoopla that seemed to overwhelm everyone this weekend. “Pop culture expert and Party Girl author Anna David joins us to weigh in on the phenomenon…” And the burning question is, what do you make of this revolutionary idea that a woman can be single in her 30s, 40s, even 50s, and it’s not shameful, it’s fantastic?

Interesting. Let’s explore this revolutionary idea. How did Sex And The City make it okay to be single? After Anna David addresses how threatening this idea is to men—it must be, a reactionary Maxim magazine voted Sarah Jessica Parker the most unsexy woman alive (I’m sure the hook nose and the wart had nothing to do with it)—the Fox news anchor hit upon the kernel of truth in the matter almost unwittingly. [more]