It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: Judie told me that I sounded kind of depressed and homesick in my prior post. Probably the latter, but not the former. Today, with Judie across the Pond, I finally ventured out of the flat in mid-afternoon to discover an absolutely glorious day that seemed like early spring. I wandered about, bought a paper and ended up at Wright’s Seafood at Spitalfields Market. Oysters a pound a pop. Had 18 of them and a carafe of wine and chatted with Iris, my favorite server there. Then it was down two doors to Androuet, which has French and English cheeses Americans can only dream about. I might go to the National Theater tomorrow to see “All’s Well That Ends Well” or maybe to the West End to see “Hangmen”. I may be a bit homesick, but I’m definitely not miserable.

It Turns Out That it is All a Soap Opera: British politics is so internecine and dominated by a relative small group of people, that coming into it the way I have is a bit like joining a long-running soap opera and trying to figure out what is going on.. Everyone else knows the background stories and I am trying to catch up. A few examples:

• It turns out that Boris Johnson and David Cameron were at Eton together and were in the the same eating club. Boris was two years older, a prefect and an Etonian superstar. Everyone expected him to be a great leader of the country (and so did he). Cameron, in contrast, was just one of the guys. Don’t you think it must gall Boris to have Cameron become PM, when everyone at Eton thought it would be him? There is play to be written about this. (If you aren’t utterly bored by Brexit stuff, here is link to an Op-Ed piece by Boris from today’s Telegraph which cogently sets forth the case for leaving the EU, although it leaves some questions unanswered.)
• It turns out that Conservative Mayoral candidate Zac Goldsmith’s billionaire father has been funding a major Out of the EU organization. Had I known that, I would not be surprised that young Zac joined the various rats deserting Cameron’s leaking Tory Party ship. (By the way, isn’t “Goldsmith”a great name for a billionaire?)
• It turns out that Chancellor Michael Gove, is not just Cameron’s best bud. Some writers insinuate that he is Cameron’s brain as well. According to what I am reading, he is the smart guy in the Tory Party and Johnson/Gove would be the leadership team if Cameron falls. Johnson gives the Out side their popular leader and Gove gives them intellectual heft.
• Continuing with the soap opera analogy, I am beginning to see Corbyn as a minor character, inserted for comic relief in the past, suddenly elevated to a major role when another character (Milliband) was killed off. Are we supposed to take him seriously or is he just a place holder while the producers try to recruit a more serious star? I’d guess it depends upon the ratings…..
• Finally, the way Parliament works makes for much more soap-opera like drama. On the Monday after Cameron announced his agreement, he came for Question Time to promote the In side and promptly got into an oh-so-polite cat fight with Boris. It is only vaguely like Trump’s attacks on his opponents, but Trump’s insults are so crude, but the Brits really do it terribly well. (Can one imagine The Donald referring to Jeb as “my learned friend”?) In the US, if things are going bad, the politicians can just disappear and there is not much anyone can do. Here, they pretty much have to show up in the House of Commons and face others who are furious at them. It should be enormously entertaining.

Pitchers and Catchers: It was easy in the wintertime. But now baseball is starting and for the first time in thirty years, the Mets are powerhouse, a team that really should make the playoffs and is a reasonable bet to win it all. I’ve always appreciated Mets GM Sandy Alderson’s post-PED view of baseball and his strategy has been vindicated by what seems to me to be a triumphant off-season. As someone who probably watched at least a part (and too often all) of a hundred Met games a year when they were terrible, it just kills me that I will not be rewarded by wallowing in the upcoming season.