A weed, says the dictionary, is “any plant that is useless, troublesome, noxious or grows where it is not wanted.” The dictionary also adds: “colloq., a cigar.” We may omit for our present purpose the harmless colloquialism, but the rest of the definition deserves to be closely examined. Socrates, I imagine, could have found a […]

“Nine bean-rows will I have there,” cries Mr Yeats in describing his Utopia in The Lake Isle of Innisfree. I have only two. They run east to west between the second-early potatoes and the red-currant bushes. They are broad beans. They are in flower just now, and every flower is a little black-and-white butterfly. That, […]

As a rule, there is nothing that offends us more than a new kind of money. We felt humiliated in the early days of the war when we were no longer paid in heavy little discs of gold, and had to accept paper pounds and ten-shillingses. We even sneered at the design. We always sneer […]

Almost any man can make a joke, but it sometimes requires a clever man to see one. It is said that a Scotsman “jokes wi’ deeficulty.” What we really mean is that it is often difficult to see a Scotsman’s jokes or even to know whether he is joking or being serious. As a matter […]

Everything has begun to have a blasted look till the sun shines. The ferns have been beaten down by the wind and the rain, and lie withered and broken-backed among the brambles, waiting till some poor man thinks it worth his while to go off with a load of them on his back for bedding. […]

“Do they have as much fun at the Derby as they used to?” I heard an old gentleman in a white hat, canary gloves, and buttoned boots asking a fellow-passenger in a London train. Fun? No; one would hardly call it that. Looking back on it after forty years one will no doubt call it […]