The Queue
The "Game, Set, Match" trilogy is fascinating & frustrating, frustrating not because of any deficiency in the writing but because the characters were so real & so true-to-life, in all its inconstant, foolish glory. Escapist fiction it's not, for the characters are distressingly similar to people we've all had the displeasure to know. I recommend Berlin Game, Mexico Set, & London Match to one & all, not just those with a taste for spy fiction.

I am taking a brief--perhaps only a day--pause before beginning A Man Called INTREPID to catch up on some magazines I'd been neglecting, specifically a trio of Car and Drivers. Despite my father's efforts, I've never been a car guy, but since falling in love with motorsport I feel a hunger to know more, to gain a more sophisticated understanding of the automobile. This seems to me quite natural & no cause for worry, but then the sick in the head rarely recognize themselves as such.

Recently
Len Deighton, Berlin Game
Len Deighton, Mexico Set
Len Deighton, London Match

Currently
Car and Driver Vol. 55, No. 9 & Vol. 56, Nos. 4-6

Presently
William Stevenson, A Man Called INTREPID: The Secret War
Karen E. Olson, Pretty in Ink
Rudyard Kipling, Kim

Project GLOWWORM
I was gifted a new suit for my birthday… way back in July… & last week I finally took advantage of the largess. My new suit is a dark blue, though substantially lighter than navy; single-breasted, of course; & bears a pattern of stripes that is just barely on the proper side of good taste. When I mentioned this to a particularly sartorially-minded kinsman, he damn near shouted at me over the phone, & I paraphrase as close to verbatim as I can recall, "You know that means you have to wear brown shoes, right?" I did in fact know that current fashion dictates a brown shoes be worn with a blue suit, & I already possess a lovely pair of brown square-toed loafers. But Beau Brummell's boots, you should have heard his scandalized tone! So what if I didn't own a pair of brown shoes? 'Twas only in the past few years that blue-and-brown became the standard. Since time immemorial (or at least the evolution of the modern suit in the 19th century, whatever your preference), men have worn black shoes with blue suits. Black & blue go together like steak & A-1, the shirt & the tie being the only bright spots in an otherwise dark & serious ensemble. There's nothing in the world wrong with wearing black shoes with a blue suit.

Yes, fashion dictates brown shoes with a blue suit, but I've never given a tinker's damn about fashion. Clearly, my wardrobe evolves with the times, but that's an unintentional concession to fashion, a consequence of what is on offer from my local haberdashers, my budget not permitting me & my vanity not requiring me to wear custom-made clothing. With Project GLOWWORM I am attempting to "raise my sartorial game," to establish a style all my own, but I'll be a monkey's uncle before I allow myself to start down the path of the Dark Side that is *shudder* fashion. (If I did, forever would it dominate my destiny!) Modern fashion dictates I wear brown shoes with a blue suit? I might have to wear my square-toed black loafers just to be contrary.