As an ambassador, one doesn't make a habit of dwelling upon the differences (never to say faults, of
course) between one's hosts and one's home - nothing will make a man, be he diplomat, royalty or simple passerby, clam up so fast as pointing out that 'at home, we wear our hats
this way,' or 'I must admit I prefer our own practice of' setting a table in some equally ridiculous and yet ever so slightly different arrangement. One learns to praise and only to praise, even when one's host is London, because the sensitive temperaments of the English are prone to immediate and severe inflammation at the merest suggestion that they may not quite be best at everything. And who can blame them? They've been told for so long that they
are.
But I won't hold myself to the same standard now, as I've never heard of there being an ambassador to another
time, and it's not as though I'm being paid for my labor or being returned home to report. So, allow me to lodge a small and no doubt unoriginal - how do you say - quibble:
There has always been cheap, relatively unhealthful food immediately available in cities for those for whom such things are convenient. Certainly in Paris and London, the two great urban areas with which I can claim any familiarity, a man has been able to purchase something drowned in butter or grease, some pastry or pasty, some sweet or lump of fat, for little enough money and with no more inconvenience than waiting in a line. But never in my life have I been subjected to quite so much indignity in the act of purchase itself - never before coming to New York have I been forced to tell a perfect stranger I wanted a
McMuffin or a
bacon and Gouda Artisan breakfast sandwich (where on earth do they keep the artisan?), or a
Funk Meister (attempts to ascertain the meaning of this phrase have met with no success), or a
Frisky Dog (indisputably an insult). The attempts of one merchant to differentiate himself from another have produced such a proliferation of ridiculousness that customers are forced to sacrifice some measure of dignity simply to acquire food. The customer must dance a silly little jig and make a fool of himself before anyone will consent to give him his money's worth. We are all idiots in the service of what we seem to be calling
marketing.
Such is the stamp of capital.
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