Shhhh! Don't let the Robinsonian Episcopals read this, but Kathleen Parker's article claims (gasp!) that marriage, tested by time (shock!), is a healthier social arrangement than new-fangled replacements. Nice slaps at new agey primitivism and multi-culti "noble savage" nonsense along the way, as well.

And Jeff Jacoby (a twinkle of good sense on the numbingly silly Globe editorial page) recommends the new book called "The Literary Book of Economics," which uses authors from the Western canon to illustrate basic economic theories. Clever stuff. Jacoby also points out that economic writers are the dullest scribblers around, which is too often true. I would offer several authors as a cure for this: try Wilhem Ropke's A Humane Economy and Joseph Schumpeter's Capitalism, Democracy, and Socialism. Not only do I approve of the content, but the style is pleasing.

Speaking of food and Britain, I was given a book of British cuisine and recipes the other day, a glossy Time-Life edition from the late 1960s. In it are a number of traditional English, Welsh, Scottish, Cornish, and Irish recipes and dishes complete with glossy photos of the same. Tell me (I ask my compatriots more familiar with these things than I), do people still eat (or order) things like Toad in the Hole, Potted Pork, Jellied Pig's Feet Terrine, Ham and Veal Pie, Crumpets & Butter, Bangers and Mash, Bubble & Squeak, Ploughman's Lunch, etc.?