Saintsbury? His family must have dropped the T and started a grocery store.

Hmmmm...Christmas at Sainsbury's. Makes me almost nostalgic for Oxford.

Speaking of Oxford, there's a fascinating little piece in The Economist on how an Oxford lifestyle makes you live four years longer.

YOU work on the subject that most interests you, mostly at your own pace. The surroundings are beautiful, the colleagues stimulating. You take gentle exercise; there is excellent food and drink. A long-dead philanthropist pays for it all. That, more or less, was the lifestyle of Oxbridge dons for most of the past century. Now a research paper has shown that there is a practical benefit: four years on your life.

Well, why not? Your average Oxford don drinks more wine than a Frenchman, that's for sure. There's plenty of exercise as you gently bicycle hither and yon in all weathers. Free room and board...what's not to like?

Of course that can't be said of the lifestyle of the American academic. Boozeless, no exercise unless you go to a gym, and then it's just one more thing on a busy schedule, committee meetings, publish or perish...that must shorten the life expectancy.