Ho-hum, [sigh], and "yawn," Dalrymple dissects boredom in the latest Spectator with the expected lovely result. This underlying, or existential, boredom — and the desire to overcome it by whatever means — is a major cause of the epidemic of self-destructive, as well as antisocial, behaviour that has swept the Western world in the past few decades, Britain above all. In matters of self-destruction, in fact, we are in the vanguard. If gold medals had been awarded at the Olympics for senseless, self-destructive egotism, we’d have swept the board, gold, silver and bronze.

The sensible royalist Enoch Soames expresses horror at poorly dressed, swinging Republicans at the NYC Convention last week: Oh, I would like to meet their tailor...If they had one. I am not sure that one should deliver the reins of a nation's government into hands that are incapable of tying a proper knot. Please people, a tie requires a dimple, and the collar forms an inverted "V", it should not be that difficult to discover the center...Not left or right but center. As in “line it up with the buttons you hideous ass” center, are there no mirrors in your house? You might scoff at a king, but one thing is certain, you would never be embarrassed by his knot.

Being a bowtie devotee, I never have to worry over such barbarities.