Federal Judiciary

Cruising with NR, Part II -- By: Jay Nordlinger

So, the second and final installment of these notes from National Review?s Portuguese cruise? For the first installment, go here. Where was I? Doesn?t matter. One day, we cross the Douro River into Spain -- busing (no, not ?bussing,? that would be kissing) to Salamanca. Our group takes two buses: and one of the buses is stopped, by the Spanish police. Why? A shakedown, it seems -- a pure, simple shakedown. The fuzz looked and looked for some infraction. Best they could come up with was one tire whose pressure was a wee bit low. The bus spent the entire day in the slammer, and so did the bus driver, I understand. Many of our group were inconvenienced. After some payola, the Spaniards let the bus go.

I?m told that the Spaniards are always doing this: harassing Portuguese tour buses, shaking down the drivers and companies. What a disgusting practice. Where are we, Zaire? Chicago? I remark to a fellow passenger, ?I wonder what King Juan Carlos would say, if he knew about this. I don?t think he?d like it at all.? Then I remember the well-worn expression of the Jews in Old Russia: ?If only the czar knew . . .? Still, I believe that Juan Carlos wouldn?t like it at all. He is a civilized man, and he should preside over a civilized country.

And I know my man Aznar, the former prime minister, wouldn?t like it.

I learn something in Salamanca: Some of the organ pipes point out -- they are not vertical, but horizontal. They point out at you like trumpets. A guide says this is unique to Spain. Nice (whether the ?trumpeting? pipes are uniquely Spanish or not).

Interesting about the Spanish language: Our guide speaks beautiful, pretty much fluent English, but some things are simply ingrained. When she says, ?Spanish,? she says, ?Espanish?; when she says, ?Spain,? she says, ?Espain.? I like it.

At night, on the ship, we have a flamenco troupe -- impressive bunch. They are very, very serious -- very sincere. Sincerity counts a lot in art, of whatever type. They believe entirely in what they are doing. They don?t consider it silly or comical in the least. And they make you believe in what they are doing. Moreover, they support one another, touchingly. For example, when one of the girls is dancing, the others shout, ?Andale, guapa!?

In Part I of these scribbles, I mentioned the wildflowers -- fields of wildflowers, masses of wildflowers, in the Douro Valley. Want to see some pictures? They?re just cellphone jobs -- actually, BlackBerry Pearl jobs -- but they might give a hint. Try this. And this little curve in the road. And these red poppies, along with some purple jobs. (I am Joe Flora, I know.) And this other curve in the road.

If National Geographic would like to engage my photographic services, please contact me at National Review. Thank you.

Above, I said ?red poppies.? Are all poppies red? If so, pardon the redundancy. But then, I know most things, or many things, through music, and Glière wrote a ballet called ?The Red Poppy.?

Yesterday, I mentioned some of our guests -- our special guest speakers -- and today I will mention the others. We have David Pryce-Jones, our esteemed senior editor. In one panel session, he delivers a tour d?horizon that is a tour de force. And in another session, he has a delicious clash with Paul Johnson, on the subject of Muslim integration in Britain. (Johnson thinks it will happen in short order; Pryce-Jones is highly dubious.) There is nothing like two brilliant Brits sparring -- especially when they are fast friends.

David is here with his wife Clarissa, née Clarissa Caccia, daughter of the famed Harold Caccia, Lord Caccia, who was a top diplomat of Her Majesty?s Government, the ambassador in Washington, for example. I call Clarissa ?the ambassador?s daughter,? or ?la fille de l?ambassadeur,? which she hates (but tolerates, barely). She is glorious, for her toleration of me and more. Would you like to see a picture of the P-Js, standing before Douro splendor? You can tell it?s they thanks to their name tags. Go here.

Johnson is in cracking form all week. One day, at lunch, he sings ?Jerusalem? for us, along with his wife Marigold. Stirring. Wish my tape recorder had been going.

I just realized that that word ?cracking,? above, can be construed as applying to the singing! He did not crack; and neither did she.

One afternoon, at one of our public sessions, I have an hour with him on the subject of Churchill. Johnson recently wrote a short bio, which I?ve discussed in my column before. On the ship, he quotes from Churchill, pronounces on him, tells stories about him, imitates him -- the next best thing to hearing from the old man himself. Just splendid -- thrilling, actually. Talk about wishing for a tape recorder . . .

I?ll relate one point: Johnson says that Churchill was half American because of his mother, Jennie -- but he was more than half, really, because he had an American mind and heart (to speak loosely). He had no use for class, for example. And he had an American-like zest for living (despite occasional bouts of ?black dog?). Johnson could explain better than I -- and, in fact, did.

One day, another lunch, I bring up Kipling. Paul gets a look in his eye, and says, ?Ah!? In his view, there are four British authors who had genius -- not just big talent, but genius. Certainly genius of a particular kind. Jane Austen, whom Paul loves perhaps above all, is not on this list, because her writing came from experience. But Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, and Kipling? They just pulled stuff from the air -- had a strange, barely explicable quality of knowing. When he was a teenager, Kipling was writing, brilliantly, about things he had never seen.

Johnson could explain better than I . . .

In one of our sessions, I ask him to comment on the United Nations -- whether we should stick with it, whether we can do better, whether we should try for a league of democracies, and so on. Johnson will not deal with the subject. He dismisses it with, ?The U.N. isn?t worth tuppence.?

I know the word ?tuppence,? I believe, from seeing Mary Poppins as a child.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am -- what is the expression? A lying sack. At the end of yesterday?s installment -- Part I -- I said that tomorrow, today, would be the second and final installment. At the top of this column, I said, in effect, ?Welcome to Part II, the last of these jottings from our Portuguese cruise.? You know? There will be a Part III -- tomorrow. Enough for now. I will close out -- close out for sure for sure -- tomorrow. Got some good material too, including more Johnson. Thanks for joining me today. Join me again tomorrow, despite lying sackhood?

Full post as published by Bench Memos - National Review Online on May 20, 2010 (boomark / email).