The inventor of the dress code, I would say, was the French king Louis XIV. To be received by him, and he insisted on that, you had to wear a hat. He died in 1715, presumably wearing his hat. Since then people have slowly learned, mostly from their mothers, what to wear or not to wear, according to the occasion. That is why, until recently, people never showed up at five o’clock tea clad in shorts and wearing flip flop sandals without socks. But they do now. They also go to a symphony concert or to the opera in the same clothes they had worn in the morning to take out the trash. Restaurants and cruise ships still hang on to the code but they cannot enforce it. After all, those people are the customers. They bring in the money. In other words, the dress code concept is defunct. R.I.P.
Strange as it may sound, I have noticed that there is also an unwritten un-dress code. That code is universally recognized and, unlike the dress code, is strictly adhered to by all. One never sees people at a concert wearing just their underpants. But, come to think of it, I have noticed that bathing suits 
get smaller and smaller with each annual Sports Illustrated edition. Could it be that the un-dress code is also on the way out? Maybe I should make an effort to get rid of my excess tummy. This could become embarrassing.
I passed the “written” on the third try, just barely. But now I have a valid drivers license again. I also have nightmares. “You are driving,” I dream, “north on a one-way street. You want to turn west onto a divided two-way street but lane #1 is blocked by a crew of workmen digging a hole. The light turns from green to yellow and people are honking. A swarm of bycicles is on your right. What will you do?” Best answer? “Get out of your car, sink to your knees and cry for help.”
I suffer from a weird affliction: I just cannot sit still in a chair for very long before my legs cramp up. The only quick solution to this problem is to stand up. But when I do this during a party or similar gathering everybody thinks I want to go and then they all stand up and begin saying their goodbyes. I am surprised people still invite me. But that is a minor annoyance. Some time ago we had gone out for lunch. “Look,” my wife said, “they have your favorite Rigatonelle with roasted Macadamia nuts on the menu today!” True, true. I used to eat such things with gusto, in my time. But I ordered the Spaghetti with homemade meatballs that day. How to explain this abrupt switch? Well, let us just say that even George Washington had false teeth. You get the drift. My paradise days are over. I cannot even bite into a pear, let alone an apple.
I often wondered how it is that the French can talk French so fast. The language breaks my tongue even at my slow pace. Here is the answer, maybe: they skip unessential consonants and nouns and call that elision.
Oxen and men have much in common. Both come in many flavors: some are belligerent in temperament, others are peaceful. Both are gregarious and like to rally around their own.
Words, as any good dictionary will tell us, often have many meanings. Some words tell us the brutal truth; others are euphemisms, making the described matter fit for polite society. When Eliza, to Colonel Pickering’s amusement, encourages her racehorse she uses the real word, not a euphemism. She does not yell “Move your blooming posterior.” Fit for polite society as this blog is we shall call Eliza’s colorful expression the “a-word.” In Bavaria, where the following happened, the common folk speak German, but in a very earthy dialect. Needless to point out that they also prefer the a-word to the euphemism.
Sicily has seen many conquerors and rulers, from the ancient Greeks to Mussolini. The Greeks left behind their temples. Mussolini left behind some government buildings in unmistakable fascist style. At about the time of the Battle of Hastings the Normans called the shots. They too left some of their architecture behind, notably the cathedral of Messina. It has been destroyed and rebuilt several times and is now a precious sight-seeing item for the tourists, worth a visit if you like to see what Norman Style means. Most tourists have simpler interests, such as the much advertised Golden Lion on top of the bell tower. As the guide books will tell you, this is a masterwork by a French clock maker. While other lions such as the one in Belfort or the one by the lake near Lucerne just sit there, the one in Messina is capable of letting go a most formidable roar, and he does this every day at twelve o’clock noon.
Writing dense, hard to parse prose is a fine art. The city council of a neighboring town are masters of that art. A few months ago the local newspaper published the announcement of an upcoming local election. It reads more like a test question for Math 101: