Yesterday we met Isabella Rossellini, a tiny, dark and very somber version of her mother whose artifacts and memorabilia festoon Scandinavia House. Ingrid Bergman no beauty but she must have been a powerful presence.

In the recent issue of CAM for Cambridge alums Corin Redgrave's recollections conveniently omit his Stalinist boot camp in the Midlands in the 1970s. During that fraught time Symposia encountered his sister Vanessa on several occasions in Cambridge when she was financing a group of American GIs against the war--PEACE, People Emerging Against Corrupt Establishments. Seems so ridiculous now. And it must not be forgotten what fervent supporters of Arafat the Redgraves were at the time.

Why in the world would Kerry lie about throwing away those medals? It would have been a non-issue had he said yes and I am very sorry. Monty Python always has insights into the I'm Sooooooo sorry excuse. Just assume he is another duplicitous Clinton figure. And just as dumb. Kennedy apologized for the demise of 100 men at the Bay of Pigs but his ratings soared after he publicly said he made a mistake.

Recent studies show men like to play golf to elude women...can you blame them? Men are like fresh air and Symposia has always preferred their company.

A cache of Fitzgerald in Hollywood letters, scripts made front page news today. Jack Warner referred to screenwriters as "jerks with Underwoods", which also applied to Aldous Huxley and William Faulkner.

Symposia had an epiphany last night, namely that most critics and journalists feed off, parasite-like, the actions and accomplishments of others. Flaubert--how many biographies. So too Malraux, Carl Jung, the sad Kennedy clan, the millions who have actually done something. We are probably in this dreary company but will attempt to branch out a bit and do something creative. Historians make the distinction between primary and secondary sources.

Anthony Lane's opaque fantasie in the New Yorker inspired us to dive into Wodehouse again. Mein Gott-- he is too divine! And no obscenities, no infelicitous thoughts, words as antimacassars on the worn couch of life.

The NY Times today has a coy feature in its House and Home section on the lurid house of a thoroughly lurid pornography actress. Why in the world would Bill Keller allow this? Symposia has some issues with the First Amendment regarding pornography and allowing self-proclaimed Nazis to march.

Do you love the way columnists are unabashed sycophants? Thus they declare Mrs. Kofi Annan wife of the UN personality as the most beautiful woman in New York. Good old Big Apple where everything is so blatant, where fame sans accomplishment is the ultimate value.

How indecorous of Artemis Cooper to have included salacious details of the personal life of Elizabeth David; it made us think less of the subject and should definitely have been omitted. Tsk.Tsk.

We spent several days in Montreal, an outpost of French civilization, or French civilization as it was 100 years ago. Very provincial, many churches, ordinaire restaurants and contemporary artistic culture straight from New York and Los Angeles.

Frank Prial's charming essay in today's Times on Alistair Cooke and his love of Riesling. One tries to fathom why Cooke would have spent his life on 96th Street; no doubt he had the celebrity here that England would not have offered. Until you have lived there for many years as Symposia had you cannot see the pronounced anti-Americanism -- the Colonies! -- the hovers right beneath the surface of every well-bred Englishman.

The Reverse Snobbery of the English upper-class: the false modesty and self deprecation of the Duchess of Devonshire in the otherwise very funny book "Counting My Chickens". Standing in front of Chatsworth she can well afford to deride her inability to arrange flowers.

Bush had been in office half a year when 9/11 struck, yet we blame his administration not that of the previous eight years when that irresponsible man from Arkansas was perpetrating disgusting acts in the Oval Office instead of tending to known terrorist threats since 1996. We were never Republican but after Clinton neither were we Democrat again.

We should have stayed in the Groves of Academe to use Mary Mc Carthy's old phrase (or was it Ovid? Everything is always Ovid) so out of touch with everyday intellectual tastes are we. Thus David Remnick publishing in the middle brow New Yorker a silly piece (not as silly as the internet stalker article to be sure) why the Dutch are taller than Americans. My ex was of Dutch extraction and at 6'5" had tall genes, period. The US has Latin, Mediterranean stock far outnumbering Germanic or Nordic stock so we are shorter. Period.

Then Janet Maslin reviewing a childish book "Bergdorf Blondes" in the New York Times. Eh bien!

Publishers like Knopf deserve not to make money if they fire off books like Pico Iyer's "Sun After Dark", an unconscionable bore. His naive depiction of that old fooler the Dalai Lama made Symposia laugh with its earnest depiction of the fashionable globe trotter whom dopey actors like Richard Gere think has some secret.