About 30 0r 40 years too late the World War II memorial ceremony dedicating a plaza between the Lincoln and Washington monuments provided great photo ops for jaded politicians. Symposia's father, and many aunts and uncles served in the armed forces to defeat the forces of evil and not one is around to see the memorial.

Much as we want to condemn Princess Michael of Kent we have to admit we sympathize with her irritation at noisy restaurant patrons. She should have thought twice about the colonies remark but slurs abound in this hostile society, and Symposia has been called ... well let's just say it had to do with being Caucasian.

Last night at a reception at Berdorf's I saw for the first time in 20 years Harold (now Sir) Evans and though he had aged was as bright as a new penny, as they say. He even recalled Symposia was a bluestocking and that in Chicago he and John Malone tapped us to be part of the literary team for a proposed evening newspaper. The name was to be the Chicago Evening News. En tout cas it must be very difficult for him to have been so eclipsed by his wife; perhaps we should not have brought up a subject he seemed weary of.

.A propos of which we saw the hilarious drama about the life of Doris Duke on TV; Bacall was a true incarnation; in fact, the true New Yorker that she is, she seemed more bitter and sour than the heiress. Chamberlain was finally showing his true colors as the wicked butler.

Symposia is clairvoyant: today the Washington Post reports about a Pew Survey that indicates that journalists feel very bad about themselves and their profession. The truth is so simple: the media monopolies have all the power and the individual fourth estate scribe does not.

Behind every self made woman is a rich man or an extremely rich mother. One cannot think of a single exception to the rule except maybe Madonna the mad shaman. Slightly comique to see so many women pretend this is not the absolute case.

Journalists have no real power in an age when words are increasingly forgettable and meaningless. They become attack dogs when one of the less impotent men in the profession, Graydon Carter, takes money for pandering to Hollywood. This has been the modus operandi since the conglomerates/monopolies took over the media two decades ago. As they say, so what else is new?

We are writing our culinary memoir, Lucia Gastronomica, and received, as it were from the gods of pleasure, a rush of nostalgie upon describing Sharrow Bay on Ullswater or Hodge Hill on Cartmel Fell.They call it Cumbria now but then it was Westmoreland and it is the most enchanting part of the British Isles.

Symposia is more interested in the fact La Caravelle is closing than the war in Iraq. Is this egomaniacal or honest? A little while ago we had lunch there, amidst the faux Dufys, with charming James Sherwin and Rita Jammet, who seemed like a cunning restaurateur choosing to make fashionably skimpy portions seem like golden nuggets.

We dined with several Irish couples on Saturday at a ghastly loud eaterie, Orsay's, in the 70s. No stranger to the grape, Symposia was nonetheless alarmed at the quantities of alcohol consumed. Maids' Night Out.

I have always preferred the company of gay men to traditional "girlfriends" who tend to be less witty, less educated and far more ruined by petty mothers. One does wonder however whence derives,psychologically speaking, their ou sont les neiges d'antan syndrome. Probably to escape from early painful feelings of being out there!

All French smiles for a television interview the chef Jacques Pepin became quite another personality off stage, dour, unsmiling,and rather unhappy at having to be with 500 people from Astoria; Symposia edits a monthly culinary journal that is published there and he was our special guest.

Symposia's hairdresser who overdid the Harlow blonde look on Saturday told her that those savage beasts who tortured Iraqi prisoners were just young people without supervision. She had been in the military herself and wasn't at all critical of their behavior.

We read Jay McInerney's sympathique recounting of magazine salesman Ron Galotti; the writer has some lingering suspicion that maybe being mentioned on Page Six is not the alpha and omega of existence. Whew--these New Yorkers are too much!

Symposia has no idea why the Royal family continues to interest her, well, maybe because it is so impossibly dix-huitieme and exotic beyond comprehension. We read Paul Burrell's touching butlerian recounting of his devotion to this odd bunch; his book so much less damaging than Jephson's hilarious, sarcastic tale of Diana and the A-Team covering the globe.

What would that mean old goat, that anti-social peasant-like anarchist Picasso think of 100 milion for his simple painting of a boy with a pink wreath on his mask-like head. He would howl with laughter then go for a slice of the bread.

Symposia wonders if these New Yorkers ever get sick and tired of seeing one another a thousand times a week at those ghastly fund raising events. Even more so than in Chicago it is always the identical bunch of news readers, gossip columnists, "society" women and the husbands they drag along if they happen to still have one, a few tried and true walkers and so forth. A dull bunch who think they are on top of the globe.

Women are still in the psychological harem: Jackie Kennedy dressed up like a "living doll" in Vienna while Mrs. Khruschev wore what looked like a house dress. Capitalism took a big hit with the Kennedys (can you believe they actually liked the sappy musical Camelot?) and drove many into the arms of alternative thinking.