An eye-opener for the ears

[livius drusus]

As I read it, my mind turns to our house in London which is actually falling down - somebody omitted to prop up the middle when an arch was cut in a downstairs room 100 years ago - but which is still eminently saleable.

The English understand that we are all falling down. Dust to dust, we intuit. Americans do not. They have not got there yet.

Here's hoping we never do, then, because I think holding up unrepaired structural damage to historical properties as a badge of old world sophistication is absurd and offensive. That's how you get to this in a few generations.