Go Dodgers Quotes

If I go to hell for this—” “I’ll be there as well. I’ll dance with you,” he promised.

Mmmm, as I recall, if you go around telling people that they are downtrodden, you tend to make two separate enemies: the people who are doing the downtreading and have no intention of stopping, and the people who are downtrodden, but nevertheless -- people being who they are -- don't want to know. They can get quite nasty about it.

The thing about secrets is that they are usually best kept by just one person. That was the special thing about secrets. Some people seemed to think that the best way to keep a secret was to tell as many people as possible; what could possibly go wrong for a secret when there were so many people defending it?

It was like some great big spring was tugging at him - and maybe, perhaps sooner rather than later, a boy has to decide what kind of man he is going to be. Is he going to be a player, or a playing piece...?

I don’t care,” Livy stated emphatically. “I don’t care if our marriage is nullified. As for our children, they will be loved and they will be taught to laugh at society’s rules when they don’t suit them. They will have your strength of conviction, Jack, and your mother’s strength of purpose. We will all honor her. She was a remarkable woman. I wish I’d had an opportunity to know her. She gave me something very precious. “I love you, Jack Dodger. I love you with all my heart and soul. If I must live with you without benefit of marriage, so be it. I shall do it with no regrets and with an amazing amount of pride that you’ve chosen me to stand at your side. And when I go to hell, I shall gladly dance with you.

Keefe reached toward her, and for a second she wondered if he was going to take her hand—but he grabbed the Jammie Dodgers instead.

. . . and what are you exactly, my friend? Their subordinate? Their employee? Or, I would suggest, their equal? That's what young Karl would certainly have said, and probably still does. Unless he's no longer alive.' Dodger gave Solomon and strange look and Solomon hastened to clarify. "'Mmmm, as I recall, if you go around telling people that they are downtrodden, you tend to make two separate enemies: the people who are doing the downtreading and have no intention of stopping, and the people who are downtrodden, but nevertheless -- people being who they are -- don't want to know. They can get quite nasty about it.' (205)

had been a pilot in the Second World War, said she would be happy to go to Vietnam right now if she could. To them war was war and a draft dodger was a traitor. There was racial unrest everywhere and uneasiness about the rise of crime, drugs, and gangs in the cities and how it was being handled. It seemed to numerous voters that, thanks to the growing power of the ACLU, criminals were beginning to have more rights than the victims.

A sound startled him, and to his everlasting irritation, his body jerked. The nurse was standing at the foot of the bed. Did they all have to creep around? He was going to insist bells be sewn onto everyone’s clothes so he was aware of them approaching.

Rooster here has missed Ned a few times himself, horse and all,' said the captain. 'I reckon his is on his way now to missing him again.' Rooster was holding a bottle with a little whiskey in it. He said, 'You keep on thinking that.' He drained off the whiskey in about three swallows and tapped the cork back in and tossed the bottle up in the air. He pulled his revolver and fired at it twice and missed. The bottle fell and rolled and Rooster shot at it two or three more times and broke it on the ground. He got out his sack of cartridges and reloaded his pistol. He said, 'The Chinaman is running them cheap shells in on me again.' LaBoeuf said, 'I thought maybe the sun was in your eyes. That is to say, your eye.' Rooster swung the cylinder back in his revolver and said, 'Eyes, is it? I'll show you eyes!' He jerked the sack of corn dodgers free from his saddle baggage. He got one of the dodgers out and flung it in the air and fired at it and missed. Then he flung another one up and he hit it. The corn dodger exploded. He was pleased with himself and he got a fresh bottle of whiskey from his baggage and treated himself to a drink. LaBoeuf pulled one of his revolvers and got two dodgers out of the sack and tossed them both up. He fired very rapidly but he only hit one. Captain Finch tried it with two and missed both of them. Then he tried with one and made a successful shot. Rooster shot at two and hit one. They drank whiskey and used up about sixty corn dodgers like that. None of them ever hit two at one throw with a revolver but Captain Finch finally did it with his Winchester repeating rifle, with somebody else throwing. It was entertaining for a while but there was nothing educational about it. I grew more and more impatient with them. I said, 'Come on, I have had my bait of this. I am ready to go. Shooting cornbread out here on this prairie is not taking us anywhere.' By then Rooster was using his rifle and the captain was throwing for him. 'Chunk high and not so far out this time,' said he.

They didn’t want a black man on the Yankees even though the Dodgers had Jackie and had broken down the color barrier. The Yankees didn’t want Elston, because of the innate prejudice at the time on that ball club and in that organization. And when Elston came, what he had to go through is somewhat the same as what Jackie had to face.

Going out? Are you going out? He's not going out? What do you mean he's not going out? Are you out here because you're still mad that they moved the Dodgers to L.A.? Are you going out or not? You're not going out? I guess you're not going out — huh? You mean go out parking in the evenings? Are you going out to park? Mr. Tepper, he asked at one point, did you ever — if you were in the middle of an interesting story in the paper or perhaps an interesting conversation with somebody who dropped in to talk to you while you were parking — notice that the meter had run out and therefore go out and put more money in the meter? If we're both keeping an eye out, what does it hurt?

Heaven forbid you do anything -cliché-, Mr. English-Professor-in-Training," says Dodger. "You might find a single cliché is a gateway drug to tweed jackets and khaki slacks, and the next thing you know, you're teaching Kerouac and making eyes at that cute undergrad in the front row who makes you think about fucking all of Middle America in one triumphant go.

I opened the curtain and entered the confessional, a dark wooden booth built into the side wall of the church. As I knelt on the small worn bench, I could hear a boy's halting confession through the wall, his prescribed penance inaudible as the panel slid open on my side and the priest directed his attention to me. "Yes, my child," he inquired softly. "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. This is my First Confession." "Yes, my child, and what sins have you committed?" .... "I talked in church twenty times, I disobeyed my mother five times, I wished harm to others several times, I told a fib three times, I talked back to my teacher twice." I held my breath. "And to whom did you wish harm?" My scheme had failed. He had picked out the one group of sins that most troubled me. Speaking as softly as I could, I made my admission. "I wished harm to Allie Reynolds." "The Yankee pitcher?" he asked, surprise and concern in his voice. "And how did you wish to harm him?" "I wanted him to break his arm." "And how often did you make this wish?" "Every night," I admitted, "before going to bed, in my prayers." "And were there others?" "Oh, yes," I admitted. "I wished that Robin Roberts of the Phillies would fall down the steps of his stoop, and that Richie Ashburn would break his hand." "Is there anything else?" "Yes, I wished that Enos Slaughter of the Cards would break his ankle, that Phil Rizzuto of the Yanks would fracture a rib, and that Alvin Dark of the Giants would hurt his knee." But, I hastened to add, "I wished that all these injuries would go away once the baseball season ended." ... "Are there any other sins, my child?" "No, Father." "For your penance, say two Hail Mary's, three Our Fathers, and," he added with a chuckle, "say a special prayer for the Dodgers. ...

We like to think of the old-fashioned American classics as children's books. Just childishness, on our part. The old American art-speech contains an alien quality, which belongs to the American continent and to nowhere else. But, of course, so long as we insist on reading the books as children's tales, we miss all that. One wonders what the proper high-brow Romans of the third and fourth or later centuries read into the strange utterances of Lucretius or Apuleius or Tertullian, Augustine or Athanasius. The uncanny voice of Iberian Spain, the weirdness of old Carthage, the passion of Libya and North Africa; you may bet the proper old Romans never heard these at all. They read old Latin inference over the top of it, as we read old European inference over the top of Poe or Hawthorne. It is hard to hear a new voice, as hard as it is to listen to an unknown language. We just don't listen. There is a new voice in the old American classics. The world has declined to hear it, and has blabbed about children's stories. Why?—Out of fear. The world fears a new experience more than it fears anything. Because a new experience displaces so many old experiences. And it is like trying to use muscles that have perhaps never been used, or that have been going stiff for ages. It hurts horribly. The world doesn't fear a new idea. It can pigeon-hole any idea. But it can't pigeon-hole a real new experience. It can only dodge. The world is a great dodger, and the Americans the greatest. Because they dodge their own very selves.

Beatrix was right, of course." "About what?" "That you and Leo were like a pair of ferrets, a bit rough-and-tumble in courtship." Catherine smiled sheepishly. "Beatrix is very intuitive." Poppy directed a wry glance at Dodger, who was carefully licking the last residue of egg off the saucer. "I used to think Beatrix would outgrow her obsession with animals. Now I realize it's the way her brain works. She sees hardly any difference between the animal world and the human one. I only hope she can find a man who will tolerate her individuality." "What a tactful way to put it," Catherine said, laughing. "You mean a man who won't complain about finding rabbits in his shoes or a lizard in his cigar box?" "Exactly." "She will," Catherine assured her. "Beatrix is far too loving, and worthy of being loved, to go unmarried.

I checked in with Keefe this morning,” he said, helping her to her feet, “to find out when he wanted to go to the Forbidden Cities so I could set up the cameras to watch for that guy he remembered. But Ro started shouting in the background about chaining him to a porch swing. So he said I needed to talk to you, and then he launched into this long speech about how we both needed to bring him back a bunch of biscuits to apologize for ditching him—at least that’s what I think he said. There was a lot of talk about Jammie Dodgers and Jaffa Cakes and Digestives—no idea what those are. But he said you’d know—or that you should, and if you didn’t, I needed to tell you to be ashamed of yourself.” “Uh, except I grew up in America, not England,” Sophie argued, even though she actually had heard of a few of those cookies—biscuits—whatever she was supposed to call them. But she doubted Dex cared about human regional snack variations. So she focused on the actual important subject.

We put him to the test that afternoon after the Kid woke up. I piled every weapon we had into the wagon and trucked the arsenal halfway across the San Simon Valley. One by one I fired off a round from each of the borrowed weapons and wrote down the order in which I had sent the reports. When I returned at midafternoon, we compared my notes to the Kid’s. Jack had not once failed to identify gun make and model, caliber, and brand of ammunition. He was even able to tell whether I had fired off a report with my right or left hand. Lord knows how he did that. I, of course, had to see it for myself. We sent Pate off to the South Pass of the Dragoons and he commenced to fire off rounds at dusk. BAM! came the first report, aborning to us from the distant mountains and then quickly disintegrating into the maw of the desert sky. “Remington forty-four,” Jack said. “Eighteen sixty-nine model.” He sat on a rock with his hands splayed over his stumpy knees and his head cocked for the next selection. POW! Jack pursed his lips. “Colt’s Lightning . . . forty-one caliber . . . iv’ry grips.” BOOM! At this report Jack chuckled. “Well, first off . . . forty-five caliber Peacemaker, seven-and-a-half-inch barrel,” he announced proudly. Then he smiled. “That ol’ dodger Pate . . . he’s a slick one, tryin’ to pull one on me.” “What do you mean?” I asked. “Along with the Colt he let go with a derringer, thirty-two caliber. Sounded like it ain’t been cleaned in a while.” I sat down next to Jack and draped my arm over his rounded shoulders. “Jack, I believe you’ve given credence to the saying that every man on this earth serves a role.” Jack gave me a look. “ ‘Serves a roll?’ Are we in the restaurant business again?

thought to be the smartest, most observant guy on the roster. The room became silent. This was going to be good. “Some of you guys have been doing the number two and not washing your hands,” said Greinke. “It’s not good. I noticed it even happened earlier today.” More silence. “So if you guys could just be better about it that would be great,” he said, and then he sat back down. His teammates looked around

Now there are some people, not you of course, who would say we should go to the authorities, and this is because they have no grasp at all of the realities of London for the lower classes; no grasp at all of the rookeries and the detritus of decay and squalor that is their lot. Yes?

Imagine this for a moment, if you will (you can reject the premise later on, but please just go along with it for now): imagine a baseball game.  The Dodgers are playing the Giants.  If you don’t know much about baseball, you may not know the Dodgers and Giants are bitter rivals.  They both want to win, obviously.  And obviously it’s just a sport, so it’s ok that they both want to win. But suppose the score is 10-1, with the Dodgers leading, and it’s the ninth (last) inning.  Suppose after all those games, and all those years and decades (over a century) of this bitter rivalry, the players, managers, coaches and fans said, “Let’s do something different.  Just for this one game, let’s see if we can play to a tie.  It will be different.  I mean we’ve played hundreds of games the other way.  And that was fun.  But let’s just try something different for now.  I mean, all this sweating and fighting and yelling just to win a game—it’s not the only thing in the world.  It’s good, but why not try something new for a change?  So let’s just play the game differently the rest of the way out, this one game.  And how about the fans of the Dodgers and the fans of the Giants switch caps, or at least try to root for the other guys for a while?  I mean, it’s just this once—it can’t hurt, right?  This old game of baseball, it’s a wonderful game, but come on—do we have to play the same way over and over game after game for the rest of our lives?  Just once can we do things differently?” Well, i know some of you sports fans are laughing right now, if not vomiting.  I mean, this is kind of ridiculous—trying to lose, on purpose?  It’s a bit of a left-wing stereotype i’m living up to right now.  So go ahead, get it all out of your system.  Call me every name in the book.  Say the world will fall apart if one baseball game is played differently.  I mean competition is the basis of everything.  If we didn’t compete over everything in life, what sort of meaning would life have?  Our civilization would fall apart.  The Dodgers letting the Giants win would be the end of western civilization.  It would destroy all our western values.  It might even be un-Christ-like.  A lot of you may not be able to imagine such a ridiculous thing even being considered, much less actually happening. And i find this interesting.  I find it interesting that we are so wrapped up in the idea that there must be winners and losers, and that somehow the outcome of this competition (whether it’s a baseball game or the life of a nation) is fair because that’s simply the natural order of things.  The side that wins is supposed to win; the side that loses is supposed to lose.  To dispute this is to dispute the most basic assumptions of who we are. If winning is this important to us, and—by extension—competition is too, then we need to be completely certain that the rules are fair, that nobody is cheating.  That is, suppose the Dodgers were cheating and that’s how they scored 10 runs?  What would we do then?  They probably should forfeit the game, right?  Well, i say white amerika has been cheating.  We’re not all bad—we have talent, we played hard, we love our mothers, but the fact is we’ve been cheating.  White amerika should forfeit.

An example is the campaign that Goodby, Berlin & Sil- verstein produced for the Northern California Honda Deal- ers Advertising Association (NCHDAA) in 1989. Rather than conform to the stereotypical dealer group advertising ("one of a kind, never to be repeated deals, this weekend 114 Figure 4.1 UNUM: "Bear and Salmon. Figure 4.2 UNUM: "Father and Child." 115 PEELING THE ONION only, the Honda-thon, fifteen hundred dollars cash back . . ." shouted over cheesy running footage), it was decided that the campaign should reflect the tone of the national cam- paign that it ran alongside. After all, we reasoned, the only people who know that one spot is from the national cam- paign and another from a regional dealer group are industry insiders. In the real world, all people see is the name "Honda" at the end. It's dumb having one of (Los Angeles agency) Rubin Postaer's intelligent, stylish commercials for Honda in one break, and then in the next, 30 seconds of car salesman hell, also apparently from Honda. All the good work done by the first ad would be undone by the second. What if, we asked ourselves, we could in some way regionalize the national message? In other words, take the tone and quality of Rubin Postaer's campaign and make it unique to Northern California? All of the regional dealer groups signed off as the Northern California Chevy/Ford/ Toyota Dealers, yet none of the ads would have seemed out of place in Florida or Wisconsin. In fact, that's probably where they got them from. In our research, we began not by asking people about cars, or car dealers, but about living in Northern California. What's it like? What does it mean? How would you describe it to an alien? (There are times when my British accent comes in very useful.) How does it compare to Southern California? "Oh, North and South are very different," a man in a focus group told me. "How so?" "Well, let me put it this way. There's a great rivalry between the (San Francisco) Giants and the (L.A.) Dodgers," he said. "But the Dodgers' fans don't know about it." Everyone laughed. People in the "Southland" were on a different planet. All they cared about was their suntans and flashy cars. Northern Californians, by comparison, were more modest, discerning, less likely to buy things to "make state- ments," interested in how products performed as opposed to 116 Take the Wider View what they looked like, more environmentally conscious, and concerned with the quality of life. We already knew from American Honda—supplied re- search what Northern Californians thought of Honda's cars. They were perceived as stylish without being ostentatious, reliable, understated, good value for the money . . . the paral- lels were remarkable. The creative brief asked the team to consider placing Honda in the unique context of Northern California, and to imagine that "Hondas are designed with Northern Californi- ans in mind." Dave O'Hare, who always swore that he hated advertising taglines and had no talent for writing them, came back immediately with a line to which he wanted to write a campaign: "Is Honda the Perfect Car for Northern Califor- nia, or What?" The launch commercial took advantage of the rivalry between Northern and Southern California. Set in the state senate chamber in Sacramento, it opens on the Speaker try- ing to hush the house. "Please, please," he admonishes, "the gentleman from Northern California has the floor." "What my Southern Californian colleague proposes is a moral outrage," the senator splutters, waving a sheaf of papers at the other side of the floor. "Widening the Pacific Coast Highway . . . to ten lanes!" A Southern Californian senator with bouffant hair and a pink tie shrugs his shoulders. "It's too windy," he whines (note: windy as in curves, not weather), and his fellow Southern Californians high-five and murmur their assent. The Northern Californians go nuts, and the Speaker strug- gles in vain to call everyone to order. The camera goes out- side as th

Criminal wealth is reinvested, which makes criminals richer and more potent adversaries, while companies in the City poach law enforcement officers to work in their compliance departments. It’s like expecting the army to fight a war against an adversary that gets stronger all the time, while its service men and women are continually lured away to work as private security contractors or, worse still, as mercenaries for their former adversaries. You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to start wondering if there isn’t something going on, because this is a system that is not working at all.

We have Gina here dress up as Rapunzel...." "Never going to happen," Gina said immediately. "Come on, it's just for a few hours. You'll be the bait." "Nope. But you have a slender waist-- maybe with the corset..." "In your dreams." "Oh, believe me, my dreams have nothing to do with you in a corset. My nightmares, on the other hand..." "There's a reason I never wanted more than one kid," the Goodwife muttered. Dodger let out an angry bleat from the window. "Human kid," she added apologetically.

Then you found Mr. Rutledge unsettling, too?” “No, but I understand why you do. He watches you like one of those ambushing sort of predators. The kind that lie in wait before they spring.” “How dramatic,” Poppy said with a dismissive laugh. “He’s not a predator, Bea. He’s only a man.” Beatrix made no reply, only made a project of smoothing Dodger’s fur. As she leaned over him, he strained upward and kissed her nose affectionately. “Poppy,” she murmured, “no matter how Miss Marks tries to civilize me—and I do try to listen to her—I still have my own way of looking at the world. To me, people are scarcely different from animals. We’re all God’s creatures, aren’t we? When I meet someone, I know immediately what animal they would be. When we first met Cam, for example, I knew he was a fox.” “I suppose Cam is somewhat fox-like,” Poppy said, amused. “What is Merripen? A bear?” “No, unquestionably a horse. And Amelia is a hen.” “I would say an owl.” “Yes, but don’t you remember when one of our hens in Hampshire chased after a cow that had strayed too close to the nest? That’s Amelia.” Poppy grinned. “You’re right.” “And Win is a swan.” “Am I also a bird? A lark? A robin?” “No, you’re a rabbit.” “A rabbit?” Poppy made a face. “I don’t like that. Why am I a rabbit?” “Oh, rabbits are beautiful soft animals who love to be cuddled. They’re very sociable, but they’re happiest in pairs.” “But they’re timid,” Poppy protested. “Not always. They’re brave enough to be companions to many other creatures. Even cats and dogs.” “Well,” Poppy said in resignation, “it’s better than being a hedgehog, I suppose.” “Miss Marks is a hedgehog,” Beatrix said in a matter-of-fact tone that made Poppy grin. “And you’re a ferret, aren’t you, Bea?” “Yes. But I was leading to a point.” “Sorry, go on.” “I was going to say that Mr. Rutledge is a cat. A solitary hunter. With an apparent taste for rabbit.” Poppy blinked in bewilderment. “You think he is interested in . . . Oh, but Bea, I’m not at all . . . and I don’t think I’ll ever see him again . . .” “I hope you’re right.” Settling on her side, Poppy watched her sister in the flickering glow of the hearth, while a chill of uneasiness penetrated the very marrow of her bones. Not because she feared Harry Rutledge. Because she liked him.

Her chances of a decent marriage were about to be dashed—and all because of a ferret. Unfortunately Poppy Hathaway had pursued Dodger halfway through the Rutledge Hotel before she recalled an important fact: to a ferret, a straight line included six zigs and seven zags. “Dodger,” Poppy said desperately. “Come back. I’ll give you a biscuit, any of my hair ribbons, anything! Oh, I’m going to make a scarf out of you . . .” As soon as she caught her sister’s pet, Poppy swore she was going to alert the management of the Rutledge that Beatrix was harboring wild creatures in their family suite, which was definitely against hotel policy. Of course, that might cause the entire Hathaway clan to be forcibly removed from the premises. At the moment, Poppy didn’t care. Dodger had stolen a love letter that had been sent to her from Michael Bayning, and nothing in the world mattered except retrieving it. All the situation needed was for Dodger to hide the blasted thing in some public place where it would be discovered.  ... The ferret paused at a corner, checked to make certain he was still being chased, and in his happy excitement, he did a little war dance, a series of sideways hops that expressed pure delight. Even now, when Poppy wanted to murder him, she couldn’t help but acknowledge that he was adorable. “You’re still going to die,” she told him, approaching him in as unthreatening a manner as possible. “Give me the letter, Dodger.” The ferret streaked past a colonnaded lightwell that admitted sunshine from overhead and sent it down three floors to the mezzanine level. Grimly, Poppy wondered how far she was going to have to chase him. He could cover quite a lot of territory, and the Rutledge was massive, occupying five full blocks in the theater district. “This,” she muttered beneath her breath, “is what happens when you’re a Hathaway. Misadventures . . . wild animals . . . house fires . . . curses . . . scandals . . .

Sooner or later, we all discover that kindness is the only strength there is. I can remember listening to a kid at a probation camp read at Mass from 1 Corinthians 13. If you've been to as many weddings as I have, you go numb as you hear, "Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is blah, blah, blah." Your mind floats away. You start wondering if the Dodgers won last night and remind yourself to move your clothes from the washer to the dryer. But this kid started to read it like it mattered and it, as the homies would say, 'woke my a** up proper." He looked out at everyone and proclaimed with astounding surety: "Love...never...fails." And he sat down. And I believed him. Every day, you choose to believe this all over again and want only "to live as though the truth were true." (p124-125)

Why aren’t you betrothed to anyone?” he asked with startling directness. “You’ve been out in society for two, three years?” “Three,” Poppy said, feeling more than a little defensive. “Your family is one of means—one would assume you have a generous dowry on the table. Your brother is a viscount—another advantage. Why haven’t you married?” “Do you always ask such personal questions of people you’ve just met?” Poppy asked in amazement. “Not always. But I find you . . . interesting.” She considered the question he had put to her, and shrugged. “I wouldn’t want any of the gentlemen I’ve met during the past three years. None of them are remotely appealing.” “What kind of man appeals to you?” “Someone with whom I could share a quiet, ordinary life.” “Most young women dream of excitement and romance.” She smiled wryly. “I suppose I have a great appreciation for the mundane.” “Has it occurred to you that London is the wrong place to seek a quiet, ordinary life?” “Of course. But I’m not in a position to look in the right places.” She should have stopped there. There was no need to explain more. But it was one of Poppy’s failings that she loved conversation, and like Dodger facing a drawer full of garters, she couldn’t resist indulging. “The problem began when my brother, Lord Ramsay, inherited the title.” The stranger’s brows lifted. “That was a problem?” “Oh, yes,” Poppy said earnestly. “You see, none of the Hathaways were prepared for it. We were distant cousins of the previous Lord Ramsay. The title only came to Leo because of a series of untimely deaths. The Hathaways had no knowledge of etiquette—we knew nothing of the ways of the upper classes. We were happy in Primrose Place.” She paused to sort through the comforting memories of her childhood: the cheerful cottage with its thatched roof, the flower garden where her father had tended his prized Apothecary’s Roses, the pair of lop-eared Belgian rabbits who had lived in a hutch near the back doorstep, the piles of books in every corner. Now the abandoned cottage was in ruins and the garden lay fallow. “But there’s never any going back, is there,” she said rather than asked.

You’re going to pay for this, Dodger!” The mischievous creature thought everything in the world was for his own amusement. No basket or container could go without being overturned or investigated, no stocking or comb or handkerchief could be left alone. Dodger stole personal items and left them in heaps beneath chairs and sofas, and he took naps in drawers of clean clothes, and worst of all, he was so entertaining in his naughtiness that the entire Hathaway family was inclined to overlook his behavior. Whenever Poppy objected to the ferret’s outrageous antics, Beatrix was always apologetic and promised that Dodger would never do it again, and she seemed genuinely surprised when Dodger didn’t heed her earnest lectures.

She heard the ferret come back into the room again, chuckling and hopping as he did whenever he was especially pleased about something. “Go away, Dodger,” she said dully. But he persisted, coming to her side and standing tall again, his body a long cylinder. Glancing at him, Catherine saw that something was clamped carefully in his front teeth. She blinked. Slowly she reached down and took the object from him. Her spectacles. Amazing, how much better a small gesture of kindness could make one feel. “Thank you,” she whispered, tears coming to her eyes as she stroked his tiny head. “I do love you, you disgusting weasel.” Climbing onto her lap, Dodger flipped upside down and sighed.

A long, supple shape streaked through the doorway and paused. It was Dodger, who caught sight of Poppy, did a few hops of joy, and raced to her. “Dodger,” Poppy exclaimed, almost happy to see the ferret. He loped to her, regarded her with bright eyes and chirped happily as she petted him. After a moment, he left her lap and stole toward Miss Marks. The companion glanced at him sternly. “Don’t come near me, you loathsome weasel.” Undeterred, he stopped by her feet and executed a slow roll, showing her his belly. It was a source of amusement to the Hathaways that Dodger adored Miss Marks, no matter that she despised him. “Go away,” she told him, but the lovestruck ferret continued his efforts to entice her. Sighing, she reached down and removed one of her shoes, a sturdy black leather affair that laced up to the ankle. “It’s the only way to keep him quiet,” she said dourly. Immediately, the ferret’s chatter ceased, and he buried his head inside the shoe. Suppressing

FOBTs? Money hoovers. They literally suck up any cash that is lying about the place. I think of us as like a massive cleaner,’ said one senior manager at a British bookmaker interviewed anonymously by Rebecca Cassidy. ‘In we go to a neighbourhood. Any spare cash, mate? In this slot here! That’s it, just shove it all in there. Oh, and enjoy a free cup of coffee while you’re at it, you fucking mug.

My first, off-the-top-of-my-head list went something like this: Anchors, rodes, windlass Diesel engine Sails Dinghy, oars, lifejackets Batteries   But it wasn’t long before I started adding such items as: Downwind poles Storm trysail Monitor windvane Electric autopilot Dodger GPS VHF Depth meter     And, once we really got serious about circumnavigating: Paratech sea anchor Gale-rider Life raft with survival gear Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising books Charts EPIRB SSB Outboard for dinghy MPS with sock. Anemometer Spear gun   The reason you need a list—on both paper and in your head—is because you are going to constantly come across one item while looking for another. You

Everything was blurry. She needed her spectacles. And it was awfully difficult to go looking for something when you couldn't see more than two feet in front of your face. Moreover, if one of the housemaids found the spectacles in Leo's room, or God help her, in his bed, everyone would find out. Abandoning the slipper, Dodger trotted to her and stood tall, bracing his long, slender body against her knee. He was shivering, which Beatrix had told her was normal for ferrets. A ferret's temperature lowered when he was sleeping, and shivering was his way of warming himself upon awakening. Catherine reached down to stroke him. When he tried to climb into her lap, however, she nudged him away. "I don't feel well," she told the ferret woefully, although there was nothing wrong with her physically. Chattering in annoyance at her rejection, Dodger turned and streaked out of the room. Catherine continued to lie with her head on the table, feeling too dreary and ashamed to move. She had slept late. She could hear the sounds of footsteps and muffled conversation coming from the lower floors. Had Leo gone down for breakfast? She couldn't possibly face him. Her mind returned to those blistering minutes of the previous night. A fresh swell of desire rolled through her as she thought of the way he had kissed her, the feel of his mouth on the intimate places of her body. She heard the ferret come back into the room again, chuckling and hopping as he did whenever he was especially pleased about something. "Go away, Dodger," she said dully. But he persisted, coming to her side and standing tall again, his body a long cylinder. Glancing at him, Catherine saw that something was clamped carefully in his front teeth. She blinked. Slowly she reached down and took the object from him. Her spectacles. Amazing, how much better a small gesture of kindness could make one feel. "Thank you," she whispered, tears coming to her eyes as she stroked his tiny head. "I do love you, you disgusting weasel." Climbing onto her lap, Dodger flipped upside down and sighed.

Eight years ago, on November 4, I was lucky enough to find myself in New York City. It was the night that Barack Obama was first elected president of the United States of America. History in the making. The feeling of optimism and "yes we can" was on bust. And I remember thinking, "In my entire life, I will never again witnis an election as transformative as this one." And I also remember thinking, "Tonight, America deserves the title "greatest nation on Earth." Eight years later, it turns out I was wrong on both fronts. Who would have guessed that after electing a black president twice, they would follow up with an orange one? It turns out it's true that in America, anyone can grow up to be president. Narcissist? Tax dodger? Do your hobbies include sitting around on a giant gold throne? Yes? By all means, please advance to the front of the line. Our neighbours to the south have made a choice. Some suggest this choice was made out of anger. To the angry American voter, I say, "Next time, why not punch a wall or go for a walk around the block?" Because this is a very dangerous experiment you have embarked on. Obviously we honour your choice. And as Canadians, your greatest friends and admirers, we will welcome Chachi as the new US ambassador. And as far as the new president goes, let's hope that moving forward the magnitude and dignity of the office wins the day.