Hussar's pelisse plundered, Cracker to blame

"Topicality," as our Smiley

remarked in conference with

Control, "is always suspect."

And so is it, to extract sea-

sonal merriment from that fa-

mously draped chivalric cape

we encountered in our book of

the year; but we were not the

first. Leigh-Fermor's biograph-

er's father, himself a writer

of travels extraordinaire, and

offspring of that kind, has 

filched the headings of the

decedent's privy files, in the

present volume of his annual

Christmas Cracker for the book-

shop at 10 Curzon Street. That

cataloguing system is a model

of bloggerly continuity, viz:

  Detached Oddments

  Not Very Important Oddments

  Own Oddments

  Unsorted but Interesting

  Oldish - Needs Sorting

  Badly Needs Sorting

  Current: Unsorted

  Current: Various

  Vol III: Odds and Ends

  Crete: Mixed Bag

  Tiring Duplicates

  Disjecta Membra

  Scattered Intractables

  Official Bumph

  Flotsam

A more alert moralist than I -
don't everyone rush forward -

will elatedly decry the un-

apologetic breach this posting

might resemble, but for exigent

partying conditions, celebrated

by that scrupler's own client in

our book of the year - exhibi-

tion among them. I think, what

needs to take place, is a col-

lapse from that lapse, toward 

hilarity, which convention it-
self demands of the season. Let 
so much of it fall against us
as may slough the timid scales
from honest interplay. Then, if 
anyone will confide, what became

of our Hussar's bright cuirass, 

I should be ever so grateful.

John Le Carré
Tinker, Tailor,
  Soldier, Spy
Knopf, 1974©

John Julius Norwich
A Christmas Cracker
John Julius Norwich, 2013©

i photography Hedi Slimane