There are various ways of claiming territory. Traditional is to plant a flag, or put up a sign. Perhaps erect some physical manifestation of your armorial bearings.
The young people are trying to persuade me that it is vital for the civic good that I start a “substack”. I am not certain this is the case. Does the world need yet another form of rebarbative regurgitation of base egomaniacal self-important introspective ravings? Colour me unconvinced.
At any rate, it is important that no one else has a “substack” named ANDREWCUSACK, hence this caffeine-fuelled post-prandial peer-pressured pronunciamiento.
If people sign up for this, it might continue. But it might not. (We live in a fickle age.)
Years ago, walking through a park on a gorgeous sunny summer’s day in Haggerston or some other subdistrict of Hackney my barrister friend and I passed some tennis courts and firmly resolved that we would take up the sport. How hard can it be? You can’t shake a stick in this town without hitting a tennis court; they’re everywhere, including next to my home in Southwark.
I am pleased to say The Barrister and I have made no progress whatsoever towards our tennis take-up, though for my sins I do engage in the occasional outbreak of squash with a particularly demented and lunatic friend of mine who was expelled from more schools than almost anyone I know (and has since rowed across the Atlantic without committing murder).
I can imagine the appeal of playing tennis — one ought to keep vaguely fit in case of unexpected civil unrest, physical threats to your woman, or war — but watching it strikes me as painfully dull. (Not as bad as golf, admittedly.)
Our friend Jane (known in these parts as “
”) has many strengths and virtues to her name, but one of the few — possibly only — delicts that slightly shrouds her manifold talents is she is an avid fan of tennis.The silver lining of her devotion is that she inspired a little article on andrewcusack.com about the grandest (indoor) tennis court America has ever seen.
This neo-renaissance logia connected an addition of bachelor guest quarters at William Kissam Vanderbilt’s Oakdale estate to the indoor tennis court.
I could probably bring myself to sit and pretend to watch tennis here, sipping a gin-and-tonic and reading a newspaper as Spiliotis scores a point against Ritzema, periodically looking up and shouting “Oh, bad luck!” while generally ignoring the proceedings.
But aside from that, I am a firm believer that tennis is a sport for playing not for watching. (Golf is neither.)
Jane is not the only one on this forum. There’s also
and . Probably others we know, as yet undiscovered.Things the furiously hard-working editorial team at andrewcusackdotcom are hoping to bring to the discerning reader/observer in the near future:
an unremarkable painting by Winslow Homer
the British Museum
one of the glitzier episodes in the history of Liberian diplomacy
a highly architectural lamp irritatingly produced in a sanctioned-against economy
And so much more. The typists pool is bordering on exhaustion and the subs are begging for final sign-off on several pieces. Meanwhile, I have to actually write for the people who pay me…
While you wait, you can revisit Frédéric interviewing me on why we read.
