Vouvray thus permitted the Canard staff to demarcate themselves not only from the world of oenologically ignorant foreigners (and hence, to reaffirm their Frenchness) but also from that of official celebrations with their pomposity and hypocrisy.

[…] incessant interferings and bickerings, in every country, between the secular powers and the ecclesiastical.

[…] the spiritual man is either translated like Enoch and Elias to the higher state, or falls down lower than an elementary again […]

She had an ink spot on her nose, the result of working on her novel of suspense. It is virtually impossible to write a novel of suspense without getting a certain amount of ink on the beezer. Ask Agatha Christie or anyone.