Programming note: Tomorrow, Sunday, I'll be hosting another audio edition of Steyn's Song of the Week on Serenade Radio in the UK at 5.30pm British Summer Time (that's 12.30pm North American Eastern/9.30am Pacific). You can listen from anywhere on the planet by clicking the button in the top right-hand corner here.
~This is a pretty lousy time in much of the western world if you happen to like live music, movies, plays, or most other kinds of public entertainment. But here at Tales for Our Time the lights stay on - and, in the absence of alternatives, there's never been a better time to prowl around our back catalogue, or enjoy our latest nightly caper.
Meantime, welcome to Part Twenty-One of our weekly serialization of a favorite book among Steyn readers: Mark Steyn's Passing Parade. Our last but one episode prompted David Moon, a Steyn Clubber from Connecticut (home of the Mark Twain museum), to write:
The JFK Jr part reminded me of some Mark Twain 'sketches' where the narrator would intrude on the story being told.
Indeed, David. Breaking the fourth wall and all that. It's fun if done sparingly, so I try to hold it down to once a decade or so. Fortunately, today's episode requires no such stylistic conceits, featuring as it does a brace of strongmen, one a heavy drinker, the other a heavy cannibal.
Members of The Mark Steyn Club can hear me tell the tales of Boris Yelstin and Idi Amin simply by clicking here and logging-in. Earlier episodes can be found here.
We'll be right back here next weekend with Part Twenty-Two of Mark Steyn's Passing Parade. If you're minded to join David in The Mark Steyn Club, you're more than welcome. You can find more information here. And, if you have a chum you think might enjoy Tales for Our Time (so far, we've covered Conan Doyle, H G Wells, P G Wodehouse, Dickens, Conrad, Kipling, Kafka, Gogol, Baroness Orczy, Victor Hugo, Louisa May Alcott, O Henry, John Buchan, Scott Fitzgerald and more), we have a special Gift Membership. And, if the above names aren't enough to seal the deal, later today I'll be presenting Episode Seven of our current tale, Jack London's Burning Daylight.