I am **in** my office, Kathryn–it’s right above my bedroom. As for Doomsday–bring it on, I say. Like Sir Randolph Nettleby in the shooting party, I quite look forward to taking to the hills when the barbarians arrive. Or I would, if there were any hills on Long Island.

Of course, we might all suffer the fate of the people in Nevil Shute’s wonderful novel On the Beach —published just fifty years ago this year. (Skip the movie, which stank.) Shute, by the way, was a great English conservative–a champion of free enterprise, free inquiry, science, and permanent values. One of England’s finest, sadly forgotten nowadays.