Jeremy has always impressed me in that he seems far too modest to be as talented a writer as he is. While he's certainly warm and witty, it's not in his nature to be a self-promoter. (At least, not in a group setting; with individual editors, his promotional talents are legend. He's the only non-rock-critic I've known who's managed to get some of his articles not just doubled [that is, reprinted once], but tripled or even quadrupled.) He's a natural observer, able to analyze his surroundings without feeling the need to assert his presence in them. So it wasn't too surprising that the first e-missive from his new home was brilliant. So brilliant, in fact, that I requested and received permission from him to reprint it on The Dawn Patrol.

As Jeremy's report, The Groovy Bit Always Faces Up, is too long to print in this space, I've given it its own page. But, if you need a tease, here it is:

"About two musket shots further up the road," was the bizarre answer I got (from a semi-retired professor, I was about to learn) to the question, "Excuse me, where's South Parade Street?" This was puzzling, as I was heading north on the Banbury Road at the time, and had just crossed North Parade Street. I knew that historically England has thought of itself as the center of the world—and not without cause, I hasten to add—but I didn't know they'd gone so far as to reverse the globe's polarity. The professor gave me a plausible explanation, however, involving the king's troops or some such, but I promptly forgot it. Things that don't make sense are hard to remember. But he did give me a ride north to South Parade. En route, he said he considers America to be one of Britain's most successful colonies. Golly gee thanks.