In the Times this morning

Nobody needed me this morning so I had an extra pot of tea and a nice long read of the morning papers. The L.A. Times had its own obituary of Alice Thomas Ellis. (The link is here.) This was one of The Times's periodic surprizes: it appears to be one of those occasions on which The Times and I agree on who was important enough to merit a lengthy, and indeed favourable, obit. There's even a flattering picture.

A few pages further along, we learn that Eloise is going to be homeless. Now, I've never set foot in The Plaza and I'm not personally acquainted with Eloise, although I worked with a woman who claimed the Eloise books as a mainstay of her childhood. But it seems to be a sort of genetic characteristic of the cranky traditionalist to feel a sentimental loss when practically anything that's been around for almost 100 years loses out to the modern world. And so I do.

And isn't The Plaza supposed to be the prototype of Hugh Pentecost's Beaumont Hotel managed by the brilliant Pierre Chambrun? I do believe so. They're not the best novels that ever hit the remainder shelves, not even the best mysteries, but there's nothing like the elegant ambience Pentecost creates in The Beaumont. Even when a killer stalks the halls.