American tourists

The temperature, at last, is starting to drop — and for Europeans that only means one thing: peak season is over. The crowds in the piazzas and on the beaches are starting to thin. And in the tavernas that were TikTokked you can finally think about getting a table. It’s time. Like the clockwork of migrating swallows — the Americans are going home. And knowing you can finally count on a breeze and far fewer strong-dollar spenders than a few weeks earlier, a stingier tipping class of European grande bourgeoisie in West London or the 8ème arrondissement — that has long since given up on July and August for the Mediterranean — is now contemplating a holiday. It’s still, however, at least conversationally, Europe season in the United States for a few more weeks.

I was driving along a curvy English road outside a village in Gloucestershire a few weeks ago when a sign loomed on our left. It said: CATS EYES REMOVED My first thought was: What a horrible way to make a living in this day and age, even out here in the countryside. So much for All Things Bright and Beautiful... Maybe those people who said that Brexit would turn the English into depraved monsters were right. I was jumping to conclusions. It hadn’t been put up by an entrepreneur or veterinarian but by the highway authority. Cat’s eyes are what the English call those super-reflective bumps embedded in the stripes on minor highways to keep drivers from drifting across lanes. The sign was a warning that this curvy road had recently become much more dangerous.