alistair cooke retires

As Jane points out, the BBC’s Alistair Cooke has finally retired at the age of 264. (Okay, 95.)
I have a soft spot for guys like Cooke, the old model of foreign correspondence — a dapper European soberly chronicling the day’s events without so much as scuffing his shoes. (I wrote a lengthy profile of a somewhat analogous figure, Fernand Auberjonois.) Cooke’s audio “Letter From America” (the last one’s here) was a lovely, calming (if occasionally in need of a good editing) respite from standard radio. I had a few fond midnights in Zambia listening to Cooke on the shortwave.