Line of Last Night

"Well, I've been drinking since 5, and it's 4."

Ouch is the word. Currently on the slow train home to relax with some home cooking, and it strikes me that the last time I was on a train, I left my camera aboard for marvelous Clifton to find. And before that, it was back in June 05 and the Eurostar from Brussels with cans of Jupiler littering our table, where I lost the time traveler's wife on some bench.

Oh the places you'll go. The movement of a train a gentle lullaby on my weary and hungover body. Will spend the extra hour tonight asleep.

It is a long road that doesn't have ashcans

It is a good country, when this allegedly a comment of a former PM. It is a good firm, when the 50/50 winner and delivery man refuses to don the lay b/c he "doesn't want to answer those questions." It is enthralling to realize how a subtle movement if made would be dramatically inappropriate. Better to burn out...

josie and the pussycats

That's what it takes, McFly.

Wasted by the way she moves. Outstanding.

Protector of the Faith

Or otherwise, the Devil's Advocate. He charged with proving the case against those nominated for Sainthood ("you call that a miracle?! P'shaw."). So wikipedia tells me. To the water now, and the bitter business to come. Inexorable is a good word, I think. It captures so much. Even as the unfolding present astonishes.

What a soft breeze that is/was. Forward...

When Churchyards Yawn

LORD POLONIUS
My lord, the queen would speak with you, and
presently.

HAMLET
Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?

LORD POLONIUS
By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.

HAMLET
Methinks it is like a weasel.

LORD POLONIUS
It is backed like a weasel.

HAMLET
Or like a whale?

LORD POLONIUS
Very like a whale.

HAMLET
Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool
me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.

LORD POLONIUS
I will say so.

HAMLET
By and by is easily said.

Exit POLONIUS

Leave me, friends.

Exeunt all but HAMLET

Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
How in my words soever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

Exit

Happy Hallow's Eve, or at least Hallow's Eve festivities, to all on this merry Friday. The sun has risen to a cloudless blue sky, but shall surely set to an ominous moon and darker plots. Another of those evenings where the first few drinks are picked up by the fictional entity who cuts the paycheques. Bravo. Go forth into the world with an eye on absurdities, and thou shall be entertained, I say. At least such is the plan for this eventide on the wooden docks of the brave Atlantic. And I shall heed the advice of Rick James: "Enjoy yourself!" Indeed.

My Other Vehicle is the Mahayana

Although word on the street is that the King looked very kingly, and the Queen looked beautiful in her Tiara, no royal markings were etched during our man's brief audience with the Majesties and Excellencies. Alas. Not for lack of karmic efforts, though. And I did slip into work yesterday morning to an email from Anna and a touching little photo of young Ms. Tyra. So in a sense, the occasion did succeed in our getting back in touch and perhaps that was meant as its overall point.

Still would have been absurd to get the signature. Oh well. Let's hope I fare better with Yogi Berra. All of a sudden I find myself brimming with excitement for the planned excursion next weekend to Broadway, MSG, and an old friend's marriage in Tarrytown. Open bar, baby.

In words, and questions, and patterns

Sublime. LBC. Wanda. And her (surprisingly popular) thong strut. Liar. Within an inch of Drew's life. Who? Grow up. Opa. B.MacArthur, Bank Teller and socialist. M.Killarney, hotel receptionist and restorian. I like the little things. Like the way a good glass feels in your hand.

Will you stand for King Carl? He now sleeps surely, and such an autographed appointment is truly in the past. We can only hold our thumbs, as they say, that such a tactic was made good.

There is a road, and there is a line, Wanda, and we constantly gaze upon it. No matter how eclectic such Tuesdays, no matter how amenable the job's intellectual rigor... Can't you just hear the wind blow? Maybe you'd like a friend of mine to hit... I'm already gone, Sally. Say nice things about me...

For can't you just hear Samarkanda knocking, deafening, quiet, persistent, at the beginning of the end of every sip? 1000 places to see before you die? Shit, a thousand places to be, people to be, before the fall. Shout it out loud. Surely the King's Counsel did as much. As I dream I live. Just think for five seconds about the King of Sweden. Bookends. Liar. And her (surprisingly popular) Lasenza push-up. Wanda. LBC. Sublime.

Kungen Carl

A colleague is headed off to dinner tonight with Carl XVI Gustaf, the King of Sweden, in the nation's capital, so naturally the request is made (a few times, this morning) to get a little note from His Highness to my dear old friend Anna, lover of her country's Royal Family. When you fall in love at first sight, you tend to remember the circumstances and I can recall that moment at a Glasgow pub in 1999 when I first caught a glimpse of her exhuberant face. Friends only we became, apart from a few moments, yet friends we remain these years later, of course. Though sadly I only last saw her in Eskilstuna in September 2004 and have heard no word since this past May, when she was several months along with child. I do hope no misfortune has befallen her.

Tonight I plan to be drinking Guinness at the Old Triangle (jingle, jangle) around the time of the fesitivities at the Rideau, in an effort to vex King Carl to put pen to paper via the charms of our man, Art Guinness. His dinner begins at 7:45 EST, therefore so will my toasting. Think on it around that point, I charge you, and help us prove that the world still looks favorably on such wondrous and majestic randonymity. It would be an excellent excuse to get back in touch.

Sometime of the Night

As you may have gathered, I have turned my little black box into use as a journal of sorts. And this week has been particularly strange in that my Thursday was actually Wednesday, and it trickled downward from there. It is rather humorous, for example, to take a cab with a double gin and tonic in hand and explain to the cab driver that all is well and that it is just water. Supreme.

I look forward to watching the third episode of this season's LOST, which I have thus far been unable to catch due to activities extracurricular. I look forward to devouring more from Greenblatt's so excellent "Will in the World". Warhol was right. The idea of waiting for something makes it more exciting.

There is a speculation mentioned early on in that piece about how a young 11 year old Shakespeare might very well have found his way to see Her Majesty Elizabeth's appearance at a show in Kenilworth in 1575 where the players were, shall we say, underwhelming, and he then captured some of this memory in scenes of A Midsummer Night's Dream directed toward the virgin Queen.

As Greenblatt states, "... the playwright relied not on elaborate machinery but on language, simply the most beautiful language any English audience had ever heard". Tonight shall be ever restful. And a happy Friday to you to.

OBERON

Well, go thy way: thou shalt not from this grove
Till I torment thee for this injury.
My gentle Puck, come hither.
Thou rememberest
Since once I sat upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
That the rude sea grew civil at her song
And certain stars shot madly from their spheres,
To hear the sea-maid's music.

PUCK

I remember.

OBERON

That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all arm'd: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by the west,
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts;
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quench'd in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet mark'd I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,
And maidens call it love-in-idleness.
Fetch me that flower; the herb I shew'd thee once:
The juice of it on sleeping eye-lids laid
Will make or man or woman madly dote
Upon the next live creature that it sees.
Fetch me this herb; and be thou here again
Ere the leviathan can swim a league.

PUCK

I'll put a girdle round about the earth
In forty minutes.

Exit

tom byrnes

Bases loaded bottom of nine game 7. And iam at the wong place which must MUST be fixed.

Due Diligence

Wok around the clock. Hit me baby one more time. Obla-di. Jeremiah was a bullfrog. Ode to NFLD.

I had much to say and little time to say it. The downtrodders. Yet as Antony said to Cleo upon entering her chamber, I did not come here to give a speech.

Oh and yet how funny and you wonder at the future result. Gus's pub is next. And no one can tell me what will happen next.

I really cannot believe it is a Thursday. There has been a cosmic accident. And someone sober should report it.

Burnt Cheeks, Delicious Foolishness et al.

1. "Carpe Diem! Look Thee into Thine Heart and Write" was what I was thinking of last night amidst the torrent and bizarre rejigging of otherwise obviously chronological points. Lest you think this is tripe, consider that it is the epitaph on the stone of Joan Ganong, 1919-1989, in a rural cemetary in St. Stephen, NB.

2. "Most impressive, however, was the Registan. A colossal trio of 15th and 17th Century domed structures set on three sides of an enormous public square, the Registan has towering minarets, color-splashed spandrels, and depressed entrance arches, all covered by geometric designs in majolica and blue tile. Both ancient and eerily contemporary in feeling, the Registan is gigantic yet exceptionally well proportioned. To stand in Registan Square for an hour, imagining the personages and history that have crossed its intricately laid stones, was worth the trip to Samarkand in itself." More and more, that Kilkenny pub random quote has the feel of destiny. A symbol for everything good and empowering and choice of doing what you want over what is expected, such is glorious Samarkanda. I wish for many things without hope, but sitting amidst the Registan is all too inevitable.

3. Vonnegut's last words in the Epilogue to Timequake are: "A woman who knew Bernie for only the last ten days of his life, in the hospice at St. Peter's in Albany, described his manners while dying as "courtly" and "elegant". What a brother! What a language." I share his enthusiasm for the colour of our letters.

4. When was the last time you took part in a standing ovation? Think about it. I was at DRUM! where these black guys took over my heart for moments at a time with their song. Yet Guinness advertises that its pint is: "Like Drinking a Standing Ovation". To that I thnk critically and answer only, Yes.

5. "Throughout his career, Shakespeare kept thinking about drunkenness. He registered the disgust eloquently voiced by Hamlet. But he was also fascinated by the delicious foolishness, the exuberant cracking of jests, the amiable nonsense, the indifference to decorum, the flashes of insight, the magical erasure of the cares of the world." OK, just to stop right there and say, tonight I raise my glass to you Stephen Greenblat, for such a perfect capture of my most profound vice in but a sentence. But to continue: "Even when he depicts the potentially disastrous consequences of alcohol, Shakespeare never adopts the tone of a temperance tract, and in Twelfth Night the drunk and disorderly Sir Toby Belch delivers the decisive put-down of the puritanical Malvolio: "Dost thou think because thou art virtuous there shall be no more cakes and ale?" In a luminous scene in one of the greatest tragedies, Antony and Cleopatra, the rulers of the world become soused, join hands, and dance "the Egyptian bacchanals". Even grave, calculating Caesar is caught up, against his will, in the muddle-headed revelry:

It's monstrous labour when I wash my brain,
An it grow fouler.

"Gentle lords, let's part," he says, looking at the faces of those about him and feeling his own flushed face. "You see we have burnt our cheeks."



And so we approach the world. More difficult when the impishness of our nature is flung into the center, but someone must pay my bills. Though you cannot help but wonder what it would be like to be ... elsewhere, responsible to ... no one. Presumably because I want it all. It started out with a kiss how did it end up like this it was only a kiss it was only a kiss...

350 23 50

Yuji tomatsune

Yes.

No.

Maybe.

Guinness.

At the risk of sounding sacri...

You did well to movie through it my friend. All I can ever say is Hilario.

351 01 27

Where were we where we were?

Someone wrote that before, surely. And there is more to be written, oh so much about people's divine lifelong attachments and painful divinity and whiskey in the jar.

But the strong Guinness drinkers don't back down. Opposite coasts. Literal watermelons. Blind visionaries. No dancing in front of the band.

It is a wonderful life. Open the window.

351 04 46

We get delayed. We keep saying, soon, tomorrow will I write those words about those days. When they are fresh. When they are at the forefront of the mind. When you can picture the joke of a guy beside you who talked out loud on the flight home and pulled out his Ipod stopwatch to time the moments from liftoff to landing in seconds (39.39.99 - Ottawa TO). When you remember the surrealism of Blarney sinking the cigarette into Lucky Ron's guitar on the last line of Tillsenberg. How Hamana and Hungoose never broke character at the Brig. Of the best view in the capital where we will one day stage Shakespearean histories. That pint of Tennant's. That Warhol shot of the suicide beauty at one with the automobile. The Iglinton 4.12 to Pearson. All the minutes of a vagabond weekend to be recorded.

He had it right when on a tombstone he wrote: why is it that you never write?

One hundred years from now. And so care not, and move. . .

The Thieving Sun and Moon and Sea

I forget not the Shakespeare, and on this I sign off for the weekend. May your apoclyptic evening be as memorable and worthy as you wish. Wish me sleep, for I will not get it. Oh the subtle blood o' the grape. If you could have dinner with three people, past and present, who would they be, runs an interview question currently in vogue. Shakespeare, I would say. And when asked who else, I might respond that I wouldn't want others to take up the alloted time. If pushed, I suppose I could also nominate Marlowe and Burbage, as it would probably would be fun to invite a few people to mock the old Bard along the way. Time to get going.

Banditti

We are not thieves, but men that much do want.

TIMON
Your greatest want is, you want much of meat.
Why should you want? Behold, the earth hath roots;
Within this mile break forth a hundred springs;
The oaks bear mast, the briers scarlet hips;
The bounteous housewife, nature, on each bush
Lays her full mess before you. Want! why want?

First Bandit

We cannot live on grass, on berries, water,
As beasts and birds and fishes.

TIMON
Nor on the beasts themselves, the birds, and fishes;
You must eat men. Yet thanks I must you con
That you are thieves profess'd, that you work not
In holier shapes: for there is boundless theft
In limited professions. Rascal thieves,
Here's gold. Go, suck the subtle blood o' the grape,
Till the high fever seethe your blood to froth,
And so 'scape hanging: trust not the physician;
His antidotes are poison, and he slays
Moe than you rob: take wealth and lives together;
Do villany, do, since you protest to do't,
Like workmen. I'll example you with thievery.
The sun's a thief, and with his great attraction
Robs the vast sea: the moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:
The sea's a thief, whose liquid surge resolves
The moon into salt tears: the earth's a thief,
That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen
From general excrement: each thing's a thief:
The laws, your curb and whip, in their rough power
Have uncheque'd theft. Love not yourselves: away,
Rob one another. There's more gold. Cut throats:
All that you meet are thieves: to Athens go,
Break open shops; nothing can you steal,
But thieves do lose it: steal no less for this
I give you; and gold confound you howsoe'er!
Amen.

Third Bandit
Has almost charmed
me from my profession, by
persuading me to it.

First Bandit
'Tis in the malice
of mankind that he thus advises
us; not to have us thrive in our mystery.

Second Bandit
I'll believe him as
an enemy, and give over my trade.

First Bandit
Let us first see
peace in Athens: there is no time
so miserable but a man may be true.

Exeunt Banditti

-Timon of Athens, Act IV iii

This Appointment Occurs in the Past

11:50AM

He woke up too late. You would think, with the incessant alarm and the meticulous planning, that this result would have been impossible, and yet there he is. Struggling to see how much has been lost by the mere passage of unoblivious inexorable time, he rises and finds the tap and drinks from it. Water. A start.

It was a meeting - one that meant his employment. How could I possibly... his mind begins its permutations and ambivilations and excuses. Where can I say I was, what took importance, what legitimately trumps. His head pounds and provides no answers. So what next. Climb back into bed, under the covers, and forget it all. Take this as the opportunity to buy that flight to Moscow. To Xi'an. To Pyonyang. Anywhere else, start fresh and live the life of dreams in actuality, those parts dreamed of and those annoying and damning parts that are figure not within those illusions. An opportunity, then. Why did you miss this meeting, young man? Because I choose to. And I will begin flouting all conventions associated with my life that have constrained me up until now. I will begin. Oranges in Greece I will pick. Sidewalks in Malta I will sweep. Flyers I will hand out on the streets of Beijing. Anything but this monotony.

And then he wakes. False alarm. This appointment occurs in the past. But it was a fictitious appointment. The crucial moment is deferred.

And he is (just a little, but still significantly) sad.

11:57AM

the Thirteenth

1. When an old friend, and your planned accomodation, tells you that once she drinks JD she goes insane, please believe her and never let her out of your sight. It will help you refrain from (...)

2. I wonder if Prado is still giving out loonies to his Philosophy 101 class for including his book on the reading list. Descartes and Foucault. Perhaps the seminal class of my actual thought in approaching the world. Why are pillows in the shape that they are?

3. Friday. Downloading Itunes with impunity, because Hot Fuss is just that good. And Oh crashing time can't hide a guilty girl. With jealous hearts that start with blossom curls. I took my baby's breath beneath the chandelier. Of stars in atmosphere. And watch her disappear.

4. It would be interesting to think what might be the chosen course of action, if you had packed your passport. But the idea of inventing Carl Hungoose, who we propose to be a member of the Canadian Federation of Biological Societies (Bacterial Pathogenesis), and introducing him to the Cinquante at the Laff tomorrow afternoon. Well. And in my uninfinite wisdom, I have decided my name will be Jerry Hamama (Parasitic Infection). Honestly - and the flight to Ottawa is cheaper than a drive to Indy.

5. Friday the 13th. I fear I may find this funnier than anyone else, as the insider jokes are numerous. But it is a well-played amateur Lazy Sunday all over again for those with legal educations. Like Justice Isaac Isaacs, (as he then was!) The bus leaves for the airport and the capital tomorrow at 4:12AM. I so refuse to sleep. I am on the road, and I make new roads with the soles of my shoes.

Roll on

Oh Clifton! How funnily tragic did I almost lose what took such pains to return, and again on the damn transportation! Again Zeus has the keen eye after me. Set to board momentarily, amidst the tiki jerseys and "Cougar Bait" t-shirts.

A beautiful night.

On the Deterioration of Things

Well, well - wouldn't you know. This morning the inbox flashes up an overseas response to this long-ago email of August 4th:

Hi J.

Things have been going better over the last few days. I am now studying at an FE college - Psychology, Sociology, and Film and Media studies. Enjoying it so far, although it's rough being older than everyone else!

I'd love to see you again but I worry that things will get messed up (again). I don't want things to deteriorate into mind games. When I say again, I'm not referring to you personally. It's just the way things seem to be done these days.

L.

Wonderfully cryptic. There will be a trip to Oxford at some point in the Spring of 2007. Who can say today how we may choose to play this out tomorrow? Such reflection and bit of nostalgia is enough to make me smile - on a Wednesday, that is something.

The immediate future holds amplified promise too. Who will we cross paths with again, who will remain lost, as we jet from this to that? What aliases invented, what new lifelong acquaintances found? Ah, for the profound possibilities engendered by the road... Those possibilities, I suppose, always open to us. But never are they seized with the same gusto as when liberated from daily custom and surroundings.

Serial writer Tom French describes the three most beautiful words, not as "I love you", but rather "to be continued..." How right thou art, my friend. Tomorrow afternoon, safely stowed onto the airport bus, I will look out the window and smile and think thoughts of optimism and clarity and if the answer is no I can change your mind and what is to happen next.

Sometimes you can taste the evening's fall in that first sip. Those are the best moments - when you sense the coming deterioration and yet simmer defiantly, exultantly amidst that inevitability.

And so it begins...

Cursed Logic Problems

Damn you, Julia Grovenor and Delia Bester, Park Rangers. That simply took far too long to sort out. But now, 2AM and some Gosling Family Reserve, Pussers, and even a Bacardi Cola later, the relaxed taste of sweet success. The morning is sure to arrive too quickly.

Open up your Eager Eyes

Grand were the celebrations. And really only apparent last night how the ridiculous birthday of A. Keith is really only comparable with the festivities of one St. Patrick. With cold beer, his memory we did restore, most excellently. It is fortunate indeed that October Five serves as a fitting halfway point on the road to Emerald March.

It is also something, the knowledge that at any given moment you can fly anywhere Westjet does for about $50 roundtrip. Returning home last night, setting the alarm early to catch the shuttle bus was not wholly out of the realm of possibility. Be great in act, as you are in thought, as says the Bard and so glistens the sun on this merry Friday afternoon. Is there Rum and Coke to be had in the bars of Windsor? We shall soon find out, if Jack Bauer can make short work of the remaining hours left in the Playstation game.

KING JOHN
Would not my lords return to me again,
After they heard young Arthur was alive?

BASTARD
They found him dead and cast into the streets,
An empty casket, where the jewel of life
By some damn'd hand was robb'd and ta'en away.

KING JOHN
That villain Hubert told me he did live.

BASTARD
So, on my soul, he did, for aught he knew.
But wherefore do you droop? why look you sad?
Be great in act, as you have been in thought;
Let not the world see fear and sad distrust
Govern the motion of a kingly eye:
Be stirring as the time; be fire with fire;
Threaten the threatener and outface the brow
Of bragging horror: so shall inferior eyes,
That borrow their behaviors from the great,
Grow great by your example and put on
The dauntless spirit of resolution.
Away, and glister like the god of war,
When he intendeth to become the field:
Show boldness and aspiring confidence.
What, shall they seek the lion in his den,
And fright him there? and make him tremble there?
O, let it not be said: forage, and run
To meet displeasure farther from the doors,
And grapple with him ere he comes so nigh.

Proper Thing

How quickly a year passes - as the sun begins to break this afternoon and visions of Keith's birthdays of old move again to the foreground of memory. Such as the 207th - banned "for life" from the Split Crow for brazenly attempting (and coming within a hair of succeeding in) the theft of a large wooden sign. Or the 209th - wandering through the confines of St. Cross college's ancient bar (cheapest Guinness at Oxford!) with the t-shirt, only to run into a former PhD student from Dalhousie who had actually partied in the Domus a few years back. Then last year's 210 encounter and photos with the sketchy pseudo-Scottish spokesman, who (it subsequently turned out) is into child porn. Doubtful he'll be celebrating tonight.

But you should. Don the foam antlers proudly, or at least raise a glass to the man, the myth, the legend - he who brewed slowly, carefully, taking the time to get it right.

Before I became a follower of the red stag, I wondered about the slogan: "Those who like it, like it a lot." Doesn't that imply that people who don't like it must really hate it? Older and wiser, I now realize that Alexander Keith isn't bothered by those who don't get it. It's their loss, and why waste time convincing them otherwise. Proper thing. Along with the Guinness "Good things come to those who wait", it stands as one of the finer beer company pronouncements. Although in terms of simplicity, you cannot beat Jupiler. Les Hommes Savent Pourquoi. Men Know Why.

So happy 211th Alexander. Stories to follow.

...or Taste not the Pierian Spring...

The positive? Wondrous celebratory lunch today, replete with Guinness, oysters, salmon, and raspberries soaked in Grand Marnier. All gratis.

The negative? As Behan has said (and would say again), one drink is too many and a thousand not enough. If only a character of his ilk were available for an Olde Triangle sojourn now. Instead, must beleagueredly run out the afternoon clock amidst this sea of papers. Tomorrow - and Alexander's birthday - will hopefully not involve such a rude interruption to smart beginnings.

Today can be remembered as my serving official notice to the world on the firm intentions to take the Golden Journey. Sadly, we can't leave tomorrow. But the clock is ticking, loudly. And the great day doth approach.

Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest

"What ho!" I said.

"What ho!" said Motty.

"What ho! What ho!"

"What ho! What ho! What ho!"

After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.

-P.G. Wodehouse

And yet have I known similar conversations to last some time...

Hazardous Waste

Below is an email sent to a friend recently contacted by the U.S. Department of Transportation following the confiscation of some matches and a lighter during check-in for a Boston to San Francisco flight. Basically it provides an opportunity to "furnish information" to the investigation and informs V. of the penalty under Title 49, United States Code 5123(a)(1). The things bureaucracy does to keep us safe.

---

hey man ... That is one crazy letter. It seems to only reference the lighter and matches, so it is pretty surprising (and a damn bit ridiculous) that they attempt to track down someone for this. But it is not the first time someone has called an overprotective Department of the U.S. Government ridiculous, so - more out of interest than anything - I decided to check further into it.

NOTE AT THIS POINT, I MUST STRESS THAT I AM NOT A QUALIFIED LAWYER WITH RESPECT TO THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES, AND THE FOLLOWING REPRESENTS ONLY A PERSONAL OPINION. DO NOT RELY ON THIS AS LEGAL ADVICE. IT IS RECOMMENDED THAT YOU CONTACT A LAWYER IF YOU HAVE FURTHER QUESTIONS.

Heh. Now on to my initial thoughts:

(1) First of all, you can find the relevant regulations here: http://www.myregs.com/dotrspa/
Click on the link (PIPELINE AND HAZARDOUS MATERIALS SAFETY ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION) and then Subchapter 3 (HAZARDOUS MATERIALS REGULATIONS). The letter refers to parts 171 to 180. Most relevant are the General Information in 171 and the specific references to "Carriage by Aircraft" in Part 175.

(2) You'll find it interesting that it states in Part 175.10(a)(2) that: "Safety matches or a lighter intended for use by an individual when carried on one's person or in carry-on baggage only. Lighter fuel, lighter refills, and lighters containing unabsorbed liquid fuel (other than liquefied gas) are not permitted on one's person or in carry-on or checked baggage."

Your problem is that the "Strike-Anywhere" matches do seem to have been deemed to be a "hazardous material" and so an illegal object for airplane carry on, contrary to Part 175.1(b)(2). The same is true of the Lighter, probably because it contained some liquid fuel.

(3) That said, I wouldn't worry about it too much though, and here's why. Part 171(g) sets out the penalties section, as follows:

(g) Penalties for noncompliance. Each person who KNOWINGLY violates a requirement of the Federal hazardous material transportation law, an order issued under Federal hazardous material transportation law, subchapter A of this chapter, or a special permit or approval issued under subchapter A or C of this chapter is liable for a civil penalty of not more than $50,000 and not less than $250 for each violation.

The key word there is "knowingly". To successfully charge you with the civil penalty, they need to prove an intent on your part to attempt to carry such materials in your carry-on baggage.

So, all your proposed mitigating circumstances would be helpful and (hopefully) exonerating - you did not know that such would be considered hazardous, nor were you aware that they were on your person at the time. The fact that so many people forget to discard knives, other sharp objects, etc... shows that people often make this mistake. And on that note, Part 175.25 Requires a notification to air passengers, but the minimal requirement does not mention the specific level of detail (ie. distinguishing between types of matches).

I bet you probably got noticed because there were multiple items, and because your name is fairly "foreign-sounding". It is funny that you would have been charged for the same offence if they had caught you attempting to smuggle on ANY so-called "hazardous material", such as plutonium. Though the treatment at the airport might have been different...

SO - you could write to the guy to explain this, just pointing out that you didn't knowingly attempt to carry on these items with you, and frankly, that likely (should) be the end of it. However, it might make it easier for them to track you down to Oxford if so, or hassle you further. It's up to you. This is where I'm a bit uncertain about U.S. law, but it seems to me that the Privacy Act provisions (as well as the general common law) would entitle you to contest any ultimate charges filed against you on the basis that you did not knowingly intend to do this. But by that point it might be a very real hassle, requiring you to get someone in the States to do it for you, or appear yourself.

Anyway, them's my thoughts. Thanks for the exercise. Just so you know, that took about 0.6 hours, which at my current rate works out to about $80 Canadian, or 35 pounds. Today's your lucky day, though I am hoping for a trip to Oxford some week between February and April of next year, and I'll look for some compensation then :) In the mean time, post that letter on your door. You are certain to make some friends among the KGB set, as well as rebellious female Democrats. And really, who else do you need?

Say hello to my lovely little Oxford town. I miss her. And hopefully see you both in a few months in '07.