Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

A tidbit for Naipaul-watchers: one of the small but interesting details of the honours system controversy currently raging in the British newspapers is that fact that Sir Vidia (who, it's been reported, once suggested that titles be sold through the post office) turned down a CBE in 1977, thirteen years before accepting his knighthood. The UK Guardian published a partial list of honours refuseniks yesterday. The Guardian left out Virginia & Leonard Woolf, both of whom refused either OMs or CHs, I can't recall which--their letters of refusal are included in their published correspondence.