Thirty-four years ago today I (along with my family) landed on yanqui shores for the first time. Miami, to be exact. A weekend spent in that depressing city (which I’ve managed to avoid ever since) before flying across country to Los Angeles where my dad’s company put us up in an apartment in South Pasadena for our six-month stay.

Two weeks later my dad was told our stay was indefinite.

We never left.

And, of course, the England we left no longer exists.

I’ll never become a yanqui citizen, so you could say I’m a man without a country.

Of course, if I hadn’t stayed, I’d’ve never met The Wife. It’s for that reason alone that I’m glad I lost my homeland.

Along with Tintin, Asterix was my first taste of foreign literature. This month marks the little Gaul’s golden jubilee:

Asterix fever is hitting the French capital this week. As the doughty little Gaul and his man-mountain of a friend Obelix mark their 50th birthday, the whole of Paris seems to be celebrating with them. There are official dinners with members of the political elite, street parties, a flypast courtesy of the French air force’s aerobatics team, a special exhibition and a commemorative book.

It’s a glimpse into just how far France has taken these comic book creations to its heart since 1959 when writer René Goscinny and artist Albert Uderzo first sketched out their idea for a story set in a remote village on the Brittany coast, the last outpost of ancient Gaul holding out against the Roman invasion, where the villagers have become brave warriors through the help of a magic potion.

I can still read these tales (and Tintin) with the same sense of jubilation that a much younger me revelled in. Is it any wonder I find reading the greatest entertainment on earth?

Peggy Noonan’s forecast should make you feel all nice and cozy as the days grow shorter and the nights longer:

The most sophisticated Americans, experienced in how the country works on the ground, can’t figure a way out. Have you heard, “If only we follow Obama and the Democrats, it will all get better”? Or, “If only we follow the Republicans, they’ll make it all work again”? I bet you haven’t, or not much. . . .

We are governed at all levels by America’s luckiest children, sons and daughters of the abundance, and they call themselves optimists but they’re not optimists—they’re unimaginative. They don’t have faith, they’ve just never been foreclosed on. They are stupid and they are callous, and they don’t mind it when people become disheartened. They don’t even notice.

It really is about time that both parties and all their vile toadies were sent packing once and for all.

If the current state of politics and politicians doesn’t make you feel queasy (in my case it’s the bilious condition of terminal nausea), you may want to check your pulse. Chances are you’re dead.

The only stars I recognise are those in the night sky:

In the era of reality TV, YouTube, and social media “friends” and “followers,” it seems that everyone wants to be a star. . . .

The desire to be famous comes from a basic human need to be part of a group, said Orville Gilbert Brim, psychologist and author of the new book “Look at Me! The Fame Motive From Childhood to Death,” out this month from the University of Michigan Press.

I once wanted to be famous. And then I grew up.

As far as the need to be part of a group? Not on this world. In fact, every day I try to shrug off a little more of my human nature. I prefer to accept my divine citizenship now.

To quote Eusebius from Demonstratio Evangelica: “The Word of God is now God as He had been man, in order to deify mankind together with himself.”

Or Athanasius from Oratio de incarnatione Verbi: “For He [Christ] was made man that we might be made God.”

“We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

As I’ve mentioned in these pages before, “hate crime” legislation is a crock.

Anyone who thinks a “hate crime” bill—or that expanding the existing bill as was done today to my great fear and loathing—is going to prevent bigotry is a naïve fool. (As naïve as the fool who believes in nuclear disarmament.)

Stuffing a “hate crime” bill into a defence authorization bill is, ironically, nothing short of hateful.

You, my yanqui friends, should be ashamed.

Lest it be thought I believe life in France is nothing but bliss . . . I refer your attention to this waste of (tax payer) money, courtesy of (who else?) politicians:

The government Tuesday detailed plans of a project called “My Free Newspaper,” under which 18- to 24-year-olds will be offered a free, yearlong subscription to a newspaper of their choice. . . .

Costs of the project are being shared by the newspapers and the state, with the government allocating €15 million, or $22.5 million, over three years.

Trying to create newspaper junkies by offering free product for a year . . . I’m sorry, but no newspaper has crack’s lethal addictiveness . . . not in the ’Net Age.

For once, someone in a position of power in the beautiful game says something intelligent. Premier League chief executive Richard Scudamore on Celtic and Rangers joining the Premier League:

Scottish football is Scottish football. For a traditionalist like me, that’s where the Old Firm should play.

I see the benefits for Celtic and Rangers if they moved to our Premier League but I don’t think our 20 clubs are going to vote to allow these clubs into our league.

It’s so rare and refreshing to hear a sane voice coming from football’s hallowed halls, those scuffed with the idiocies of Blatter and Platini.