Any Top Chef viewers out there?

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

13. I had no problems with Jeff Smith's cooking

And I didn't know about the alleged pedophilia until after he was off the air. However, I was annoyed by two things he said on his program.

One was him talking about some primitive tribe that he described as living in goodness or some such phrase. First, I have never bought the "noble savage" shtick. Second, as a Methodist minister, he was supposed to believe in original sin.

The second was his mention of a restaurant in Washington, D.C. called "Mrs. Simpson's", named for the Duchess of Windsor. Smith said that Edward VIII had to abdicate because the British would not accept his marrying an American. No, that was not the objection; after all, British aristocrats had been marrying Americans for years (not only was Winston Churchill's mother an American, his paternal grandmother was one as well). The objection to her as Queen was that she was Mrs. Simpson, and Mr. Earnest Simpson was still very much around. Indeed, Simpson was her second husband, and her first, Earl Spencer was also still alive. In other words, they were objecting to a woman who had been divorced twice.