Naughty Brits

Here I was looking forward this morning to learning about the history and context of that strange form, English "panto", when Alan Riding's NYT article morphed into this monstrosity. What the hell happened to this piece? As you'll see he spends the first paragraph actually introducing the stated topic, then starts rambling about those embarrassing Brits and their unique quality of "bathroom humor." (Riding has never seen South Park or a Farrelly brothers movie, I guess.) From there he gets to German deconstructionist-directors inserting sex acts into Mozart operas. Huh???

My impression was the Riding was some senior cultural correspondent. I guess his age and generation show in this. But one would hope experienced journalists could at least write coherently. Are his editors on vacation? Who can be trusted over there to write sensibly about the arts at all!

Bah humbug.