In which some or all of us review the most recent issue.

I spent a few days in London a couple of weeks ago, in which time I visited four pubs. How strange to see one of them, The Grapes, invoked in the first paragraph of John Lahr’s splendid Profile of Ian McKellen. Confession: I pilfered a pint glass from the joint. It says “Marston’s Pedigree” and has swell silhouettes of cricketers all along the bottom. When you have drained the glass, the words “RUN OUT” become visible on the bottom of the glass. Just too good to pass up. (I will gladly negotiate reparations with any representative from The Grapes who contacts me.)

I wish that Adam Gopnik’s Letter from France had been longer, and if that sounds like a compliment, that’s the idea. The last two paragraphs especially are required reading, in my view. There’s been a fairly sudden change of the guard throughout western Europe—Germany, France, and England have all ushered in new leaders in the last couple of years, two of them since early May. The New Yorker looked at Merkel in late 2005. I look forward to the Letter from London on Gordon Brown…before the year is out?

As political forces tug to and fro in Washington over Iraq, it was a mild shock to encounter, of all people, Scottish hawk Niall Ferguson and his counterfactuals at the back of the book, but I do admire his emphasis on economics, and the review was well worth reading.

I loved the snapshot of Antonioni and Monica Vitti, that goes along with Anthony Lane’s look back in which Antonioni reminds me of Paul Stewart’s Raymond, from Citizen Kane.

Finally, here’s more this week’s cover by Kara Walker, and more about this week’s (I think, but correct me if I’m wrong) caption contest winner. —Martin Schneider