THE SCUTTLE UNDER THE BONNET

Here is a case of pet peeves made interesting, and actually funny. After 30 years in Hollywood, doing scenarios, treatments, continuity, and scripts for that notorious medium, films, Spigelgass signed up to buy an English car, (unwittingly) F.O.B. Coventry, claimed it, hopped the Channel, toured Europe via the gourmet route, negotiated the transfer of self and auto to New York -- by a process nearly as complicated as teleportation -- spent a lost weekend stirring youthful memories by chauffeuring his sister around a sadly-changed, Dodger-less Brooklyn, and arrived, only slightly battered, at the scene of former crimes, Los Angeles. In the process he saved $2807.80 over the cost-of-car F.O.B. California. Landmarking the journey are some pithy observations on international and domestic red-tape, traffic congestion, education, the cultural and gastronomic state of grass-roots America, and the folkways of conspicuous consumption. This is a fine admixture of nostalgia, patriotism, good quipping, and a slightly sardonic joie de vivre. Linecuts.