There are LaBrecque and Bussey mopping up the ice in the usual pratfalls and assorted other spills.

ê is e circumflex.

The Man from Mars sat down again when Jill left. He did not pick up the picture book they had given him but simply waited in a fashion which may be described as patient only because human language does not embrace Martian attitudes.

Generally, you know, I’m conspiracy-theory-phobic. But in this case, all Amis’s blustering about how he’s ill-treated seems to mask the reality of a completely simpering attitude to our greatest living novelist utterly regardless of the quality of his literary output.