The Vast Rightwing Conspiracy does The Islands

National Review writer Jonah Goldberg checks in today with the final word on the NR Cruise of Britain and Ireland, and mercifully steers clear of any substantive issues such as those that drew our attention in his last column. Instead it's a variant of the standard pundit Euro-travelogue, albeit with a cast of characters that makes us wish there'd been an especially exciting shipping forecast over the last couple of weeks. Anyway:

I’ve returned from the National Review cruise of the British Isles (sic) ... here’s what I learned on the cruise. There’s very little reason to go to Belfast. Edinburrrrrrrrrrrruh is a great town.

So it would seem that with David Trimble gone, the alliance of the Vast Rightwing Conspiracy with Ulster Unionism doesn't even generate a nice word about Belfast. But if you like his Edinburgh joke-spelling the first time, you'll love it when he does it again later on in the article.

Don’t ever go to the Jameson's distillery in Dublin — because it isn’t there. It's an Epcot Center-style recreation of a distillery. Even worse is the Guinness Brewery tour which is almost exactly like Nike Town, except instead of sneakers there’s really thick bready beer. But again, no actual brewing is included on the tour.

You know what -- he's close enough to the truth there that we'll let it stand. Theme park Dublin.

I was completely charmed by the Island of Guernsey where I had one of the best lunches of my life at a restaurant called L’Escalier. So, you know, the next time you’re in Guernsey ...

Now, what exactly were all these NR'ers doing in the Channel Islands? We certainly hope that these law-abiding folk weren't opening offshore bank accounts.

Mark Steyn is infuriatingly nice ... Smart, charming, and by common assent the best dancer on the boat ... I didn’t have a chance to chat with Paul Johnson, though I spoke several times with his lovely bride ... The Podhoretzes (Norman and Midge) were just delightful. Though they seemed to be drinking from the same bowl as Steyn and the O'Sullivans, who also seemed to believe that singing show tunes and the like was a requirement of sea life. I've seen Norman Podhoretz sing "Making Whoopee."

Yes, these people are really toughing out the Global War on Terror (RIP).