The final frontier

CATHOLICS ARE PECULIARLY morbid. That, at any rate, struck me as the most plausible explanation. It must have been 15 years ago, and I was with a group of Englishspeaking aficionados learning handson capework in the breeders’ practice rings around Salamanca.

We were a mixed group — three Americans, two Scots, a Dutchman, a German and an Irishman — all of us bloody-minded enough to embrace an art-form reviled in our own countries. But, given our nationalities, there