In stump speeches back then, he could wander from point to point with little coherent theme or narrative, bouncing, say, from a digression on legislative procedure to one on constitutional analysis, and taking plenty of time to do it.
Transferring the September 11th attacks to Argentina is one example; a digression on pandas is another.
At one point, in a digression on theatregoing in New York, Bernhard wanders onto the subject of current Broadway shows.
His Iceland story, for example, found space for a digression on elves.
He introduces a lengthy digression on "a character without a name" whose fetish is retarded women.
(Donaldson spends too long sifting the matter of an exact date in the summer, in an ample digression on astrology).
Indeed, Bruce sets up a profound, uproarious digression on Jews with the claim that "when people are liberal with something, they're ignorant".
For instance, Sir Astley Cooper's "On the Anatomy of the Breast," published in 1840, prompts an entertaining digression on grave-robbing.
Or, as he suggested later in a digression on poverty in India, go through life with the indignity of not having a toilet.
And it's this year's only celeb memoir with a substantial digression on Christopher Hill's Marxist reading of the English civil war.
There is a long digression on Charles Babbage and his Difference Engine, the first mechanical computer, as if this were a clue to the operation of the Turk.
