Lord of the manor

Lord of the manor

The hit British TV series "Downton Abbey" has inspired a new line of housewares. The "Downton look" is based both on the palatial rooms of the Earl and Countess of Grantham, and (more realistically, we'll bet, for your home) the downstairs servants' quarters.

For the true "Downton" effect, you'll need a footman in a crisp black uniform to provide tableside dinner service. If only dogs had opposable thumbs.



OMG! Worst jail food evah! Users of the website Yelp.com have been offering their opinions on restaurants and hotels. Now, they're posting reviews of state prisons and county jails.

It can be hard to gauge the reliability and accuracy of anonymous reviews, but if the subject's a jail and the reviewer's handle includes the word "thug," consider it authoritative.



Back at ya: The chattering classes were abuzz Wednesday over a report in Politico that House Speaker John Boehner told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to "go f--- yourself" during a particularly tense moment of the fiscal cliff negotiations.

With Congress' approval rating mired at 18 percent, we suspect Boehner's hearing a lot of that kind of talk these days.

-- Mark Carlson, Herald staff