Elderisms #12 and 13

In today’s Times, Penelope Green writes about how the 80 year-old Scottish decorator Keith Fowler, who worked for Jacqueline Onassis and Pat Buckley, is auctioning off some of his furniture. Fowler–who says of one piece he’s reluctant to part with, “I could just eat that chair”–says of a less–loved item of Edwardian vintage,

“It’s not my period, but it adds a bit of sauce.”

Meanwhile, in Peter Terzian’s Bookforum review of sixtysomething Julian Barnes’s meditation on mortality, “Nothing to Be Frightened Of,” the godless Barnes writes that he misses the “beautiful lie” of Christianity, especially when he looks at religious art:

“It would–to put it mildly–add a bit of extra oomph, wouldn’t it?”

“Sauce,” “a bit of oomph”: currently on my shopping list.