Writing as madness

This summer, I saw a painting I'd never seen before, in the Centre Pompidou. Entitled Peinture (Ecriture rose) and covering a fair-sized chunk of wall (maybe three metres by four), it's the work of Simon Hantai and was done in 1958-59, which makes it almost half a century old. It's remarkable for a number of reasons, none of which can be deduced from the very poor photograph of part of it that you can see above, perhaps the most obvious being the fact that the colour pink, despite the work's title, isn't used at any point (as Helene Cixous has pointed out). The symbols on the canvas are references to earlier works but the body of the painting, its essential surface, is composed of writing. Hantai spent a year on the picture, working each morning to cover the entire canvas with meticulously copied extracts from philosophical and religious texts. The effect, of course, is to annihilate their meaning, but it's also a monument to the word as object in the same way that anything produced by a pre-Gutenberg copyist might be considered to be.

Two or three days later we were in the Arab Institute near Notre Dame, an extraordinary building containing a small but fine collection. Among the exhibits was an eighteenth century Iranian copy of the Koran, inscribed on a roll with the same kind of maniacal devotion as Hantai's, and, whatever its intentions may have been - and they were surely diametrically opposed to those of Hantai - the final effect is remarkably similar. In both cases, the actual sense of the word is subsumed in the representation of it as sign. The purpose of this Koran must have been to make the holy word available to its readers, but the manner of its transmittal renders it useless other than as totem. It disappears into the paradoxical beauty of the work as completely as Hantai's religious and philosophical texts, written in what appears to be a variety of coloured inks - red, blue, green, but never pink.

Penis, Paris

The image is rather ghostly, but you should be able to make out the form of a rather substantial male member on this toilet-paper roll. It's isn't remarkable in itself. The penis, after all, is to graffiti in public toilets as Paris Hilton is to gossip magazines. But it was rather odd to find it in the Ladies at Montparnasse cemetery. Don't ask.

Racist lunatic arrested

Good news from Brussels (and how often do you hear that?), as one of the most laughably despicable figures in Italian politics gets picked up by police after attempting to take part in an illegal demonstration against the 'islamisation of Europe'. Mario Borghezio, the ranting turd to the right of the photograph, is a member of the Northern League and, to Italy's shame, a European MP. He became known some years ago when he began to disinfect the train seats used by black women so that Italians could sit on them without dirtying their nylons, an action that should have led to disgrace and political oblivion but, among leghisti, had the opposite effect. He's the kind of person you remember, and remember avoiding, from school: the playground bully who picks on the really really weak then runs to teacher for protection. He despises authority when he's preaching to the racist rabble who support him, yet invokes it the minute he's in trouble (you can enjoy the vision of him bending to knuckle-lick the pope on his rudimentary official site). He's all in favour of violent 'solutions' when addressing the mob, and was once arrested for having set fire to the shanty home of some Romanian immigrants during a torch-lit march, a fire from which the Romanians barely escaped with their lives (two months in jail, never served), but a snivelling crybaby if anyone slaps him. And as an Italian Euro MP, he's among the highest-paid politicians in the world. Poveraccio.

UPDATE: Diddles wasn't given a glass of water for five whole hours. Altogether now - Poveraccio.

A roof of one's own all'italiana

Just over six years ago, in late June 2001, work on our house was interrupted by the unexpected visit of a local policeman (vigile). Apparently there'd been a complaint from someone, we weren't told who, that we were about to add an entire floor to the house. This was unlikely; the house was already four floors high and we barely had enough money to restore what we had, let alone add to it. What we had done was add what's known here as a cordolo, a band of reinforced concrete that runs along the top of the outer walls, holding the entire structure together and providing a solid base for a new roof. We would happily have done without this; it was expensive and slightly raised the roof, something we felt would reduce the charm of the rooms on the final floor. But our builder and surveyor both insisted and we fell in with their plans. It's hard to find a restored house in Fondi that doesn't have a cordolo, after all. They're as much a feature of the town as the massive cobbles or the old women selling vegetables from their doorsteps.

But the vigile, spurred on by his zealous, newly-appointed superior, decided we'd committed an abuso edilizio. This term covers everything from opening up a foot-square window in a wall to building a three-storied seaside house with mooring point for a couple of yachts in a national park. Berlusconi's villas (and private mausoleum) are notorious abusi, though not much seems to happen as a result. We were taken to a lawyer, the brother-in-law of our builder. He said we shouldn't be worried, that everything would sort itself out, although how this might happen wasn't clear. Two days later, the main door to the house had a police notice attached to it saying that the house was sotto sequestro. In other words, we couldn't even enter the building, never mind continue with the work.

We weren't living there yet, but we'd planned to move in that summer. Only hours before the vigile turned up, we'd carted into the house a pseudo-baroque (1940s) sofa and armchairs we'd found in a second-hand furniture shop on the Pontina. We had to leave our flat in Rome to make room for some friends of ours, so much of the first floor was filled with boxes of books, clothes, stuff, a chandelier Giuseppe had bought from a flea market before we even had a house to hang it in, rugs, beds, kitchen tables and chairs. The house contained everything we owned and loved.

It took us a week or so to have the seals removed from the door, at least for the house's owner. Me. It took over a month to get permission to enter the lower floors and carry on with the work. We were lucky; we moved back into the flat we'd had before, and sold to a friend, or slept downstairs at Sally's. We watched the work continue, the sun beating down into roofless rooms, the shadows of the beams moving across the floors. And then the weather changed.

We applied for permission to put on a temporary roof as rain soaked the newly-laid floors, sank deep into the walls, gathered in puddles, bounced off the marble stairs,warped the new doors. We were told that the half-dozen wooden beams constituted sufficient protection. We tried sheets of plastic, but the wind ripped them off. We tried to waterproof the floors, pretend we had a terrace surrounded by walls with windows and doors, but the rain seeped through. One autumn night, we were lying in bed in our borrowed flat, unable to sleep for the storm. We pulled macs on over our pyjamas, slipped flip-flops onto our feet; ten minutes later we found ourselves sweeping water out of what was supposed to be a bedroom, shivering, drenched to the skin, crying with rage at the hopelessness of it all. The following day, we put on a temporary roof.

After that, it became what the lawyer calls 'tutta carta', an endless accumulation of documents and applications and statements and testimonials, the file getting fatter and older as the years passed. We thought we might be able to take advantage of an amnesty under Berlusconi 2 (I know, I'm ashamed), but it would have cost more than the roof itself and besides, we only had to wait another year or so for the case to fall off the radar. The statute of limitations for abuso edilizio is five years, but this was extended for those who didn't take advantage of the amnesty. OK, we thought, six years. We're nearly there. And then, this June, we were.

Just over a week ago, the house bell rang. Giuseppe went downstairs to open the door while I squinted down, as I usually do, from my study balcony to see who was there. I recognised the vigile at once. He'd come to see if we'd done any work on the roof. Well of course we had. He said he'd be back with a camera. We went to the lawyer. The lawyer said that the statute of limitation applied to the abuso but not to the violation of the sequestro, which was subsequent to the abuso. How subsequent? he wanted to know. When we told him he said that with any luck the statute of limitation would apply to our second crime if the police didn't decide to speed the whole process up, which was unlikely. I use the word crime because violating seals is, apparently, a criminal offence. In theory, though only that, I could go to jail. In practice, I'll have to give the lawyer his usual whack and may be fined. In the meantime, I have a record.

Two days later, the vigile came back and took his photographs. And now we wait. Contrary to logic and common sense, the longer the business takes, the more it suits us. But, of course, we continue to live beneath a roof of corrugated bituminous stuff that's designed to be used under roof tiles, not in their place. We continue to live in half a house. The hardest thing to stomach is that there seems to be no way to unite the requirements and processes of the law with the facts of the case. No way to simply bring a judge into the house to see what's been done and listen to why we did it.

The biggest irony is that, since we were charged, the use of a cordolo has been accepted by the local administration, which now recommends its use on old houses in the centro storico of Fondi. Unfortunately, this eminently sensible decision isn't retroactive.

Something Rich and Strange

Feeling nautical? Maybe you should read Sea Stories, an anthology of, er, stories about the sea, published by the National Maritime Museum to celebrate its seventieth anniversary. The collection contains a story of mine, entitled Something Rich and Strange, as well as work by a host of others. You can pre-order it here.

And if you'd like to come to the launch (never has the term seemed more appropriate), at Stanfords Travel Bookstore, in Covent Garden on 26 September or Bristol the day after, visit their site for details. I'll be at the London one. I should really be at the Bristol date because my great-grandfather was harbour master there, but I'll be at another book launch (believe me, this is not the way I normally behave). My agent and friend, Isobel Dixon, will be celebrating the publication by Salt of her poetry collection, A Fold in the Map. More information here.

A l'eau. Ces't l'heure...

The last word on Larry "Wide Stance" Craig?

This comes from Queerty, via Joe.My.God (so you may have seen it already). You may need to click on it to read the fine print.

Bars

This bar is just over the road from La Maffiosa, on the corner of rue des Dames and rue Nollet, where we stayed last year. Its slightly down-at-heel exterior makes it look as though it's been like this for years, but it was actually being put together by a group of people last summer. We walked past every day and watched them working on it in a touchingly amateurish fashion, wielding tools with a sort of wonder at their ability to perform the allotted task, hammering and sawing and painting in passionate, neurotic flurries before opening a bottle and sitting around one of the tables to laugh and look anxious and drink, covering scraps of paper with figures and sketchy plans of the place. Never has a drinking hole been christened with such regularity, from conception to birth.

We missed the opening night because it took place on the day we left. It seemed impossible they'd be ready - the tables and chairs were stacked at the back, the lighting was hanging from the walls, the paint on the shelves behind the bar still looked wet. But we're assured they were, and the evening was a great success. Now it's settled into the landscape, attracting its natural constituency, identical to the people who created it.

It's fifty yards from another bar which caters to northern African transvestites, off-duty before heading back to Pigalle, I imagine, or Avenue du Clichy. We had a drink there one rainy afternoon last summer, somewhat against my better judgement. The middle-aged woman behind the bar, generously bosomed and squeezed into a tight black woollen dress, seemed thrilled to see us, perhaps assuming we were there to raise the tone of the place. She scurried across to our table with a dishcloth and a plate of nuts we hadn't asked for. She was about to put the plate down when I reached for my umbrella and knocked the nuts all over the just-wiped table. With a nonchalance I still admire, she gathered them up in her hand and put them back on the plate. Merci, madame.

I didn't have to eat them, I know. I could have left them on the plate, as Giuseppe did. It was my fault and no one else's that I spent the next two days poised between bed and bathroom, my only significant activity projectile vomiting.

La Maffiosa (sic)

Back to Paris, where we saw this sign outside a pizzeria in rue des Dames. It's extraordinary the extent to which criminality can acquire a veneer of folksy charm. Who knows how long it will be before we see a cartoon image of Mr Weeny the pederast (with dog) outside an amusement arcade (if that's what they're called now)?

Let's hope they spell it right.

I am human just like them

Johann Hari may have got it wrong about Iraq (and, if I remember correctly, he's acknowledged this more than once) but he's spot on when he talks about homophobia. His article in today's Independent, examining the way gay kids are the victims of bullying in schools, points the finger not only at the bullies themselves (victims of food additives?), but, more significantly, at teachers, who fail to do anything, blame the victim or actually support and substantiate anti-gay behaviour, and, of course, at the government, which seems to think the problem doesn't exist.

He's particularly incensed by the fact that homophobic bullying is more common in faith schools. This is hardly surprising; monotheism doesn't have a great record when it comes to recognising gay rights. But I wonder what would happen if someone suggested that the government fund, or even recognise, a school for gay kids along the same lines as those used for faith schools. It might be a ghetto (though this would be no truer of a gay school than of any other selective structure - including one based on class; it's significant that ghetto is only ever used pejoratively), but I'd rather be in a ghetto than standing alone in a hostile playground.

And if you aren't convinced, read this suicide text, quoted by Hari, sent to his sister by Jonathan Reynolds, a 15-year-old boy who'd been bullied after coming out to friends:

"Tell everyone that this is for anybody who eva said anything bad about me, see I do have feelings too. Blame the people who were horrible and injust 2 me. This is because of them, I am human just like them. None of you blame yourself, mum, dad, Sam and the rest of the family. This is not because of you."

Ten minutes later he'd been sliced in half by a train.

NW15

If you'd like to read Entertaining Friends, the story of mine that was included in the Granta/British Council anthology, New Writing 15, click here. You can also enjoy the glossary, which explains, among other things, details of Roman topography, past and present, and the meaning of punctum.

Good riddance to...

...Leona Helmsley, the hatchet-faced parasite who said that paying taxes was for the 'little people' and left her dog $12 million. Maybe they'll bag her ashes in one of those neat little sachets designed for pooches' poo.

Little Monsters: proofs and covers

I've just been told that Picador plans to produce bound proofs of Little Monsters, rather than page proofs. I'm one step nearer to seeing the book as, well, a book. This means I'll be able to wrap my single copy of the jacket around the novel it's intended for, rather than other books that have more or less the same dimensions. In Italy, I've been using my Collected Poems of Cavafy. Here, in England, where I'm watching, among other things, X Factor with my mother, it's a 41-year-old biography of Van Gogh entitled the The Man Who Loved the Sun. It's hard not to read some meaning into this. Tomorrow I'll be with Jane in London and I'll have to see what she has on her shelves that fits so that we can admire the jacket's clean lines and singing colours and overall disquieting quality (everyone tells me; I'm delighted) as they should be admired. Unconditionally.

I'm getting excited and nervous. I've spent the last few days reading book reviews and literary articles of one sort or another in the UK press, performing a similar operation to that of wrapping a jacket around someone else's book, i.e. replacing the author's name with mine to see how it feels.

Let the punishment fit the crime

Nothing could seriously dim my pleasure at seeing Republican Senator Larry Craig outed in such a succulent manner (see below), but a $500 fine and one year's probation, with the possibility of ending up in jail if uninvited footsie activity recurs before August 2009, does seem a tad harsh. Is this the kind of punishment that's meted out to anyone whose clothed extremities stray a little in public places? Or is it reserved for adult men in 'rest rooms'?

And isn't the role of the arresting policeman slightly compromised? I would have thought that to react to the senatorial tootsie's advances, as this officer so clearly did, seated and on the alert in the adjacent booth, was an act of, well, provocation. What was his state of dress? Did the senator, married and father of two adopted children, get a glimpse of the policeman's naked calf, or was he lured on by the promise of a sock, a trouser leg?

And who designs these booths? I've never seen European booth partitions with space enough for hands and feet to ramble willy-nilly from one cubicle to the next. I thought such things were the prerogative of pornographic fantasy, along with ever-willing plumbers and car mechanics. How wrong I was.

Whoops! One foot too far

From a police report cited in The Washington Post:

The undercover officer was monitoring the restroom on June 11. A few minutes after noon, Craig entered and sat in the stall next to him. Craig began tapping his right foot, touched his right foot to the left foot of the officer and brushed his hand beneath the partition between them. He was then arrested.

Hot stuff, right? Want to know who Craig is? Click here for the full story. Then come back here and we can talk about hypocrisy.

Woman overjoyed....

I promise not to keep cannibalising The Onion, but this one is too good not to share with anyone foolish enough not to subscribe already. You know who you are.

Woman Overjoyed By Giant Uterine Parasite

Little Monsters

If you'd like to pre-order your copy of Little Monsters from Amazon (a mere six months before the publication date), you can do so by clicking here. If, on the other hand, you'd simply like to admire the jacket image, here it is.

And here's the synopsis:

When I was thirteen my father killed my mother.

How do you recover from something like that? Carol never quite does. She's sent to live with her aunt, who barely tolerates her presence, much less makes her welcome. Grief-stricken, and all too aware she's not wanted, Carol is prickly and awkward. Desperate for love, but unable to ask for it, she nonetheless - and almost despite herself - finds it, perhaps where she least expected: her Uncle Joey is the only one to notice her when she's a teenager; years later, when she knows him as Jozef and he's sacrificed more for her than she can really comprehend, he's also the man with whom she builds a home and a life. But when Carol helps to rescue a young refugee from the sea, that life suddenly threatens to unravel, just as surely as it did when she was thirteen. Written in tight, spare prose, "Little Monsters" is a novel of creation, redemption and obsession; it's also the story of what it's like to experience the unthinkable - and what happens next.

A mamma, li turchi

Remember Adnan Oktar? Of course you don't. He's the nutter behind the Atlas of Creation, a lavishly produced load of anti-evolution shite mass-mailed throughout Europe, as well as attempts to outlaw Darwinism in his own country and others. You can read more about all this here.

The Ministry of Truth now has a fascinating post about his latest efforts to impose his loopy agenda on the world, as is usual with revealed truth cranks by trying to shut other people up. Thanks to Mr Oktar and his gang of lawyers, all Wordpress blogs are now banned in Turkey. If you're Turkish and want to carry on reading this or any other Blogspot blog, don't breathe a word to Oktar...

The third tower

I've steered clear of 9/11 conspiracy theory until now, but an article by Robert Fisk in today's Independent admits that the 'facts' we have don't add up. With admirable reluctance, he says:

But – here we go. I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11. It's not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field? Again, I'm not talking about the crazed "research" of David Icke's Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster – which should send any sane man back to reading the telephone directory.

I am talking about scientific issues.

One of the things I've noticed most often when I've mentioned my own doubts about the official version, in passing, to friends (because I try not to let my natural scepticism towards government slip over into a farcical over-estimation of its ability - there lies crankdom) is how few people know about the collapse of the third tower, some nine hours later than the other two and without apparent external assistance.

What's in a name?

Frank sent me a photograph of this shop front he found in Cookham, which he thought might amuse me. My cottaging days are long gone, but it's sweet to be reminded.

In the meantime I came across this sign in Paris, which rings horribly true after a summer of northern European rain and too much good food.

Commerce is the opium of the people

Paris.

Religion is the opium of the people

Andre St, Hackney.

Anna Oxa: E' tutto un attimo

I'm sorry, I couldn't resist this. It's from 1986.

Lisa: Sempre

This song came second in the Festival of the Italian Popular Song (i.e. Sanremo) in 1999. I have a weakness for Sanremo, a weakness that started out as sociological (or was justified as such). Now, it's simply unashamed. We used to gather friends around us to watch it with a distancing irony. Now we keep friends away to avoid the distraction of their distancing irony. This doesn't mean I like the songs indiscriminately; I still tend to go for those with a minimal cultural cachet. I prefer Nino D'Angelo and Antonella Ruggiero to Toto Cutugno and Anna Oxa (with the unforgettable exception of 'E' tutto un attimo'). I adore Patty Pravo, however unsuitable the song she's presenting may be (and I suspect this has become a matter of pride for her). But I'm watching something with all the power of collective rite. I'm not really there for the music.

Sometimes, though, a song comes from nowhere and stays. I loved this one when I first heard it, and I've been remembering and then half-remembering it ever since. A few days ago a neighbour was playing it and I've fallen again. This video comes from the festival itself (there's a much slicker and less compelling later version of it on Lisa's website). It's great because it has the dreadful moments that precede all Sanremo performances, when you're convinced that something is about to go - or has already gone - irremediably wrong. She's obviously shitting herself. No one had really heard of her; she was among the Giovani, a heterogeneous and often not particularly talented melange of hopefuls and raccommandati. You can watch her gaining power over the song and the situation, until she hits her stride in the obligatory Sanremese crescendo. The lyrics are compulsively awful, a paean to being shat on by a man, worthy of Billie Holiday. I love it.

Garden furniture

The Musee Delacroix was poky, dangerously overheated and chock-full of second-rate stuff by M. D himself and others. Even the atelier, which you feel ought to be revealing, was dull. The garden though, in its small way, was very pleasant. I'm a sucker for formal gardens and it was fun to see the degree of formality achieved here, in what's really no more than a tiny courtyard squeezed in between buildings. I swear I didn't move the chairs.

And there were some nice postcards of sketches from Delacroix's Moroccan travels in the little shop.

Bon jour monsieur

It wasn't until I'd taken the photograph of this intriguingly simple portico just round the corner from Notre Dame that I noticed someone getting dressed beneath it. Another reminder of the enormous number of people sleeping rough in Paris. But also proof that what we do when we take a photograph is stop using our eyes.

It's what we don't see as we snap away that can often give the image resonance.

Tables for two

French bar and restaurant tables are notoriously petits, particularly for someone used to the more generous proportions of those in Italy. Roughly speaking, a table for four in Rome would be expected to seat eight, or even twelve, in Paris. But these chipped but chic little tables, spotted near St German des Pres, surely take the biscuit (an object they curiously resemble, in size at least). We calculated that they would just hold two cafes cremes and one of those dinky plastic things with clips that contain the bill.

Two wedding dresses and a mattress

Seen in the Marais.

Silver ring thing: update

More on the Silver Ring Thing Gang. I happened to be reading an article on the new fashion for chastity in the Daily Mail three weeks ago and guess whose name leapt off the page. That's right, Denise Pfeiffer, knicker model and Wacko Jacko's Number One Fan (try saying it in a Kathy Bates voice to get the full effect). You can admire the squeaky clean Denise (clothed) in this photograph.

She's described as a freelance writer and part-time model. She lives with friends in Leiceste (sic) and is still a virgin. Not a mention of her other activity as press officer for SRT. It also says, rather oddly, that 'from the age of consent she has not had sex for eleven years', suggesting that before the age of consent she was a bit of a slapper.

Surely not.

Mugs

Another quickie before we go back to Paris. This piece of quality merchandise can be obtained from the Silvio Berlusconi Fans (sic) Club for a mere €20. Cheap at the price. It's recommended for use in companies, although companies of what he doesn't say. Political philosophers perhaps.

Gays too precious to risk in combat, says General...

A little distraction from my holiday photos and observations: this is from The Onion, so you may have enjoyed it already. If you haven't, here's your chance.

'Gays Too Precious To Risk In Combat,' Says General

Dogs

One of the hardest things about travelling is that you often have to leave your pets behind. This is particularly the case if the journey touches Britain, whose irrationally draconian anti-rabies measures make it impossible to take your dog: because, I admit it, I'm thinking dog here. Even more, I'm thinking Toffee.

We left Toffee in her own house (which we share), with Daniela and then Renata, people she knows and loves, so she was fine. We were the ones who suffered. Suffering takes many forms. Giuseppe phoned home every day for detailed bulletins on her health and general well being. Toffee licks the mouthpiece if she hears her name, which is unhygienic but endearing (to us), and this ritual was duly performed each afternoon.

I'm more grown up about it (I also think the phone thing might upset her at some deep level, the way time travel or full face transplants might upset me). I take photographs of other people’s dogs. Paris is a very good city indeed for this; it's hard to cross a street without seeing half a dozen small perfectly coiffured tykes being taken out by their owners. Jack Russell terriers are definitely this season's flavour; the animaleries along the Seine around Pont Neuf are full of them, with their prices pitilessly falling as they move out of puppyhood; although bulledogues (the French kind, hence the spelling) are hanging in by their oddly arranged teeth and look set to weather the canine fashion storm.

Then there are the much larger mixed-breed dogs that lope around with, and protect, the thousands of clochards in the city. The psychology's pretty basic. People like me, who go soft at the sight of most animals, tend to give more, telling ourselves that our money will be spent on biscuits. One guy who turned out to be from Manchester, strategically placed on his rucksack outside a place that sold the most delicious bread, told me he'd just bought something to stop his bitch - Sensy (because she’s sensitive) - going on heat. This information made me even more generous than I'd intended. He said that he could sleep more easily, knowing that Sensy was there beside him. We must have had similar circuits because I noticed Sensy and her life-partner half a dozen times, walking, sleeping outside the Monoprix on rue de Reynes. A man came out of the store and gave the Mancunian a bag with bread, cheese, tabouleh, screw-topped wine, two bottles of water and a sizeable bag of dog food. I wonder how often this happens, if it’s a frequent gesture or if I was lucky enough to see something exceptional. I hope the former.

Then, one afternoon, a big golden Labrador flopped across to us and put his front paws round my waist and his cold wet nose against my stomach. Begging for love, I thought, so I was half right. His owner, who rolled up seconds later with his hand out and a friendly smile, must have trained him to trawl for cash. But hey! everyone's happy. (Except for people who 'don't like dogs'.)

They don't even have to be real. I took these two photographs of toy dogs in the window of a shop that was closed for August. I had one not that different when I was small, with small wheels on each paw and a handle at the back like a trolley case; I don't know what happened to it.

Batignolles or I'm back from Paris

Back after three weeks away, I'll start with something typical... The boulangerie was one of the many Paul scattered over Paris, this one in the middle of the rue de Levis street market. The man isn't known to me, but his hair and general stature reminded me of Georges Perec, whose space in the crematorium of Pere Lachaise I didn't see this year. So this is a little homage to the memory of Perec, in the city he honoured.

Italietta mia

Trawling the English press for news of home I'm rewarded by two choice glimpses into contemporary Italian sexual mores. The first is news of the arrest of two men for having kissed (termed by the carabinieri an 'oral relationship') outside the Coliseum. This has prompted gay groups to organise a kiss-in and arch-homophobe Rocco Buttiglione, the man the EU sent home, to say that the kiss was part of a crusade to undermine traditional values. (It takes so little...).

The second involves the wonderfully named Cosimo Mele, an MP and member of Buttiglione's own party, who got anxious when the tart he was entertaining in a hotel room, presumably because his wife had guests, came over all funny after a substantial amount of cocaine. He called the police, distracting them, no doubt, from their kiss-watching duties at Rome's most historic buildings, and found his name in the following day's newspapers. He's resigned from the party, though not apparently from parliament, but nonetheless managed to pat himself on the back for having phoned for help. The idea that he might just have done a bunk was clearly there as an option.

It's fairly obvious what these two stories tell us about Italy. It's sad, though, that of all the news generated by the sixth economic power, NATO member, etc. etc. these should have been the only items considered worth printing by the Guardian. There's nothing, for example, about Cesare Previti resigning from the senate. Previti, Berlusconi's henchman and erstwhile business lawyer, not to speak of ex-Minister of Justice, and one of the most unredeemably sordid members of the buffoon's inner circle, was recently condemned definitively for corrupting a judge on his boss's behalf. He has finally given up his seat weeks before being booted out and can now devote his forensic energies to commuting his six year sentence to house arrest overlooking the fountains of Piazza Farnese.

This clearly wasn't seen as deserving of the ink.

First stop: Ireland

Dublin airport comes as a shock: in a world that’s gone haywire with security measures while fast-tracking anything in a burka—male or female, in YSL knickers or gelignite corsets—an entirely pleasant one. We’re bussed to what would normally be the hermetic world of Arrivals and find ourselves shouldering our way through departing holidaymakers en route to Malaga or Warsaw; we wander through the endless retail opportunities of modern travel, mingling and mixing in the most promiscuous manner with Departures before we even hit customs, let alone passport control. It’s a refreshingly relaxed—I hesitate to say Irish—solution (surrender?) to the awfulness of air travel, even though AerLingus is doing its best to behave like its arch rival and would-be purchaser Ryanair. Examples? Payment for items of baggage (half-price online!). In-flight panini (one panini; two paninis? povero italiano mio) at €5 a shot, tea at €2. At least Giuseppe and I get to sit together without having to pay priority or queue for an hour and a half at the gate. (Relax, McLeary. If that’s your name. Sooner or later, it will all be yours. And then we die.)

We’re going to Ireland to celebrate the wedding of two dear friends of ours, Bridie and Dominic. Dominic is Maika’s brother and English, though of Irish stock, but Bridie, as her name suggests, is a genuine Irish beauty, born and bred. We’re touched and honoured to be invited, and only slightly phased by the difficulty of getting from the airport to the splendid hotel we’re booked into for the weekend. (A little product placement here. The Finnstown Country House Hotel. I have only good things to say about it, apart from the price of mineral water, but that’s a generic issue with the modern world. Fine food, fine beds and sofas and internet connections and gardens, fine freebies in the bathroom, constant hot water, by all accounts a fine Turkish bath and swimming pool, peacocks to die for, a dog we didn’t have the luck to meet. I recommend it.)

Fortunately, Maika’s sister, Samantha, and her sons, Alex and Mallory, have agreed to find room for us in their hired car and, with great generosity (theirs) and immense discomfort (Mallory’s and mine), we arrive, five people and five substantial suitcases, crammed into an Opel Corsa, with minimal disagreement as to what exactly constitutes a roundabout in the ongoing road works of the M40. If you’ve been there you’ll know what I mean. I was last in Ireland in 1976. Believe me, things were different. I saw the first beggar of my life outside Bewley’s. (This was before Thatcher modernised the UK and introduced beggary as a career option.) Now there’s a sprawl of expensive suburban housing everywhere we look.

The church is hexagonal and modern, like a theatre in the round, flanked by an old and sombre tower with a faintly Tolkienesque air to it. Father Sean, the priest, came with us on the bus. He wins me over when Bridie’s entrance is greeted by scattered, inappropriate applause and he says: ‘She’s looking absolutely beautiful. Let’s all give her a clap.’ (Or words to that effect.) The service is long but varied, with contributions from Maika and all the younger family members and a sermon from Father Sean, both authoritative and modest, that comes down to the need to be kind. Be kind, he says, be kind. I’m torn between my disdain for organised religion and a fondness for both the man and his message, which is so ecumenical it includes us all, worshippers and atheists alike. He wins me over once again when his grace at the reception begins with the words: “We are so hungry, Lord”. Because we are.

And our hunger (and thirst) is amply and skilfully met by chicken and seafood roulades and mouth-melting beef. There’s a provocative gender distinction to round off an excellent meal, when the women are provided with pavlova and the men sticky toffee pudding. This causes consternation at my role-challenged table, with Giuseppe demanding pavlova and Maika and Sally sticky toffee pudding. And then we dance, and drink, and dance, and are treated to an exhilarating taste of Irish dancing from Bridie’s cousin, and dance and drink again and somehow find room for sandwiches and deep-fried mushrooms and coffee at some late point in the evening. Giuseppe requests I Will Survive and his request, to our delight, is met. I rediscover the joy of Guinness, on several occasions, and talk to Daniel at length about ducks and overall have a wonderful time. And then the evening begins to blur.

Most of the photographs I took are circumstantial, but I’m fond of this one, taken as the newlyweds cross the lawn towards the official photographer, safe and dry beneath a tree. It has a sense of both departure and arrival, a little like Dublin airport, but there’s nothing at any airport in the world as caring as the way Dominic holds the umbrella over Bridie’s head or as elegant as the way she has gathered her dress in her hand to keep it off the drive.

Not waving, but drowning using Tyla's connection...

I'm trapped in a broadband challenged hell. It's so easy to invoke Kafka when a couple of things go wrong, so I won't (Oh, I have...) but I've spent the past two weeks battling with phone problems: no landline, no ADSL, no patience, if you want to hear of our new offers press 3, if you want to murder a person in a call centre press 6, etc. There's no end to this in sight (i.e. I've been promised 'tomorrow' on five consecutive occasions, and I'll be going on holiday quite soon and may not get a chance to resume normal service before I do. But please don't abandon me! I promise I'll be back in a week or so. And in the meantime I might surprise you...

Caring a fig

I wonder why we use the expression 'I don't care a fig' to express a lack of interest in something. The fig is one of the most extraordinary fruits around. It's nutritious, beautiful to look at whether green and plump or glistening and black, exquisite fresh or dried, thirst-quenching, luxurious. Sexy. Slightly alien with its sugary tendrils clustered inside the skin. Just look at this one, fresh and bursting open on Daniela's table in Norma.

Taking the good with the bad

I've had a particularly trying few days, most of the problems being related to technology and its failings: no land line, no broadband, a mysterious corrupt file message as two days' work is erased before my eyes and proves irretrievable. (No, don't tell me how to find it, because I've done the damn thing again, and knowing that all my effort was needless would break my heart - or balls, as we say in Italy.)

So it's good to get some heart-warming news from the British courts. Lydia Playfoot, the girl for whom saying 'No' just isn't in-your-face enough, has seen her case dismissed against the school that refused to let her wear her 'purity ring' (replacements obtainable for only £13 from It's a Silver Ring Thing, the business religious organisation run by her mum and dad and ex-lingerie model and Jacko fan, Denise Pfeiffer - more about the lovely Denise here). Even better, her father's been ordered to pay £12,000 in costs to the school. Expect an increase in the price of beanie hats, etc., to cover this. You can read all about it here.

Suddenly, everything seems rosy again.

Fat cat

I was looking down into the garden this afternoon when one of our three cats decided to relax. His name's Rocco, otherwise known as Tubs, Porco, Samsonite and the GFGO (the Great Fat Grey One). You can admire him here. And before you report me to any animal welfare organisations, maybe you can tell me how to put one cat on a diet and not the other two, both svelte and rangy by comparison, without separating them. Dogs are easy; they eat to order. Cats, as we know, are picky and approach eating much as Greeks seem to do, in a leisurely intermittent fashion, as though they had all the time in the world. As, indeed, they do. (Cats, that is.)

I'll have mine without the polonium 210, please

I've been looking to see where visitors to this blog actually come from and how they get here, in that obsessive way most bloggers seem to share, and I notice that a disturbing number find me through a Google image search for Putin and Dobby. Some months ago I posted a sequence of images in which the Russian thug morphs into Harry Potter's nasty little antagonist and now it's the first thing to come up. So dozens of people from the States, Australia, Spain, Germany and, gulp, Russia have dropped into my blog. And some, rather creepily, have stayed.

Putin is such a sensitive soul I'm expecting a visit from one of his henchmen with a little something for lese-majesté. People have died for less, after all, and not only in Russia.

If you want to see the transformation for yourself, just click on the label 'putin'.

Update, five minutes later. I just checked that the link worked and the fucking picture's disappeared. Now I really am worried!

Jim Bailey does Madonna, Tallulah and Marilyn

While I'm in diva mode...

Judy Garland: Ol' Man River

One for Salman

I was directed to this by its maker, who comments on Guardian blogs as IMHOTEP. Apparently, it was criticised by Campaign magazine, which isn't surprising, and by The Observer, which, frankly, is.

Vade retro, empiricism

One of the few areas in which fundamentalist Islam seemed to offer a less obscurantist view of the world than fundamentalist Christianity was that of evolution. Alas, no longer. An article in today's Independent reveals that a bunch of Turkish nutters calling itself, without intentional irony, the Science Research Foundation (BAV) is spearheading creationist claptrap in the Middle East. Not content with that, the group recently mass-mailed its Atlas of Creation (never mind the evidence, feel the weight: 6 kg of lavishly illustrated tosh) to schools and scientists in Western Europe. They're also building creationist theme parks museums, along the lines of the one in the States. Who knows where all the money is coming from? Even more worrying is the fact that Turkey's education minister publicly supports 'intelligent design'. What price EU accession now?

It will be fun to see if the ID cranks in the States and, increasingly, in the faith-friendly Britain created by Middle East envoy and peacemaker to the stars, Tony Blair, will jump into bed with their new Islamic brothers-in-codswallop.

The price of Eggs

I got it wrong in my earlier post. Eggs Benedict's jaunt with Georg in the Dolomites - because clearly his lakeside retreat at Castel Gandolfo just isn't sufficiently close to God - isn't costing the Italian government €40,000 at all. It's costing the Veneto region something like €345,000.

Sorry.

What's in a name? The same old cop-out

Forget PACS (What do you mean, you already have?) Forget DICO (Eat more fish!). The latest acronym to tantalise and tease us, as Dame Shirley Bassey might have put it, is CUS. It stands for Contratto di Unione Solidale (Solid Union Contract) and it's supposed to be the answer to every unmarried couple's prayer for legal recognition.

Well, it ain't. It makes no provision for tax relief, is downright evasive about pension rights, postpones inheritance rights until the ninth year of the contract and even then allots the surviving partner no more than a quarter of what's left if a brother or sister of the deceased is still alive. It doesn't allow for leave when the partner's sick. Basically, it's a cock-up.

On the other hand, it's so gutless and bland it will be interesting to see what the homophobes of the centre-left come up with to attack it. The centre-right is already calling the CUS a do-it-yourself marriage, so let's all grab a hammer and a handful of nails and knock one up.

It's also an unfortunate acronym, unlike DICO, which had a nice ambiguity, and ring, to it. CUS stands for University Sports Centre in Italian, so expect some fun there as chest-heaving hearties defend their sexual integrity. What's more, it rhymes with only two words in Italian: pus and bus. Is this really the image we need? Unpunctual, overcrowded, and er, yellow?

Fuoco, fuoco

The day has been punctuated by an intermittent mechanical rumbling as helicopters pass backwards and forwards over the house. Great scoops of water dangle beneath them like the thoraxes of those hornets found round here, called mule-killers for the potency of their sting. The helicopters, and the odd seaplane equipped with a tank for water and known in Italy as a Canadair, are trying to douse the first real fire to get this near to the town since last year.

The rough grass and other scrub vegetation on this side - the southern side - of Passignano, the hill behind Fondi, has been burning off slowly but steadily since this morning and now there's a large patch of grey-black stubble the shape of Africa, extending from the peak of the hill, over 400 metres above sea level, to the highest house on the slope, a derelict stone building I've often coveted, maybe a third up from the foot. The fire's not out yet; as the light begins to fade the scurries of flame around its edges are more evident than before and almost beautiful. It's almost certainly someone's handiwork.

The land isn't cultivated and is too steep for building, so the culprits are unlikely to be farmers or developers. The only people who stand to benefit are the part time forestry workers who wait to be called, each summer, to deal with fires of this kind. It's a closed circuit, and as long as no one dies and no famous beauty spots are touched no one seems to care that much, although dogs don't like the low, rather throaty noise of the helicopters. Maybe, to them, it sounds like a growl.

A place for everything and everything in its place

Ever thought you'd like to insert George W. somewhere dark and warm and moist? Well now, thanks to Celebrity Butt Plugs, you can. And if you'd rather have Paris Hilton (with assquake battery effect!), or L. Ron Hubbard (with hypno eyes!) thrust snugly up your nether regions, the choice is yours. (Mel Gibson, oddly, has already sold out.) They don't look that comfortable, but comfort isn't everything. Think of the karma. Clench down.

By the way, don't miss the testimonials...

I wonder how long they'll keep us waiting for Eggs. Hey, maybe it'll double up as a holy water douche bag.

McCourtesy, or Egg's Revenge

I got to Rome station yesterday morning an hour earlier than I needed, slightly hungover and hungry, with five hours of exam invigilation ahead of me. A McMuffin seemed just the thing. I went to the McDonalds by the Ricordi music shop and joined the queue.

The conversation went like this (but in Italian).
- A McMuffin and orange juice, please.
- That's €4.15.
- But it's only €3.90 if I have a menu with hash browns.
- So?
- So why should I pay more for less?
- You should have ordered a menu.
- I didn't want any hash browns. I didn't expect to pay more without them.
- You should learn to read.
- You should learn to be polite, signorina.
- Yeah, right.

After this exchange, the girl gave me change for a menu and stalked off into the rear of the place. A moment later, my McMuffin slid down the chute, the girl reappeared with a smug little grin, picked the thing up and gave it to me. I walked away, still fuming, sat down and ate it.

It wasn't until I'd finished that it occurred to me she'd spit on it.

Cole Porter Tribute

I can't seem to embed youtube stuff any longer, so I'll post this as a link. It's wonderful. Don't ask. Click.

1965. Judy. Let's do it.

Butchery

Of the 93 protesters beaten to a pulp, pissed on, verbally abused and then framed by the Italian police after being woken from their sleep at the Genoa G8 summit in 2001, at least 59 were foreign. It's well known that none of these foreigners contacted their embassies. Apparently, they didn't want to. They even signed forms in which they claimed to have no fear for their physical safety and no desire to speak to their countries' representatives.

The problem is that all 59 forms have now been revealed by investigating magistrates to be photocopied, completed by the same two hands, and bearing illegible signatures. Many of the forms don't even have the birth dates of the people who are supposed to have signed them.

Genoa's deputy police chief, now being tried for the events of the night following the death of protester Carlo Giuliani at the hands of the police, has called the attack on the sleeping demonstrators 'an act of Mexican butchery'. It's salutary to remember that butchery of this kind can take place in any country in which it's tacitly, and explicitly, condoned by the government, as this was. While the public Berlusconi was flower arranging in Genoa's prettier squares, his less savoury doppelgänger was putting the boot in at one remove.

The smiler with the knife under the cloak, as Chaucer put it.

The Emperor's Old/New Clothes

From today's Independent, by Peter Popham:

The magnificent papal wardrobe has been steadily modified since Vatican II. Pope Paul VI symbolically laid his splendid tiara on the altar of St Peter's at the end of the council; it was sold and the proceeds donated to charity. Benedict has yet to buy it back, but he has repeatedly stunned Vaticanologists with the variety of archaic hats, capes and other adornments he chooses to sport. In his first winter as Pope he donned the snug, Santa Claus-like "camauro" hat, red velvet with a border of white ermine (see right), which had not been worn since John XXIII, who died in 1963. He also affected the "galero", a cowboy-like number in red, and the "greca", the ankle-length cashmere overcoat last worn by Pope Pius XII. He has also moved to restore some of the dignity of the Pope sacrificed by his predecessors in the interests of humility and conciliation. Benedict has been photographed seated in the little-used golden throne in the Vatican's Sala Paolina, where Pius XII used to receive important visitors on their knees.

I wonder what he's wearing on his holidays, devoted to walking, the thinking of deep religious thoughts and the gathering of woodland fruit, according to an ever-fawning Italian press. Something light and cool, I suppose, silk camiknickers, perhaps, last honoured by a papal arse three centuries ago; as flimsy as the vain old slapper's moral authority.

Nobody's bothered to tell us whether the lovely Georg is a-nutting and a-berrying with him.

(Update: On tonight's TV news, Georg was three paces behind as Eggs walked, and thought, and walked, in his simple monastic way, surrounded by other befrocked old men and, obviously, security. Security which is costing the Italian government over €40,000. Enjoy the break, Eggs! We'll pay for the omelette.)

Going, going, gone....

Encouraging news today, as Eggs Benedict goes all Latin. No, we're not talking Ricky Martin (Calm down, Eggs!), but the opportunity given the faithful to return to the Latin mass, thrown out at the modernising Second Vatican Council. Now Eggs claims that the old rite was never abrogated, and he's the pope so he ought to know. So if you've been excommunicated for rambling on in a dead language now's your chance to squeeze back in and do it with papal approval.

The encouraging news is that while 97% of Italy's population is baptised, 86% declares itself catholic and 57% practising, only 21.4% is actually prepared to shift its arse from couch to pew on a regular basis. And the arses that so inadequately line the peninsula's places of worship tend to be old, poor and southern. Not at all the human resources that old Prada-wearing Eggs is after.

The reasons 'practising' catholics give for not actually practising include boredom (33.7%), banal sermons (7.8%) and a lack of spirituality (11%). I'm sure a little Latin, Gregorian chants and the priest's back turned to the congregation will push up viewing figures no end.

A vagabond life

This is an act of the purest philanthropy on my part. Read Wendell Ricketts' blog Una Vita Vagabonda. The philanthropy isn't directed at Wendell, who is smarter, funnier and a better photographer than I am, and therefore doesn't need it, but at you, who might otherwise never have come across him.

De Groei

You can find the contents page of Vrij Nederland, with a three-line extract from my story The Growing (or De Groei) here (at the top of page two). It's all double single Dutch to me, but I like the sound of deze dingen dragen very much indeed and wonder if maybe I shouldn't always be translated, immediately, into such musical non-sense. Its nursery rhyme feel is particularly suitable to this story as well. I'm teasing you non-Dutch speakers out there...

Gay Pride: last legs

I don't know how this one slipped through...

To catch a thief...

The Scent of Cinnamon: fifth review

This one comes from the Miami Sun Post and, once again, is less a review than an encouraging nod in my direction. And, once again, I'm delighted (though it's a pity they have the name of the novel wrong. Just in case you don't know, it's now LITTLE MONSTERS).

You'll have to scroll down a little to find it.

THE GOLDEN FLEECE

Why wait? This is the second sequence of the group:

MEDEA

1
A wild west so fictitious
only cowboys could live there.
I leave my cave and take some clothes to the water.
A fine dust in the water
stains them yellow. Someone arrives
and talks of a mythical beast,
recently slaughtered, gargantuan, bearded head
on the prairies of a land that
is also mythical. Myth hurts.

Myth hurts. I am being used
to describe an attitude towards value.


2
The power of magic is denied
when it works. I too. I too
am afraid of power. As though
the boats would not have slowed down
to retrieve him whole. Only a little
time for that magic to work. A fine dust
in the folds of cloth,
in the knots and tangles of the wool.


3
The natives work themselves
into the imagination, like dust
that rubs off the nap
of a cloth, that penetrates
the fibres. Just as the cloth
falls apart the dust
stiffens into the rigid
form of the robe. The native
walks out of the cave and
towards the river
and everyone is scared.

Alan Johnston freed

It's a joy, and a relief, to be able to move this from the side bar, and to be able to congratulate not only Alan Johnston on his release but also Hamas on their part in it. It's also interesting to compare Johnston's willingness to return to Gaza with the refusal of the Italian journalist, Daniele Mastrogiacomo, to set foot in Afghanistan following his release, massaged by a substantial ransom payment by the Italian government, a few months ago. Mastrogiacomo's been pretty much silent since then, which is probably the best thing for everyone.

THE GOLDEN FLEECE

Time for a little verse, I think. This is the first part of a group of poems inspired specifically by the myth of the golden fleece and, obliquely, by Pasolini's Medea (or maybe that should be the other way round). The group - complicatedly - forms the second half of the collection entitled VALUE, sections of which have appeared below (click on poem, or value, to find them). The Golden Fleece has two rather lovely epigraphs:

In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend. The Communist Manifesto

Of course the stars were nearer before we could fly - why else should the universe expand? Tom Raworth

JASON 1

1
I seem impervious to pain.
Spectators applaud, I continue
to cross the archipelago, the tiny birds
collapsing like Asian kites

and the lights must be laid
on as the decoration of a blade’s
journey toward the clarity it
cannot stand. All of the stations are static.
Videos in the cancer ward in a ‘far off’
place, where he lovingly reinstates
the small neglected things,
gilds them with leaf of his heart.

Impassive housewives break wind
among shelves in a market under the buzzing
rails. They’re struggling as always,
they’re talking about the waves
of detached and sacred soap.

2
A bareback rider composed of
winking bulbs, stationary and
electric and blue as
benign flesh. Only the instruments escape
the taint of drunkenness in the maker.
Light moves across daring scalpels
in the surgeon’s hands, kindly
displayed to the objects, the gaudy
entrance of daylight into the
National Grid. His escape

is so often imitated it becomes
inimitable and novel
to walk back into the bar’s
description of itself, its
clients, its
emblems, moving
from wall to wall.

3
The cables are dangling from the roof.
The roof is a temporary structure.
Under the structure is a space, enclosed.
The space is organised.
O twinkling stars.
If only to cover the event
all objects that reflect the light
shall assemble here.

Demand that cannot frame
its words, a cloud
that enters the room
to fill it.

I think I was waiting for that light
to coax me in, to inherit the burden
of the torch-bearer, blinded
by so much improbable splendour.

4
I am walking a little apart from that.
I am leaning into the lit
mirror of a well. What’s opportune
throws smoking scarves round the sun.
It is always too late to get up
and even for the tulip
dawn remains simply decorative.

The mountains leave
the household, the household is anxious
to be left to its own devices
as it works its way into the heart.
I am staring down on the lit
riot of cells and the city is casting
about my hands a frayed ring
from a wistful and delicately drawn
exchange. The generator down
the line and a sudden
infusion of neon
attack my boxed ears.
I am walking toward the source
of the attack which becomes a bulb which
becomes a button which becomes a

bear which becomes a back
which becomes a rider
which becomes
what you said I was all the time.

5
This too shall be taken apart
or be extended, infinitely,
through the city and all that we know
of the city’s madness shall be written
on the palm of one hand
that cannot even touch another
without leaving filth.
As I hold up chaos to the glass
I see my own hands hold it there,
a cowering frame that wards off
knowledge of itself. A bareness
like thrusting
an arm into fire and feeling

nothing, neither pain nor heat, only
the chain of the body’s affections,
appalling glimpses, barely
enough to see daylight by.

Chinese whispers

As someone who's made a (poor) living from academic translation in the past - I now make a poor living from editing my own dear language into UN-speak - I'm deeply impressed by good literary translators. I would never have read some of my favourite authors (Balzac, Bernhard, Perec, Saramago, Sebald, etc.) without them. I look at the Italian-to-English work of Tim Parks and William Weaver and a dozen others and marvel at how they manage to convey sense so effortlessly from one language to another. I do have some files of translations of poems by Pasolini and Sandro Penna tucked away, made in those heady youthful days when I felt it my duty to do such things, and I've translated a chunk of a wonderful novel by Renata Crea, a friend of mine, for the sheer pleasure of seeing it work in a second language (as it splendidly does), but I'd shy away from anything more, well, contractual. I think I'd get in the way.

Which is why it feels odd to discover that a short piece of mine, titled The Growing, is about to appear in a very smart-looking left-wing weekly in the Netherlands called Vrij Nederland (Free Netherlands). In Dutch. In the whole world of my acquaintance, I know two people who will be able to read it, so I may have to ask them to back-translate it for me in the hope that something amusing emerges. It usually does. Repeated back-translation can effectively send a text haywire, to the general hilarity of those involved. The story itself is creepy and part of a longer thing I've been working on for, effectively, years now. One day, who knows? it may appear in English too.

I remember being disappointed some years back when The Barcelona Review did a story called The Time it Takes because I was under the impression they translated everything they published into both Spanish and Catalan and I was dying to see what it read like in both. But my impression, alas, was wrong and the story remained as it was. And now it feels oddly incomplete.

She's mad for Jacko...

If you'd like to know a bit more about a certain Denise Pfeiffer, media consultant to Silver Ring Thing (see previous post) and erstwhile lingerie model, click here.

Believe me, you won't regret it. (And it's worth taking a good look round the rest of the Ministry of Truth site as well.)