Isn't this wonderful! It's the winning portrait in this year's Natural History Museum Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award. His name is Troublemaker and he's a young adult Sulawesi black-crested macaque. The photographer is Stefano Unterthiner of Italy.
"Maroni (Italy's current home secretary) should withdraw the police from the streets and the universities, infiltrate the students' movement with agents provocateurs ready for anything and give the demonstrators a couple of weeks to rampage shops, set fire to cars and turn the cities upside down [...] After which, backed up by popular support, ambulance sirens should drown out those of the police [...] in the sense that the police should show no mercy and make sure that everyone ends in hospital. Don't arrest them, given that the magistrates would release them immediately, just beat them up and beat up those teachers who stir them up [...] above all the teachers [...] I don't mean the old ones, I mean the young women teachers [...] There are teachesr who indoctrinate the children and take them onto the streets: criminal behaviour!" (“Maroni […] dovrebbe ritirare le forze di polizia dalle strade e dalle università, infiltrare il movimento con agenti provocatori pronti a tutto, e lasciare che per una decina di giorni i manifestanti devastino i negozi, diano fuoco alle macchine e mettano a ferro e fuoco le città. […] Dopo di che, forti del consenso popolare, il suono delle sirene delle ambulanze dovrà sovrastare quello delle auto di polizia e carabinieri […] nel senso che le forze dell’ordine non dovrebbero avere pietà e mandarli tutti in ospedale. Non arrestarli, che tanto poi i magistrati li rimetterebbero subito in libertà, ma picchiarli e picchiare anche quei docenti che li fomentano […], soprattutto i docenti […] non dico quelli anziani, certo, ma le maestre ragazzine sì. […] Ci sono insegnanti che indottrinano i bambini e li portano in piazza: un atteggiamento criminale!”)
The curator of the exhibition in Bolzano that included this admittedly rather unlovely artwork, by Martin Kippenberger, has just had her contract withdrawn. Corinne Diserens, appointed director of the new Museion to give it a touch of international class and responsible for the presence of the crucified amphibian, has already been excommunicated by the local archbishop, as well as being on the receiving end of protests, hunger strikes, complaints to the authorities and a letter from 'Eggs' Benedict himself. Given that the exhibition, entitled Peripheral Vision and Collective Body (it sounds better in Italian, just) ended in September, Diserens, currently gathering material in China for her next show at the Museion, must have been surprised to be told yesterday that her services are no longer needed. There's surely no connection between her summary dismissal and the fact that the Volkspartei, which had an absolute majority in the province until last week, did rather badly in the local elections. Maybe they should ask for the crucifix back and see if they can attach a scapegoat to it.
Well, today's the big day. The Scent of Cinnamon and Other Stories is now officially available from all good booksellers. If you pester them. Go on. Pester them. And, of course, from Amazon. You can order it directly from this blog by clicking on the widget on the right. You won't regret it. I'll keep you updated with reviews and the exciting promotional activities Salt and I are dreaming up to make sure that no one in the known universe will be unaware of the book. You can, of course, do your part by telling everyone how wonderful it is, even if you haven't read it yet. And, naturally, it would make a fabulous Christmas present for broad-minded aunts. 
Thanks to Steve Bell for this. If only Thatcher were well enough to enjoy the sight of disastrously deregulated banks being nationalised throughout the free world....
Only yesterday, Italy's minister of justice 'Choochieface' Alfano was talking about rejuvenating the judiciary. Now it appears there are plans to pass one of those ad personam laws for which Italy is becoming sadly famous (or would be if the country had any international standing left). This time, it's an article which removes the age limit for supreme court judges, currently set at 75. And who's the persona for whom this is being done? None other than Corrado Carnevale, a man who earned himself the nickname 'sentence-killer' after annulling a series of mafia convictions on the basis of formal legal quibbles. If the law passes, Carnevale looks set to become the head of Italy's supreme court. He's 80 now and he'll be 83 when he steps down, so he'll be be able to do a fair amount of damage to a legal system that's already under seige from the executive. He's already been saved from prosecution for being associated with the Mafia by another little law passed some years ago (yes, when Berlusconi was last in power), a law that not only granted him full pension rights, but allowed him - to the hooror of most of his colleagues - to be reinstated as a judge. As usual, the question is: Cui bono?
When I first read Borges as a teenager I was thrilled, enthralled, puzzled, inspired. Years later, a collected Borges was published and I thought it would be a good oportunity to reacquaint myself with the entire body of work. As I read on though, I found myself wondering why - despite the fact that the stories were clearly the stories I had read, and loved, thirty years earlier - the language consistently failed to thrill, enthral, puzzle and inspire me. I looked at the translator's name: Andrew Hurley. I went back to look at the name of the translators of the books I'd read as an adolescent: Anthony Kerrigan and, more often, Norman Thomas di Giovanni. Thanks to Scott Pack (from whom I've borrowed this photograph of Borges and di Giovanni) and Warwick Collins (who gives his own account of what he calls the 'greatest literary crime of the century' here), I know a little more about why Hurley's translations have replaced much better ones made during Borges' lifetime and with his collaboration and approval. Di Giovanni now has his own site, with a description of what happened and some previously unpublished texts by Borges. If you love Borges, you know where to go.
"In the ten years since Matthew’s passing, Congress has repeatedly and unacceptably failed to enact a federal hate crimes law that would protect all LGBT Americans. That’s not just a failure to honor Matthew’s memory; it’s a failure to deliver justice for all who have been victimized by hate crimes, regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation. All Americans deserve to live their lives free of fear, and as Americans, it is our moral obligation to stand up against bigotry and strive for equality for all.
"Today, Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to Matthew’s parents, Judy and Dennis, and to all whose lives have been touched by unconscionable violence."
After the extraordinary success on this blog of Silvio Berlusconi's penis, I thought I'd lower the hurdle of acceptability even further by posting this. I don't remember where it came from - maybe someone can help me? What I do remember is falling for Pat Boone in The Voyage to the Centre of the Earth, when I was young and impressionable and PB was
young, though less so, and extremely fit (and didn't sing a note). I remember the way he lost articles, and then sub-articles, of his clothing scene by scene, finally being belched out of a volcano in very little indeed. In fact, almost the only detail that wasn't visible at the end of that film is the one Mr Boone seems so delighted by in the photograph above. The one to the right, on the other hand, shows Boone at some point between the surface of the earth and its centre. Measured in garment loss, this depth is known as the boxer-short stratum. Believe me, he goes deeper. Presumably, the information he picked up on this journey will also have come in useful in his new career as debunker of Darwin.
