American Fez

Truth Disrobed By Time, Again

The subway train, more iron lung than iron horse, drags itself through Wednesday’s gray ambivalent morning, coughing up the thick, black residue of countless similar days spent shunting its human cargo to their places of employment and back again. A discarded can of Red Bull energy drink, all its vital energy now expended, rolls sullenly across the carriage floor with nowhere else to go. A station stop: mass transit transience. Passengers disembark leaving traces of their disenchantment on the plastic seats. Then a flock of birds swerve through the sky as if reminding the train that it must move again. And so it does, creaking along the tracks like Thomas the Tank Engine with a hangover. But these are only fleeting moments; fragments of time so immeasurably brief as to be incomprehensible as any sort of patterned experience. There is fortunately much more that happens in these fractions of the day, cloak and dagger events in the general play of ordinary life, deceptively inconsequential at the instant they occur, whose true nature or meaning is revealed only when examined under the microscope of stimulated reminiscence, where, captured and manipulated by a powerful retrospective lens, their component elements may be carefully scrutinized, rearranged, and reinterpreted, eventually revealing formerly secreted implications and significances that must, without exception, finally be confronted. Such a moment, hitherto confined by me to an unimportant file in a seldom searched archive of personal memory, then suddenly summoned to an active arena of consciousness by the black magicians of circumstantial incident, uncompromisingly manifested itself at the forefront of my mind while the train idled at Boston University Central. If this recalled moment was not so gloriously advantageous to my already charming character and flawless reputation, I might describe its machinations to you, dear reader. However, my sincere and profound sense of personal humility prevents, alas, the recitation of such a narrative. Suffice it to say that, metaphorically speaking, I assisted more old ladies across the road than Moses guided Israelites across the Red Sea and away from Pharoah.

The Sassenach Shake Up

Och aye the new? Oh yes, indeed. Apparently Dr Maroon endured a bad Burns night. Alas, this does not surprise me in the least. Scotland, I would have to say, has sold out and the whole country has gone commercial. Since the Scots are most assuredly planning to wrest themselves free of English shackles and hop on the high road to self-government any day now, it seems that they now wish to present a softer, friendlier front to the world rather than the inscrutable orange-haired eccentric previously exhibited, no matter how "bonny" earlier generations may have claimed to be. And so the wilds of Caledonia have been lately pruned and the Highland fling slowed to a comfortable walking pace. We are now saddled with low-fat shortbread, inflatable thistles and fizzy non-alcoholic whiskey. If that wasn't depressing enough, Scotland's recent contributions to culture include such popularity courting piffle as the Beatlesque cheeky chappies from Trainspotting, Alexander McSmiley Smith's cozy mystery novels about some precious Edinburgh prude called Isobel, and worst of all, the hideous Monarch of the Glen, which by rights ought to be a super-sized plaid condom but is actually a dismal television show of the most wretched and unwatchable kind. But I suppose this modern mannered post-Billy Connolly makeover was inevitable in the big ying-yang of European unionization; and besides, who wants to be stuck in a twenty-four hour James bloody Kelman-a-thon anyway?

Next week: Spain on thirty yawns a day

D.I.Y P.I TV

A small confession: I spend an inordinate amount of time nursing my love-hate relationship with British television crime drama. The sort of cozy, quasi-ridiculous detective yarn where the hero is called Lord Dreary, or Nipples, or Inspector Gravel, or more usually, just plain "Guv." There are so many to choose from, but my all time favorites are the fat Belgian homosexual called Poirot and that boozy malcontent known as Inspector Morse. After watching all their shows I was still hungry for more, so in the end, I wrote my own.

"Poirot Investigates: The Fall of the House of Usher"

The Scene: A drawing room in a large art deco house. Famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot stands in front of the fireplace, enjoying a small amount of snuff. A grim-faced group of guilty-looking people are seated around him, listening attentively.

Poirot: Ladies and gentlemen, the case of the Fall of the House of Usher is a mystery most formidable, nes't pas. But now, Poirot, he is pleased to say, after resting ze little gray cells, Poirot he has ze solution. For the House of Usher, it did not fall, non! ... It was pushed.

Captain Hastings: I say! Steady on Poirot!

Poirot: No, mon ami. Poirot he will not, how you say, steady the ons. For you see, could not Monsieur Poe, could not he have written ze story with ze happy ending instead of ze terrible tale most disturbing to the senses? Oui. That is so. But no, that is not what Monsieur Poe does. No, no, he ...

Edgar Allen Poe: How much longer do we have to sit here and listen to this nonsense? I ask you.

Poirot: (voice raised) .. But it is not the nonsense as you well know Monsieur Poe. No, no. Poirot can prove that you Monsieur Poe, with ze pen that you dip in ze blackest ink, you write the horror story and not ze nice story. And with a single stroke of the pen, Monsieur Poe, you do indeed condemn the entire House of Usher to a fate worse than dry rot and leaky faucets. You, Monsieur Poe, you push the House of Usher over ze edge. The House of Usher, it does not, as you wanted everyone to believe, it does not fall.

Edgar Allen Poe: Damn you, Poirot!

Edgar Allen Poe gets up and tries to run away. Fortunately, his escape route is blocked by a gang of armed publishers and public domain lawyers.

The End.

Inspector Morse: "Beer Mat For a Teatotaller"

Enter Inspector Morse looking world-weary, Sergeant Lewis looking confused, and Superintendent Strange looking worried.

Morse: Lewis, for God's sake, the beer in here tastes like piss.

Lewis: Boot we'ure in youar kitchun, sur.

Morse: I don't care if we're in the Taj Mahal, Lewis, pour it down the drain ... now!

Lewis: (long suffering) Yes sur.

Strange: I don't know, matey, I wouldn't like to be in your shoes when...

Morse: (as if to a child) ...I didn't tell Lewis to pour it in my shoes, sir, I told him to pour it down the bloody drain!

Strange: Well, Morse, it's your hangover.

Morse: But it isn't my hangover, sir, that's the whole damn, bloody, sodding point .. sir! The beer is going down the bloody drain.

Strange: Whatever you say, matey. You know your own business, I suppose. Still, don't say I didn't warn you.

Lewis: Sur! Sur! There's a teaybag in here. Do yur wont me to send it doon to forensics for hexaminayshun.

Morse: What? ... Oh just get on with it, Lewis.

Lewis: Yes sur. Boot the unwashed teay straynur, sur, it's hardly a mootive fore mourder, is it surh.

Morse: Shut up, Lewis. Oh, and Lewis: crack open another six pack of that Theakston O'Gooley Ale will you. For some reason I'm feeling rather thirsty

Lewis: (about to cry) Yes sur.

The End

Demos Kratia & other Animals

When we gave Iraq democracy it's too bad that we didn't give them Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani and Barack Obama at the same time. After all, these four aforementioned political automatons are what you might call the trappings of democracy; and we surely don't want to fall into the trap of voting for such a miserable set of trappings ourselves, do we? So, when all is said and done, I think the world would be much better off if they contested the fief of Baghdad instead of entering the White House Olympics. How entertaining it would be to read in Arabian tabloids of Romney's extra-marital affair with Scheherazade, or how Obama had employed Ali Baba. A missed opportunity, then, since it will certainly take We The People at least a thousand and one nights to recover from all their frightful electioneering in 2008. Quite frankly, I'd rather stand sentinel outside the Capitol building wearing a beard of bees than listen to a single insincere word of it.

Down The Spine

What to call your thing? It's a difficult question. For instance, Harry Pearson wrote the entertainingly entitled Racing Pigs and Giant Marrows, one of the funniest books I have ever read, and I have read an entire library of funny books. However, his latest tome is called Achtung Schweinehund, an uber brilliant title, but one which is - almost literally - a bridge too far for literature, since the narrative contained within can never quite equal the expectations raised by that evocative German turn of phrase. This is why the great authors gave their novels simple, unassuming names such as Madame Bovary, Tarr, and The Brothers Karamazov. The thing I am currently working on is provisionally called "Hellzapoppin'! Howzaboutit?" but I am thinking of changing it to "The Socrates Conundrum"

Meanwhile, here is a list of books with titillating titles that don't disappoint:

Love & War In The Apennines by Eric Newby (POW on the run from Nazis falls in love with his future wife)

Casanova's Chinese Restaurant by Anthony Powell (Musician and writer forge enduring friendship in fifth volume of "A Dance to the Music of Time" novel sequence)

Drayneflete Revealed by Osbert Lancaster (Illustrated history of imaginary English towne)

Down Amongst the Meths Men by Geoffrey Fletcher (Bums on the Thames Embankment and elsewhere, illustrated)

Bitten by the Tarantula by Julian Maclaren Ross (Novella about literary bums in pre-war South of France who "give it large")

Theatres of Memory by Raphael Samuel (Eminent socialist historian examines the nostalgia and heritage industries)

Momus Strikes Again

To Hellas in a handbasket: Apparently Father Efstathios Kollas, president of the Association of Greek Clergymen, is not afraid of religious ironists damning him as a pot calling a kettle black, since he himself recently denounced Zeus worshipping pagans as "miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion who wish to return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past." My view? Well, as a militant devotee of anarcho-relatavist Gaian monotheism, I am far too busy figuring out what that means to really care either way about other people's metaphysical hang-ups.

Pas De Doh!

Urban Geometry PR

For Immediate Release (Pending when the intern comes back from the Post Office with the stamps. He's been gone for two hours!)

Boston, January 2007: Urban Geometry is a new modern dance company seeking to express the hyper-fast, rhythmic nature and ethnic diversity of city life via what we call our "multicultural movement moments." I am the choreographer and dancing master. The troupe are currently perfecting the "Triple Oof Bend" which is a  type of pirouette inspired by being struck in the stomach by some idiot's backpack while traveling on public transport. Our first ballet et salsa premieres in May. It is provisionally entitled "Get Out of the Way, Moron."

The Devil Will Find Words For Idle Hands To Write

I outsource most of my own toenail trimming. My personal time is so expensive that I find it simply cheaper to employ pre-teen Fungrovian orphans to wield the silver clippers for me. Most of them eventually develop hunchbacks as a result of these Herculean labours, and can no longer work at the rapid pace my superhuman toenail growth demands. Naturally, this is a terribly tragedy. But not for long since I always seem to find a replacement pretty quickly.
As you might imagine, I have exacting standards. Each nail must be cut in a sharp pyramidal fashion rather than in the traditional, slap-dash half-moon manner, and it is most important that all waste particles are immediately incinerated, as I am rather superstitious. After all, who knows, if the voodoo department of the electric company secretly stole some of my discarded cuticles they might boil them up with a little lizard brain and ju-ju powder, magically increasing my monthly bill to an ungodly sum by reciting their evil incantations over the demonic brew.
And such a sinister inflation of kilowatt usage is more than merely a remote possibility. The average pre-teen Fungovian orphan is a sly and malcontented youth, especially when his or her spine first begins to exhibit signs of unnatural curvature. You must maintain eagle-eyed vigilance around such specimens, lest they surreptitiously pocket a clipped toenail and smuggle it away when you are not looking.
Meanwhile, via Vintage Photo, comes photographic evidence that Bela Lugosi was typecast as Dracula. Apparently, he landed all the roles that involve blood drinking.

click to enlarge if you wish

State of the Union

An embarrassing situation arises somewhat akin to that of he who in an inhospitable public lavatory painfully ensnares his manhood in his trouser zip-fly. What is to be done? Should he backtrack very slowly, attempting to unzip said trousers as carefully as possible, one tooth at a time? Or should he gingerly, like a bomb disposal expert removing the charge from an undetonated missile, extract his manhood from those terrifying metallic jaws with a single tender tug? Or perhaps he should just grin and bear it, swaggering around manfully with his thing hanging half out of his pants as if nothing is wrong?

Formal Wear

What to drape around one's neck when invited to attend a smart party? Of course, the patterns on most ties resemble, at best, syphilitic ostrich DNA viewed backwards through a dusty microscope; at worst they are miniature scale Jackson Pollock designed road maps of obscure Balkan principalities cursed by mindbendingly criss-cross rural highway routes. Even the more sober patterns seem merely hung over after a hard night's binge drinking. I suppose there are some decent ties hanging around, yet they all cost $350 and are apparently handwoven from dried cherub skin. I own a bow tie, but never wear it: too spotty.
Have I considered a cravat? Do I look like a poufy popinjay? No I don't. And I will have absolutely nothing to do with that terrible bolo load of bollocks. I wouldn't even deign to strangle a guilty toad with one of those. Which, alas, leaves me with a straight choice between ye olde Elizabethan ruff or a serious Nehru collar. If seventeenth-century portraiture is anything to go by, and I happen to think it is, then extremely long, lanky legs are required to pull off a ruff. So perhaps the Sir Walter Raleigh look is not for me. Mind you, even giraffe necks seem a little stumpy in a Nehru button-up.
Think I'll just settle for a surgical brace and pretend I'm poorly.

Bad Shave Day

After disturbing dreams, I awaken suddenly, like an overplayed Richard III surprised by the ghost of Clarence appearing clumsily through a malfunctioning stage trapdoor.
It is morning. Aready? My stark razor, thrice bladed, gleams balefully on its ceramic pedestal. Oh mournful, unlucky chin and cheeks!
"Eight the clock there. Give me a calendar. Who saw the sun to-day?"

"Not I, my lord."

"Then he disdains to shine; for by the book he should have braved the east an hour ago. A black day will it be to somebody"

The tap runs hot; the mirror steams while foam is thickly spread until this lower jaw becomes a facsimile of Jupiter's beard. And now let battle with stubble commence o'er bloody sink.
(Alarums. Exeunt all pursued by bottles of soothing aftershave balm and sticking plasters)

Air-O-Dynamics

If I may paraphrase the poet Andrew Marvell, and I think I may, then the Boston Public Library's a fine and private place, but none, I think, do there bother to bathe or employ roll-on deodorants. In other words: it smells pretty damn bad. In fact, it reeks as if Moby Dick had suddenly belly-flopped into life, beached himself on the mezzanine after swallowing all of Anthony Trollope's characters, and then farted the unforgivable Finnegan's Wake of farts. In terms of finding reading matter, the experience of the BPL book stacks is not altogether unlike gathering up old newspapers that have been crammed into the bowl of broken toilet in a derelict abattoir. Mind you, having said that, I did manage to hold my breath long enough to borrow a very nice, brand new copy of Virginia Woolf's "The London Scene," the cover of which can boast a fine painting of Hyde Park by Mary Adshead. So it's not all bad, eh. The Boston Public Library: smelly ... but stocked!

Positively Hanbury Street

"When Fletcher says, ‘I love Woolworths’, you believe him; but when Sinclair says, ‘I love walking round Dalston looking at nail shops,’ you think: Really? Do you?"
So says Bob Stanley on the difference between those two relentless London moochers, the Daily Telegraph's late great Geoffrey Scowcroft Fletcher and that nerdy-weirdo Iain Sinclair, and I have to say, I second that quotation. Martin Amis once described William S Burroughs as a writer of "good bits," the same is probably true of Sinclair. Radon Daughters is pretty good, but everything always seems to come down to Jack the Ripper and the Kray Twins with him, even the paint job on Holborn Viaduct bridge  (talk about scarlet tracings). But exactly how many times can you try to marry off David Rodinsky to Ruth Ellis in a Hawksmoor church with Stewart Home  as best man before all this macabre psychogeography gets, well, slightly tedious? Lights Out For The Territory is pretty much lights out for the reader, too, if you ask me.
Fletcher, however, is more of an affable Virgil, guiding his readers up river rather than down, through the iron-railinged circles of Edwardian urinalia and into the very heart of ...

... er, what was I saying about Sinclair and Jack the Ripper?

Trivia note: I have only ever posted two video clips on this here American Fez; they've both featured James "Flying Dutchman" Mason.

Winter Welcome

It is cold. Winter has arrived, finally, rather like a bustling old woman with too many bags trying to exit a tiny car; her disorganized knitting falling all over the place; her craggy lips stained with the detritus of ancient cough drops and steaming drool. Winter, shuffling up the garden path with its varicose veins and carpet slippers. Winter, the self-invited, exasperating guest upon whom you are forced to wait hand and foot until it leaves. Yes, welcome winter, shambolic, old and deaf, welcome anyway: We've put you in the small room at the back, with the low bed, we think you'll be alright in there .... I said: you'll be alright in there, with the low bed ... Mind the step, dear. That's right. Just leave your bags and your knitting in the hall for now ... in the hall, leave them ... we'll deal with them later ... I said: we'll deal with them later ... Now, what can we get you, would you like a cup of tea?  ... I said: would you like a nice sit down before dinner ... before dinner, sit down before dinner?
Bloody winter, always a big to-do whenever it comes round, especially when it's late and we've all been sitting here waiting.

The Urban Angler

Ever since the new Barbour store opened on Newbury Street there have been scores of people ambling around Boston dressed in fishing tackle. Whenever I spy one of these dowdy waxen olive jackets on the city streets I always feel like adopting some bizarre, gnomic, ye olde Scottish accent and accosting the owner as they clamber into their double-parked Land Rover: "Big auld Trouty dwells in a pool up yonder, see, near the Crate and Barrel shop." I'd tell them. "He likes it played long does auld Trouty, he's a canny fish, aye, so tempt him with thy finest Purple Hubcab on a number twelve and give him plenty o' line. Good luck to ye."
Or perhaps, especially if it's a man wearing it, I'd say: "Excuse me, sir, but has anyone ever told you that you look like Princess Anne?"

The Plastic Baroque

Lost and abandoned in the maze of magazine racks at Borders Bookstore, I murdered twenty minutes by thumbing through the latest issue of Haute Doll, which is more or less a sort of National Enquirer for the world of The Brothers Quay.
Personally, my only interest in dolls is whether or not the heads explode if you insert a fire cracker inside their little plastic skulls. Unfortunately, however, the magazine didn't carry any articles about this entertaining activity. Instead, there were just pages and pages devoted to the usual lurid tabloid subjects: how Barbie is dumping Ken for the last time; how Cindy gained three ounces and then lost it again; and about how filming Rehearsals For Extinct Anatomies was a very difficult but ultimately rewarding experience for Soozie.
I don't know about you, but I certainly won't be ordering a subscription.

A Thought Policeman's Lot Is Not A Happy One

Bereft of any creative inspiration to call my own, I have slyly decided to write a prequel to George Orwell's novel 1984. My book will be called, and this is the clever literary bit ... 1983!
Now, in order to appeal to a contemporary readership I will obviously be introducing a Gandalf figure called Alf Gand into Orwell's rather dreary and old-fashioned narrative mix. Winston will also be acompanied by a chivalrous flying rhinocerous that talks, a faithful yet diminutive companion called Little Henry, a pair of humorous robots and, of course, a busty princess who's prepared to put out for the hero.
For those intellectual purists amongst you wondering how the addition of these new fantasy characters will actually work with the original Orwellian "Big Brother" nightmare plot, well, personally I can think of no greater Orwellian nightmare than ruining a classic work of art in such a cynically commercial manner - so there!

Shapeless Fears

Celebrity chefs may reach boiling point arguing about exactly which ingredient is the true beating heart of Italian cuisine and which its eternal soul, but, without doubt, spaghetti is the intestines of la cucina Italiana. Which is probably why they spend more time exporting the tomato-saturated muck than actually eating it themselves. Consequently, spaghetti in all its divers forms, al dente or otherwise, became the instant meal that tranquilized mothers the world over most frequently crammed into the greedy faces of their whining children.

Strands of brittle semolina were simmered to death in salty water and then decorated with the ubiquitous Fallout Shelter quality "meatballs." Unfortunately, as time passes like a string of this miserable pasta being sucked into the sauce-splattered face of some obese adolescent, the spaghetti situation only gets worse: nowadays you can microwave a serving of the crap in its own indestructible can. Viva le gastroenteritis!

(Picture discovered when trawling through the utterly absorbing Vintage Photograph site)

The Glid of Glood Sings

Anyone who enjoys those curiously overwrought narrative cocktails of Barbara Cartland, Bram Stoker and Eugene Ionesco that provide the world of Opera with its melodramatic storylines, will no doubt enjoy the rather detailed Operatic plot summaries available at Opera Opera. In fact, even Robert Benchley's amusing Wagner meets Verdi parodies seem quite restrained when compared with the real McAria.
For example, here is an excerpt from their synopsis for Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes: "Mrs Sedley is anxious about her supply of laudanum and accepts with ill grace Keene's instructions to meet him in the Boar Pub, where he will hand over the drug when Hobson brings it. A storm is rising and Bob Boles, who has turned Methodist, calls on all to repent."
And from Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: "A confrontation develops between Katerina and Sergei, ending in a wrestling match in which Katerina is thrown to the ground just as Boris appears. She claims that she tripped. He orders the men back to work and tells her to cook him some mushrooms."
Highly entertaining stuff. Imagine them sung by a Fat Lady!

Adventurous Geometry For Kids!

The Swiss Family Rhombus; Gulliver's Triangles; Last of the Dodecahedrons; The Red Badge of Congruence; The Adventures of Tom Sphere and Hexadecagonally Finn; Trapezoid of the Apes; Isosceles Island; Anne of Green Parallelograms

At the Human Bakery

Today, some grubby bohemian, a doughy rag doll ill-sewn together from irregular samples of hemp and polyester, accuses me of being "white bread" after I express my warm regard for the artistic works of Andrew Wyeth. Complete and utter nonsense, I told her, I am obviously delicious almond sponge. She sniggered and flounced off. Ah, how long ago it seems, that halcyon day when I mischievously wrote to the Boston Globe claiming that the then recently Helga discovered paintings were actually studies of merry Andrew in women's clothing; a letter inspired by a similar theory that had been broached regarding the true identity of Leonardo's famous La Gioconda.

Published This Month

If I may take a short break from posting about Oolaph Naiweery and her reversible frogskin nipple pads, you might be edified to learn that there is a fascinating interview with me in this month's issue of Bookish Guy on the subject of shelving paperbacks. You know the sort of thing I mean: Is it cool to just pile them up on the floor in the corner ... or not. Actually, when I say "interview" it's really more of a roundtable discussion featuring me, William H. Gass, Black Elk and Cher: Black Elk channeled the spirit of Raymond Chandler and Cher did most of the talking, mostly about her Penguin edition of Jock McStrappe's gripping autobiography Ha'e Ye Nae Shame, Mon. Apparently, the author presented her with seventy-five signed copies, and consequently Cher is understandably unsure whether to file them together in her book shelf, space them out a bit between her other books, or just toss them all into the garbage. Readers are invited to write in with their suggestions. For my part, I spoke briefly but authoritatively and eloquently on the subject of La Rolla Scrolla, a method of stacking illuminated manuscripts developed by the Inflatulata of Cadiz in 1673. It hits the newstands next Tuesday.

The Classics

Phew. I was up late last night, attempting to conjugate some Latin verbs. But, I tell you, they can be such an imperfect and deponent bunch of words that mere conjugation is often ineffective. So in the end I had to crucify the lot of them instead. Talk about a present indicative! It was like that scene from 'Spartacus':
"I'm Subjunctive Pluperfect!"
"No! I'm Subjunctive Pluperfect!"
"It's me! I'm Subjunctive Pluperfect!"
Obviously, all this brutal grammar made a mess of my homework, but "a cruce salus" as they say. Or is that wrong?

New Musicology

World Beat: Elevator muzak for the Global Village, usually performed by a multicultural multi-instrumentalist wearing a multi-colored headband. Interestingly, no matter what diverse and exotic part of the planet such tunes are supposedly inspired by, the music always sounds remarkably the same. Famous world beat tunes include "Is That A Didgeridoo In Your Pocket Or Are You Just Please To See Me?" by Dermot O' Kawanda, published by Boozey & Hoax Ltd and released as a CD on the Hot Muesli label.

Procol Harum Scarum

So. According to Terry Teachout's ridiculously cultural Arts Journal, the the organist who performed that lugubrious keyboard countermelody on Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale" has been awarded a forty-percent copyright share in the song, although he did not actually compose it. I do not know anything about intellectual property law, but I can only pray that he will not earn any money from King Curtis' wonderful rendition of the tune because of such a ruling. Frankly, I thought Bach wrote it all anyway.

Justice Harbottle?

The shambolic execution of Saddam Hussein has once more provoked a furious public debate about the rights and wongs of capital punishment. Personally, I can conceive of only one argument in favor of such ritual murder, and it is this: without the grim example of the scaffold and the guillotine Bram Stoker would never have been inspired to compose his wonderful story "The Judge's House." Even the bloodiest of bleeding hearts must think twice when considering what a loss to the literary world the absence of this seminal text would be. Otherwise, when discussing Saddam's televized extinction, I agree with the sentiments of Theodore Dalrymple: "If we had seen the moving pictures without knowing who the participants in the scene were, we should have concluded that thugs, dressed in woollen helmets, were hanging a respectable and dignified man clandestinely, in a thoroughly criminal fashion. And no doubt this is how the pictures will be understood in much, or some, of the Arab world."

Business Week

What changes will 2007 ring in for big business? Well, at my company we are already training humans to replace robots. My assistant new Robbie is already learning to hobble twitchily around the office with a flashing red light on his head and a bunch of ticker tape spewing out of his mouth. What does this mean for increased productivity? Nothing whatsoever. But at least now he can't play Virtual Scrabble on his computer all morning.

Capitol Hillbilly

This morning, with all the heavyweight pomp and ceremony of a Sumo wrestler powdering his own buttocks, newly elected Herod P. Scrotumangler III (Republocrat, DOH) took his seat on the floor of the United States Senate, although why they have don't provide chairs in that building never ceases to amaze me. Anyway, Senator Scrotumangler promises to introduce the Fairy Godmother Bill which will wave a magic wand over all the problems and make them go away. The 'P' initial in his name stands for "Pantaloon."

The Iraqiville Horror

So it appears that some pith-helmeted Van Helsing in desert boots will eventually be forced to drive a stake through the heart of Saddam Hussein's corpse, resting in its apparently unquiet grave. According to several news sources, Saddam's phantom - or in his case, undoubtedly his wraith - has already been encountered haunting the gloomy Baghdad streets at night. Hmmm. We all know weapons of mass destruction don't exist, but what about ghosts?

Neoterica

For me, personally, and I suspect for many others, the New Year really only begins when the sole option remaining in my Christmas chocolate assortment gift box is that crunchy brown pellet thing, lurking there amongst the empty wrappers in an undefined space sort of next to where the strawberry creme used to be. I'm sure you know the one I mean. It tastes rather similar to what I imagine biting into an dirty toenail would be like; and since the offending confection is usually double-deckered, think of two toenails, lumped together, then smothered with congealing carob grease, and finally stuffed into the box by a sweaty chocolatier when his supervisor wasn't looking. Happy New Year.

Meanwhile, these were my Cultural Brights Spots of 2006:

Although it didn't contain the famous nude of Lady Caroline, the Rex Whistler retrospective in Brighton was a obviously a good thing for those of us who enjoy whimsical artwork.

"A Temple of Texts" by William H. Gass provided a good read for those who like a good read.

The Brothers Quay flummoxed me again with "The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes." I'm not so sure that my attention is actually rapt by their movies, but they are the only good movies I can think of being made today. Although I suppose Pedro Almodovar's "Volver" with Penelope Cruz wasn't too bad.

Erm, oh dear, I think that's it.