SOCKIN' 'N' ROCKIN'

Separately, several people with no 'axe' to grind have told me what a great new sound this revised line-up is pumping out, how Roy is grinning chops to chops as if new blood is pumping thru his veins and as for Maria ... apparently she really is sensationale - indeed, words fail the ones I've chatted to.

I've not heard her so I can't comment but just the fact that people are throwing off their usual torpor and actually commenting intriques me mightily.

Alas, ROJODAMA have chosen a bad night because the gig comes up against Holy Trinity's 'Chasuble' Allstars' hootenannay down at the kirk.

God versus Mammon, Devil at the crossroad.

But all y'all rest of you sinners git on down and sock it to 'em.

LIP DUB

apparently, some newsweek reporter reported that Grand Rapids MI was dead.

the entire city mobilised.

sorta brought a tear to my eye. made me take down a map of corfu and check where we should be singing about. To Poùlima en chanson, sort of.

SCERRIE

Oh good god, I'd've freaked in my Pampers if I'd turned on the tele and found myself ogling this.

Perfectly charming young lady, I'm sure, altho' they could have used a clip that didnt also make her look as if she fields a speech defect.

Nice plain face, nothing to get the dads wanked up over; fills her bra if not her bras [but at that age, I wouldna been focusing on cup size] ... but I would NOT have been able to tear my eyes from the tapering limb.

Of course it's for political correctness - idiots - the same way we get other damaged goods plonked before us on the box - harelips, slight wonkiness with the vowels (and I'm not talking regional accents), over-sized cartoon features that would never have got past HR except for the end-of-month quota for jacking on board those born under sunnier skies.

And now they think we're ready for Ms Burnell. Well, it's not *us*, is it? We've been brainwashed and correctified to look away. It's the kids who're doing the Emperor's Wrist thing and damn right it's putting them off their tiffin.

HOSPITAL HIP

Sounds like malaise afflicting nurses and cleaners. This is more how to behave when hospitalised and above all how loved ones should comport themselves while hanging around waiting for crumbs of information from the olympian staff.

I have recently minded my mother thru a minor op and the greatest danger to the success of the mission was the bleating cry-baby blubbering text messages from my brother somewhere in the France Italy region. Apart from shredding my nerves and patience with the sheer irrelevance and nuisance value of his messages, it drained my own phone of juice when I needed it most to liaise with friends in the area and the medical staff itself.

And don't plead panic and concern on his behalf: I had surgery of the majorest in a top Seattle clinic and my girl Anna was instinctively perfect. Invisible, attentive, agile - every document and contact number right there. In fact, everyone was on form for my slicing and excising.

I've just done a week in Iaso General Hospital, Xolargos, Athens, minding mama and working with the superb staff to ensure they had everything they needed from our end to do their job with full data from mum's Corfu docs.

It was a complicated, urgent - very delicate for her age - procedure and each specialist needed certain information at various stages of their work - and I was at the end of my phone to provide or get it.

Precise doses of each medication

Scans and records thru the years

General medical history and the like

Everything.

My hotel was 10 mins bus ride up in Pareskevi, on the only bus that, every 15 mins, did the full route to the Iaso.

My bag was of that breed that allows you to find everything you don't need and never what you do - think cell phone, notebook and pen. Oh, and never my wallet.

My mother was the perfect patient and I was the perfect companion, issuing crisp instructions where to sit and wait, what was going to be needed, what I was leaving to do and how long it might take; providing exactly what was needed to check in and guarding my mother's energy and making sure that everyone moved at her speed and strength.

Check-ins take time and the juggernaut system is not to be hurried, unless you want to annoy the staff and be sent back to square one. It is not a job to do without both hands free and the mind calm and confident.

At the far end of mum's perfect patienting was my brother: not just mewling needy texting from Italy but at the precise Perfect Storm timing when I needed least to be sidetracked or to have my cell draining.

In fact, no thanks to his messages - each of which needed opening in case it was one of Doctor Fereti's staff - my cell ran dry and i ended up recharging at Athens airport and forgetting the phone in the flurry of securing a wheelchair.

Olympic Airways babe - "But your wheelchair is coming. Must patient. They have your name."

Me: But they dont ask a name. A wheelchair comes, I ask 'Holmes? For Holmes?', they spot someone who looks more needy and closer to death, and they ignore me and go to him her.

And these other people on death's doorstep, they probably a mere 85. Chickens!'

Funny. We'd checked in and Mum was sitting dozing and the chief check-in honcha - think Jeanne Moreau - came out and said, 'We are all talking how we cannot believe your age and your beauty.' Mum almost outta it but I thanked Jeanne and leapt at the chance to confide thru the glass that M was v tired so ... the sooner she could get to the horizontal ... ya know?

"Let me see ... but she was check in 20 minutes! She should be ..."

Bark gesture, minion scamper.

"Thank you SO much"

"But no! she wait too long!"

Bark gesture gamma ray glares.

Mama safely abed, I went to Dottore Feteris' office to make my mark with the true boss, his assistante. I am so unpushy and patient that she calls Feteris himself out and I hand over the docs I have which he hardly glances at and tells me the precise hour at which he will be visiting my mother.

"I think she will have a room in-"

"217", I tell him. He gives me that appraising look that Lords of the Universe give potential trouble makers.

To his staff: "Lady Holmes, pou einai; Loipon; Your mother is in room 217."

I nod and note it in my book.

All this while, my cell bleats and tugs at my sleeve - my brother with useless message queries.

There is your business - the hospital staff are totally focused. While we are talking, and their phones ring, they glance and ignore or instruct a fellow staffer to handle it. My phone goes,they say 'There is your business' and the next thing, they are gone.

Every single valued hard-won meeting with an expert was fucked up by my phone going, my bleating frère, and don't say I could have turned it off because it could have been another doctor, 'Yes, Doctor Panteboy, I am with Doctor G now. I pass to her.'

Like KY klockwork, but I needed to match their attention and dedication.

0730 hrs - scurrying for bus in response to cardiologist call. Cell burps, which I burrow for as the A5 rumbles past. Frigging frere: 'Remind me what sort of op mum is in for'

Classic: 20.00 hrs as i head home. "Doesn't mum have a bed phone? Please let me know" Grrr - if i had known it i would have sent it. I get the number and message it.

Next day, 0850 ~ finally I get Mr Big of accounts, he's encircled and bombarded. Just as I have his attention ~ phone. Bleat drivel whine.

'There is your business,' says Daddy Bigbucks, and he's gone.

It's my bro,

"No answer. Why can't I talk to mum?"

Well, I don't know why you can't talk to mum. I'm down here trying to fix more urgent matters ... maybe she's on the loo? Doctors on their rounds, mebbe? I have no fucking clue why you can't get thru.

I can think of only one other person who'd've behaved that way: my mother's own cuddly mum, dear apple pie Granny, and she would have ended,

"All right. I'll try to be patient."

Calls from my gals - "

Dad! Is this a good time? Thought that 10pm might be OK. Thanks for your texts, glad Ya-Ya is doing ok. Tell her we love her. Won't bother you again. What's that music? Dad! Are you with a date? Why not? Tell her your mom is in hospital and you're alone outta town. Go for the sympathy lay. Love you, dad - you're a hero, hope Ya-Ya appreciates it."

Wham bam crisp. Leave the decks clear for action.

As I commented to Georgina about her blather-text uncle,

"And this is the unilateral choice, entrusted behind our backs, to administer your and Anna's section of my will?"

Jesus is not the only one dripping croc larmes.

So many good stories ... I was organsing the payment - a puny €9,000 for the best and bravest - and was told to wait 10 mins which turned into 1 hr, of course - so I snapped this notice for my girls to show that it ain't just them who use the grocer's apostrophe - and was asked not to photograph.

Loipon, just at that moment along comes the cardio who'd praised my accent and told me that I reminded him of his Oxford days. He asks what I'm doing and I tell him I'm breaking the rules and recording the notice as a lesson for my American daughters.

He looks puzzled and then it dawns,

"But surely, it comes after the 's'? Many patients?"

"Unless," I tell him, "this is my mother's personal pay-in desk".

Much literate laughter, followed by summoning of the boss accountant: how can a major hospital have such illiterate signage? Poh poh gesture rap of notice.

'Never in your Oxford, nai;'

I assure him it is above all in 'my Oxford'.

"So, Lady Holmes is leaved?"

"Just arranging the payment details"

"But Lady Holmes [they adored the title, rolled it round their tongues with many a gargled H] ... she is checked out from ten of clock ..."

"And now the payment."

Oh poh poh, poh poh! The Universe Lords dont meddle with sordid payment so here they are finding how the bean counters drag their heels. I am whisked from the payment counter before Fetéris sweeps by to bid farewell to Mum and wonders why I am still cooling heels at the money changers.

San Savvy

1. Let the minder do the job, including briefings and updates
2. You're not the only one worried and concerned: the medics are equally dedicated to a smooth outcome. Live with it.
3. If you didn't ask for the background facts before, don't waste others' time on basic homework. Live with it.
4. Quelle heure? ~ what time is it with the person whose time you're taking up?
5. Given the updates you've been receiving, might not the answer to yr question be coming asap?
6. FFS don't waste time acknowledging. It takes as long to scrabble for a phone to read 'Thanks' as it does to take a call or message from someone who might actually matter in the whole scheme and who is asking something important.

Good Rule of Thumb ~ Don't be such a Big Girl's Blouse. Just shut the fuck up and let the ones on the spot do their jobs and get back to you when they have the luxury of time to report back in full.

My cell was handed in to Athens airport lost property and it's being courier'd over.

Not just for my girls, not just for my attorney, I will post online as a caveat each and every bleating message, time and content as well as impact on my efforts to run the day smoothly.

I should rename the blubberium Villa Wimpo.

END GAME - Here's a service to y'all. If you lose anything in Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport (as we cognoscenti refer to Athens airport), and are lucky enough to have it handed in, this is how to brief the courier service that retrieves it:

Tel 210 353 0515

It will have been given a 'protocol' number

The courier should go to the Lost Property office, a division of the airport police, next to Gate 3.

TRAIN TIME

This is totally blues material.

"Green pepper on the front, red pepper at the back ... whoa, there goes that box o' OJs, left too close onna track."

Got up singin' 'n' cryin' ...

MARMEET VEET

Ved min Viking forfædre!

My father was as brooding a Dane as any who crossed over on a day trip, found a Wold he liked and stayed on ...

Dad was a very precise man who took his Marmite seriously, usually eating it when mum was out.

He and I would sit down with some good bread before us and dad would slice it slim and even. If there was an open fire he'd hand me my fork and we'd toast the bread to perfection; if we had to resort to a machine, he'd use his knife as a mirror into the innards n hit the eject bouton on the second. Then carefully remove the crusts.

Then a whisp of butter, sometimes I'd not see his knife dip into the beurre, then a clean knife for the Marmite itself, three deft skims and there was his toast marmité.

My turn, ugh, gauche, slop it on.

When were taken poorly like oop 't Gan Gan's he'd plonk a spoonful into hot water and there we'd be.

When I got to the USA I found it was a culinary shibboleth par excellence - nivver met a colonial who could even look at it.

I told Anna once - à la Martin Guerre - that when she made it to a high-falutin' Anna Wintourian biotch balls-breaker, one day her assistant would announce a disheveled wreck in reception to see her, claiming to be her father.

She'd put the ne'er-do-well thru his paces, all of which he'd pass:

Bruised Balliol accent

Knew all our hong kong addresses

Auntie Mac's real name

Where we'd meet if i ever had to go on the run (the Suquamish rez, big tree down by the water, code word 'schmoo' [Dad! You said you'd never call me that again! How come Georgina has a cool nik and I'm ... like ... that?]

The cool concert we went to one time at that place we used to laugh about.

"Full marks, erm, father ... so how much do you want to borrow/have/scrounge ... but first we must celebrate! Yasmin, have Lupin bring in the snacks and sherry ... ah, here he is ... Daddy, your favourite - but Father, why so white ... 'pon my soul, all colour has drained from your haggard features."

At the very sight of the silver salver of Marmite soldiers, the fakeroo has fled.

Anna loves that little fantasy.

I on the other hand remind her that she herself is not quite as fond of the blessèd yeast noir as a true fruitina of my loins ...

One day there'll be a buzz on my intercom:

"Lord Strummer? A young person to see you ... claims to be your younger daughter ... yes, Lord S, I know you already have a younger daughter but this young lady asks only to deliver a package and then leave ... yes, Lord Strum, right away. Miss? Take the elevator to the 52nd floor and you'll be met."

"So, young lady, you purport to be my daughter? What's this? A package in grease-free paper ... 'pon my soul! You're handing me a Vegemite sandwich, I'm sorry, MARMITE, good catch ... hmm, the crusts removed, lightly buttered, a whisper of the Dark Spread ... Anna! Come to my bosom!

You've returned! You know, that day in Fortnum's when I took my eyes off you and then when I looked again ... darling! Reunited after all these years.

Elisávet, call Luigi at The Fatted Calf, my usual table, bottle of the Dom on ice ... "

Anna [the pretender] "Dad! That's not funny. I don't like that story."

Super-injunction Blues

Went down to the goal mouth
Get some ball time before the sun goes down
Ngh ngh, down down on that goal mouth
Let that good man dribble down
[lawd have mercy]
All he shows me is the red card
Before the news gets all around

[Wouldna blabbed on that man anyway ...]

Gigs and Gags.

‘Scare quotes’

Charles Moore's Spectator's Notes for 14 May.

He's writing about vol 2 of Harold Macmillan's diaries.

"Like many highly educated people, Macmillan used ‘scare quotes’ (there — I am using them myself) to an astonishing degree. Such inverted commas are a device for distancing oneself from something ...."

I've often wondered what they were called. Why 'scared'?

My father described their use thus:

"I'm using this word. It's not the right one but I can't be bothered to think of the one I should be using."

MONEY ~ WATER

Well, I can't see much similarity but then again I haven't a clear enough photo of the respective cufflinks in front of me on which I base my poison post imprecations on Villa Thefti.

Imprecations ~ is that the right word? I sort of thought it was more the spoken kind and with a slight religioso flavour. And does it not appear in the Scottish Play? No matter; I've never used it, even in speech at school to impress and taunt Magpie Mason so it'll do here and very pleased I am to be squandering time better spent in pre-Athens prepping.

Orft to Athens to have mum fitted with an urgently needed placement of a stent to overcome a tumor of obstructive jaundice. Ugh.

And thank God I switched it to Athens rather than continue with London and have one hand tied and t'other ear bended from Villa Theftioso.

A happy coincidence chat with a Hong Kong pal during which I mentioned the filched jewelry and how I missed the delicate links in the form of a miniature abacus, each ball sliding on its own rod.

I mentioned that it was the easiest bauble to carry in mind and imagine a multitude of woes and misfortune - from sick wallet syndrome to moolah malaise in general, thinking of the abacus as representing money.

"Also sick soil," he reminded me. "Don't forget that water is connected with money ... rain on a wedding is greeted with smiles as betokening much money"

I recall that the 1997 Hong Kong handover in 1997 might have been a washout ceremony-wise but all the party cadres down from Beijing to gloat were beaming most scrutably at the soaking omen that the post-Patten government would be awash in dosh.

Sulky vengeful vibes emanating from Anna's abacuses would affect not just money but water.

Just today my mother was tutting worriedly about Villa Thefti ~ apparently, it has been without rain for six successive months.

GOOD MOUTH

Not just good mouth but goal mouth, I'll wager.

Indeed, what with all the hoo-ha over super injunctions, own goal mouth, I wouldn't be surprised.

Goodness what a tangled web.

Sympathy for the Devil

remind yourselves how it felt.

NOT WAVING BUT RUSHING

Ulp. Not good. Strauss-Kahn denied bail.

But wait ... he

"had not tried to flee the scene and was actually rushing for a lunch appointment."

M'lud ... members of the jury ... let us not 'rush' to judgement [laughter].

May I also submit

Tired and emotional.

Ugandan discussions

Exotic cheroot

And if I could quote from the Book of Sinbad, Caliph of Krakatoa ...

M'Lud: Quite so, Mr Fotheringay, but if we could just hurry things along ... I have a lunch appointment aboard Air France flight- [inaudible above laughter]

Order! Order!

LETTERS TO ATHENS NEWS

Goodness, now they follow up with a pdf of ones letter.

I've been used to waiting til the issue came out before I knew if they'd used it.

APRIL FOOL'S JOKE

Idiot letter in Athens News April 22, to which I responded in the May 13 edition.

"REGARDING your “Speaking English to cost more” story (April 1), as I was reading it, just seems too ridiculous to be true! So I take it was an April Fool’s joke. Don’t get me wrong - I can take a joke just as good as the next guy, but what is not a joke is calling the expats chatty, gossipy or eternally whining and referring to Americans as sneering and loud-mouthed!

Have you forgotten that it is the Brits, Americans and other English-speaking people who buy your newspaper and that you have just insulted us!

If this is not a joke then it just shows you how bad this country has got, spending money on such a ridiculous idea when I’m sure the funds could be used on more important things like education or teaching the immigrants to speak Greek!"

~ Bonnie Korres, Athens

PDF OF LETTER ~ In my Inbox, Monday 16th, a nice little civility.

BUTT-SCULPTING? COMMANDO?

Sounds fraffly exciting and daring, but what could they possibly mean?

I dunno - whose wedding was it?

I'm kidding ~ Philippa's left cheek to the right, of course.

I tell you, that 'pancake' flat-faced chickadee is on her way. Up or down, none can tell. Me, I fear she'll blow it.

Just an instinct ...

Vaguely ouch-amusing cartoons from Private Eye.

ICorrect

Absolutely hilarious over-protesting site that will take you direct to the smokeless fire zone.

The very phrasing of the denials/corrections is a hoot.

But when you think of it, it's exactly the slebs and toffs and mega famous who are above the polloi stratosphere and long since lost any fluency in such denials. Fabulous idea.

BULGER BASHER BUSTED

Ace news - brave new world!

This may be the one ... I can practically hear the honing of the Bowie knives of the soi-disant Team Sixers out there as they catch the scent. Pray god the net data is cool - I mean warm.

Egad, what's going on?

Laden Nailed

Harwood Harried

The Cambridges Well Wed

... and now Venal Balls in our sights. Agog for the next instalment.

New ID ~ the encouraging aspect of Venables needing yet another identity is that pretty soon he's going to land up so befuddled over which ID to be on that he'll use his original name 'n' all and introduce him as the Bulger biffer. Can you imagine the silence in the bar?

It'll be like driving in a foreign country: at first, you know your instinct is to go to the wrong side, then you familiarise so you're OK, then you're at a cross-roads or making a swift turn and your brain tells you to get it right - fast.

You over-over correct and end up on the incorrect side.

One day, Venables will catch a curved ball question that will require him to know A but not B, D but not E. He'll scramble to come up with the new ID, i.e. the most recent autobiog with which he's least familiar - which will include his Venal Balls personna because it's deep in the closet.

Fun. God can you imagine the hackers and e-trackers sifting thru all the 'noise' and mirror sites and whatnot to stick it to The Man.

Million quid ID ~ I love it that this 4th ID is costing us a mill'. Just the thing to get some tax-paying civil servant minion to on the old whistle blower.

And as I said, he'll be so confused by now that he'll be on his 3rd spliff, riffling thru Paedo Monthly [incorporating ShirtLifter Weekly] and some dolly will sit down beside beside him,

"Want a good time, duckie? I'm Lisa"

"Oh yeh right, I'm Jon"

"Wot? As Venereal Bibbles? You know the one I mean, shoved the kid under the choo-choo ... porno-"

"Wasn't like that at all ...."

Aha! With one bound, the thuggo sleuth will rip the wig off and call to the rest of The Firm, "Told you it was him, tuck in, lads."

I can feel the cursors cruising and the keyboards tapping and the Twitters twatting ... not long now, the algorithms are spinning ... Venal Balls' days on the run numbered.

The Hounds of Fate - remember that Saki short story? Jonno will stagger out of a boozer and there in the courtyard, moonlight glittering off their dusters ... oh poh poh ... what a chase that'll be ... teased out for max thrills, JV's panicked breath coming faster and louder in the gloaming.

Nay, lad, they don't make posses like that no more.

"Take him down t'tracks, lads. Midnight Special from Adlestrop due any minute now."

TOMLINSON TUMBLE

I don't need to paste the clips of Ian T stumbling confused from one police line to another.

He is clearly seen standing dazed and alone.

The 'uniformed' thug came up from behind and simply thumped him to the ground.

Look at Harwood's face - a bully liar's face, born of muscled deprival, resentment and lash-out disappointment.

Not a sentient flicker in the eyes, made for that last refuge, gendarmerie.

I don't know the Filth species simply from sharing bars with the Bill or reading [and socialising with] the likes of Jim Barnett and Leo Clancy.

My busker days were very much 1-on-many touchie-feelie experiences; we recognised each other instantly in the 'de-briefing' chamber.

Now I wonder at my public school prissiness in grading them so respectfully.

SIMON HARWOOD - there's a name that'll set the e-xcrement excavators winking red hereon.

Qualification ~ Fair 'nuff, I'm a fair person because I prefer Truth to out before I myself am outed as a sloppy slagger.

22:36hrs Greek time, I've just seen the Beeb news where a sideways camera does show a rozzer delivering a vicious thwomp to the back of someone's pins.

If it was the stumbling Tomlinson that copped it, God rot the undisciplined likes of Harwood.

Pc Harwood said he had used force "initially as an encouragement to make him move away".

And God speed the day when Harwood himself is 'encouraged' to make his own move.

That face ... it's all written there.

Mr Green, if you'd be so good as to play us out.

"Lying and talking rubbish" - BBC. The croc tear was a good wheeze.

"You are a liar and you know it": Went on to claim that his police training entitled him to use his baton against someone who was posing no threat ... also refused to accept that video evidence proved he had pushed Mr Tomlinson in the back."

"They got me, the fuckers got me."

Prolly what fucker Harwood thought he'd been trained for and hence entitled to.

Pray, pray God a hard rain falls on the acne-etched likes of Harwood.

Le Bon Dieu moves in a mysterious way and that often works in our favour.

Just let me be there, Lord, to report it. I don't need no details ~ no how why when or WTF.

'Harwood down' will do. No hurry, no time limit. Craft it, Sir, one of those joyous red-top masterpieces that allows purple prosed harking back to the 'Tomlinson Disgrace'.

Opah! Hard reign.

DAMNING VIDEO: "Pc Harwood left the Metropolitan Police a decade ago amid controversy over an alleged off-duty road rage incident, then got a job with Surrey Police, where he was accused of using excessive force ... due to face a misconduct hearing over the alleged road rage incident, understood to have happened in the late 1990s, but instead retired on medical grounds."

The slime goes on: alleged alleged alleged ... do us a favour. Everyone knows now that 'medical retirement' is a good old wheeze for the Filth: why dont they stop treating us like fools and simply band with the Paedo-Priest Brigade and have a good old laff about the handy loopholes they exploit?

LAST STEPS ~ they ought to choreograph a 'Tomlinson Totter' to be performed at Filth Fuzzschrifts and gala charity dos, with the 'Harwood Hustle' enacted by the partner. Or Harwood himself re-enacting the steps as he's barged out of office and pelted with rotton apples. It's good the meedjer is keeping tabs on his disgrace.

Revised report - pathologist changers tune.

The slime slimes on.

Exsanguination - the words they come up with. So Ian had been on the sauce ... no one but himself to blame hint hint ... we'll slime out of it yet.

Kettle cattling illegal - the grime slimes on.

Pathologist asked by Filth to rule out assault

Inconsistent with arrhythmic heart attack: heart pulse data consistent with Tomlinson dying of internal bleeding.

Illegal killing: Osama binned and laden (what America does best); Wedding triumph (pageantry, wot Brits do best); Filth busted for bad whacking (what they don't do too badly, neither.)

Happy day! Edging towards some sort of least worst justice.

Unlawful: excellent comments from the punters.

Cover-up Central ~ Of course, this is nothing to the Filth, a mere inconvenience of tittle-tattle from which all parties will emerge without even a knuckle-rap.

Harwood/Patel Discredited: actually, i confess i hadnt been following it that closely but they're right, Harwood and Patel are from the same cloth and would have complemented each other perfectly in this particular shoddy job. Neither of them will bite the dust, of course. In fact, after a few shifty words from the bench, both will squirm free to be back soon with exactly the same powers and protection. But it makes for good headlines and and it's always interesting to see photos of these specimens.

"Freddy" Patel - a joke, really, isnt it? I mean, they give themselves away right from from the abbreviated nickname. Honestly, "Freddie" Patel? I don't think even Peter Sellers would fall for that nik.

"Cutting a lonely figure" - tee hee, who's cutting a lonely figure now? I can titter because this is just the opening act of the usual whitewash that will see Harwood walking free and stainless, smirking into his pint as his fellow Filth toast Untouchability. Fuck all will happen, but it needs to be seen to not happen in slow-grinding stages of mock Justice ... solemnity and pontification key ingredients, words like 'fall guy' and 'rush to judgment' to replace 'fallen guy rushed to morgue'.

Harwood is no doubt even now drawing up his 'Absolved Party List', all the while practising before a mirror the solemn expression with which he's been advised to greet the news of his innocence of any blame.

Hall talked balls The slime slurps on: Fellow Filth fibbed to forensics. Not that the Bill has owt to fear, they'll let it all run down their trooser legs and into their regulation socks [eeuuww] and then some high-up will decide,

"Right, that's it. Boorringg. T'punters have had enough. Not guilty, demn'd fine chaps.

Where's that Moore, Smith and Jackson lot? Where's that big darkie was such a star player - ah, there you are Tone ... Ayup, lad, take them three to the cells and give 'em the good news."

UNANSWERED QUESTIONS ~ stalwart Paul Lewis of the Guardian getting the job done.

"WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 5 MINUTES' TIME?"

GOSHAWK!

excellent slow-mo foolery.

Zonker Zorbas of Zoniana ~ OCCHI!

Hilarious.

Five farmers - wedding guests from Irakleio and Rethymno - come to Zoniana to celeb matrimonials and are busted by the Sunday Telegraph as part of Crete's druggie empire.

JOHN LEE HOOKER

~ Leaving ~

I can NOT take my eyes off the dancers ... some pretty sexy girls there.

I kept expecting JL to cut loose. He must've been thinking,

"K, I promised The Man I'd do this; better go thru with it."

VILLA THEFTI

GOD'S GLITTERING GUNSIGHT

Oddly enough, when I went to link to this core page in the history of the loss of my girls' jewels, the derivation of the name 'Villa Thefti' had been deleted.

Alors, on with the story:

Up there, my favourite image of the Cross on the altar of Holy Trinity Corfu.

I write elsewhere about the mis-removement of my personal jewelry but I am often asked whence the nickname for my brother's Tuscan palace where my personal items and daughters' heirlooms now rest safe albeit misplaced from the threat of theft by Corfiot.

Loipon, the tale of the 'Gunsight of God'.

Back in time, I not only drove my mother to church but sat in on the services

Sitting in a cramped pew one day, I noticed how perfect a sniper's rifle sight was formed by the altar Cross.

Each day on waking, I'd take for inspiration one of my missing jewels on which to focus prayers for the return of my treasures

I looked at the Cross and addressed Le Bon Dieu:

"If it please your Holiest B'wanaship, any chance of some teeth into my prayers for the return of my girls' most treasured mementos of their careless dad who left the jewel box next to his bed head, asking to be mistaken for baubles of his dead dad of 20 years' previous?"

I was trying to find a name for the Tuscan spa where my girls' treasures now languish.

Perhaps it was the hangover, perhaps it was my left-ear deafness, but at that moment the Reverend Clifford Owen turned and faced the congregation.

I wasnt wearing my glasses but his normally kindly features seemed wondrously twisted into a conspiratorial evil smile as I swear I heard him complete my fumblings with, "Villa Thefti."

And that, children, is how where the last known address of my most belovèdest possessions got its name.

THE 'NEW' NAVIGATORS RESTAURANT

Grand opening:

Sat May 7, 7pm

OYEZ OYEZ roll up roll up ...

New nosherie opens in Kondokali.

Sue and Christopher Condi presiding.

And what may i ask are 'grown-up' requirements?

Sounds like something posted at my local tobacconist.

"Grown-up requirements? call WORdsworth 2579 and ask for Rita"

As a dedicated smokeur, i always like sticking it to The Man.

Will recrop this for greater visibilitiness.

A.A. GILL

Spectator Diary

I was going to copy and post just one of Gill's April 23rd diary items but all five were so witty that I'm giving you the link itself.

Long time since I've laughed out loud.