HOW NOT TO KILL A QUEEN

Clever review by the clever john sutherland.

Too many clever phrases and witticisms to repeat here.

Just read it and savour.

“It is worth being shot at to see how much one is loved.”

a “little, mean-looking man” striking a ridiculously “theatrical” pose as he took aim.

In other countries assassinations were carried out by men of high intelligence, while in Britain, it was “men of weak and morbid minds.”

Idiots, in a word. Every village had one. No rational Englishman would want to kill his queen.

“This strange mania of queen-shooting.”

So manifestly stupid was he that even the murderous fringe of Fenianism disowned him.

The Baddeley commentary link about being 'so sad - in beloved Greece.'

PROSPERO'S KITCHEN REDUX

PROSPERO'S KITCHEN RE-ISSUED

My mother would be so pleased and would love to have read the article.

Here's my Letter to Athens News:

"Bravo on that fluent and informative piece by Evdokia Mpras ('Ionian delicacies back for another helping', Food, 27 July 2012).
I wish my late mother Lady Holmes were alive to celebrate this re-introduction of Prospero's Kitchen. She died peacefully last 14 January, still vigorous at 91.

One point of correction: by the early 90s, when Christopher Lavranos hosted that lunch, my mother had been living here for 20 years and hardly 'an English woman vacationing in Corfu' - or how could she have invited Diana Farr Louis to meet her 'experienced cook, Soula'?
Speaking of whom, I dropped some copies round for translation by Soula's multi-lingual family. She was delighted.

The story behind Soula's culinary triumphs is amusing: she originally came to help with cleaning and household chores.

"But no cooking!"
One day my mother - herself expert in the kitchen - was preparing a dish from a recipe passed on by some village crone.

"What are you making there?" demanded Soula suspiciously.
"Who told you to do it that way?

Huh! What does she know about cooking?
Stand aside!"

No word was said but from that day on Soula added mouth-watering local dishes to her duties.

We kept a store of 'Prospero's Kitchen' to give to guests and, if Soula was present, they were duly inscribed.
One busy Epiphane, when the local papas came up to bless the house, my mother displayed a copy open at 'Soula's Roast Chicken'. It was duly brought to the cleric's attention who smiled benignly and congratulated his celebrated parishioner.

"Oh poh poh!" scolded Soula, clucking and preening as she backed into the limelight,
"Who put that there? So embarrassing!"

An excellent piece

Wonderful news of the book's third incarnation

Nice little tribute to my remarkable mother."

ROMNEY PETITION RESPONSE

Dear Friends,

As a Clean Elections legislator, the only people I am beholden to are my constituents.

Being publicly financed means I don’t have to worry about which big donor wrote me a check or who is going to write me a check for my next election - I can focus on the issues that matter most to my constituents. That’s not the case throughout most of the country.It’s time to remove the sponsorship logos from our politicians and return to a government of, by and for the people.

Disclosure is the first step.

Every $5 qualifying contribution I collect to earn public financing - and all my campaign expenses - are fully disclosed. Why shouldn’t Mitt Romney disclose which LIBOR executives he is getting money from in London and how much each donation is?

In just 48 hours, our petition has already eclipsed 10,000 people and been featured on Politico's Morning Score. Let’s take this viral - and help build a movement to reclaim our democracy from the 1% who are buying our elections.

Tweet
Sign the Petition: @MittRomney #Disclose your #LIBOR donors! http://tinyurl.com/RomneyDisclose@SignOn @MissWrite

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Sign the Petition: http://tinyurl.com/RomneyDisclose

Cheers,
~State Rep. Diane Russell
Portland, Maine

PHAT PHREAK-OUT

~ Blub 'n' Burr ~

Absolutely hilarious rant by cuddly Emma Clark over Kristen cheating on 'Twilight' Pattinson.

In fact, we seem to be in an orgy of mea culpas and blubbing over this one: Kristen's apologising to everyone, Rupert's breast-beating to everyone; Pattinson's boo-hooing and behaving like the first dumpee since like evah.

And now Billie-Jean Bunter venting in glorious rich yokel vocal mode.

Remember that grotesque cross-dresser freaking out about all us bounders giving Britney such a bad time when she went loopy and shorned off those golden tresses?

But oh boy - Hippo Clark clearly has a passion for chisel-jawed Roberto ... can you imagine if she actually tracked and pinned him down?

Beneath those quivering jowels wobble thighs of steel - narrow escape for Robbie.

"That's what the hell I am."

ROBERT BLAKE.

Look him up, you'll remember the guy.

As I try to sort myself out and look around at the solid friends I have and who've taken some real whacks and come up standing, I think of what Blake once said:

"I am what I am. I'm crazy, I'm hostile, I got a lot of drive, I got a lot of hate, a lot of fear.

For most of my life, I tried to put that away and be like other people, and therapy didn't change me.

But what I learned - and what I want to tell you is:

If you can get to that place where you can take whatever you are and use it out there in the world, not try to put it away and say I'm not angry, I'm a good boy, I'm not scared of the dark anymore ... whatever your problem is ... instead of going into the corner like a dog and chew on your own feet.

If you can take that ... that whatever is in you, and turn it up and say that's what the hell I am and I gotta find a way to make that work.

Then you'll be OK."

COMMENTS LINK - Clever Sinbad sending us to a Grik sign lingo rendering of 'Always look on the bright side of life'.

A charming clip of Eric Idle and an auditorium of whistling knowledgeables.

The Real Thing - OK, it isn't the same without that shocking view of the lads oop t'cross, is it?

I remember being shocked - shocked - when I first saw it and several patrons rose from their seats and left.

Ξημέρωσε ξανά κι η μέρα που περνά

ανάποδη σου βγαίνει και πονά

πάντα χαμογέλαγες και τώρα καταριέσαι

σμίξε τα χειλάκια μη βαριέσαι

Σφύριξε χαρούμενα μπορείς

δες τη φωτεινή πλευρά της ζωής

going thru my old old blog posts that i filed under 'busker'.

this one, unique fotos of my playing in the bainbridge songerie.

The Paramilitary Olympics

First-rate sleuthing by Nick Cohen in the 14 July Speccie.

From past tries, I'm surprised to be able to read the entire article on the Spectator site.

If it doesn't work for you, Nick Cohen ~ Writing from London will be your friend - and even more so here.

Well worth keeping tabs on and passing around.

I've been covering the farrago of public bishes that have marked CoeGate from the start: now comes the ferreting Cohen with an even more shaming (and riveting) exposé of what's going on under the hood.

"'London is going to host the Paralympics and the paramilitary Olympics,’ I muttered with unpatriotic grumpiness."

To concentrate on the interests of sponsors, however, is to miss the fanaticism of the authoritarian mentality behind the games: Priests sacrificed oxen and rams to Zeus and Pelops at the ancient Olympics. Their successors sacrifice the freedom to speak and publish to the gods of corporate capitalism and international sport. They regard encroachments on their holy space, however trifling, as a modern version of sacrilege.

In 2005, Britain said it had ‘won’ the Olympics. When the games begin, it will become clear that the Olympics ‘won’ Britain.

The organisers of the Games have been handed unprecedented control over everyday speech.

Britain is at the start of an experiment in the criminalisation of everyday speech; a locking down of the English language with punishments for those who speak too freely.

In the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act of 2006, the government granted the organisers remarkable concessions. Most glaringly, its Act is bespoke legislation that breaks the principle of equality before the law.

Britain has not offered all businesses and organisations more powers to punish rivals who seek to trade on their reputation. It has given privileges to the ­Olympics alone.

Trading standards officers in Stoke on Trent told a florist to take down floral Olympic rings. Offending sausage rings vanished from a butcher’s window in Dorset ...

When the British Sugarcraft Guild asked the authorities if it might run a 2012 cake-decorating competition, it thought it was making a modest request.

The Guild was not even going to sell the cakes afterwards. No matter. Only official sponsors could decorate cakes with Olympic symbols, the Olympic organisers ruled. [See Daily Mail coverage]

Such petty-minded strictures are not mere protection of a brand, but an obsession with control that is hard to match.

Not even the Cuban Communist party claims the right to regulate images of Che Guevara."

Sobering stuff. Vaut le lire.

GIVING IT UP

I haven't heard that phrase for soo long but at last night's surprise impromptu private-ear gig, an American Julia Gillard look-alike [sounded a bit alike, too, on some of her hairpin vowels] insisted I play and made it impossible to say nay by pointing me out by the vodka bottles and asking the assembled to

"Give it up for your very own Chris Holmes - yaayy rah, come on down, Chris, and strut your stuff."

Actually, it was just a lounge lizard's smug shuffle across the Axminster and a breezy wave to a row of strangers, but you know what Americans are like when they get abroad.

LA GILLARD ~ yes, indeedy. Ooh I crave her, yea even unto the grate of that flat Ozina tongue and the pointy nose. Pure suicide, as it would be if I could fall foul twixt the sheets of that Martha Stewart. Shudder, shuffle to cold shower.

Good excuse, I thought, to include a photo of Dai Gillard (or is the feminine Diane?]

Loipon Struth!

To the left, the gillette-nosed Gillardine who stalks my kinkiest nightmares.

But look at the cutie pie to my right ... talk about Melt-resistant butter. Bet that gave you a shock, too.

Anyway, there I was in a classic Saturday nite blog post too short to cut long and this is the back-story, as they say on CNN.

Digression ~ did you notice my throwaway 'Loipon Struth' coinage? Deuced clever what surfaces in a Grade A hangover. Great name for a group. Play around with it, why don't you?

Loipon and the Struths

Loipon LeStruth [moody pretentious solo chanteur, dislike him already]

"I wrote this next one on a Greyhound bus out of Centreville, Montana ..."

No, you didn't! You was on platform 3 waiting for the Northern Line out of Clapham Common. Don't frigging lie!

(Ain't easy living the blues sporting a British Council tie.)

Anyway, moving on, there I was chatting up this Gillardian sheila and I let slip that I *had* done a sort of concert recently but it was a total cockup because the acoustics down the kirk are atrocious and it was hotter 'n the Mojave that day.

Damn'd shame because I had to delete half the good stuff i'd rehearsed, including my 'churchy' chanson that i had down pat and had some verses I'd written special like for some special people.

Verse 2 was meant to sound dylanish and bring a smile to the cruel lips of Rambling Jack Potts.

The lines about 'coming down, babe', leaning against me, and legs to down the Holy B were intended to be sung with deep adoring unflinching gaze into the unnervingly beautiful eyes of Caroline 'Jackpot' Philp of Kyma fame and genius.

Gone! The opportunity missed.

Which is when she took me by the hand and said,

"Well, here's your chance to sing it here for us."

, at which point I realised I'd forgotten most of the words. Tsk.

Fifteen minutes with a spiked JD and Coke, and i was ready to rock, and if i ever get the chance to sing it for real, I've got it here as an aide-memoire blog post.

View of the cross

"Too many pulpits, not enough priests
Too many injuns, too many chiefs
Too much taking for granted my Father's forbearance
With all my moaning and grief:
Something tells me, I've lost my view of the cross

Mister MoneyChanger, with your coats and your ties
To the bright lights no stranger, where the women writhe
You sent your boy to the best schools
Your friends all found him jobs:
My Father sent his Only Son to the Cross.

Chorus ~ Dont block my view of the cross, mister, let your faith shine thru
It's the only view I've got, sister
How Jesus died for me and you,
Come on down, girl, won't you sit by me
I'm just a lonely sinner praying on the Lord's mercy
I thought I was the bee's knees, I thought i'd won the toss
I shoulda read the small print on the cross

Extra cool, 1-time only verse, zooming from 3rd-fret G, holding the chord up to the 8th to make C and then zooming back down; killer glissando:

Walking in the Garden of Gethsemane, in the cool of the day
No hicksters no tricksters no enemies,
Or that's what the Good Book says
But they pinned him to the nearest tree so he could end his day
With a view, you get a good view from the Cross

Verse: Did you hear the cock crow? Thrice on the dot
Did we *know* the Galilean, of course we did not.
Peter's face in the firelight, talk about guilty and lost
Now there's a man with a topsy turvy view of the cross

Chorus: Dont block my view of the cross, brother,
there's a green hill far away
Jesus said to love one another
Or look pretty foolish come judgment day

[burning look over at CP] Lean against me, girl, say you love me too
You dont have to mean it, coz I'm so crazy 'bout you
A woman like you at a good man's side, Gates of Heaven open wide,
Gabriel blow his trumpet and in you glide
A one-woman view of the cross

verse - Morning has broken, harsh words been spoken
New sermons smokin' all over town
I like her style, I crave her smile
I fear her good-Greek-wife-frown
And the legs on that woman (sigh snort)
Make a preacher lay the Good Book down."

Man! I've just played it again and it rocks! Wouldn't be surprised if Le Bon Dieu stops me at the Gates with a

"You! Sing that Cross song you never did that time. Pete, give him one of our Gretsch-Fender harps and have the seraphims doo-wah inna background. Yo, Huddie, down that hammer and git yo' ass over here and strum along with newbie Charles here."

Christopher, actually, Your Godliness.

'Whudever. Take it, boys, and there's barrel of Nectar over at the bar if you sing it good.'

THE BLUES

going over my ancient 'busker' blogs and come across this.

no idea where i got it but it reads quite well.

am sure big jim knows it.

FRISKY IN FRISCO

Have I shoved this latest Ken Block wheelie freak-out in here, or just in my Facebook which has overtaken my blog for the true test of temperatures and times.

The man has crazy skills, and clearly crazy contacts because for whom else would they close the place down.

One snotty-nosed kid to sneak out the backyard to see what's going on ... round comes Ken sideways in a cloud of dust ... all they'd find would be a splodge of snot on a pot plant.

COMMENTS

In re the Sinbadian comments, I'm not quite sure what he means, seeing as how this post celebrates that big bad bully boy of the handbrake drift, Kenny Block.

But I try to save everyone's time by providing instant links where referenced.

The flickr snap is of some unassuming chariot.

The link to his excellent Rue Demo blog is more of the same, boasting how he got rid of the jalopy and has lived happily ever after in Hellas toting his own bale and advising Carrie on how to bend correctly at the knees when lifting the heavier stuff.

Madeleine MG Moment ~ what they say about grieving taking its time is clearly true because more n more often I'm having these lightning moments when everything swoops back.

The Rubber Band - I went to my foto collection to find some snarky pic with which to ridicule Sinber's moto-divorce and just clicked on the one of me standing next to my P&J in Port Townsend. Having positioned right, I went to 'view' to check that it conveyed the right tone of Lord Snooty at play and wham! Almost sent me careering backwards off my chair with the sheer concentrated memory.

I was just divorced and living on Bainbridge Isle with money enough not to worry. I remember exactly where I was 'in my head', to use an americanism.

Small swinging dick at Amazon, surrounded by best mates who mocked my Terry Thomas accent and guitar picking pals who couldnt quite understand how i picked so good with such perfectly pronounced eccent challenges.

Bombed around in the MG which a pal kept tuned and borrowed to impress dates.

Townsend was where i drove up to for weekends, full of 2nd-hand bookshops and quaint tea shops and coffee bars with jukes outta the 50s.

I'd met a man-eater from Raleigh, NC, at a poetry reading, where i'd read a Blake Morrison i'd stolen and trusted no one would recognise, and she - Daughter McDonagh - read an original, all husky voice and rolling overwrought vowels.

Yes, 'Daughter'. Her parents had named her Daughter. Like a boy called 'Son'. I said i would pronounce it Dafter and after a lengthy explanation and much punchings of my shoulder she said that she supposed she 'got it'.

We both liked each other's poems which was a conversation starter to get to know each other and we tootled off for lunch where she matched me vin for vin as she made me talk my weird talk and used every opportunity to stroke and claw.

We went back to my place where she scattered my CDs around, never listening to more than half a track. Then she disappeared into the bedroom and when i went in to see why she was gone so long, there she was in bed: "Reckoned i could play you some better sounds right here." In that husky north carolina growl.

We bought dinner stuff and then went down to the folk club where she flirted like mad with the boys and watched me play with a feral gaze that never left me.

Then she was ... well, just there. Said she lived with a brother up Port Townsend way but i never met him.

One weekend she said she'd buy me some pictures for my walls so up we drove, wind in our hair, laffing and joking and Dafty changing the radio channels til she found good country.

That photo of me by the MG: we'd finished lunch and walked down to the blustery shore and then on the way back she said 'lemme get a shot of you' and that's it.

When we got back she said she was going to call her boyfriend in Raleigh. "He's a crazy mad biker. He'll kill you." Very nice, i must say.

Called him up and said 'hey, listen to this guy talk.' and handed the receiver to me.

Never have i heard such a mean muthafucker voice ranting down the line. Yep, he'd do me.

I expressed nervousness and she said 'oh he's prolly on his bike right now, coming to get you. he'll find us, always does.'

I remember that time for being such a happy one: she'd keep house and now n then actually pay for groceries. Turn up at amazon at closing time and get thru security somehow and join me with the lads at the Starlite bar where she'd dance barefoot and drink JD and Coke and spend no time with me but drift from guy to guy, laughing and draping, occasionally checking in i was having 'a real good time', coz she was. The guys all adored her but none seemed to make a move. Once i was chatting up some bird from tech help and she came over and leaned on me and then stage whispered "It ain't working, hon. Let's go."

It all came back in one glance of the snap: how the weather was always good for us and how easily the chat came and how we both shared completely different jokes.

Incapable of rising before 10, she'd all the same make me coffee and set the egg ready to boil before sliding back under the sheets. Now and then she'd call her mother and make me tell her what a good girl her 'daughter' was being. Mom would tell her how Eddie was spittin' mad and how she'd better make sure to keep me safe outta the way, case he ever got up there.

Once she answered the phone and said uhuh uhuh, sure and then handed it to me 'It's Eddie, he wants to talk to you.' It was a sales call from Mumbai offering to upgrade me to a cheaper service.

Then one day she asked me to drive her to some address in Tacoma and when her friend came out she didnt introduce me but took a long time hugging goodbye. And that was it. Her cell was dead and i didnt bother to call her mom.

How does Cohen have it? I told you when i came i was a stranger.

'Harwood Tomlinson cleared' disgrace

Stupid bloody jury. They should be shoved on security detail for the Olympics and left to take the consequences.

Mewl mewl mewl ... 'four days to clear Harwood of manslaughter ... not told that [he] had been investigated a number of other times for alleged violence and misconduct.'

Oh FFS! You only have to look at his filth of a Filth's face.

Spaz, cretins, mongs, morons, dullards ... all the rest of it.

FILTH FARCE ~ 'joke' jury clears Harwood.

Thug in uniform ~ actually, make that thugs plural. Never fair to pick on the partner, I know: stood beside them and all that - first sign of a coward when you've got to hit out at a spouse - but Mrs H looks beefy enough to splat a good man to the pavement and her old man deserves as much break as he gave Tomlinson.

One person per week: average deaths while guest of the Filth

Punched, throttled, kneed, unlawful arrests ~ disclosing litany of complaints would have breached privacy ... disciplinary history irrelevant to Tomlinson death.

Filth farce name-clear fight

Why we should trust trial by jury ~ even when it seems wrong.

Now and then on a misguided whim, I think I've spotted something I can phrase in such a way as to appear fair-minded and even-handed over some right vermin that's caught my eye.

What in my vanity I think I'm doing is sticking it to them to show them in even truer colours.

Never comes orf, especially if it's to do with the Filth. There's not many ways one can re-'phrase' those bastards, so all I'll do here is quote the 'strict rules' nonsense and point you to the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

"Strict rules govern what is admissible, and in relation to evidence of a defendant's 'bad character', those rules are contained in the wide-ranging http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/44/contents Criminal Justice Act 2003. As a society, we trust the twelve men and women of a jury to represent us."

~ caption Bully and Beef.

Just cutting and pasting this nonsense and thinking on that Jackass Jury makes my stomach churn.

NATURALLY FRESH

~ Corfu ~

My bro wanted to take back umpteen jars of honey and naturally fresh gewgaws but could I trace them by punching in 'Fergal' and 'Calliope'? I could not.

By amazing good chance I saw F&C at the wonderful new-style refurbished Taki's ("nosh for the nobs 'n' natives"] and got the low-down.

EUPHEMISMS

I can't make head nor tail of this silly phrase about "breakdown in the interaction between human beings”. It's nowhere hear the class of 'economical with the truth' and what's with the pretentious verité bit?

Interesting about retard/moron.

I fear my younger daughter may have imported gay/lame to Corfu on her last visit.

Spaz: at my first school, everyone was a spas, everything was spastic. I was quite shocked to be hauled up on it many years later.

THREE'S COMPANY

Odd feeling since my bro and sis-in-law arrived last Sunday morn.

None of the aggro i expected over garden and state of house, my incompetent cooking, etc

Wonderful having company, of course, and i fear the emptiness when they're gone early next week.

Most noticeable: huge relief, of course, on passing of mother and blessèd silence and all the happy surges that came from that ton of daily rubbish ending.

Contention and batterings of course since my brother was of my mother's camp and lived outside the crippling crushing solitary job that reduced me to brainless jelly.

But just to hear a footfall and to have become used over the past days to it not being yet another decrepit dementia repeatia encounter; not another useless meal to send me screaming. To be in a house with other living persons to whom I say something interesting/useful once and am likely to be receptive to the reply.

Very odd feeling and the first time it's washed over me since i arrived here in 2006.

Also reeking with the theft, of course, because i'm now mixing with the villa thefti end of the filcherie.

I'm in the middle and lost and no way forward since the past few days' visits to banker and lawyer and stripping of what little money i had. i expected that but not quite so swiftly transferred. i can now count my daily budget on one hand which is scary.

on balance, company is better than the screams of panic in my head when drifting alone among the corridors.

CRUISEGATE

Pray God the litigious Cruise divorce ahead has legs to tilt the tipping point to bring the world's press together to hammer this vile cult.

BIGGEST NIGHTMARE ~ That's what I like to read. Cult on the run * Sci-To Dirty Tricks brigade ramping up * Beans spilling from ex-SciTos * Juicy juicy drama * Chance for 4th Estate to redeem itself * Major cult-voodoo-brainwash-espionage movie fodder ~ I trust the respective agents are right on the ball with Cruisegate and securing the top roles for the key players.

No feisty floosies - More than a touch of loose-cannon Princess Di here: when Cruise was instructed to go forth and multiply and FFS don't bring back any chickadee with lip because them types spell trouble, I bet he didn't think little Miss Holmes from the kiddies shelf would bite back. She actually looks as if there's a steel core running down that delightful spine.

Fortitudinous Forte ~ Nor should any Corfiot forget the part played by our very own National Treasure, John Forte.

Commodore or Colonel? ~ Even today, I run across people on the island, unaware of the story, unaware of the name of Forte. A disgrace.

Expozay! We need more squealers from the inner sanctum and we need the likes of John Forte to give it ink ... maybe Cruisegate will be the rolling thoonder these horrific specimens need.

Go forth and multiply the broadcasts.

CHIEF MAGGOT

Chief Maggot wife not seen since 2007. That's what I call a tight ship.

MOVING FAST - Emergency custody and child support. Holmes has some moves on her. Pretty boy may be cruisin' for a bruisin'.

Former member spoutings - it's what made John Forte's updated version so riveting and essential reading ~ the inclusion of the escaped Sci-Tol's evidence and inside info'.

With luck and courage among the SciTo prisoners, Cruisegate will burst the dam and a tsunami of damning info crash forth, possibly with something to strike the Achilles Heel.

ROSEMARY'S BABY stuff

Lemming in a scary world.

OUT goes 'cult', in comes “new religious movement”. Bah! Humbug nonsense. Rose by any other.

ESCAPE STORIES - yippee! Here they come, the 'I jumped Sea Org' stories, and the 4th Estate is hungry for them. Out of the cupboard these skeleton scarers will tumble and with each one
another nugget of info' in the wall.

The Mutha Hubbard PR machine must be in overdrive trying to stem the straining tsunami.

What I'm looking forward to is some of the top names who'll creep out of the woodwork.

What have you done to Tom?

The great Taki and schadenfreude - i was waiting for him to wade in to cruisegate.

RESCUE PARTY

Perfect timing and perfect types.

I hadnt foreseen this as part of the package but of course a certain section of my mother's friends would eventually get round to inviting themselves up to the house under the guise of comforting the hapless orphan.

Normally I would stutter down the phone and assure them i was perfectly OK, terribly good of them, most touched, and go back to my solitary Camparis and Karelia and Ellington of the loudest.

Amused by their assumption that I was alone - therefore with nothing and no-one to disturb - I gave my best imitation of someone chafing lonely in the silence and left them to come when they wanted.

Then I rallied the troops and alerted them to the arrival of several yester-year bores and urged them to feral-up and look as ASBO-tic as their demure exteriors would allow.

I would, in any case, be introducing them as having jumped parole and hiding out in San Luca until their fake papers had dried.

SHEAR CARELESSNESS

Terribly funny.

Long boozy pre-frater lunch yesterday with pals on whom I will not afflict him.

Much faithful chatter by them on how they want to grill him on the 'Filch' and the disgrace of still not finding the jewels after five years.

They being 'gardeners' with pathetic postage-stamp squares of brown to tend, I give them the run of the left-hand bookshelf and tell how annoyed I am that I wasnt quicker off the mark ripping up books as a release from mum's dementia yakety blah.

I espy some shears and pick them up to shove down in the apothiki lest there be any doubt over maman's hobby being dead and gone.

They slip from my inebriated fingers and crash onto a precious plate, one of a set of remaining six, now five, that my Yorkshire gran gave in 1951.

Whoops but how fitting, how prescient of the days to come.

είστε προετοιμασμένοι
για κρύα Τουρκία;

Ready for the mutha of all boots?

I know a Twinkle-Toes who is

I'm pleading DNS syndrome on every begging virus.

DNS changer check-up

Got the Violation Blues?

incident on bog street

dragged out 'on the town' by do-gooder beauty. i go because i like to be seen with hotties. when they want u to be having a good time and youre grouching like me, from the distance, their petting and chivvying can pass for unrequited passion and yearning. good for the image.

among le tout corfou swilling and milling and chortling and braying was an excited gardenry type who asked after the garden and got a frosty look. she said oh yes she knew all about that because she got the news from a dedicated albeit disapproving follower of my blog. i followed her finger and lo n behold, a Bore of Yore and an old enemy sin

ced she'd chided me: "This vase of flowers - can't you appreciate their beauty?"

"That is not gardening. Yes of course once upon a time i could make the right noises. No longer.

I play the guitar, love making mischief on the computer - doesnt mean im interested in how theyre made nor being chained to a bench planing and glueing.

As it happens, no one can accuse me of ever expressing any interest in gardening OR gardens themselves."

Battle lines drawn and we had not crossed epées since. Bludgeon in her case, the fat cow.

So over she waddles with that smile on the hippopotamos and asks how the garden is doing, to which i reply that the irrigation goes well, the paths raked and the agapanthi the envy of the region.

then she 'subtly' addresses the contents of my blog without acknowledging its existence and i note with fascination how it is impossible for her to address either my loathing for gardenry or my contempt for the theft.

I have so solidly created its own vocabulary that she is unable to sidestep my seductive references - Piece of Work, Villa Thefti, thief alley, girls' jewelry, elginised. kai tou alla.

we joust and i make mincemeat of her lumberings.

i remember her quite recently emailing me a request that she bring some friends to look round the garden, such as remained. i note the time so's to have the gates locked. delete her message. sodding cheek.

she suggests there is something wrong with my email because a message clearly did not get thru. i calculate the date of her mail and she agrees it was about then. i give her my charmingest cee-lo smile and dismissive nod.

up comes my pal, delighted to see me 'mixing'.

"Is this your girlfriend?"

I wish" pulling her to me and licking a tanned shoulder blade. "Will you just look at the body on this one? I'd need industrial strength batteries in the Pacemaker to do justice with mamzel here."

Mamzel giggles and kisses me on my clammy cheek before drifting away in cloud of Aubusson and tick-tock of pert derriere above erectio-galvanising of that thing women can do with perfect legs.

"Whoof," i breathe sans emotion, "should be a law against that."

"Well, she could be" suggests Hippo.

"Could be what?" i ask with icy politeness.

I spot another party of swingers and head over to shake and canoodle. One of them is a guitarist and we talk about Agiotfest and an amplifiable Takamine he knows is coming up for sale. I take the owner's number and feign keen-ness.

Not really for me so i bid my pal bon soir and she urges me to stay awhile and go on to a party later. Not for me.

We embrace kali nikta and she feels pretty damn'd good in the hug.

DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

Edward Fox-lookalike Bob 'Barclays' Diamond is one of those unfortunates unblessed by nature with a face that retains body and composure when under heat.

Jimmy Goldsmith had it

Conrad Black has it

That lecher DSK has it - or had until his milliardaire wife decided suffit est suffit and booted him.

My old boss at the Hong Kong tourism bureau had it in spades

A trio of tricksters.

Bet you've lost track who's Fox and who's Bob

The cornereder they are, the fleshier and flarier and scarier is their engorged enragement - like that creature in Jurassic Park that sends the Landrover's screen blood-bespattered.

Everyone retreats. Can't be taught outside the plastic chirurgien's scalpel and then you'd have to have a pump in your poche to inflate your sagging jowels once the interrogation got rowdy.

I knew someone who had exactly a pump to put a tiger in his trousers as he oozed around the Hong Kong cocktail circuit. Can't remember how I learned this, no doubt from one of the feral school-leavers with whom I cavorted during '64.

She would have heard it over the dinner table from mum and dad having a giggle, and been told never to let it leave the room.

Straight on to best friend and it'd've been round the Colony by dawn.

Natch, the next party attended by the Pumper, he must have wondered at his soaring popularity [ouch, dreadful pun], tittering teens crowding round and behaving most oddly. But I digress.

By god yes, that was one hell of a year.

I'd escaped virginity by the foreskin of my teeth thanks to playing guitar outside hours in the school pantry and catching the attention of a right little goer who ended up giving me a seeing-to friday evenings during prep just before they all scooted back to the village.

So when I'd finally done my time in that prison and got out to Honkers, I wasn't as scared as I should've been of those mysterious leggy creatures.

Virgins akimbo - the one thing I remember is that everyone was a virgin. Les filles were virgins but set on losing their cherry; the boys were, too, but terrified of being put on the spot.

I'd come across swivel-eyed vixens spitting with rage after having manoeuvred the stud of their choice into a dark corner of the beach, practically inserting it for them, and the bloke keeps making excuses and wandering off to swim or inspect some intriguing plankton ... anything to face the dread moment.

One evening I'd handed the guitar over to some aspiring player and taken a pliant Australienne down to the bottom of the garden where I'd already stored a rug and lilo under a bush.

When we got back my pal expressed surprise at how long we'd been gone.

"Douglas ... we were having it off."

"No seriously, what were you doing? You were gone a helluva long time. Did you hide some booze down there? Oh god no, not drugs! Blimey."

"Dougie ... I was shagging her, she was shagging me. We were taking our good long time - OK?"

"Well, i dont believe you. For a start, she's so ..."

"Virginal, Dougster? Looks like a sweet innocent virgin, does she? That's the whole point, you prick. Butter wouldn't melt ... ahem, an image in which context I would always get an instant erection à la m'sieur Pumpidou."

My fellow 18/19-year-old stalwarts, straight from public school, were frozen with fear, leaving the field to villains like me.

Got a bit off topic from Senor Pump and certainly a long way off Bobby Diamond.

Yessiree - the Bobster is having a bad time and his minders should tell him not to spend 10 mins polishing his specs, bit of a giveaway. As is the flesh falling from his face as the drubbing gets more medieval. Nothing he can do about it but isn't nature a mischievous thing?

Imagine practising up all your con man's wiles and tricks and chutzpah, only to be let down by sagging jowels and startled eyes?

Doesn't seem to affect Sons of Homer, they dont seem to have the guilt enzyme. Ever seen one betray himself? Me neither.