The transmitters used by Radio Vatican to broadcast its message of eternal love and harmony are apparently so strong that people in the Roman suburb of Ponte Galeria, where the transmitters are sited, can hear Holy Mass when they answer their door phones. Oh yes, and their children appear to have a way above average incidence of tumours too.
So how come the Vatican has just been acquitted of creating dangerous levels of environmental pollution in the area?
Just to give you an idea of the moral ambience within the Italian secret services, Pio Pompa (I just love writing it!) was second in command to Nicolò Pollari, ex-head of SISMI and now on trial with a bunch of CIA agents for his involvement in extraordinary rendition activities in Italy.
If anyone needs to be reminded just how fragile supposedly democratic states can be, a story in yesterday’s Repubblica is exemplary. It describes the plans being drawn up by the Italian secret services soon after Berlusconi’s electoral victory in 2001 to protect the new prime minister and his government from the possibility of a coup. Nothing strange about that, of course; it’s what secret services are for.
But the coup from which the half-pint Duce needed protection had nothing to do with tanks or the seizure of means of communication. No marches on the Quirinale or shootings at dawn. This coup—according to documents found by Milanese magistrates in the offices of the wonderfully named Pio Pompa (Yes, Pious Pump or Pomp, as you prefer), an official at SISMI, Italy’s MI5—was going to be masterminded by magistrates scattered across Italy (Milan, Turin, Rome and Palermo), with the help of international organisations committed to the fight against fraud and corruption.
These magistrates were suspected of trying to besmirch the name of Italy’s new leader for subversive political motives. They would do this by investigating “aggressively” his financial dealings in Italy and abroad. Interestingly, the documents don’t suggest that these magistrates would need to invent anything; the evidence of Berlusconi’s corruption and fraud simply had to be found and made available for the reputation of the new PM, such as it was, to be reduced to tatters.
The documents also suggest that an eminence grise, ex magistrate and now politician on the centre-left, was the brain behind the coup, although the details are worryingly confused here, as they are on most points. The coup would be combated, if necessary, by what the documents refer to as “traumatic actions” on the part of the secret services, to be carried out before the middle of September 2001. “Traumatic actions” organised or condoned by SISMI in the past are believed to have included murders, bombings and terrorist attacks.
SISMI, in other words, was prepared to act—subversively—against magistrates conducting legitimate investigations into the business activities of a man who was already the subject of legitimate investigation in other European countries (France, Spain and the UK). A man whose entire career was—and remains—littered with unresolved questions concerning his ties with the Mafia, freemasonry and political corruption.
Maybe this shouldn’t surprise us. A few days ago at the celebration of Republic Day in Rome, the disgraced Tax Police chief, Speciale, made a point of walking across to Berlusconi, saluting him and saying: “Agli ordini, Presidente”.
Just got my complimentary copy of New Writing 15, published by Granta and the British Council. My story (Entertaining Friends), ironically, isn’t new at all. It was written many years ago, and describes the pleasures and perils of a world that, as far as I’m concerned, has entirely disappeared, though I’m sure that younger gay men continue to find themselves in similar, er, scrapes.
This is known as a teaser. You’re supposed to be so intrigued that you immediately click here and order a copy from Amazon or, even better, support your local independent bookseller. If you’re not intrigued yet, the anthology also contains work by dozens of other writers, famous and not, from Julian Barnes and Alasdair Gray to, well, people you’ve never heard of who deserve to be read. Go on, treat yourself.
Once again, thanks to Bits and Pieces for this.
This canvas by artist Kim Dingle doesn’t look like a map, more like a herd of cows. But actually it’s a collection of maps. The artist asked teen-aged school kids in Las Vegas to draw their country in the shape they thought it had. It’s one of the strange maps in a book called ‘You Are Here’, which… collects unconventional maps.
According to its promoters, the Family Day demonstration a few weeks ago, designed to fight government proposals for recognition of civil unions, attracted a million people. That’s more or less one sixtieth of the population and enough, says Paola Binetti, self-mortifying defender of the faith, to rule out civil union legislation in Italy. Hmm.
The standard estimate is that one tenth of the Italian population is gay. That would mean that 100,000 participants at this year’s Gay Pride (in Rome on 16 June – be there!) would have the same demographic weight as Family Day. It would, in other words, cancel it out. What’s more, if there are over 100,000 participants, let’s say 200,000, by Binetti’s logic this would be enough to rule out opposition to DICO legislation. The ball would then be in their court. Family Day Two? Second Family Day? The latter would certainly be more approriate for most of the philandering centre-right politicians who took part in the first.
George Bush says that democratic reform in Rusia has been derailed. You can understand why he’s worried. Rigged elections and the illegal disenfrachisement of voters. Prisoners held for years in subhuman conditions without trial. The economy held hostage by a gaggle of semi-legal oligarchs. The ever-growing threat of religious fundamentalism. Constant attacks on basic human rights. Global warming rampant and no political will to curb it.
And that’s just the USA! Imagine what Putin’s up to…
According to ANSA, a priest in the province of Bari has refused the Eucharist to a young gay man from a ‘difficult family’. Unfortunately, the press release doesn’t specify what kind of Eucharist. The tasteless wafer produced in some factory somewhere under Vatican licence, one imagines, or that other rather stickier Eucharist certain priests provide to the faithful. Given that it was refused, I assume it must have been the former.
What I don’t understand is why a young man, however difficult his family may be, should want to humiliate himself in front of his oppressor.
In the wacky Tweedledum and Tweedledee world of post-modern Poland, it seems only natural that Tinky Winky and Goethe should find themselves sharing the same rather incommodious bed of censorship. The purple Teletubby and the great German poet apparently both run the risk of being banned from Polish schools. Along with Kafka, Dostoevsky, Gombrowicz and, er, Gustav Herling-Grudzinski.
We all know about Tinky Winky’s suspiciously gay skin colour and handbag, but Goethe? According to Miroslaw Orzechowski, leading member of the deputy prime minister’s Family League and convinced creationist, he’s a dangerous libertine. How so? Well, Faust has sex before marriage, while young Werther tries to get his leg over a married woman. The door’s over there, Johann Wolfgang, you filthy beast. And the others? Kafka? A nihilist. Dostoevsky? Apologist for a criminal – just read Crime and Punishment. (No, on second thoughts, don’t. You might do something naughty.) Gombrowicz? Gay. (Gay?) Gustav Herling-Grudzinski? Nasty stuff about gulags (as though you didn’t know).
But all is not lost. Prime minister Kaczynski (the straight one, or maybe not – I just can’t tell them apart) appears to be becoming aware of the ridiculous figure his gang of drooling bigots is cutting outside the Polish borders, and may put his stocky little foot down. This probably won’t worry Orzechowski (the very name is music), who is also working on excluding all gays from state employment. Good thing there’s still a division between church and state, Miroslaw!
Another great find by Jane. A flyer spotted in the Ladies’ Powder Room (honestly) of Beatties department store, Wolverhampton, now, alas, part of the House of Fraser. Those of you who know Beatties will understand how sad this is. I remember sitting in the ballroom as mannequins wandered among the tables with the price of their dresses on small embossed cards in their hands, background music provided by a small man at a piano. I remember Battenburg and angel cake and leaves in the tea. Sad, sad, sad. And this flyer is emblematic of Beatties’ decline. The oddest thing about it is that it clearly knows what it’s saying and thinks its message somehow appropriate and, even, appealing.
Having said all that, because of course, like everyone else, I can have it both ways, there’s a shamelessness about it that I find rather compelling. A sort of slapping on the muck while Wolverhampton burns.
CHARLES LAMBERT 