When your cavity needs a little filling

The dentist’s chair is often a locus for sexual fantasies but I’ve never seen the notion expressed quite as blatantly as it is in this sign, spotted in Kingsland High Road and snapped by Jane.

And if you think the title to this post is gratuitous vulgarity (as of course it is), let me hastily refer you to its onlie begetter, Bette Midler, who wrote and performed the song it comes from: Long John Blues.

A very few inches of theatrical criticism

Ostensibly reviewing Equus, the Evening Standard’s Nicholas de Jongh commented: “Never in modern times has such excitement been stirred by the prospect of viewing a very few inches of adolescent male flesh.”

Judging from his authoritative tone, De Jongh is an expert on the excitement to be derived from adolescent male flesh. All well and good: specialised sites, of which De Jongh is no doubt aware, have already dedicated a fair amount of space to Radcliffe’s physique, photoshopped and otherwise. But I fail to see what this expertise has to do with the business in hand: that of reviewing the play.

And I certainly don’t see the need to mention the length, or lack of it, of Radcliffe’s ‘male flesh’ (a direct quote from Teleny)? After all, there’s no mention in the review of Jenny Agutter’s bra cup size, surely also of interest to London theatregoers?

Where are you, Kevin McCarthy, when we need you?

Flying back from London on Ryanair this morning I noticed that three members of the cabin crew had identical blemishes on the back of their necks. Naturally, I thought of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Is this an isolated case? Or has anyone else noticed the tell-tale sign of alien occupation on no-frills airlines?

Air guitar? Air head?

You many have seen a photograph of Tony Blair, taken during his time at Oxford. Most commentators have focused on the gesture he’s making with his right hand, offering a variety of interpretations, from the vulgar (masturbation) to the pathetic (air plectrum).
But nobody seems to have remarked on the look of utter open-mouthed vacuity and, surely, smugness on his face.

Has it ever been slapped? If not, why not?

The natural order

Two friends and colleagues (lettori: if you don’t know what they are click on the label below) were summoned a few days ago to the office of a professor in their faculty, head of department and died-in-the-wool barone (ditto).

He showed them a 60-page wodge of text and tables and said that he needed the English translation within a week. You can share it out among yourselves, he added, with unexpected munificence. My colleagues glanced at each other, surprised. And with reason. This isn’t the place to provide a detailed job description of a lettore post, so I’ll simply say that the translation of university documents at the drop of a hat isn’t included.

One of my colleagues pointed out that each page would take at least an hour and a half and asked if the time they spent on the work, assuming they agreed to do it, would be taken out of their annual tot of hours. Barone bristled. I’m sorry? he said, looking up. Otherwise, how would we be paid? I beg your pardon? he said.

My other colleague, in her turn, pointed out that teaching was starting this week, so that, in any case, they would have no time. I also teach, said Barone. Yes, but not quite as much as we do, my colleague reminded him. (The ratio is something like 1:6, entirely in Barone’s favour.) She might as well have added, And nowhere near as well.

Deeply offended by such insolence, Barone swept them from his room. If you aren’t prepared to do it, he announced, I’ll find someone else. Rome is full of English people. His last words, as he closed the door in their faces with that subtle irony only years of professorship can forge, were: Grazie per la preziosa collaborazione.

They behave like this because they’ve been allowed to. Italian universities work on a fagging system Flashman would have recognised immediately. It’s perfectly normal for people to work for nothing for years: typing, baby-sitting, writing humdrum pseudo-research for non-peer-assessed publication and seeing their own names appear behind their sponsors, who’ve glanced at the paper once, if that.

Finally, their spirits broken, the first few crumbs are thrown their way (a doctorate, some contract teaching, an unpaid place on an exam commission) and the rise begins. No more toast-making at dawn, no more shoe-polishing. Research! They’re still expected to earn their keep, of course, but at least they’re being paid. At least they have tenure. And look, beneath them, a lower order of creature awaits to ease their load.

Our problem, as lettori, is that we don’t perceive ourselves as a lower order. We see ourselves as equals (and often, with justification, betters). They see us as serfs. It’s a cultural problem (which means it’s also, implicitly, racist) of incommensurability and I don’t see any way round it.

Oh yes, the document they were told to translate contained evaluations of the teaching staff (a category from which we’re officially excluded), conducted, apparently, by themselves.

This is how Italian structures do accountability. (Otherwise known as trasparenza.) Aaahh.

Art-lovers near Chard…

…should make an effort to see this exhibition, by Paola Casalino, a friend and a gentlewoman. It’s at The Gallery at Hooked on Books, 6a Holyrood Street, Chard TA20 2AH. From 2 to 24 March.

There’s also a private viewing on 11 March (Sunday) from 12 to 2pm. Tell her I sent you.

The medium is the message

If this is true, my blog is sending out a message I’m not quite sure I want. I’ve noticed (don’t ask) that this rather stylish pastels on black effect is much favoured by gay porn blogs. You know the sort of thing I mean. In fact, gay porn blogs use minima dark (as it’s known) almost exclusively.

I don’t know what to do. It’s a bit like discovering that a perfectly harmless handkerchief hanging from the pocket actually means I’m up for group coprophilia.

I may go bland and serious and opt for the white version.

Work avoidance strategy No.1

As if Dan Quayle and Arnold Schwarzenegger weren’t bad enough, the next two look-alikes on the list were Tony Blair and Dick Cheney (thankfully excluded by the program from my fetching collage).

This is worse than discovering you share 80% of your DNA with the earthworm.

On second thoughts, maybe it isn’t.

A hand for the lady

Kate Phillips, charity director, is suing Tate Modern because she claims to have ‘broken’ her hand while hurtling down one of Carsten Holler’s tubes, presumably of her own volition. (Details here.)

What on earth did she think she was doing? Watching television? Eating tofu salad in the safety of her own kitchen?

I wonder which charity she works for. Suggestions welcome.

The tyranny of conscience

Umberto Galimberti has an interesting piece in today’s Repubblica, which unfortunately doesn’t seem to appear on the paper’s website. He talks about the way people claim to be unable to do certain things or behave in a certain way because it would go against their conscience. The cases he mentions are Italian, and recent, but the issues his argument touches on – euthanasia, abortion, civil unions – reach far beyond a single country and time. I’ll translate a bit for you. (I hate translating, so I hope you appreciate the sacrifice I’m making on your behalf.)

So what is this ‘conscience’? It is the tyranny of the principle of subjectivity that refuses to accept any form of collective responsibility and the consequences that derive from it. The doctor who, as a “conscientious objector” refuses to perform an abortion on a woman living in absolute poverty with too many children already, on a barely pubescent child, on someone whose foetus is deformed, refuses to take responsibility for the condition of the mother and the future unhappiness of the child, considering nothing but his principles, which allow him to feel comfortable with his ‘conscience’, precisely because they suppress, deny, refuse to see the consequences of his decision. […]

If the tyranny of the subjective ‘conscience’, which in the name of its own principles is incapable of mediation and takes no responsibility for social issues (such as civil unions and the right to die), becomes an absolute principle in politics, […] we need to make it very clear that those who bow to this tyranny have no place in politics, because their conscience ignores collective responsibility in favour of individual principles.

The essence of politics is ‘mediation’, not ‘bearing witness’. There are other more appropriate places, such as one’s private life, in which to ‘bear witness’. […] As Kant said: ‘Morality is made for man, not man for morality’. This is even truer of ideology.

Crikey, Kant. Twice in one day.