First copy

This is me, holding the first copy of Little Monsters to reach me. I’m thrilled, as you can see. Excitement always makes me look as though I’ve just been arrested and then told to smile. I still have the packaging in my hand. FedEx. The photogaph is very small because it’s been cropped, and isn’t intended to represent my innate modesty, which I no longer seem to have. I’m being introduced to people as a writer and I’ve stopped saying weelll and shaking my head in a self-deprecating way. I beam and offer to sign things. T-shirts. Skin.

Pushing trolley round faith supermarket

Oxymoron

Mother! Oh God, mother! Blood! Blood!

We had to help Scout with this one, which comes from a film whose opening scenes are set in this very city.

Scout is a dog.

The poor dope. He always wanted a pool

Scout is working on a series of scenes from his favourite movies, using whatever prop comes to hand. This one is named after a place that isn’t really that far from where we’ll be in a week’s time.

Say it with African violets

This is what greeted us yesterday evening at what would have been 7 am in Italy. It was just after 10 pm. Any warmer? (And yes, it is.)

Thank you, Rachel.

Guess…

… where I am. I’m sitting at a Mexican desk with the sun pouring in to my right. I can see palms from the window, a lemon tree in the neighbour’s garden, reddish roof tiles, blue sky. There may be jackrabbits in the garden. My eyes are tired from being awake too long in recycled air. I’m feeling very relaxed and happy. I have a Glenn Campbell hookline running incessantly through my head. The picture may help.

If you know, don’t tell.

Veils

Cranach’s Venus is too saucy for London Underground travellers, according to Transport for London, which has banned its use in an advertisement. This wonderful image, at once demure and enticing, had been chosen to advertise a Royal Academy show devoted to the great 16th century artist. It’s one of a number of Venuses produced by Cranach: there’s a particularly lascivious one, wearing a splendid hat and lounging against, if not actually dangling from, a tree while she listens to Cupid, who’s no doubt used to this sort of behaviour. He’s complaining that he’s been stung by bees while trying to steal their honey. The painting represents the notion that all pleasure is mixed with pain, and it’s an allegory that might be applied to Transport for London’s decision to punish the RA for daring to bring a little artistic pleasure into travellers’ lives.

Apparently the painting might ‘offend’. A Transport for London spokesman said: “Millions of people travel on the London Underground each day and they have no choice but to view whatever ads are posted there. We have to take into account the full range of travellers and endeavour not to cause offence in the adverts we display.” It’s pretty clear to me that the only travellers of this ‘full range’ who might be offended by the painting are Muslim males and, at a pinch, our own home-grown fundamentalist killjoys. It’s a pre-emptive strike in favour of bigotry, with the authorities trying to double-guess what might be ‘upsetting’ and who might be ‘upset’, though they can’t actually say this.

Poor old Cranach. Poor us.

Cream for (fat) cats

This smug bastard is called Sergio De Gregorio. He was elected senator two years ago for one of the smaller parties of Prodi’s centre-left coalition. A few weeks after the election he had an epiphany, funded by Berlusconi, and discovered that he was actually centre-right. He defected for a rumoured €300,000, reducing the government’s already tragically small majority to three. He then invented a party called Italiani nel Mondo (Italians in the World) and is no doubt collecting all the cash to which Italian political parties have an automatic right. His own personal newspaper for a start; after all he is a qualified journalist. You don’t believe me? Visit his hilariously self-serving blog.

The man isn’t really worth bothering about but I was walking through the Testaccio quarter in Rome this morning and I saw fifty metres of wall covered with posters, possibly the first of this year’s electoral campaign. It’s not the most sophisticated advertising: a close up of the politician’s porcine features with a slogan plastered across it. It was the slogan that made me stop and laugh out loud. It said Coraggio dei valori (The courage of values). I didn’t have a camera with me, so I went to his blog to find the poster. And guess what? Typing coraggio dei valori into the search option I get: “Spiacente, stai cercando qualcosa che non c’è” (Sorry, what you’re looking for isn’t here).

Fright

It’s standard practice in the run-up to elections for opposition leaders to accuse the government of practically anything short of first degree homicide (pace Andreotti), knowing full well that retaliation only makes the retaliator look pathetic. It’s an old playground trick, and politicians know full well that mud doesn’t need to contain a grain of truth to stick. But trust Berlusconi to come up with a new twist on the old technique. Interviewed by Tempi, he announced that the Prodi government had ‘frightened people with its fight against tax evasion.’ This might well be the first true thing the man has said, and is likely to say, in the entire campaign, which began only minutes after the last general elections in April 2006. But to accuse a government of ‘frightening’ wrongdoers in a bid to become, once again, prime minister of one of the world’s most powerful countries, despite all his efforts during his previous term, surely takes the biscuit for sheer bare-facedness. He might as well have accused it of scaring men by increasing women’s rights (except that it hasn’t) or heterosexuals by recognising civil unions (idem).

And talking about women’s rights, the Great Buffoon also pledged support to the suggestion of his tubby chum, opinionista Giuliano Ferrara, that an international moratorium be called on abortion, or ‘murdering babies’, as it’s sometimes known. This has as much chance of passing as a moratorium on farting in private, but it’s an easy way to say thank you forthe support he’s already getting from the Vatican rag, Avvenire. And the latest news is that Ferrara, who has no children, is going to be running as a pro-life candidate. Well, here’s photographic proof that he can do it. Run, that is.