MY BONNET LIES OVER THE OCEAN

In a couple of months I am going to New Mexico for a hat fitting. This might seem a little extravagant, but you don't know my milliner, Madame Chapeau, an extraordinary woman. She is of Comanche stock, and quite indestructible. After many years ekeing out a bohemian and somewhat undocumented existence in Paris, she returned to her ancestral homelands in Taos, where she has diversified into floral arrangements for the local native American owned casino. She speaks French with the most delightful western twang and smokes cheroots incessantly, whence her tribal name, Smokin' Squaw McGraw.

Smokin' Squaw looking suitably indestructible with one of her creations
(she's the one on the right). Photo by Jaap Vanderplas

Taos is the most godawful place to get to. The nearest airport is Albuquerque, which you can only get to from Denver or Los Angeles. So I thought what the hell, I know people in Beverly Hills. Little George Clooney is always asking me to come over and teach him macramé. After factoring in a stopover in Hollywood (oh! the glamour!), I shall fly from LA to Albuquerque, then continue on the famous Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe railroad. As can be seen from this clip, a new bonnet is de rigueur in Sante Fe.

Madame Chapeau-McGraw and I knew each other in Paris many years back, where she made the extravagant headdresses for the tableaux at the Folies. I remember one magnificent headdress she made for me made entirely out of bananas. I can't quite remember what the dance was, but I know it was banned after the first performance. I am told I cannot take fresh fruit into California, so if I have to transit via LAX on the way home, I'll eat my hat.

DUENDE

Yikes! It's the weekend already. I've prepared nothing for you, darlings. I've been too busy practising my flamenco dancing for my solo at the KNOB's Spanish night. My role in the band has changed somewhat since Bert's departure and they have decided my previous terpsichorean experience treading the boards at the Folies Bergère might come in handy after all.

I decided to call up my old friend Manitas de Plata to help me out. We have known each other for years, ever since his caravan broke down outside my house. I invited him in for a cup of tea and a bucket of water for his horse while we were waiting for the AA, and he noticed I had his first album, "Hommages", the one with the photograph of Bridget Bardot simpering up at him while he twanged his banjo.


"What did you think of this album?" he asked. "Well, to be honest," I replied, "I thought it sounded like a series of warm-up exercises."

He roared with laughter. "That's exactly what it was!" he admitted cheerfully. "I just called each exercise by a different name - Hommage to Pablo Picasso, Brigitte Bardot, Jean Cocteau, etc."

I gave him a reproving look. "You naughty man!" He shrugged his shoulders and looked at me guiltily. "But I am a gipsy! What do you expect?" he asked, slipping my silver cake knife into his pocket.

I forgave him but last week I reminded him of his kleptomania when I called him for help with my flamenco dancing.

"Si, Daphne, I am still using the cake knife," he said, "Only last week I used it to regrout my garden wall."

"Now listen, hombre," I said, "I need some tips for flamenco dancing."

"Nothing to it duchess," he replied, "Remember my warm up exercises? Well flamenco dancing is pretty much the same thing. Stamp your feet a bit, wave your arms about and look cross, and nobody will know you're not the real thing."

"Really?" I murmured, doubtfully. "I don't think that'll fool anyone."

"Well, failing that," continued Manitas, "think of Joaquin Cortez."


I think Alicia Keys may have been given the same advice.

FROCK AND AWE

President Chinchilla of Costa Rica

You would be forgiven for missing intriguing news from Central America the other week. It appears that Costa Rica has a new President, by the delightful name of Laura Chinchilla.

Now far be it from me to suggest that someone who sounds like a porn star shouldn't run for high office. It's better than being called Newt, or Mitt. And it appears President Chinchilla is neither a pussycat nor a porn star. A bit of a Catholic hardliner by all accounts.

Catholic hardliners are making a comeback, which will make Manuel Estimulo very happy. The New New Pope (the New Pope was HHJP2, I was brought up with the true Pope Paul VI) is not comfortable with Harriet Harman's new Equality Bill. Well you can see why. It's not to do with gay priests, for Heaven's sake. (See what I did there? Heaven? It's a gay nightclub!) It's to do with Wimmin. You can't have them being equal to men in the Catholic Church. The men are jealously guarding the glamour.

As Nelson Mandela riposted to Archbishop Tutu after being admonished for his loud shirts: "I am being advised on my fashion sense by a man in a DRESS????"

Who wears the trousers in this couple?

We are now officially two days into Lent. I have given up oysters.* Here is the New New Pope opening the proceedings by having his lovely silver hair messed up a bit with ashes, symbolizing repentance. After the latest revelations from Ireland, they should have tipped a bucketful over his head. I dare say this will elicit some hysterical responses from the Satanists and Presbyterians among you, but oh, the frocks, the FROCKS!







* (You can't eat oysters anyway. Ed.)

YEAR OF THE TIGER

Apart from being Valentine's Day, Sunday also marks Chinese New Year, or Têt as it is known in those parts. We are leaving the year of the cow and entering the year of the tiger. Mr Woods will be relieved.

In keeping with my newly apocalyptic frame of mind, I've just started reading Oswald Spengler's "Der Untergang des Abendlandes" or "The Decline of the West". This was written in 1918 but still rings fairly true today, and is an early product of a movement which came to be known as cultural pessimism. Spengler believes Western civilisation is on its last legs, and is about to go the way of the Romans, i.e up the Tiber without a padulum.

Which begs the question: what next? Looks like a choice between Islamo-fascism or Chinese communo-capitalism. I'm going with the Chinese, mainly because I don't look so hot in a burqah, and the Chinese like a drinkie. They both have an appalling attitude to human rights, so might as well go with the ones that like to party. I am learning to spit at bus stops and may have to take up smoking again. I'm having dim sum for dinner, squatting in front of the telly.

I, for one, welcome our new overlords.
That'll be tea for 203,567 then?

Kung hei fat chow, everyone!

END OF DAYS

I am in an apocalyptic frame of mind. I blame it on the BBC series "Survivors". It's science-fiction, but not totally beyond the realm of the imagination. A virus has wiped out 95% of the world' population in a matter of days, and it's about how the survivors behave. It's not pretty. Our heroes are of course all good chaps, but not everybody comes through Armageddon with a sense of public duty. And so man is forced into conflict with his fellow man yet again, in order to survive.

Apocalypse the noo

If the worst comes to the worst, I'm sticking with McChe. His street skills are second to none. He knows how to polish silver with fag ash and spit. Skills like that will be invaluable come the Apocalypse. Ray Mears eat your heart out.