EASTERN PROMISE

Still on the subject of religion, in Iran the Islamic police are arresting women for not wearing their hijab correctly. You are supposed to completely cover your hair, and some shameless floozies have been wearing their hijab in a rather cavalier manner, letting the veil slide back on their head to expose their follicles. Which apparently inflames male ardour to the point of constituting a public danger.

For Allah's sake, it's spring, even in Tehran. The turbanned devils have picked a bad time to interrupt human mating rituals. In the human world, contrary to the animal kingdom, it is the female who displays in the spring by peeling off layers of clothing. And Eastern ladies are famously good at it. The oriental temptress with a ruby in her navel, undulating and exuding a heady perfume of musk, sandalwood and jasmine whilst proffering a platter of Fry's Turkish Delight will remain forever stamped on the memories of Englishmen of a certain age. The poems of Omar Khayyam tell us that Eastern memsahibs liked a bit of slap and tickle as much as the next girl. Repressing a woman's natural sexuality will only drive her into the arms of Sappho, like this Nigerian lady who is now on the run from Sharia law for taking four wives.

I deplore this attempt by the beardie gestapo to interfere with nature, and may I suggest the ladies retaliate by making themselves as visible as possible, for example by exchanging their boring old black burqa for a nice floral print.

LEAP OF FAITH

The bloggers seem to have got a bad dose of religion recently, one way or another. Expat Goth has been attempting to rewrite the Bible (as well as a number of other classics) in his inimitable style, whereas Tippler seems to have taken on the mantle of Ian Paisley in his ranting against the Papists. Aunty Marianne muses deeply on the nature of Jesus. Scrumpy has gone off to India to be a swami, and Gorilla Bananas is the small still voice of reason, preaching general tolerance and baring of women’s breasts.

The Japing Ape makes a very valid point about the need for religion to be entertaining if it aims to survive. Anyone who has ever been in a revivalist gospel church may ask themselves questions about the future of Songs of Praise.

The Catholics still understand about entertainment better than anyone - bells and smells, towering cathedrals, priceless art works and fancy dress, bogey men and spooky stories to scare the kids. The funeral of JP2 knocked anything by Andrew Lloyd-Webber for six. The chanting! The gentil'uomi! The loafers! The tassels and pompoms! The turning the coffin up to the crowd right at the end! I got so carried away, I even started to toy with the idea of reverting to the faith of my ancestors (the O’Harridans were very religious, and Grandma O'Harridan was often found on her knees or even prostrate in a devotional trance) and started imagining myself kneeling before a handsome young priest wearing a black lace mantilla (me, not him) as columns of incense enveloped us and angels sang Ave Maria. Then I remembered that was in a Madonna video.

During the dark days after Harold’s demise, I found the church to be a great comfort. Our old priest, Father Pat Shanahan, was a wise old man and a great listener, and confession was a way of unburdening myself of my worries. One day a new assistant priest arrived, Father Fabian O’Farrell, who was a bit nervous about hearing confession, so he asked Fr Pat to sit in on his sessions. Fr Fabian heard a couple of confessions, then Fr Pat asked him to step out of the confessional for a few suggestions.

Fr Pat suggested to him: "Cross your arms over your chest, and rub your chin with one hand . . . and try saying things like . . . "Yes, I see," and "Yes,go on," and "I understand." Fr Fabian crossed his arms, rubbed his chin with one hand and repeated all the suggested remarks with a slight incline of the head and a wrinkled brow suggesting deep concern for the poor sinner.

Fr Pat gave an approving grunt.

"Now, don't you think that's a little better than slapping your knee and saying, "No shit . . . what happened next??"

A THIGH IS JUST A THIGH

I have been watching a bit of the London Marathon on the TV this morning. Purely from a sporting perspective you understand, and absolutely nothing to do with those extremely fit Kenyan and Moroccan lads who look like they are out for a Sunday stroll in their very short shorts. I'll have to turn it off in a minute or I might need a pacemaker myself.

It is absolutely sweltering here in Brussels today. And I'm afraid I have a Big Job On this weekend, so here to keep you quiet is one of the best pop/rock songs of all time, ever, in the history of the universe, to encourage those lovely boys and girls pounding the London streets this morning. Older ladies may feel the need to go "Aaaah, bless" at the sight of the very young Stevie Winwood lip-synching very badly. Here is a question for you older ones: who and/or what is missing from this clip?

CRY FREEDOM

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

(From "The New Colossus", by Emma Lazarus, 1883 - inscription inside the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty, New York)

The tempest-tossed itinerant eco warrior who was living under my dining room table has eschewed the lamp beside my golden door and rejoined the huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Scrumpy set off in the general direction of India the other day, although I don't think a metro ticket is going to get him all the way there. I packed him some cheese sandwiches, an apple and a Mars bar for the journey. He had a dog-eared map on which Afghanistan was still coloured red. He has decided he is a swami, or a yogi, or something, and has taken the name Mahatma Manatcanda Ji. I don't think he'll take to drinking his own urine but one must let the young people find themselves, mustn't one?


I was something of a roamer myself at his age. I remember setting off to see the world equipped with a backpack and a copy of "Europe on $10 a day". I had visions of spending the summer in an ashram going "om" and meeting the Beatles, but had to settle for an Inter Rail ticket and a series of dingy youth hostels, where I had to sleep in bunks underneath large ruddy-faced lasses from New Zealand who wore long johns and were already bedded down at 8 pm, pretty much around the time I was pulling out my platform heels and make-up bag and getting ready to go out on the town. Still, I bet I got more fun out of my $10 a day than they did.


I didn't see much in the way of culture, I have to admit, but once you've seen one Michelangelo you've seen them all. (You didn't think I'd forget to put in a photo of a naked man did you?). In one month I managed to stagger from the Sistine Chapel to the Munich beer festival via Lake Geneva, and ended up in Paris where I ran out of money and had to resort to fan dancing at the Folies Bergère to make the fare back to Blighty. I burned my sleeping bag on my return and like Scarlett O'Hara vowed only ever to stay in five-star hotels in the future.


"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" sang Janis Joplin, mind you she also sang "Oh Lord won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz", so I'm not sure I'd take her as a reference. If we're reminiscing about the Woodstock crew, let's listen to the great Richie Havens on the subject of freedom.

SOME DON'T LIKE IT HOT

“Ooh, Matilda, it’s so hot!” complained Marilyn Monroe. I am like a wilted lettuce in this weather. Wayne-Bough Towers is unbearable in the mornings, and not just because the Berlaymont is the first thing you see when you open the curtains. My residence faces East, and mornings from about 8 until midday are like a sauna, I drift from bed to armchair in a sarong, fanning myself with a copy of the New Statesman and cursing the day I left the servants behind in Africa. You’d never think I’d spent years in the tropics. Perhaps it’s my Time of Life.

I am not good with hot weather. I’m not a beach person, can’t bear grit in my crevices. Being of Celtic colouring, I do not tan. If I do go (under duress, usually) on a beach I have to be under the shade of some trees (those silly beach umbrellas just give you sunburn in the shape of the Coca-Cola logo), wearing a long white organza dress, picture hat and calling for mint julep. The sun does horrible things to me. I cannot see well with the sun directly overhead, get headaches, and cannot read. My earholes are malformed and the earpieces of an iPod will not stay in, so if I wish to listen to music without disturbing others I have to use a set of BBC radio producer headphones which makes me look like some kind of DJ doing an outside broadcast, and I am constantly pestered by youngsters bombarding me with requests for Busted and The Streets. The other alternative is to take my “ghetto blaster” as it is popularly called, and I will be the first to admit that not everyone likes Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass.

As for the sea – ugh! Don’t get me started. Like many people of my generation who saw “Jaws” when it first came out, I am very wary of the sea. Even around Clacton you can’t be too careful, especially with this global warming business. All sorts of unexpected things could be popping their heads out of the water. I was once swimming in the sea when I glanced down and saw a great black thing underneath me. I didn’t know I could walk on water until then, but I literally ran on the surface all the way back to the beach, before realizing that what I had seen was my own shadow.

Swimming in the sea these days is like volunteering to immerse oneself almost naked in a sewer. Not to mention what the sea does to one’s skin and hair. Salt has its place, and that is in the kitchen. After a day on the beach I come off looking like a lobster that’s had an electric shock. I will probably have been bitten by something nasty, stubbed my toe on something septic, and have swallowed some sea water, which doesn’t bear thinking about.

I came across, in a manner of speaking, this early 19th century woodcut by Hokusai which shows the sort of unspeakable things that lurk in the ocean. It's put me right off calamari, I can tell you.