CHOPS AWAY, OLD GIRL

You know how you are sometimes taken by surprise by the irresistible magnetism of some people? The odious but strangely attractive Malcolm Tucker of "The Thick of It" is one. That Portuguese bloke who drives the bike on Rogue Traders is another. You can't put it down to smell when they're on the telly, Bananas. And then I started looking at their grooming. Every one of them had sideburns that came to mid-ear.

Ooh I love it when you're angry

Let me ride pillion

Don't know why, but he loves to see me cry

Oh, brother where art thou?

Not tonight ...

I recall a 2006 interview with Mr Zidane senior, father of the much-loved Zizou, who was talking proudly of his son who had just lost France the World Cup with such panache. He was recounting the ways in which Zizou was a chip off the old block. One of them was "he wears his sideburns exactly the same length as mine, at mid-ear, which denotes virility in our culture." The tribesmen of the Atlas mountains (of whom Zizou is a favourite son) have understood for millennia that the exact measurement of the sideburn sends out a subliminal signal to women.





Apart from Napoleon, Corsica is famous for the violent cult of 'vendetta' of which they are so proud they engrave the word on the blades of lethal looking knives sold as souvenirs, as well as comestible exports such as sheep's milk cheese, fig jam, and, er, chestnut beer. They are also keen on standing around singing a cappella with one finger in their ear. The more musically educated of you such as Gadjo and our gamelan-playing traveller friend in Reading will immediately recognize this as polyphonic singing, the rest of you just be quiet and colour in the pictures.

ABLE WAS I

Getting it up for Josephine

I was in Corsica for five days last week. Corsica's main claim to fame is as the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte, French national hero, as commemorated by Napoleon Bonaparte International Airport, the Hotel Napoleon where I stayed, cours Bonaparte the main drag of the capital .... you get the picture. He is their most famous son, and like Ronaldo, Jordan and Sting, is known by just his first name. Despite the fact that he was a dictator, he is revered by all the French as the man who saved France from the Terror of the Revolution, codified the law, rewrote the military handbooks, gave France an empire and kept the English at bay. (Until Waterloo, anyway)

Monument to Boney in Bastia main square

Frenchwomen secretly have the hots for Napoleon. I knew one elderly lady in Paris who confessed she had had an erotic dream about Napoleon that was so intense she had never forgotten it. She kept a portrait of him on her wall, and blushed slightly every time she looked at it. He obviously wasn't nicknamed Boney for nothing. He was married twice, to the ravishing Josephine who was not, contrary to popular legend, remotely black. She was born in the French West Indies, the child of wealthy white settlers. She was unable to give him an heir so he dumped her for Marie-Louise of Austria. He had many lovers, the most famous of which was perhaps Countess Maria Walewska, the famed Polish beauty, with whom he had a son. The Empress Eugénie is often mistakenly mentioned in connection with Bonaparte, she was in fact the wife of Napoleon III, his nephew, the last monarch and first President of France, and in my humble opinion infinitely more interesting than his megalomaniac uncle.

Pauline was Napoleon's sister, and at 22 was already a wealthy widow. Her Paris home, the Hotel de Charost, is now the British Ambassador's residence, and some bits of her furniture are still there. I have bounced on Pauline Bonaparte's bed. Pauline, like her brother, had a healthy sexual appetite. It is said that every man who wished to court the lady had to bring her a clock. There are 100 clocks in the house, and a little man has to come in once a month to wind them all.

Napoleon wasn't tiny, this is a myth created by the English who wished to diminish him. He was in fact about 5'7" which is pretty standard for a Frenchman. However, many Frenchmen of restricted growth model themselves on Napoleon.

My hotel in Bastia had a view of the island of Elba, where Napoleon was first exiled.

Elba, at dawn, with the night ferry arriving from Nice.

By a combination of boot power and marrying his family members into European royalty, Napoleon controlled many neighbouring countries and made a fair crack at uniting Europe, whilst showing the old money like the Habsburgs and the Bourbons who was boss. Not surprising that the French idolize him, whilst admitting he was a bastard. They continue this tradition in their football.

Talking of football, let us contemplate a haiku in honour of the first President of Europe, who is an Anderlecht supporter:

Herman Van Rompuy -

His name is only funny

if you are British

AUF WIEDERSEHEN, PET

By the time you read this, thanks to the miracle of delayed publication, I will be tripping along the Champs-Elysées on one of my regular jaunts to gay Paree. So why have I posted up a picture of the Brandenburg Gate? Read on, meine kinder.

Shock, horror. Bert announced this week he is hanging up his cymbals and going back to the Vaterland! He is going to be the Rhineland's answer to Gareth Malone, I believe, taking up a new position as Kapellmeister of the Berlin Lederhosen Boys' choir. No, don't even go there. Bert has been part of my life since I arrived in Brussels four years ago, and has a great influence on my speech patterns had.

Picturing G.Malone in lederhosen .... ooh

I was rather abacktaken, as this coming I did not see. I am left with the triangle in the hand holding. I am not sure what holds the future. McChé will soon from his residential position in a hospitalresearchprojekt back coming be, but he can not really the Bertgap in the KNOB* be filling. His blowing is very poor. And he hasn't got a uniform.

On this Armistice weekend, I dug out this old peacenik favourite. It has particular resonance in view of Bert's departure. This is what I will be singing if there is not a large bunch of roses delivered very soon.

* Kurt Nachtnebel Oompah Band

Dedicated to Tony Blair and George W. Bush.

STRICTLY DOES IT

If the thought of the Stones settling down on the sofa with a cuppa to watch Ronnie's ex-missus on Strictly wasn't bad enough, we now find Ozzy Eastbourne actually in the audience at the US version "Dancing with the Stars", cheering on his newly demure daughter Kelly.

Much as I applaud him putting aside his public image to offer fatherly support, this is just one more example of the insidious mainstreaming of what was once called alternative culture, which is happening under our very noses. Heavy metal rockers are falling over each other to "appear" on The Simpsons, which, although it is a very clever, amusing and self-deprecating show, goes out on the FOX Channel! That's Rupert Murdoch, people, the military-industrial complex personified!



I've just finished reading "Redemption", the first novel of Tariq Ali, that gorgeous old Trot, written in 1990, in which he cruelly mocks the anti-establishment movement of which he was once the shining light. He has hung up his megaphone for a comfortable house in Highgate (handy for Karl Marx's grave and a box at The Emirates Stadium) and has abandoned the rank and file to the ravages of post-Thatcher Britain. It's an appalling novel, to boot, with the most atrocious jokes (a leftie splinter group called PISPAW? A Sri Lankan called Abitmortoddy? Oh puhleeese ....) and should have been nominated for the Bad Sex Award. To paraphrase Malcolm Bradbury's advice to Arthur Smith: stick to politics, Ali.

And it's not just the old adage of "He who is not a communist at 20 ... " etc. Street Fighting Man has turned into Mondeo Man. The last serious demonstrations in Paris were by complacent students defending the status quo, and I don't mean the band. The once-feared CRS riot police didn't even give them the satisfaction of a good baton charge. Look at the demonstrations in London for the G20: how do you expect the crowd to put up a good fight when they can't even send out a proper riot squad to deal with them? Where were the Molotov cocktails? The cobblestones? Where is the respect, dude? The insurgents of May 1968 would have made mincemeat of that bunch of inexperienced muppets with tasers. Even the army has turned its back on the BNP. What the hell is the world coming to when the army is on the same side as the students? All this is stifling the natural rebellious urges of our young. In the absence of national service, how else are our young people supposed to learn the art of self-defence but in a good old riot?

The counterculture was a victim of its own success. What was once considered "underground" is now on the High Street. My teenage influences are now the daily playlist of Radio 2. We are witnessing a reverse upswing, with popular culture turning back to ballroom dancing, choirs, corny musicals, marriage (gay or straight), stricter parenting, locking up Polanski, a Tory government. We are fighting two wars in the Middle East, but is anyone marching against them? Nah. Can't be arsed.


"Train crash TV" is how they refer to such programmes as "World's Strictest Parents" - you don't want to watch it, but you can't help yourself. Just amazing how, round about the halfway mark on every programme, those evil teenagers crumple, have a good cry and decide to turn pussy. Am I alone in wondering if this is just for the television, or have they just picked kids that are easy to break? In the sixties the kids would see this as a challenge and go on the run, join a cult, hide up trees, mobilize the national guard. Anyone remember Jack Dee escaping from the Celebrity Big Brother house? That's the kind of Dunkirk spirit we want to see. I'm with the kids on this one. Let's have a bit more balance, and let the kids win one episode.

This will in the end provoke a backlash, if you are prepared to wait long enough. I predict in the short term a return to corsets, armbands and castor oil. Eventually things will get so straight laced that it will spark another wave of rebellion. It's just Lenin's theory of revolutionary socialism, stoopid. And round we go again ....

P.S. The calendar will cost about 20 euros a pop here in Belgium. If you know of a cheaper supplier, pls spk. Also, high res photos will be required. Some of those on your blogs and Facebook pages are not good enough. Perhaps there's a way of doing an electronic version? Turn your minds to this if you are of a creative bent. Or just bent in any way.

CALENDAR GIRLS AND BOYS

Every time I try to write a witty and entertaining post it ends up going all preachy and political. Perhaps I should start a new, serious blog. What should I call it? "STOP TEXTING WHILE I'M TALKING TO YOU" would be the general gist. Answers on a postcard please ....

As for Mr Griffin's performance on Question Time, I'm not going to dwell on it except to say two things: (1) He was rubbish, thank God, and (2) How stupid do you have to be to admit to being friends with the head of a "non-violent" branch of the Ku Klux Klan when you're sitting next to the feistiest black woman this side of Winnie Mandela? A great foot in mouth moment. It was nearly her foot in his mouth.

Bonnie Greer - beautiful, black and boy has she got balls

Anyway, I've had this idea. About getting a Bloggers' Calendar printed up for Christmas. No, not naked. Savannah has already agreed to be Miss June. Mr Coppens of Canadia will be Mr January. I'll be Miss February, carnival time. I'm waiting for some more replies via Facebook, but here's my first suggestion: this is how they organise conferences in Brussels - put the participants on the programme first then invite them to say no.

I feel inhabited by the spirit of Annie Leibowitz (yes I know she's not dead yet) and I may call in Mr Kim Ayres, society photographer, to help me pose the subjects in scenes from classic movies.

JANUARY

Donn Coppens and Lulu LaBonne in Rose Marie

FEBRUARY

Daphne Wayne-Bough and Crabtree as Eliza Doolittle
and Professor Higgins in 'My Fair Lady'


MARCH

Dr M and Mrs P as Jack Lemmon and Lee Remick
in 'Days of Wine and Roses'

APRIL
Gorilla Bananas as Yul Brynner in The King and I

MAYGyppo Byard as Al Capone in The St Valentine's Day Massacre
(Wait a minute ... that IS Gyppo Byard!!)



JUNE

Savannah and Jimmy Bastard as Bonnie and Clyde



JULY
Gadjo Dilo and Madame Defarge as Fred and Ginger in Strictly Top Hat


AUGUST
Scarlet and Guyana Gyal as Marilyn Monroe and Jane
Russell in Gentlemen prefer Blondes

SEPTEMBER
Kevin Musgrove as Bill Sykes in "Oliver!"
(with Mutley the Dog as Bullseye)

OCTOBERNo Good Boyo as a sailor on the Potemkin.


NOVEMBERPat and Inkspot as Ilsa and Rick in 'Casablanca'

DECEMBER
Kim Ayres as Kris Kringle in 'Miracle on 34th Street'