On beauty

If you type "beautiful" onto Google, this is one of the first images to come up. Why?

On maps and global warming

On the subject of maps and their different applications, I came accross this interesting site on Clive Bates' blog, which is trying to predict, through an application using Google Maps, the impact of the rising sea levels on the continent's coastline. This is what Italy will look like when the Greenland ice shelf will melt, adding 7m to the current sea level. This is how Alex Tingle, the application designer, did it.

Now compare it to this population concentration map based on the 1972 census, which is clearly outdated, but gives an idea of the ratio between floods and displacement:


As you can see, not only Venice, but also all the Venetian inland would be flooded, including Padua, Vicenza, Rovigo and possibly the southern edges of Treviso. All the coastline of Romagna, including the ancient capital of the Western Roman Empire, Ravenna, together with Rimini and all the tourist resorts of the Adriatic coast. Incidentally, this is the area that hosts the highest concentration of Italian SMEs, and is considered Italy's economic heart. Oh, and say bye bye to the leaning tower of Pisa too...

An Inconvenient Truth

One simple statement: you MUST see this film. Don't take my word for it. Take those of hundreds of critics and film reviewers who have praised the film and its moral imperative so far:

"In 39 years, I have never written these words in a movie review, but here they are: You owe it to yourself to see this film. If you do not, and you have grandchildren, you should explain to them why you decided not to." [Roger Ebert, on the Chicago Sun Times]

"If you see only one movie this year, make it An Inconvenient Truth. It may not be the year's best movie, or its most entertaining, but it's certainly the most terrifyingly crucial." [Jeffrey M. Anderson, on Combustible Celluloid]

"Every man, woman and child in the country should see this film, if necessary at the point of a gun." [Philip French, on the Guardian Unlimited]

For the more political implicatons of the film - so I don't bore those of you who don't really care - check out my full review on GlobaLab's Blog.

Planet Earth

I seem to be developing a complete addiction for the latest BBC nature programme, Planet Earth, which was broadcasted a few months ago and gripped the nation with some of the most stunning footage ever recorded in the wilderness. In my opinion, they have reached one of the highest peaks of what I would define aesthetic environmentalism. Some of the images of this programme are by far more artistic than most of what is normally referred to as art, in that they move with their beauty and carry a strong socio-political message to a vast audience - in this case, an urgent reminder of our responsibility to protect this fragile planet. Now judge for yourselves, and then tell me if you saw anything even close to the power of these images at the Tate Modern...:

Oh my

Totty's at it again. Oh my, oh my. When will she learn, that totty? Never, uh?

Another first...

Not content with my "first day back at school", I also had my first kickboxing training session today. Needless to say, I am shattered, even more so than after the horrendous hot yoga Lady V dragged me to on Monday. Clearly, we live in a dangerous world, we need to know how to defend ourselves, etc etc. But there are other reasons why I am attracted to this not-so-ancient martial art. This one, for example:


In fact, ever since Little Pea dragged me to a Muay Thai class last year, which started a 3-months long passion, only interrupted by a Polish cartoonist driving into me while I cycled across Ludgate Circus, I've rediscovered my passion for martial arts. I'm saying rediscovered, because I practiced fencing during my time at university, from age 19 to age 23, which I thoroughly enjoyed, although I was admittedly rather bad at it. Fencing (scherma in Italian) is by all accounts the Western European martial art, rooted in the ancient art of Medieval warfare, and characterised by archane and very complex rituals and rules. The only difference with Asian martial arts is that when you are fighting you look like this:


Even Brad Pitt would look ridiculous in that gear. Now you probably understand why I switched to kickboxing...

First day back at school

Today was registration day and all that jazz for the Government Department at LSE. I filled in my forms, queued up in the right places, had all the right documents with me... I was almost proud of myself. There were, as per statistics, lots of girls doing all these freshers' activities with me, and when I say lots I mean LOTS. Like, 70% of the people around me. It was really hard not speaking to any of them. Then, while trying to find the gym, I ended up chatting to this Canadian girl who, naturally, is starting her MSc in Global Politics with me. But you'd be proud. I answered her questions about London knowledgeably and politely - this is where you should go for this, this is what you should do for that - then shook her hand and waved a very firm goodbye. The one (I think) boys give girls when they are not interested in sleeping with them. I am sure she thought I was gay at that point (she was very pretty, probably of Caribbean origin), but I don't care. Just like my body is my temple, my principles are my rock solid house. Echoing someone else's motto (No men, No meat), I keep on repeating to myself: No women, No booze. No women, No booze. No women, No booze...

Where have you been so far...?

create your own visited countries map

Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios

Paulina: You're weak, Ivan.
Ivan: Yes, sweetheart.
Paulina: Don't agree with me.
Ivan: But you're right.
Paulina: Sometimes I like to be wrong.


Pepa: I'm sick of being good.

100 and 1 little candles

Indeed, ladies and gentlemen, this is my 100th posting. Quite a lot of water has gurgled underneath this bridge since that very first archived message, over a year ago, which was heralding the beginning of a new era. I am not going to dwell into nostalgia - it's against my policies, especially at 2:20 am after spending hours trying to make sense of the basics of HTML language. On the contrary, I chose to celebrate this birthday with an act of creation, or rather amoeba-like self-duplication, by setting up a second blog: GlobaLab's blog! [ignore the layout for the moment, clearly I need more than a crash-course in web-design...]

I know, I know, some of you are already rolling their eyes and putting their hands up in the air: another blog to keep track of?!?!? Oh bloody hell!!!

Rest reassured: the purpose of this second blog is to reconnect with those initial and feverish ideas, which led me to cross the ancient doors of the London School of Economics, in search of the mythological beast we call globalisation. The timing could not be more perfect, since my term begins on Friday, and my cords - the quintessential student item of clothing - are aching to get out of the cupboard. Over the next year, I will read, sweat, drool, argue, enquire, memorize, snooze, debate, cycle, search, ponder, write, gesticulate, question, jump and occasionally ooze until, with a primal scream, a flickering light will appear. This blog will serve the purpose of collecting my academic and less academic thoughts, together with the thoughts of those I know and admire already, and of those I don't know yet but are heartbeats away from entering into my life. It'll aim to be serious (insofar as I can be serious for more than a few hours), argumentative, stimulating, challenging, unorthodox, young, open to as many ideas as there are people out there. But most of all, it'll be an on-line creative process, just as GlobaLab should be, at the end of which I hope our interconnected paths will start making more sense.

As for my good old blog, which I have grown to depend on almost like weekly psychotherapy, it will remain my first port of call for all things personal: friends, family, random rants, counter-rants, music discoveries, movie reviews, Tuscan totty-adventures and London musings. All boring stuff concerning in particular silly countries will be banned from this site, and relegated to the more austere rooms of its younger sibling. And I apologies to those of you who like to cross-fertilise genres, but sadly the net sets its own rules, and I can only bow to the beautiful complexity of its emergence. So, please carry on reading, commenting, partaking: because, as an American author once said, "... no writing is a waste of time,—no creative work where the feelings, the imagination, the intelligence must work".

Especially with such readers as yourselves...

Some extracts from the Diario di Bordo

6 September - Kos

G&T Drunk: 3 (uhm...)
Miles travelled: 25

We leave the Turkish coast unaided by a gentle North-Western breeze (NW being the direction in which we need to travel), and crawl back towards the European Union’s fine Eastern islands, namely the Isle of Kos, where we arrive welcomed by handsome youths firing rockets at us. They are apparently planning to solve the Cyprus issue with a new diplomatic push. We squeeze the mighty Templars'F into a charming slot in the flamboyantly-new Kos boat-park centre. Neon lights advertising cheap diners and car-rental venues blink at us intermittently, reminding us of the ancientness of this land. We reluctantly leave the boat and stroll down to the harbour’s centre. After copious indecision between several eating holes proudly presenting themselves as The Best Greek Restaurant in Kos and The Number 1 Greek Restaurant in Kos, but all sporting identical menus, we succumb, exhausted, to the charming features of a 20something year old waiter. We are promptly fed large amounts of roasted meats surrounded by several pale-looking creatures from the Northern provinces of the Union. This place strangely reminds me of Mos Eisley, the inter-stellar space station in Star Wars where Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi look for transportation while pursued by Imperial storm troopers (the Turkish army, perhaps?). Strangely, our ship does't feel too dissimilar to the Millennium Falcon, and Filippo could well play a rugged Han Solo. Note to myself: must stop daydreaming...

7 September - Kalymnos

G&T Drunk: 2 (pathetic)
Miles travelled: 28

We awake full of oozing excitement with the knowledge a new crew member is about to join us and bring sexual respite to the only female on board, by offering her body to the hungry hungry hippos. Lisa fashionably stumbles off the late 10:40 ferry from Rhodes wheeling a bullet-proof suitcase and sporting an impressive absence of tan from her recent adventures in Ibiza. She is soon at home on the boat, demanding more room for her luggage and eyeing suspiciously at her bunk-husband, Luigi. We immediately set sail for the exotic sounding Kalimnos, and indeed – upon arrival – the natives rush towards us in clattering boats to see if we are edible. Having failed once more to secure dinner on the high seas (these tunas are clearly more clever than we all suspect), we opt for something more local. Sea-urchin hunt ensues, with me freezing my bollocks off trying to keep up with an ever-forceful Stena deepdiving to collect the spiky creatures. The dark night engulfs us with the site of a partial eclipse, clearly an omen of more wonders to come. Lisa’s sexual duties are put on hold when she demands to sleep on deck under the stars, leaving her dismayed bunk-husband Luigi to the company of his lone hand. Graham and I decide to keep guard on her virginal tits just in case the local fishermen misunderstand her for an inflatable doll left outside. I dream about fish-headed dogs tearing into young female flesh. Maybe those sea-urchins were a bit off...

9 September - Fournoi

G&T Drunk: 2 (appalling)
Miles travelled: 15
Quote of the day: “Was that the boat crashing into something?!?!?” (All, as the boat crashed into something)

We leave Lipsis in the late hours of the morning, as Filippo titillates our visual appetite with tales of wonder about the Isle of Fournoi. In fact, upon arrival after a few hours of sailing, Fournoi is hardly visible, engulfed in the rising waves of the North-Western Beltemi wind, the dawn of a week-long tempest that will set the tone of our last days on the mighty Templars'F. We seek shelter in a south-facing bay, the one with naked men flashing their bits on the beach. We set off - me all giddy in Filippo's wet suit armed with underwater sling-arrow and net; Lisa, Graham and Filippo in the dingy - in search of fish or anything that can be chewed and eaten. Alas, we all return empty-handed (Filippo's picture on the side is a clear fake), despite Lisa’s successful catch of a bait for a larger prey, and this time the Turkish fleet cannot be blamed. Still, last night's octopus catch, mixed with boiled potatoes and parsley by Stena's expert hands, together with a fresh cherry tomatoes pasta calm our hungry appetites.

The moon rises and the wind blows even harder, shaking the boat like an agitated Rebecca De Mornay holding the baby in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle. Our beloved seaman and trusted captain Filippo throws a last glance at the anchor: “All will be well, sleep like babies” – he reassures our concerned ears, clearly unaware of the cinematic images of cradles, babies, nannies and horrible horrors that my brain is flashing beneath my eyes. Needless to say, we are torn from our beds in the early hours of the night by a mighty bang, that of the boat hitting front forward (a mechanical and physical mistery to this date) on the ancient rocks of Fournoi. Panic ensues, with heads popping up from the cabins, feet hastingly running up and down the deck for no real reason apart the need to do something and senses trying to detect the first signs of water spilling into the boat. Stena takes the helm, calmly and cooly looking like a young Natalie Portman during Léon's crucial killings, but (I know) secretly praying her most devoted protector, Saint Charlie of Bogota. Meantime, a wide-eyed Lisa clutches fearfully her passport, shoes and a bottle of water to her chest, ready to jump if things get too damp. The rattling sound of the ropes against the windswept mast, mixed with the litre of adrenalin pumped through our veins at increased heart beat, ensures we all sleep 15 minutes each for the remaining part of the night. Except me. I can sleep through wars.


11 September - from Fournoi to Mikonos

G&T Drunk: 2 (understandable)
Miles travelled: 60
Quote of the day: “Where are we going?” (Graham as the waves reach 5m height)

“We should leave, it’ll be tough, I reckon, but altogether ok”, a horizon-glancing Filippo reassures us with his calmest voice, as we raise at 5 am, having hardly slept all night due to the howling lament of the wind, the Parkinson-like shaking of the boat, the friction of the ropes clutching to dear land, and the 192 bpm whacking of the aluminium wires against the mast. We head West, towards the Isle of Ikaria, as the sea rises and falls around us, and the Beltemi wind scratches angrily into our sails. We smile nervously as tiny sweat drops start appearing on our foreheads, soon to be washed away by the first of many waves hopping on board. No one, however, admits defeat, and Graham even suggests we try skinny dipping. But as we sail along Ikaria, the wind starts peacking at 40 knots, and holding our route is increasingly difficult.

After a moment of mild indecision, with some suggesting turning back to Fournoi and others opting for a detour towards Naxos - personally I always thought of it as a more attractive destination than Mikonos, but couldn't quite conjure up enough historical and literary information to swing the ballot to my favour - we decide to push forward. I heroically take the helm of the trustworthy Templars’F and somewhat hold on for a good couple of hours before giving it back to Filippo. I am loving my upper torso workout by the way. Luigi, meantime, has systematically refused to glance at the outside world, and stubbornly hides inside the boat, incredibly avoiding even a remote attack of sea-sickness. Lisa is secretly plotting to murder whoever suggested to her that sailing was a cool and fashionable activity, when in fact it's knackering and life-threatening. Still, she somehow manages to produce 2 hours of film-camera footage of our near-death experience while clutching tightly to the boat's central ladder.

After another hour of roller-coastering up and down the Med's waves, the shape of Mikonos raises against the horizon, just as our nearly-starved and hallucinating heroes are beginning to seek solace in religion. Typically all I can think of is South Park's Mormon Heaven in Bigger, Longer & Uncut, and I am unsure which Christian God I should pray to (assuming Christianity got it right all along, which I seriously doubt even in these wet circumstances), least I end up in a burning hole run by a gay Satan. A late attempt to reach Mikonos Marina ends in the loss of one of the two dingies and the near-death of several crew members. We turn back and finally manage to reach - after a 12-hour ordeal - a slightly more sheltered Southern bay, where we anchor and collapse dreaming of waves, waves and more waves...

Tomorrow

I'll be here, and you won't! Ah!

Oklahoma

In a spirit of reconciliation with my inner queer, I decided to treat myself this afternoon to the 1955 cinematographic version of Rodgers and Hammerstein's musical Oklahoma, starring a dashing Gordon MacRae. Absolutely priceless. Favourite quote: Shet yer face, or I'll fill you so full of lead, you'll be walkin' around like a duck fer the rest of yer life!

Also some all-time musical masterpieces, and it was really hard to decide which song to bang on here, with such classics to choose from as The Farmer and The Cowman Should Be Friends, and It's a Scandal! It's an Outrage!

But in the end, I had to go for I Can't Say No, for obvious reasons...

It ain't so much a question of not knowing what to do.
I knowed whut's right and wrong since I been ten.
I heared a lot of stories and I reckon they are true
About how girls're put upon by men.
I know I mustn't fall into the pit,
But when I'm with a feller, I fergit!
I'm jist a girl who cain't say no,
I'm in a turrible fix I always say "come on, le's go"
Jist when I orta say nix!
When a person tries to kiss a girl,
I know she orta give his face a smack.
But as soon as someone kisses me,
I somehow, sorta, wanta kiss him back!
I'm jist a fool when lights are low
I cain't be prissy and quaint
I ain't the type that can faint
How c'n I be whut I ain't?
I cain't say no!
Whut you goin' to do when a feller gits flirty, and starts to talk purty?
Whut you goin' to do?
S'posin' 'at he says 'at yer lips're like cherries, er roses, er berries?
Whut you goin' to do?
S'posin' 'at he says 'at you're sweeter 'n cream,
And he's gotta have cream er die?
Whut you goin' to do when he talks that way,
Spit in his eye?
I'm jist a girl who cain't say no,
Cain't seem to say it at all
I hate to disserpoint a beau
When he is payin' a call!
Fer a while I ack refined and cool,
A settin on the velveteen setee
Nen I think of thet ol' golden rule,
And do fer him what he would do fer me!
I cain't resist a Romeo
In a sombrero and chaps
Soon as I sit on their laps
Somethin' inside of me snaps
I cain't say no!

Ah, happy days...

A Scanner Darkly

I love going to the cinema alone in the afternoon. It makes me feel like a schoolboy skiving off school. Plus, I get to see some really interesting specimen of human. Secret daytime lovers. Old wrinkled grannies. Real schoolboys skiving off. There is always some old man lurking in a corner (that'll be me in 30 years time, if they haven't invented a better drug than cinema to keep old men entertained by then).

Speaking of drugs, I walked to the ticket desk of the Curzon Soho at 2 pm and asked which was the next film showing. The pale-looking guy handed me a ticket for A Scanner Darkly, the animated feature inspired by Philip K. Dick's masterpiece (his own definition). On the whole, I wasn't too impressed, and this is from someone who hasn't even read the book. Seeing Keanu Reeves on screen always has this mind-numbing effect on me, and only really strong plots keep me from drifting into semi-conscious sleep. It worked with The Matrix, at least. With A Scanner Darkly, what did it was Robert Downey Jr's brilliant performance as the schizophrenic and highly strung James Barris, the addict flatmate of Bob/Keanu.

The film hits one or two nails on the head, successfully bringing to life a not too distant future where War on Drugs and War on Terror have somewhat overlapped to create a permanent state of urban emergency. The heavy legacy of the current US administrations is well represented in a scene where a random protester standing outside a supermarket with a loudspeaker is first stunned and then shoved in the back of a black van by undercover agents, in front of an indifferent crowd of Saturday evening shoppers. But this film really isn't about politics or about the evil role pharmaceutical companies can play to get us hooked: when compared to the achievements of Syriana or The Constant Gardner, A Scanner Darkly's moral stand is laughable. No, this film is about drugs, and what they do to our brain. In this sense, probably the most poignant moment is at the very end, just before the closing credits, when a long list of Philip K. Dick's friends, who have either died or lost their mental and physical abilities due to drugs, scrolls down the screen. Remarkably, nothing quite so strong appears in the movie itself.

Instead, what we get is a sadly familiar tale of hallucination and paranoia (bugs seem to be an all-time favourite in this sense) resulting from drug overusage, without the surreal twists and dark undertones of David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch. But then, Philip K. Dick is no Burroughs, Richard Linklater is no David Cronenberg and - most importantly - Keanu Reeves is no Peter Weller. The resulting movie is, I am afraid, a little bland. There isn't almost any of the sweeping madness of Hunter Thomson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and certainly none of the charming quirkyness of Withnail & I. The message is one, loud and clear: kids, drugs are bad. Which of course, is a perfectly acceptable message to send out, only slightly dull if you're putting all that money into expensive actors and actresses and then drawing over them an entire animated movie. If that was the real message of the film, a poster campaign with Keanu's pleading eyes telling you "Just Say No" in every US high school would have been, I think, far more intelligent, effective and cheap.

Seriously

So someone has accused me of being a little too serious on my blog these days. While someone else is posting MTV leftovers on hers.

Aha? Really? Check this out, totties...!

Zhuangzi, Karen, Veronica: a conversation

[...] It's late for my mind now to write... but my fingers want to. And everytime I hear or read the name Zhuangzi, I cannot keep silent, I cannot avoid the world, and 1st of all the people I love (you), to know I'm a Zhuangzi-addict. And that this has saved my life, and keep saving it, and I know will always save me from the depths of disenchantment and anger.

So let me speak as who I am, and please forgive me if I miss other meanings in the article you pointed out. I appreciate what Karen Armstrong says. And I can speak just as a Zhuangzist (yes, as one guy says on that website, daoism is an umbrella...it's absolutely true, historically and philosophically, and I add that the problem is that these kind of umbrellas don't really protect you from rain, nor from acid rain... wu wei er wu suo bu wei: literally do not take action, and nothing will be left undone). Surely Armstrong has a good will in quoting ZZ, and she has a deep understanding of lots of things, the world, and the soul, and this is the reason that [...] she gets back to Zhuangzi.

My concern here is that she quotes Zhuangzi. This is my little nice wonderful great field, and not the rest of what she says, although very important. Stars are melting in the night, let me speak let me melt in what I really am by myself (ziran): a zhuangzist, and, what's more, a zhuangzi-addict. As most of the West, K.A. misunderstands what wu wei is: it's not simply sitting practicing the fastening of the mind. It is gallopping while sitting, as the Zhuangzi explains in chapter 4, the very same passage K.A. is quoting... Hey, this is absolutely not a criticism, since I understand she's not a China-expert, and since [...] lots of writers make every effeort to spread an Eastern-(para)philosophical trend.

And K.A.'s doing something great, she's doing what all the great books of the world are for: books, great books I mean, exist in order that a passage, a sentence, or even just a couple of words [...] go and catch the eye of a reader, stick to their minds and... and here words will wei wu wei, will practice wu wei... giving each sensitive reader a little enlightment, it doesn't matter that they are specialists in the subject the book deals with... allowing them to reach new insights in their fields, and their hearts.

Wei wu wei = acting the non-action = acting in a non-assertive way, and "non-assertive action" means, just in a few words, acting knowing that we, hearts and bodies, the animals, the grass, and evrything are part of the Dao (that is, the way is inside ourselves, we're made of the Dao, we're not just creatures stemming from it, we're not just "children" of the Dao); it is acting pursuing harmony between all the creatures, because they all are one in the Dao; it's acting in order to restore the original harmony and unity that constitutes the fertile soil of human nature and of the nature of all the creatures, and the "not being assertive" of this way of acting is just in its not being taken just for the benefit of me, veronica, nor against what's not veronica, nor against what veronica doesn't like... and veronica can act like this just because she's gone back in the depth of herself to what she really is, what she has always been, what she will always be (no matter if in different times she will be latent energy, or a daisy, or a mosquito, or one of the wings of a fly... or the liver of a hen... or an aylanthus leaf...), and so she has understood (or, better, has recovored the awareness) that she is a part of the Dao.

You cannot practice the fastening of the heart (or of the mind, it's just a problem in translation, and as a sinologist and philosopher I choose the translation more in tune with my soul, and, let me say, with the Chinese concept of what we call "mind"), you cannot practice the fastening of the heart just because you're not allowed to hold a book in your hands, and because, since no-one is allowed, you cannot even have a look to the back page of their newspapers! If it were that easy...! Being my competence to judge the zhuangzian aspect of the abstract from K.A.'s book, I do. This is my point of view, sometimes so great, sometimes so small. And after reading those abstract, I'm thankful to that woman that decided to quote zhuangzi, and to my friend alberto who wrote me an email so that i could read that abstract.

[...]

(finché una notte tenera e piovosa sarà tutta nostra)

De Profundis

[...] I know of nothing in all drama more incomparable from the point of view of art, nothing more suggestive in its subtlety of observation, than Shakespeare's drawing of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They are Hamlet's college friends. They have been his companions. They bring with them memories of pleasant days together. At the moment when they come across him in the play he is staggering under the weight of a burden intolerable to one of his temperament. The dead have come armed out of the grave to impose on him a mission at once too great and too mean for him. He is a dreamer, and he is called upon to act. He has the nature of the poet, and he is asked to grapple with the common complexity of cause and effect, with life in its practical realisation, of which he knows nothing, not with life in its ideal essence, of which he knows so much. He has no conception of what to do, and his folly is to feign folly. Brutus used madness as a cloak to conceal the sword of his purpose, the dagger of his will, but the Hamlet madness is a mere mask for the hiding of weakness. In the making of fancies and jests he sees a chance of delay. He keeps playing with action as an artist plays with a theory. He makes himself the spy of his proper actions, and listening to his own words knows them to be but 'words, words, words.' Instead of trying to be the hero of his own history, he seeks to be the spectator of his own tragedy. He disbelieves in everything, including himself, and yet his doubt helps him not, as it comes not from scepticism but from a divided will.

Of all this Guildenstern and Rosencrantz realise nothing. They bow and smirk and smile, and what the one says the other echoes with sickliest intonation. When, at last, by means of the play within the play, and the puppets in their dalliance, Hamlet 'catches the conscience' of the King, and drives the wretched man in terror from his throne, Guildenstern and Rosencrantz see no more in his conduct than a rather painful breach of Court etiquette. That is as far as they can attain to in 'the contemplation of the spectacle of life with appropriate emotions.' They are close to his very secret and know nothing of it. Nor would there be any use in telling them. They are the little cups that can hold so much and no more. Towards the close it is suggested that, caught in a cunning spring set for another, they have met, or may meet, with a violent and sudden death. But a tragic ending of this kind, though touched by Hamlet's humour with something of the surprise and justice of comedy, is really not for such as they. They never die. [...]

Highland highlights

On a taxi from the station to the hotel
M.: And there is Edinburgh's castle, look P!
P.: Did they build that to keep Al Qaeda out?




It's true, PDF... I am sorry...


Just because he was wearing a kilt AND sporting an Italy man-bag...! Fabulous!!!


Loch Creran...


And finally, the climb at the top of Beinn Fhionnlaidh, where we were almost forced to... er... eat PDF's ass... (that's enough! Ed.)


Naturally the biggest cloud in the entire universe had to surround us the moment we reached the top. Hence the view. Or absence of, better.

Radiohead in Edinburgh

Aye, the best band in the world.
They rocked the foundations of old Edinburgh.
They lifted the spirits of the dead
out of their silent graves.
They turned rivers into wine
and milk into smooth pearls.
They are and always will be
Radiohead.

Some snaps of the concert...




The exit...

Back from Scotland

can I just say

Thank GOD for Lady V. 2 hours ago, depressed and shattered, 72 hours of headache a clear sign of my impending decision. And now here we are, listening to Regina, totally pissed. gin and tonic. we can all do with a little top up, of gin and acid and whatever we can get our hands on. Top totty I say. And thank heavens for wireless, that's all I can say!

Just felt the need to blog this moment.