Bing Crosby: Time we banned his festive stink

Time I think to found a Ban Bing Crosby (BBC) society or club. I stormed out of two stores today because of their nicotine-coated White Christmas serenades as old bitch bargain hunters trampled to death promising young sperm donor shop assistants: to think, profit margins might have grown fatter on my festive generosity. Alas, Bing Crosby shooed me away and so two businesses now face an uncertain future in these already parlous economic times.

St Augustine, in his The City of God, speaks of men with “such command of their bowels, that they can break wind continuously at will, so as to produce the effect of singing." Flatulism has an illustrious history: the well known Gemini, Le Pétomane (Joseph Pujol), was a professional farteur who imitated musical instruments. The professional farters of medieval Ireland were called braigetori.

So Crosby fans should not be upset if I say that the only possible explanation for Bing’s low, rumbling crooner emissions is that he was a consummate flatulist whose anal belches were recorded then replayed very slowly indeed (to the accompaniment of trumpet, piano, fiddle and his lilting whistlings).

Par rump pa pump pum etc etc (my thanks to Crista for this exemplary reminder).

Whether such a noise should be actively encouraged where decent couples (and their children) congregate to purchase goods is worthy of serious thought. Lest we forget, flatulence is a major cause of global warming: do we really want to encourage the celebration of this destructive sound as we seek budget-friendly goodies thanks to a 2.5% reduction in VAT?

To finish, listen to Bing singing a hymn to gay love (did you not realise he celebrated gay love? Oh dear, indiscreet me. And he beat his kids and had bad breath). And then listen to a cacophony of farts for comparative analysis, click here.

Mark McGowan: A very poor Menezes stunt. Pathetic

NB If you leave a negative comment on YouTube for the video below it will be deleted - censorship in a word. Three of my comments have been removed. Mark McGowan practises censorship.

A very disappointing re-enactment of the death of the police killing of Jean Charles de Menezes by stunt artist Mark McGowan. I was expecting to see a man running into a Tube train and shot to death by hyped-up, self-aggrandising police as a bunch of civilian cocks and cunts screamed and cowered around and about in the carriage. Instead we have a silly cock with a bloodied grocery box on his head lying in the street outside Stockwell station as unwashed and beardy photographers take pictures: plainly London Underground did not grant permission to protest the unlawful killing of an innocent man. A very, very poor performance. I shall not be publicising McGowan's work again. Next he'll be doing at-homes with Hello! And it's time he learned to spell.

Rupert Everett stars in Madame Arcati play

Madame Arcati can scarcely believe that Rupert Everett is to star in the Broadway revival of Blithe Spirit, the Noel Coward play in which I was born. Angela Lansbury will play me, the "dotty medium" (I may sue). Rupes is Charles. Seasoned Arcatistes will be amused by his casting for he has featured a number of times on this blog, recently as the once-wearer of a cockring which chipped the tooth of an enthusiastic blower. And Duncan Fallowell drew my attention to Rupes in the buff.

Is it possible that Rupes was drawn to Coward's creation through the blogging mediumship of Madame Arcati? How curious is fate.

Tim Walker: Mandy/Osbo/Nat scoop mine, not Ivens'

The Telegraph's Mandrake gosser Tim Walker writes ....

I am Tim Walker and I am cheered by these kind remarks. The only reason I started boasting about the Deripaska/Osborne/Rothschild/Mandelson (perm any pair you choose as we mentioned them all in our first story) is that Martin Ivens of the Sunday Times claimed in the Guardian media section that this scoop was his. It was not at all.

Dear Tim,
Thank you, darling. In the light of this explanation, I fully concur. Ivens' vainglorious piece was truly comic, especially since he claimed he and his mighty paper would be pursuing Mandy ... and delivered precisely nothing so far as I can see, beyond lots of made-up questions designed to bring about a third Mandy resignation. Mandy is Arcati's hero, his media manipulations are a thing of Banksy, though I wouldn't expect you to agree with that. MA x

Recession! HM The Queen sets an example

"The Queen has urged Royal Family members to be mindful of the widening economic slump by refraining from public displays of luxury" - all media.

Changeling: Brilliant film despite Dominick Dunne

One of the best movies of recent times is Clint Eastwood's Changeling starring Angelina Jolie: it's out this week in the UK and I hope picks up Oscars galore. For the most part Jolie reins in her natal aggression - her cherry blimp lips the only early indicator of inner fire - giving rise to a sense of a sparky, molten repression in the face of police corruption. Critics have raved or bitched depending on the stomach for emotional intensity: plainly the absence of an explosion or a superhero has brought on the delirium tremens in some of the kids; others can't cope with multi-genre plotting (otherwise known as Life), this being based on a true story. I'm not going into what the film is about -if you're still in the dark, sample this lot.

Clint's only lapse is the presence of Dominick Dunne, the Vanity Fair celebrity name-dropper, in the film: he appears as some sort of mute juror late in the movie, resembling an ancient plucked owl about to swoop on a rodent. Readers of his meandering prose will know that he specialises in attending celebrity court trials, writing them up in VF and in books, for the most part telling us what we've read or seen already, then filling these chronicles out with gossip-lite intermissions about what some society twat told him about so-'n'-so in the twat's castle. He's so on the ball that he thought OJ Simpson would be found guilty of killing his wife and her friend despite Princess Diana's shrewd analysis to Dunne that he'd be acquitted.

So, Dunne's presence in the film is a wink to fans of his ringside slebby court chronicles. Well, it keeps the old fucker going, I suppose.

Tim Walker: Nitwit Nat not on yacht (to start with)

Mandrake gosser Tim Walker of the Telegraph writes today, "After my revelations about how Nat Rothschild had been hobnobbing with the Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, George Osborne and Lord Mandelson during the summer ... "

Ooh, let's stop there, duckies. It's true Tim first revealed on October 5 that Mandy and Osborne had been hobnobbing with Deripaska on the last's yacht - a very fine scoop I'm sure - but in the report no mention was made of Rothschild being on board, though he was described as the Russian's "close business associate". This changed when Nat wrote to the Times on October 25 making his various claims and placing himself on the yacht. Then Tim included Nat in his bulletins. Please amend your opening line, Mr Mandrake.

Tim's Oct 5 report (though the report carries a later date)

William Cash and his foursome

Dear Madame
In case anyone is interested (I doubt it!) William Cash's newest magazine has no less than four pictures of himself.
Anon

Dear Anon
Thank you for telling us. Which magazine is this? In ignorance one supposes it is dedicated to the super-rich and makes much use of the word "oligarch". I hope it's called something like The Cash Register or Heiress Today, Gone Tomorrow. I like the story of the silly rich cunt who is having a wing built for his or her doggies that will have eye-recogntiion technology so that the woofers can come and go as they please - that is something Cash will be onto. How's his marriage to Vanessa? I really can't be bothered with any of this but please feel free to tell me what you all know starting with the magazine - has it Nicholas Coleridge as a contributing writer?
MAx

Sebastian Horsley: 'I'll marry him on Christmas Day'

Gosh, suddenly I'm the patron saint of escorts! Well, they're better company than ghastly hacks, that's for sure. Now, Sebastian Horsley. He has many friends, I see, and one in particular, Belle, got in touch and I said to her: C'mon, talk to me about him, tell us about Sebastian, the man who says he's visited over 1,000 prostitutes and is a Will Self old chum. So this is what happened ...

Belle, how long have you known Sebastian? Where did you meet him? What was the thing that sparked the friendship?

I met Sebastian in September at an Arts & Literary festival called Gold 08 which took place in Shoreditch. Myself and a friend had recently read his fantastic book, Dandy in the Underworld (named after the Marc Bolan tune) and had spoken to Sebastian a couple of times through cyberspace, so when we heard he was doing a talk at the event, we felt it extremely necessary to go and meet the man himself!

After his talk, which we seriously enjoyed (I think that some others in the room were a touch shocked, and definitely did not get some of the topics he was describing ... a bit like on This Morning!) the three of us sat chatting away on the steps of Shoreditch Town Hall for a while, discussing all things from his book, to Bolan, our musical tastes, films, London, Manchester.

What did you talk about when you first met?

See previous answer.

Is it a platonic relationship?

He is of the male species. I am of the opposite. So yes. Sebastian?

Who does more talking, you or he?

Both? Although I never know when to shut up. Only when gagged!

How often do you see him? Is it mainly remote eg phone, email?

Since meeting Sebastian in September, we have hooked up once which was a couple of weeks ago. I visited Horsley Towers with another friend, then we went out for afternoon tea in Soho. I hope to be in London again in the coming weeks so maybe then, who knows!

Apart from that, we mainly chat via email as I live in Manchester.

Would you describe Sebastian as happy, content, unhappy, troubled, all of the above in a healthy balance?

N/A - Don't really think I can answer this as I don't know him 'that well' at present.

Tell me something of yourself?

I recently turned 26, which according to Sebastian is quite an 'offensive' age ha ha! I currently reside in Manchester and work in radio.

What's your view of his whoring?

I find it quite interesting to be honest. Until I read Sebastian's book, I hadn't really thought about it, but it all kind of makes sense, I mean most of the things that go on in the world, whether wacky or 'the norm' make some kind of sense and can be understood one way or another. Myself and most people who I know are a bit crazy and certainly not average, so I am very much a believer in that as long as you are not harming anyone, you should be able to do what you like and what makes you happy.

You bought him nail varnish recently. What's the precise colour?

I'm a huge fan of nail polishes and not so long ago came across the Barry M range. Now I have tried nearly every make possible, including the likes of Chanel, but I find these have the most amazing colours and don't chip as quickly as other brands, which I'd say is pretty damn good! I think that Sebastian would have been wearing either the Red Glitter on its own, or Bright Red, topped with Red Glitter. Didn't it look fabulous? - I think it even got a comment from Jack Dee post the This Morning interview!

What do you both talk about mainly now? Is Gordon Brown a subject likely to feature?

Anything and everything.

Are you in love with him?

Why of course! I do not think it is possible not to be. I've heard that every woman who meets Sebastian falls at his feet ... I did ... I actually then went on to fall down the aforementioned steps at Shoreditch Town Hall.

Will you spend Christmas together? If not, where?

Yes. We will be married on Christmas Day, then divorce on Boxing Day. What a way to celebrate!

Mark McGowan: The killing of Jean Charles de Menezes

In an extraordinary art event artist Mark McGowan is to re-enact the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes on Saturday, November 29, 2008. The event starts at 2pm outside Stockwell tube and finishes downstairs on the underground platform. McGowan says: "I think it is awful that de Menezes was killed in such a violent way. The cover-up and blatant lies by the police, who in fact have been giving false testimonies and purjured themselves in recent weeks, is absolutely terrible."

Sebastian Horsley: 'Fancy a fuck, Madame?'

Sebastian writes ...
Oh I'm so clever, I wish I could sleep with myself. Fancy a fuck Madame Antarctica? Or would you mind lying down while I have one?
Sebastian Horsley x

My Dear Sebastian,
How our sexual interlude transpires is a mere matter of detail. But I am having a bromance with Julie Burchill, and I'm thinking of a betrothal to Molly Parkin - it's not that I'm a starfucker or name-dropper, but one has to factor in all other considerations as my Moon is in Pisces. Though I have noted your aperçu: "People who believe in astrology were born under the wrong star sign." Still, Madame welcomes all-comers if they're interesting ....
MAx
PS And you are.
Duncan Fallowell naked

Sebastian Horsley: Fancy me not knowing of him

I didn't know of artist Sebastian Horsley's existence until I caught sight of him on This Morning talking about his visits to 1000-plus prostitutes. The nancers were talking about some idiot new law the busybody Home Sec wants to bring in which proposes to hang and quarter men who are into commercial cock-cunting, and there was Aunty Denise, 97, clucking away as Sebastian said he relished breaking the law. "Visiting all those prostitutes must have addled your brain," she barked, chins swaying like Capt Mainwaring's saggy testicles. To which he stuck his tongue out at her when she wasn't looking.

His nails were painted red, his eyes mascaraed. His collars had the wingspan of a golden eagle. I knew he'd be trouble when his off-camera audible sighs filled the air as the nancers said what they imagined their mothers, fathers or other restriction figure wanted to hear. It's not Sebastian's fault if Phillip Schofield confines his cock to the marital comfort zone. We really must stop trying to impose our comfort zones on other people: sex workers need taken care of, not nannying nancers and their corrupted Christian Reader's Digest approach to life.

I see now that Sebastian wrote a book earlier this year which passed me by, Dandy in the Underworld. Apparently he has spent £100,000 on commercial cock-cunting and another £100,000 on crack cocaine. The coke I can believe, the cock-cunting I'm not so sure about: I would need to assess the kind of prostitutes we are talking about here: male, female, tranny. I suppose I'll have to read the book to find out. He also underwent a voluntary crucifixion. Yet he lived to tell the tale.

Here he is, Sebastian Horsley's Guide to Whoring ...

Jimmy Carr and his voguish Dawkins comforter

The comic Jimmy Carr says he lost his Catholic guilt about being an atheist after he read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. So he appears to have replaced one faith with another. Fascinating!

Julie Burchill's vicar the Reverend Gavin Ashenden of Sussex University tells me that when he asked Dawkins to debate religion with him, the Priest of Atheism did a runner. Apparently his faith in No-God wasn't robust enough to meet the intellectual challenge.

Bond, Connery buggery and Roger Moore's sausage

Last night I dreamt that a man who looked the spit of Sean Connery was involved in a sexual relationship with another man. Then they moved in together much to the consternation of their respective wives. In another scene in a hospital, a third man said to the Connery man: "You have fucked that man [lying in the the next bed] with your penis for about nine years." And Connery man replied: "Yes, but a master enjoys it."

I have odd dreams it is true, and I think I know why I had this one. Earlier in the day I had been intrigued by the TV trailers for the Cuba Gooding Jr film Boat Trip in which Roger Moore appears by the side of a man in a restaurant, forks a sausage off his plate and licks the length of its shaft in a sexually suggestive fashion. A Bond association was subconsciously triggered, I am certain. Isn't the mind a funny thing? Or perhaps dream analysts among you may have other interpretations.

Legal notice: It is not suggested that Sean Connery is gay whatsoever: such an idea belongs only in the fantasy context of the above described dream.

David Montgomery - another flop on his CV

"FORMER Mirror Group boss David Montgomery has agreed to relinquish some control over his struggling European newspaper empire, Mecom," reports The Times today. What did I say sometime back? Find my posting on the fated pathway of the hopeless, bullying slag, Montgomery. My curse is irrevocable.

Charles at 60: 'Oh, blast, is she still alive?'

The ailing Sunday Express seems to think Charles will start "ruling" when he's 65 (the claim is wisely condomed in quote marks). This is not the view of former Express royal corespondent Ashley Walton. Writing on Tina Brown's Daily Beast site he claims: "Palace 'friends' say that now, at 60, Charles accepts that the Queen’s robust health and formidable genes mean he is unlikely to be King until his late seventies." In other circumstances this might seem a happy prospect - you know, your mum living to about 100 - but here it sounds like a depressing, life-restricting, doom-laden prophecy. Still, what does Ashley know? He can't even get Dame "Judy" Dench's name right.

Ashley's supposed inside view of Charles' 60th Birthday (ie Nexus cuts and warmed up goss), click here.

Meanwhile, 10 arse-licks for Charles from Jonathan Dimbleby in the Sunday Times - composed in that deferential, solicitous awe (if spoken, adopt a measured, soft tone) which allows criticism before the crucial, forelock-tugging, pivotal but:

1 "Persecuted by moralisers, hypocrites and cynics ..."
2 "He is charming, generous and thoughtful"
3 "He empathises with troubled souls"
4 "He combines [a] generosity of spirit with an intense seriousness of purpose"
5 "A loving father"
6 "He finds himself sought after for the expertise ... and ...wisdom he has accumulated 'minding' about the world"
7 "Bill Clinton, says: 'The prince is ... always a step ahead of me. I am astonished by his reach"
8 Senior cabinet minister: “He has an amazing range of interests and none of them are superficial."
9 "The complex, driven man ..."
10 "Those who have been on the receiving end of his solicitude do not easily forget it ..."

For more of this, click here.

Jody Tresidder: Christopher Hitchens and a female boxer

Writer Jody Tresidder has responded to my posting "Obama to close Guantánamo; Hitchens can't imagine" in which I commented on Christopher Hitchens' waterboarding stunt for Vanity Fair ...

Dear Madame,
I just bet Hitchens would have been waspishly snooty had someone else (appropriately dazzling) done the "stunt" first! And Madame's line - "Christopher Hitchens as the intellectuals' David Blaine is about the only nice thing I can think to say about this show-off..." is horribly good.

Still, my stomach agrees with Ms. Baroque's qualified defense of his gumption.

I once interviewed (for the Evening Standard) a fiercely clever and adorable Brit who had become a female boxer here in the US (not a "foxy boxer" - a real contender, even if women in this sport remains something of a stunt draw).

I can still recall almost fainting with unexpected, drenching terror when she quietly marched away from our jolly pre-bout chat down a grimy corridor, and into the distant, noisy, blue flood-lit ring. I suddenly understood she was walking out there to get voluntarily punched very hard by someone else.

I realized I could not ever - not even with the strict safety rules - visibly stricter for women than for men - the meticulous refereeing, the hysterical, uplifting support of the crowd and all her mental and physical preparation - never in a billion, million years, climb up into that ring myself.

And I knew even as I disapproved of her - a little bit- for being suckered by the perverse glamour of it all, she had gumption - and I did not. So my stomach feels the same watching Hitchens here. I couldn't do it.

Darling Jody,
Always a pleasure to read you. I don't doubt Hitchens' courage/gumption/chutzpah - whatever you want to call it. But then Blaine and his kind can boast these attributes. If we are agreed (and I'm not sure we are) that the essential nature of Hitchens submitting himself to waterboarding was a stunt (ie done for self-publicity) then we need not dwell too much on his derring-do. It's amazing how the prospect of even more acclamation steels the heart: camera clicks and flashlight are as mother's milk to the brave self-appointed lab rat. As for the female boxer, that was work. MA xxx

Baz Bamigboye nominated for a Winslet Bafta

The ever-excellent Access Interviews turns its attention to the Mail's showbiz gadabout Baz Bamigboye and his latest frightful tongue-fuing of actress Kate Winslet. According to Baz she should be up for all sorts of film awards in early 2009: let's hope her ego size is immune to adjectival puffery. After translating Baz's nipple-teasing fawesome prose, AI nominates Baz for his own Bafta which one takes to mean, in context, a spesh trophy for Brown-nosing, Arse-licking, Flattering, Toadying Adulation.

Apparitions: Should Christopher Hitchens be exorcised?

Amused to glimpse a copy of Christopher Hitchens' God Is Not Great in BBC1's new supernatural drama Apparitions. The book was the property of a demonically possessed loon who denied God's existence. Perhaps now he's sampled waterboarding, Hitch would care to go through an exorcism to see what happens: I am sure he could churn out a 5,000-word report for Vanity Fair on the experience and re-trash Mother Teresa on the way.

Otherwise, I don't think Apparitions all that good. A pity because all the catalogue-driven atheists in the chatterati will relish its cancellation. It's just quite dull and derivative with story turns straight out of The Exorcist, such as the omniscient demon that repeats words said to or by the priest recently. There's even a flight of stairs that The Exorcist's Father Karras might have fallen down.

Apparitions' Martin Shaw has simply placed his Judge John Deed in clerical garb and grown a bit of face moss. TV adores middle-aged male heroes. Frost, Poirot, Tom Barnaby, Dr Tony Hill, Dexter, and many more. All they do is stroll from one scene to another and then ask questions while appearing sceptical. You know their prostates are enlarged and they can only manage a semi these days, but they're still all-there mentally. Scotch helps. Shaw looks like he knows it all. Perhaps his character could do with an ylang-ylang massage. That might sow a few seeds of welcome doubt. There's nothing more annoying than a confident Catholic.

UK film censor: Getting baader and baader

More arcane and inconsistent decisions from the movie censor, The British Board of Film Classification.

I can't see why it should give an 18 to The Baader-Meinhof Complex when it only rated The Dark Knight Batman film a 12A. Of the former it notes the strong language, nudity and "intense scenes" - an odd phrase. Baader-Meinhof is certainly an intense film in that it is a serious dramatisation of terrorist actions and motivations. It's a movie for a grown-up sensibility.

Dark Knight features highly stylised violence and many scenes of brutality, such as when Batman repeatedly beats the Joker during an interrogation or when the Joker appears to push down a man's face onto a sharp object. The BBFC makes a virtue of the "disguising" of these actions. That's not the word for it. There is no question about what we are seeing: if the speed with which the camera looks away is the major criterion, then someone needs their head examined. Violence here is a crucial feature of its commercial appeal: it's part of the genre.

Oliver Stone's W. has a mystifying 15 for its "strong reality footage" which "includes sight of some badly disfigured corpses, including children. Although the images are quite brief it was felt that they were too graphic and potentially upsetting to younger teens." But these teens probably see images of this sort on the evening news every week. The violence implied by these images is actual, not an exploitative element of a genre.

I can't help but wonder whether the BBFC takes too much account of the seriousness of a movie in relation to sex, violence and language. W. and Baader-Meinhof are serious in intention: both throw light on dysfunctional establishments and war. Batman is a fantasy, something that colours the BBFC's perception of the effect of its violence.

At some level the nitwits of the BBFC plainly factor in political intentions in their assessment of a movie, as if to say, "Oh, this is a serious film, that fact alone magnifies the effect of the sex/violence/cuntings." And let us not forget, Warner Bros and others lobbied the BBFC for the more lucrative 12A rating of The Dark Knight.

Obama to close Guantánamo; Hitchens can't imagine

Obama is expected to close Guantánamo. He said he would during campaigning and there's no reason to doubt him now. Detainees will be sent home where possible: I don't like his proposal that some should then be deported to the US to be tried in special courts. But I do like the idea of military personnel, lawyers, politicians and certain journalists facing human rights prosecution for their wide-based complicity in the illegal detentions: I doubt however Obama will go that far. But he should. America must atone for its failure to be better than our enemies.

Meantime, watch one of the vicars of the Church of Atheism, Christopher Hitchens, do something useful for a change, getting himself waterboarded (ie tortured) by US "captors". The things people will do for the greater good of career!

Singer Will Young is reading Ulysses

Yes. It's something he feels he must do. But it's hard-going, he admits.

Bello to Bloom: "What else are you good for, an impotent thing like you? (He stoops and, peering, pokes with his fan rudely under the fat suetfolds of Bloom's haunches.) Up! Up! Manx cat! What have we here? Where's your curly teapot gone to or who docked it on you, cockyolly? Sing, birdy, sing. It's as limp as a boy of six's doing his pooly behind a cart. Buy a bucket or sell your pump. (Loudly.) Can you do a man's job?"

I shall ask Will what he made of it all. Ten years from now. After all, Anything Is Possible.

Hack Adam Smith tells Trinity Mirror to "fuck off"

A cock-cunting and drunk British regional journalist in Miami tells his employers (the Birmingham Post and Mail and Sunday Mercury) to "fuck off" so he can set up a magazine. He describes himself as a hard news journalist but admits his papers cut and paste stuff off the BBC website: now there's a surprise. Worthless owner of the papers, Trinity Mirror - which is sacking hacks right, left and centre - has made no comment.

Arts correspondent Dalya Alberge exits The Times

The Times has parted company with long-serving arts correspondent Dalya Alberge for some reason. Ben Hoyle is being bumped up. The paper will to continue its policy of promoting graduate trainees - cheap and that's the way with dead tree journalism these days.

Tina Brown: She sees the light at last. Hallelujah!

Tina Brown has followed my advice and reduced the number of bylines she gives herself on her Daily Beast commentaries from three to two. She has also done as I asked and stilled that irritating moving left-hand byline that stalked the reader as he or she scrolled up and down her long sentences. This is the power of blogging, darlings. You could put her in a ducking stool and immerse her in Kung-Fu Panda's wee-wee for the next four years and she would still deny any such influence, but Madame Arcati knows better.

I am also enraptured that her piece on Obama reveals signs of a warming to mystical order after years of merely fashionable materialism - her ex Martin Amis, and her admirer Christopher Hitchens (as vicars of the Church of Atheism), will be most put out. "This has been an election full of magic," she writes, correctly. "White Magic that only the black man from everywhere and nowhere could perform. Even his adored grandmother dying on the eve of the victory had a mythic feeling of completion to it in a candidacy full of signs and symbols."

Isn't that marvellous? She's so up there with Ian Fleming who also respected the paranormal signs that guide humanity, presented as coincidence, numerical key and miracle - indeed without this knowledge we would never have had 007, the worldly presentation of the search for gnosis through union with a Bond Girl (Grace Jones was lovely). Of course, there will be those who say Tina is only being metaphorical and figurative, likening an amazing moment in our history to the supernatural claims of yesteryear's cave-dwellers and beardies, to convey her sense of awe at beheld wonders.

But I think otherwise. Tina is my new friend and I take back all the elegantly written abuse I have heaped on the poppet. Click here

Barack Obama: He's got something in his mouth

Dear Madame Arcati,

Before we move on I think it's worth mentioning that Obama will be the first US president since the Second World War to have his own teeth.
Best wishes, Duncan Fallowell

Dear Duncan,

A most excellent observation. It is also a truth universally acknowledged that the taller candidate invariably wins the US presidency. On the present trend we can look forward to an 8-foot boss-person in 2020. Mr Obama already looks like one of those stilts walkers one finds at left-wing carnivals that Glenda Jackson or Dame Helen of the Mirren frequents. There's also something about presidents and side-partings but I'm not sure whether this correlates to the side of dressing. Of course, I don't have to concern myself with such matters.

Madame Arcati extends her best wishes to the US and its new president-elect. A cock-cunter if ever I saw one.

MA x

The Colony Room: Fuck off you filthy drunks. Cunts.

Dear Member
Please please make the effort to turn up tomorrow Wed 5th November for the AGM at 13.30 at the Club. As you may hear, the meeting is a sham and quite improperly called but it is vital that we show the strength of feeling amongst members that we want our Club to continue.

No doubt it will be run in the same vein to which it has been called and I somewhat doubt that members will get any realistic opportunity to be heard by the meeting. Michael Wojas will probably have a tight hold on the microphone and not to offer it to anyone else! It is quite likely that I will be 'barred' from the meeting - on what basis I know not.

He may have persuaded the so-called sham committee to declare that I am no longer a member. So be it. Regardless, please make your feelings known. If you support the continuance of the Club and as a member can attend, then please take the lead of people like Michael Beckett who has valiantly chaired to 'Shadow Committee' and others such as Margaret Manning, Kathy Dalwood, Kealan Doyle, Hamish McAlpine, Laurence Lynch, Johnny Thornton and Sebastian Horsley. Hope to see all you members there

With all best wishes Long Live the Colony Room Club.

XXX

Twiggy

Nicky Haslam: A satirical song by Christopher Simon Sykes

Author Christopher Simon Sykes has composed a satirical song on not being invited to Nicky Haslam's recent society birthday party ("I'm not yet 70") in Roehampton. Most amusing.

James Bond: Modern King Arthur is Jung at heart

Ian Fleming: student of the occult

As the world's publics flock to cinemas for the vicarious joy of watching a grown, renewable man kill unrenewable, other grown men - the appalling Quantum of Solace - I have just finished reading a most fascinating esoteric book about James Bond and his creator Ian Fleming.

Philip Gardiner's The Bond Code - The Dark World of Ian Fleming and James Bond argues persuasively that Bond is a creature of ancient myth and modern psychological theory. He likens Bond to fairytale heroes such as King Arthur and Robin Hood (the dragon-slayers) who all must "unite with the feminine principle" (in the case of 007, the Bond Girl) to kill villains who represent the dark side of Bond's own soul. This marriage of male and female Gardiner calls an "alchemical conjunction", essential for spiritual salvation.

Fleming was very much a student and disciple of Carl Jung whose explorations of the psyche were inclusive of presently-termed mumbo-jumbo topics such as astrology, dream analysis, the occult, alchemy. Gardiner thinks that the Bond tales are a representation of psychological and spiritual light and darkness. Occult references are to be found in Bond stories: the Tudor astrologer and mathematician John Dee signed his letters as "007" (apparently a sacred code and of course Bond's number) and Elizabeth I signed her letters to Dee as "M" (Judi Dench must see a dentist, btw).

Gardiner describes the spiritual references in Fleming's penultimate book You Only Live Twice. For example, Bond thinks his life is coming to an end because his wife has been murdered: he is assigned a new number by the duller suits: 7777. Apparently in Eastern numerology this translates as "It is done".

To quote the blurb: "There are numerous references throughout the books to Gnostic, mystic and alchemist symbols. Even character names are often clues to Fleming's secrets. Auric Goldfinger, for example, is an alchemical term. Auric means gold and the golden finger indicates the alchemist himself, who turns lead into gold. Hugo (mind, spirit, or heart) Drax (dragon or winged serpent) means the mind of the serpent - in alchemy, the serpent is the symbol of regeneration and wisdom, but also of negative energy. "

Perhaps Bond's global appeal has less to do with Roger Moore's arched eyebrow or Daniel Craig's resemblance to a freshly fallen conker than with some inner, subliminal recognition of timeless energies at work within us. As I say to all atheists and secularists, whatever their education or hair colour, "Now, now, stop sulking cos God withheld the sweets. Go lie down in a dark place and dream."

Do read Gardiner's book. Here, buy. (It's not something you'll read about in our Church of Atheism propagandist mainstream media - oh, hello, Roger Alton. Sorry to hear the Indy's circulation is in freefall. The price, alas, of copycat editing/hiring/thinking etc)

Dermot O'Leary: Stop the gay insinuations to Louis ...

... Walsh on The X Factor. Who do you think you're trying to bond with in a TV studio? Fucking Mr Regular.

As I wrote perceptively in 2006 (NB the Russell Brand reference): "O'Leary - he's perfectly functional, an auto-bloke who never does anything wrong, a TV-created idea of customised masculinity for a mass chippy audience. Not really witty, just fast. Attention span of a bluebottle. Stings like a hover fly. There's a factory somewhere churning out these "classless" content providers - he is the male Noughties but not very nice. Russell Brand is certainly a very different sort, will rise higher but burn brighter on descent."

(Pic: Dermot fortunately flaccid)