Molly Parkin at 80: 'Jesus would've slept with everyone in the Sixties'

A sweet but too-short interview with fiancee Molly Parkin in the Independent on Sunday today on the occasion of her imminent 80th birthday (next Friday). 'Jesus would've slept with everyone in the Sixties,' screams the headline, quoting one of Moll's catchy throwaway jokes.

I've never quite understood who reads the Independent papers, but if I were to judge by some of the early readers' comments, I would have to conclude that sexual enlightenment lies before many of them. A furtive, sneery, schoolboy-ish tone is all too apparent: editorial ambition so frequently overshoots the default stagnant point of audience evolution.

Next weekend, Madame Arcati will be running a special report on Molly's birthday do - there'll be no mention of John Mortimer's smacked arse or Bo Didley. Just Moll and friends and life now. Meantime, read the Indy's interview with her - and relish the gorgeous pic. Click here.

Susan Penhaligon poetry: The Ashes - in memory of actor Richard Warwick

Susan Penhaligon

Madame Arcati debuted (post-Coward rehearsal) as warrior. These days, this site is a salon of the precious talents - a refuge from the tyranny of media criminality and the tiresome reflexes of tenured hacks (I have yet to see one decent media cock-cocker or cunt-cunter at the Leveson inquiry - do you now see the playground prejudices at work? The recycling of stereotypes in real-life real-time?).

But enough of transitory fashion. The passing delusions. One of the talents the Madame Arcati salon adores is actor Susan Penhaligon. I have already showcased her poetry (click here to read); and I'm honoured to publish yet another example of her work - I ho hope publishers are paying attention.


The Ashes was written in memory of actor Richard Warwick (1945-1997). Susan tells me: 'He played my husband in A Fine Romance. Tragically he died of Aids. He was one of my best friends.'

The Ashes

Into the spider's web and stone of

Cheltenham

past the Daffodil cinema,

into the sleet

towards your favourite place,

on the day we left you for the

boatman.

Down familiar roads,

maps drawn heavy in the mind,

the lines of childhood unsmudged,

your brother rattling memories on

speed -

where the tree house formed

an ark in the Yew tree,

a hidey hole by the Holly bush,

in 61 the flooded fields iced over

for you to skate the Cotswolds.

We ford the mud-filled, wet-filled

fields,

the Severn banks collapsed,

a racing, river road

collapsing trees and sky and us,

us three,

the friend, the lover, the brother,

our faces wet with flooding.

We stand before the Elephant tree

and pour you out,

from our palms where we held you

we pour you out

like spice, like adding salt,

we put you to the liquid earth

in the flooded wetlands of your

childhood.

And through the rising deep,

across the seascape fields,

the waters covered the face of

the earth

and the Ark sailed on towards us.

(Copyright © Susan Penhaligon 2012)

Roger Lewis: Very fat ladies and their gunts

Britain's wittiest writer Roger Lewis has written again - I thought I'd share our correspondence with his gagging-for-it public. The 'Paris Connaught' he mentions below is a commenter to his last letter, should you wonder....


Dear Madame A,
Who is "Paris Connaught"? And if it is a "nasty little site" what is she doing accessing it? Paris Travelodge more like.
It's like Groucho Marx, who complained to some magazine in high dudgeon and moral indignation, and said any more of it "and I will be compelled to cancel my subscription."
Molly Noyle Parkin sends me "jokes" with rude words. I have taken to addressing her as Noyle, which is probably Welsh for the vadge.
Talking of which -- I have just discovered from my new doctor friends in The Royal Cornwall Hospital that the part in very very fat women between the overflowing belly and the vast bulging thighs is known by the profession as the "gunt".
It has almost been worth my while nearly dropping dead to know this. I offer it as my New Year present to you.
Always,
Roger Lewis

XXX 

My Darling Roger

Only this afternoon, Moll and I were gossing about you - and she sent me a delightful joke of yours. I don't know who Paris Connaught could be: the oddest people pass by en route to the porn sites. At least the bint - a word I love - is not Paris Premier Inn From £29 A Night.

I have never heard of the word 'gunt' and thank you for it. I wonder whether Fern Britton or Dawn French are familiar with it. Do you think their diet doctors fingered their gunts? Questions, questions.

Love, respect (but save me from 'Love and Light')

Your MA x

(I'm bunging all of this up. Francis Wheen 'liked' your last letter on my Facebook page, btw. A lovely poppet. Pity about the atheism)

Roger Lewis: Pancreatitis and being taken for Sir Roger Moore CBE

Roger Lewis

Fans of Roger Lewis were most concerned to hear he was at death's door over Christmas with pancreatitis. Happily, Britain's funniest writer was refused an astral tunnel visa and is now back home convalescing. In response to my solicitude, he wrote me the following:

Dear Madame Arcati,

Home at last, where I creep about the chimney corner in a brocade dressing gown like John Hurt doing Beckett's Krapp.

Pancreatitis. Not recommended. My fault for ignoring the diabetes symptoms. But still. 1 in 3 die of what I had -- and once I was on the IV morphine drip, death seemed quite a nice option. (As it still does) 

Because I have been patched up by the docs only to have to face fucking bills, fucking invoices, fucking VAT and fucking income tax demands and fucking trying to make fucking ends fucking meet in that fucking freelance way.

I think that's all part of what made me ill: 30 years of doing what I do and mostly all I get are inadequate and irresponsible reviews and (save for yourself and a handful of discerning others ) scant recognition.

Thrilled you seem to like the new book, What Am I Still Doing Here? - darker and madder (and better) than Seasonal Suicide Notes. If I ever do a 3rd volume I have the title ready: "I'll Just Die And Then You'll Be Sorry."

I'll go down in history for at least being Ronald Searle's final patron -- his cover the last thing he ever did.

One funny thing happened this week. I got these fulsome ("Darling Roger") emails from veteran film director Bryan Forbes, whom I only know very vaguely -- from my Peter Sellers research days. Turns out he thought he was communicating with Roger Moore. He (Bryan) only twigged when he asked with justified bepuzzlement "What were you doing in hospital in Truro over Christmas?" As indeed, what would 007 Sir Roger Moore CBE be doing in Truro over Christmas, or at any time?

The boiler has gone kaput this morning. On the whole I'd rather be back in the High Dependency Ward.

Gluckliches neues jahr !

ROGER

The Standard's Londoner's Diary picked up this story. Click here)

Cheiro: The man who foretold Wallis and abdication

Cheiro

Darling Madonna has single-handedly revived interest in dick chick Wallis Simpson with her much-mocked movie W.E. Since I have not seen the flick, and will probably successfully dodge it, I shall confine my commentary to a far more interesting aspect of this 'royal love story' - one that perhaps owes its provenance more to the exquisite bonding joys of PG-threatening tongue-fu than anything else.

I have in my possession an original copy of Cheiro's World Predictions, published in 1925. For those who don't know of Cheiro, he was an Irish astrologer and clairvoyant, aka William John Warner. Oscar Wilde's palm was familiar to Cheiro in which doom was writ large - the reading is recounted in Richard Ellmann's Oscar Wilde.

Thinking of Madge's W.E., I turn to page 72 of World Predictions to read Cheiro's forecast for the then Prince of Wales, later Mr King-Emperor Wallis Simpson.

'Rumour says that Queen Mary, and in a lesser degree, King George, have worried themselves seriously over this problem of the Prince who may be fond of a light flirtation with the fair sex but is determined not to "settle down" until he feels a grande passion,' he writes. Cheiro goes on to foretell: 'But, it is well within the range of possibility, owing to the peculiar planetary influences to which he is subjected, that he will fall a victim of a devastating love affair.

'If he does, I predict that the Prince will give up everything, even the chance of being crowned, rather than lose the object of his affection.'

Written 11 years before Edward VIII's abdication over Wallis, I'd say - in the spirit of compromise - that this wasn't such a bad guess.

Duncan Fallowell: The death of Diana

'Death is the normality, life is the exception.' I like this line from Duncan Fallowell's essay 'The Death of Diana', in his latest book How to Disappear: A Memoir for Misfits. A newspaper should buy the rights to this piece for the next death anniversary of Diana. Fake iconoclasts will be appalled.

Madame Arcati performs a resurrection (before Easter)

Ssshhhh! Don't say anything but I'm back. It's true I died and passed into an astral waiting room and met the Dear Leader and others; but what people don't realise is that you can return to this vale of crocodile tears if you wish - and if your body is still intact.

I won't be updating regularly, just when I feel like it. I am so distressed to read that Andy Coulson is having to sell up his house, take the kids out of private school and ignore Rebekah Brooks at parties - it's no way to treat a former lackey and professional liar, is it?

As for myself, many changes are swirling about - doubtless Neptune's passage into Pisces on February 3 will trigger certain things. I'll keep you informed. It is most important not to get bored, don't you agree? There will be more astrology on this site amid the usual updates on literary and cock-cunting matters. If you don't like it, just fuck off, dearies.

The next big party is Molly Parkin's 80th (no further invites available!) - and Madame will be there. In person.

Madame Arcati blog

An interview with Victor Olliver.

Jonathan King shock horror! A 'fair' press interview

The new Independent editor Chris Blackhurst can't be all bad. He has actually run a fair interview with social media pariah (du jour) Jonathan King when the press convention is to label him a paedo, run doctored pics of him ogling kids in parks (as Andy Coulson did at the News of the World) or pretend he never existed (as at the BBC, until the DG Mark Thompson reversed that foolishness in a written apology).

The Indie relates how its interview with JK came about: he wrote to Blackhurst pointing out that his memoirs had recently topped an Amazon book sales chart and that thousands had viewed his movies on YouTube and elsewhere.

Such maverick responsiveness in a sitting editor must be almost without precedent in modern times. To read the piece click here.

Duncan Fallowell's Turin letter: Magical mysteries... and a dark porn cinema

Dear Madame Arcati

I have just returned from an intoxicating period in Turin and, since you have an Italian name and also an interest in mystery, I thought you might like the series 'Tredici Misteri di Torino' [Thirteen Mysteries of Turin] which I have to-day posted on YouTube.

Here is a taste, click here.

The city is fortresslike and of massive blocks on a stone grid with secret baroque courtyards and rococo interiors. For its size it has a greater number of bookshops than any city in the world. And its caffés are even grander than Vienna's with better food and more gymnastic waiters. You will also be interested to know that it is one of the three cities of the white magic triangle (the other two being Prague and Lyon) and doubtless even more excited to learn that it is one of the three cities of the black magic triangle too! (the other two being London and San Francisco - how on earth did Frisco get in there?).

It certainly has the darkest porn cinema I've ever visited, a cosy retreat when the weather is inclement. Not that it was inclement. Glacial blue skies, starry at night, and the Alps snowcapped as backdrop. Anyway the city is weatherproof with nearly 20 miles of glorious arcades in the historic centre and something of interest round every other pillar. You probably want to know more about my erotic adventures there - but I'm still in a secretive romantic glow so allow me to fondle my memories privately a little longer.

With best wishes, Duncan Fallowell

My Dear Duncan

Thank you so much - it's been years since I stayed in Torino. As to your intriguing film, I find that an iconic water feature in a place of worship is never so much sullied as by stigmata of its electrical power source. Don't you find? Still, your average Roman Catholic is a pragmatist. Which is just as well.

I think Turin has found its re-creator.

Love & Light (to quote the hideous New Age lingo)

MA x

Modern manners: the graceless stupidity of ignoring emails

When a Jehovah's Witness rings my bell, I make certain he or she sees me through a window before I go about my business and decline to come to the door. JWs are easy to spot: they usually travel in pairs (may I just say that the Watchtower is quite well written), are clad in a chic I term shabby neat and always stand impassively and patiently at the door, as if embarked on a picnic-fuelled siege. Sales people tend to fidget.

My purpose in manifesting my person at the window is of course a calculated offence: I want them to understand that they have been observed and that I have elected to ignore them. It's a kind cruelty of a sort: it does at least invite the option not to call again, thereby saving them much in hurt dignity, if any.

A very modern variation on this rudeness is the ignored email. You, the sender, have gone to the bother of directing energy at a certain target (an editor, say). Perhaps you have suggested an idea, or pointed something out: in other words, you have bothered. The effect? Nothing.

You know the email has arrived because emails don't go missing: that's a modern myth. There is no such thing as a lost email, unless it has been wilfully deleted by some lazy cunt (ie the sendee). You may be on good terms with the sendee who reads your email - and then decides not to respond. You may be well known to the sendee, you may even have enjoyed carnal knowledge (perhaps not), yet silence is the answer.

Suddenly I am the Jehovah's Witness treated as an unwelcome visitor.

In the case of the office-bound editor or journalist who ignores emails, this is a behavioural exhibition of arrogance or sheer ignorance arising from tenure. The individual has started to imagine, thanks to the plastic security of status, that they are being inundated - that somehow everyone 'out there' is trying to sell them something. Thanks to their elevated position, the normal rules of etiquette are suspended because no equality is perceived. Silence is a type of response (in that it falls short of an expectation): its purpose is to advertise the importance of the sendee.

Silence is the flamboyant twirl of Big I Am.

The Silent are in transit, see - they hallucinate that their lives are moving at greater speed than those who are 'out there' - and the absence of response is a living demonstration. In any case, an ego trip based on not doing something is one of the delights of tenured journalism. It adds to the quilting of contract life, to the relish of professional hibernation on a Caffè Nero drip feed.

What I love most though is that The Silent usually come calling later, pretending not to have received the email or attempting to gloss over their graceless stupidity. That's when the real fun starts.

Jonathan King: The Sun, The Moon, Paul Merton and HIGNFY

The Moon in Me Me Me

The witty topical TV quiz Have I Got News For You? this week had Andy Hamilton suggest that, if The Sun closes down, the new tabloid should be called The Moon.

"What a brilliant name!" exclaimed Paul Merton.

Yes - so brilliant that six months ago Jonathan King's second movie, satirical Me Me Me - premiered in London and screened at the Cannes Film Festival - featured a national British daily paper called… The Moon.

In fact, the film's already had 12,000 full length downloads and views to the free website - you can watch the movie for nothing here. It was the No1 film on YouTube last week for 13-30 year-olds.

The film was revealed exclusively by Madame Arcati last May. Perhaps the scriptwriters should borrow Madame's crystal balls or invite JK back on - I'm sure he's more than capable of giving them a run for their six-figure fees.

To read Madame's 'non-review' of the flick, click here.