Murder is Everywhere

Writers and Movie Stars

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy Hallinan) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 05:48:00 +0000

One of the problems with being a movie star is that your perfect, 20-something face is always with you. Most of us, as we age, glance into the mirror with varying degrees of dismay, locate the remnants of the face we most fondly remember having, and think (at least most of the time), "Not so bad." But for a movie star, that long-lost face has been frozen in time, in all its flawless symmetry.

Writers, on the other hand, are for all intents and purposes faceless, which is probably a good thing. Our readers, if we're lucky enough to have any, don't really care if our jawline has begun to sag or our hair is receding. So why, you might be asking, am I pairing movie stars and writers, only to say we're not alike? Even those who love reading most, I think, are in little danger of confusing, say, Lauren Bacall and Lawrence Block.

But actors and writers do share a somewhat similar problem. Just as movie stars always have their youthful faces stalking them, writers are haunted by their early prose. It's out there, unchanged and unchangeable, just waiting to sandbag us.

My first published novel came out in 1990, which is longer back than I care to remember. I went for almost two decades without ever glancing back at that book or the five that followed it in the 1990s because there was no reason for me to do so.

When I did look back, beginning about two years ago, I hoped that I would have what I think of as the ideal relationship with my earlier work, which is to say (a) that it's not embarrassing, and (b) that it's not as good as my current work.

(There are few more complicated expressions than the one on the face of a writer who has just been told by an enthusiastic fan, "But you know, I really like your first book best.")

The reason I had to reread the early books was to decide whether to put them on sale as ebooks after the rights reverted to me. There were six titles in the series, three of which I remembered liking, one of which I was neutral about, and two of which I actively (at least in memory) disliked.

Quelle surprise. I liked different ones this time around. And the one I disliked most, way back then, may well be (at least to my present taste) the best of the bunch.

The Bone Polisher is the book I thought I probably wouldn't put up. It was the next-to-last in the series, so I didn't have to look at it until the end of the process, and I almost didn't look at it at all. When I did, I was fairly startled.

I had completely forgotten most of it. There's a twist at the end that I had no memory of, and when Simeon Grist, the series' hero, went into a certain house in the last chapter, I thought, "What the hell is he doing?"

The writing is pretty good, too. I can say that without feeling like a blowhard now that I no longer remember writing it. In places it's material I'd have to go way on tiptoe to write today, which is not altogether a comfortable feeling.

We all like to think we've gotten better, but here I am, confronting a 17-year-old book and not entirely certain I could write it today.

Once I read it, I had another reason for possibly not making it available. I'm kind of dreading having people tell me they prefer my old stuff. But it's online now, for sale for $2.99 on Amazon, with a terrific new cover by the redoubtable Allen Chiu.

Tim -- Sundays

My Visit With the Gods

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Siger) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 05:05:00 +0000

I’ve often wished there were a way to journey back to the heyday of the ancient Greek gods. Just to drop in, say “Hi,” and ask what they think of our current times. These days I’d likely have to make the trip alone, because my Greek buddies—make that all of Greece’s eleven million souls—have more than enough all-knowing, all-powerful forces to contend with in the form of the EU-IMF-ECB troika, plus a hundred-fold that number of homegrown politicians governing their country as if immor(t)als.

This, though, isn’t about current events; it’s about my interest in visiting Olympian deities and, in particular, one called “father of gods and men, ruler and preserver of the world, and everlasting god.” In other words (courtesy of Alexander S. Murray’s Who’s Who in Mythology), I’m talking about the boss man himself: Zeus.

But before I wave goodbye and click those ruby slippers together (couldn’t find a reasonably priced pair of Hermes sandals), let me share a little background on how Zeus got to be Numero Uno. And for you Wizard of Oz aficionados out there, don’t worry about Dorothy’s shoes whisking me off to Kansas instead. I have it on the highest authority they’ve been re-programmed to route me to the otherwise inaccessible, cloud-shrouded Olympos of Thessaly.

Zeus’ upbringing certainly wasn’t what most normal folk would call traditional, unless of course you happen to be a fan of the Dr. Phil sort of stuff inhabiting weekday afternoon American TV.

Uranos and Gaea

Kronos and Rhea

To begin with, his daddy (Kronos) and mommy (Rhea) were brother and sister. But since his grandparents were the original paired begator (Uranos) and begatee (Gaea) of what love, via Eros (Cupid), had fashioned out of Chaos (the great shapeless mass at the beginning of the world) to prepare the world to receive mankind—that might be considered an extenuating circumstance under modern consanguinity laws.

Eros and Chaos (by Treijim)

Besides, it was a substantial improvement over his grandparents’ marital arrangement. Uranos, the husband of Gaea, was not her brother. He was her son. And when Uranos “mistreated” their children, Gaea sided with her son/grandson (Kronos) to destroy her husband/son (Uranos). Got that?

But it gets better. Zeus’ father (Kronos), alert to how children could treat their fathers, swallowed his first five children as they were born. Zeus, the sixth child, only escaped because his mother (Rhea) deceived her husband/brother (Kronos) into thinking Zeus, too, had been swallowed.

Kronos (Saturn) by Francisco De Goya

When Zeus reached manhood he enlisted the aid of his grandmother (Gaea) to convince his father (Gaea’s son/grandson) to yield up Zeus’ siblings, which Kronos did. One was Zeus’ sister, Hera (Juno), the love of Zeus’ life … and later his wife. Like father like son, I suppose.

Zeus and Hera

Zeus had many affairs and fathered many children, at times in rather unorthodox fashion, but Hera was his only wife, as was the way in Greece. Some say Zeus didn’t gallivant around as much as people liked to think, but gained his reputation innocently through an historical accommodation. When the disparate tribes of Greece came together as one race, each brought with them their own Zeus stories, and all those separate tales were incorporated into one mythology that multiplied Zeus’ fathering experiences far beyond what any individual tribe had believed on its own.

If Zeus got Hera to buy that story, it’s good enough for me.

By the way, let’s not forget that all this played out for Zeus against the time of man on earth.

At the beginning of Zeus’ rule it was the Silver Age of the human race. Men were rich, but grew overbearing, were never satisfied, and in their arrogance forgot the source to which their prosperity was owed. As punishment, Zeus swept the offenders away to live as demons beneath the earth.

Then came the Bronze Age, one of quarreling and violence, where might made right, and cultivated lands and peaceful occupations faded away. Ultimately even the all-powerful grew tired of it all and disappeared without a trace.

The Iron Age followed with a weakened and downtrodden mankind using their bare hands to toil for food, thinking all the while only of themselves, and dealing unscrupulously with each other.

Zeus had seen enough.

He brought on a flood that destroyed all but two members of the human race. A husband, Deukalion, and his wife, Pyrrha, were spared and commanded by the gods to propagate a new human race upon the earth.

Pyrrha and Deukalion by Andrea di Mariotto del Minga

That, folks, is supposed to be us.

If I recall correctly, Zeus didn’t think much more of the new batch than he did of the ones he’d wiped off the face of the earth.

But this is 2012, and the human race is so much different now than it was in Zeus’ day that we have absolutely nothing to fear from the big guy for the way we live our lives today.

Right?

Hmmm. I really can’t wait to get going. Honest. But time travel these days isn’t as predictable as it once was (what with all those amateurs clogging up the astral planes) and I’d sure hate to pop in on Zeus on a bad day. God(s) knows where/how I’d end up.

On reflection, I think I’ll put those slippers away for now—at least until after the elections. Which elections, you ask? Good question. I’ll wait for a sign from the gods on high and let you know.

Jeff—Saturday

Blessed are the Insomniacs

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Waddell) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 11:47:00 +0000

A few years ago, if I was ever asked what skill or physical attribute I wished I had, rather than aiming for something grand, like the ability to speak five languages, or play the piano, or change a plug, my answer was the same: the ability to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. We all know people like that. They're always really annoying. 'When I'm tired I just sleep,' they say, as if it's that simple. They're like weirdos who enjoy fishing. How calm, at peace with yourself, how untroubled by thought, how boring must you be to switch off like that, or stand by a pond for 11 hours. But I envy that serenity. Or I did.

I've had bouts of insomnia all my adult life. If I have to get up early, I never get to sleep because I know I have to get up. I don't think I've ever slept on an aeroplane in my life. In hotels, or on holiday, anywhere away from my bed, I always sleep terribly, unless I've had too much to drink, which hardly counts as quality rest.

It used to bother me a great deal. I would toss and turn, cursing the passing hours, and the certain knowledge I would be exhausted the next day. All manner of terrible thoughts can creep up on you in the long hours before dawn. It got so that I dreaded going to bed. So I wouldn't. But then kids came along, and the need to be alert and functioning became more important, and I would lie there wondering how the hell I could get to sleep and not be an irritable mess the next day.

But then it changed. I don't when or how but insomnia no longer bothered me. I learned to accept it, to relax. I was never so tired the next day that I couldn't function, and if I was, because I work at home, I'd just have a short nap. Soon, because I accepted it, I slept better. It still takes me some time to go to sleep, and I always wake in the night, but it's enough. I just accepted I wasn't the sort of person who ever slept for more than four or five hours at a stretch.

Then, this week, I listened to this radio programme on the BBC World Service. It addresses the myth behind the eight hour sleep. In a nutshell, it claims that adult humans have never slept for large swathes of time and to do so is unnatural. In the pre-electric, pre-streetlight era it was common for people to go to bed earlier, sleep for a few hours and wake. Then, unlike most of us now who get in a state about how tired they'll be the next day, or list all their worries and doubts, they would get up, light a candle perhaps, read, think about their dreams, pray, or make love (A doctor's manual from 16th Century France - where else eh? - even advised that the best time to conceive was not at the end of a long day's labour but "after the first sleep", when "they have more enjoyment" and "do it better"). Then they would go back to sleep, feeling fit and refreshed in the morning. The programme's makers found all kinds of evidence of this pattern, and many references to what was known as 'the second sleep.'

This, of course, is tremendous news for insomniacs everywhere. Some scientists even believe that broken sleep is better for you than one long tranche of sleep. Blessed are the insomniacs. Or insomniac writers at least. I can't count how many times an idea has come to me in the time between turning off the light and falling asleep. Or at 4am when I've woken and can't drop back off. Whole plots would never have existed had I been someone who falls straight to sleep. Now armed with this knowledge that it's natural, I may even start writing in those moments. Praying is out, and as for making love, my wife is an out-for-the-count-for-eight-hours merchant, the poor woman, and I'm likely to get my face punched. And we have enough kids anyway.

Anyway, I raise a mug of cocoa to the sleepless.

cheers

Dan - Friday

With this cow I do thee wed

noreply@blogger.com (Stan Trollip (of Michael Stanley)) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 08:43:00 +0000

It is traditional custom in southern Africa for a prospective husband to honor his future wife’s family with a gift of cows. The practice is called lobola. The cows themselves and the process leading to the exchange are designed to bring the bridal couple’s families closer together, so that as a unit they will be supportive of the newlyweds, and later of their offspring.

Indigenous African nduni cow

The process itself is akin to what happens in a corporate merger or acquisition. The bridegroom-to-be’s family appoints negotiating representatives, often the father and uncles, who approach the family of the bride-to-be to negotiate a fair price. From what I understand, these negotiations can often take several sessions and involve a haggling over the value of the cattle themselves, as well as the attributes of the young lady.

As Owethu Kheli wrote recently in the Mail&Guardian Online (http://mg.co.za/article/2012-02-17-tricky-art-of-negotiating-lobola) (I’ve omitted a few paragraphs):

Indigenous African nduni cow

“I was not allowed into the house where my fiancée's family and my "lawyers" discussed this "out-of-court settlement". Being present is like contempt of court.

I drove my team to her parents' house. It took three meetings for the two families to finally sign the deal. The first meeting, according to the briefing my "lawyers" gave me afterwards, was a good one. "It's a smooth process," said my dad's cousin. Okay, tell me more, I said.

Her family had accepted our merger of equals proposition. But? They had not done due diligence and could not put cattle or a monetary value on the daughter.

Cow!

I wanted an easy deal: a reasonable lobola, then my family and I would pay for the wedding. Well, my lawyers claimed that they suggested that to her family. Either my darling's family was not too keen, or did not realise how sweet that deal would be for them.

But they played hard to get over those three meetings, according to my team. At some stage I thought that I would go to the house next door to find a wife. Or I would marry a white woman, whose dad would have the pain of funding a lavish wedding, all without lobola.

Finally, after three meetings, my deal was sealed in the most welcome and fulfilling of ways.

I sneaked into the final meeting. My lawyers are rebels -- they break tradition, generally. They said I should walk in with them this time round to experience the process for myself. The other parties probed skillfully as though they did not know.

One of them asked of my legal team: "Gentlemen, how come there are four of you, when in the past meetings there were only three?" My dad's cousin, knowing we would all be fined for this transgression, introduced me as their driver.

Everybody laughed.”

In this case, the negotiations went well.

However, as you would expect, traditions like this are under pressure.

First, there are logistical pressures. It is hard to imagine an urban couple driving a small herd of cattle through the streets of Johannesburg or Cape Town from one family to another, let alone keeping the cattle on an apartment’s veranda or a house’s small garden. This inconvenience has been addressed by exchanging the cash value of the cattle - hence the need for the negotiators to reach agreement on the cows’ values. This can cost the bridegroom a lot of money – which means that the couple can start life together with a large hole in their bank balance.

Second, the switch from cows to cash has caused some families to focus more on the money and less on the tradition underlying lobola. Some women whose lobola has been paid in cash wonder what agreements were reached. Some feel that their negotiators negotiated their lives away, giving the man the right to tell the woman what to do and where to live – that, in fact, lobola now symbolizes a purchase, not the joining of families.

Third, many proponents of lobola argue that the divorce rates amongst groups that seal a union with lobola are lower than typical western rates. However, more and more young men now say that the price to pay, in cattle or money, is too great. More than half of young men today believe that lobola discourages marriage. And guess what? Single mothers and absentee fathers are becoming the norm. And the likely ones to suffer are the children.

Michael and I are fortunate that our Detective Kubu’s father, Wilmon, was an astute negotiator. The lobola Kubu paid for Joy was fair, and the two are a couple of equals. Sort of.

Stan - Thursday

Not about accordions

noreply@blogger.com (Cara Black) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:18:00 +0000

I wanted to write about accordions - that instrument so evocative in French songs (and in many cultures) - and looked for my photo of the bright yellow accordion shop and studio below Montparnasse. But I couldn't find it. Instead a thread in the photos I discovered suggested vestiges of the past, lives lived and the architecture that remains.

A photo taken after a bombing during the London Blitz

The Grand Palais built for a World Exposition and used today for exhibitions

In the limestone tunnels of the old quarries under the Paris Observatoire - notice the graffitti 1671

remnants of stables that became workshops and garages

a Belle Epoque hotel by the artist's academy

the train track left of 'le petit ceinture' the train beltway that encircled Paris

outside a sculptors atelier
and this because it's the real reason I couldn't write about accordions

Cara - Tuesday

Gretna Green

noreply@blogger.com (Leighton Gage) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 05:14:00 +0000

Graham Smith, our first guest blogger of 2012, is the author of two books of short stories, "11 The Hard Way" and the "Harry Charters Chronicles"...

...both available as Kindle Books on Amazon.
Graham is also a reviewer and, because no budding author should ever give up his day job...

...continues to work as the manager of a busy wedding venue near Gretna Green, in Scotland, a place he thought you might enjoy hearing about.

Here's Graham:

Gretna Green first became popular for weddings in 1754, when couples learned of the different laws in

Scotland

which permitted people to marry at the age of 16 without parental consent. English couples then “ran away” to

Scotland

to be married.

With Gretna Green being the southernmost town in

Scotland

, it was the first port of call for the eloping couples. The ceremonies which took place were performed by the local blacksmiths who were held in high regard by the local community as they made most of the daily wares used in that era.

Often the ceremonies would take place in the blacksmiths' workshops over their anvils.

That way, their work wouldn't be interrupted for too long.

Many angry fathers gave chase to the couples, and tales abound of ceremonies delayed while the bride and groom hid until the father had left.

In some cases the young lovers would leap into the blacksmith’s bed in the room next door, prompting the apoplectic father to think he was too late and storm off. After a suitable wait the proceedings would recommence.

A change in the law came in 1857, when Lord Brougham’s bill stated that the bride and groom must take a three week “cooling off” period prior to the wedding. While this reduced the number of elopements, the more determined lovers came anyway and sought work on the local farms for the three weeks.

In 1977, the next change in the law was that the three week “cooling off” period was abolished. A new system was introduced whereby the couples must give a minimum of 14 days written notice to Gretna Registration Office of their intent to marry within the parish.

And that put a dampener on the whole business.

But Gretna Green weddings started to become popular again in 1994, when local ministers began to conduct ceremonies over the anvil for visiting couples.

In 2002, the law changed yet again, this time allowing registrars to come out of the registration office to perform civil ceremonies. The first civil ceremony to take place in Scotland outside a registration office took place at The Mill Forge.

Today there are a number of different wedding venues and wedding tourism has become the town’s main industry. Weddings are estimated to bring the local economy a whopping £21 million per annum, and each year, over three thousand couples come to Gretna Green to be married.

Gretna Green’s other claim to fame is sadly much less joyous.

In 1915, within half-a-mile of the town. a railroad signalman forgot to advise the engineer of a troop train, that a local train had stopped ahead of him on the same track.

The error had deadly results. The resulting collision caused the troop train to catch fire.

The troop train was packed with soldiers bound for Gallipoli, and the carriages were locked to prevent desertion. Then, to make things worse, a third train hauling empty coal carriages collided with the wreckage of the first two.

Anecdotal reports say the soldiers who escaped from the train turned their rifles on their trapped comrades in an effort to spare them from further suffering.

The event went down in history as the Quintinshill rail disaster.

In total 226 people lost their lives on that fateful morning. To date no other UK rail disaster has claimed more lives.

World War I had another impact on the area as well. The nearby township of Gretna grew up to house workers at a munitions factory built to service the needs of the British troops.

It grew to be the largest in the world, and its rapid expansion, coupled with a need to house all of the workers, caused Gretna to become the first town in the UK to receive formal town planning.

Quite a lot of history, don't you think, for a little town along the border between England and Scotland?

Power Mouth

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy Hallinan) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 05:35:00 +0000

I first became aware of it when I was a kid, looking at a picture of Benito Mussolini.

It's that mouth, the upside-down smile. Over the years, I've grown accustomed to seeing it on the faces of people who wield a lot of power, and it seems to me we should pay more attention to it.

By the time we're forty, Abraham Lincoln said, we have the face we deserve.

If this is so--and I see little to contradict it--why do we flock to the ballot boxes year after year in order to hand the reins to people who are so clearly permanent two-year-olds?

I think it may be for one of two reasons.

First, we're simply unwilling to believe that anyone can be as awful as that mouth suggests; okay, maybe Hitler and Mussolini had it, but in other people, it's just an accident of physiognomy.

Second -- and this is worse -- we've gotten used to it.

There was a lot of this in the second Bush administration. And okay, we didn't elect Donald Rumsfeld-- we can thank George W. Bush for his presence in our lives. But we did elect Bush who, when he wasn't trying to act like a slightly dim good ol' boy, had a pretty good power mouth of his own.

And let's not forget the most terrifying power mouth of the 21st century, someone else for whom we actually voted. Actually, this is a unique power mouth sub-genre, the power mouth that suggests a childhood dominated by sadistic dentistry.

Surely, we can learn from our mistakes. Surely, we won't put another power mouth in charge of what we sometimes humorously call the free world.

Nope.

Nope.

Careful, Barry.

Tim -- Sundays

A Lesson From The Desert

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Siger) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 05:05:00 +0000

I’m composing this among the sand, cacti, and scents of Sedona, Arizona on my way back east from California’s Palm Springs, Joshua Tree National Park (photo above by Scott Mansfield), and the Mohave. I know with that itinerary some of you wags out there are thinking, “Siger’s getting his just deserts.”

Sedona

Palm Springs

I’ll forgive you for the thought if you’ll forgive me for the pun.

I find something magical about deserts. I don’t know why that is. I live on an island yet deserts arouse me in much the same way as the sea. For instance, a few days ago in Joshua Tree I stood among massive granite boulder formations I’d never seen before and yet I sensed that I had. But how could that be and where?

Then it hit me: underwater. I free dive in the Aegean off the shores of Mykonos and Delos, and the granite shapes I’m so used to rising up at me from the sea floor now surrounded me in a California desert. Even the flora reminded me of shapes that grow beneath the sea.

Amazing. Just add water to the desert and voila I’m back in Greece!

Scuba, not free-diving

I realize that referring to deserts, underwater, and Greece in the same thought may seem a strained attempt to segue into the elephant in the room anytime Greece is mentioned these days, but I promise you I had no such intention.

It’s all too predictable anyway. The news I mean. It’s as if I’m watching an endless loop of a Punch and Judy show played out against the same tired sets and staging.

Here we are again, back atop Athens’ Hotel Grande Bretagne overlooking Syntagma Square in front of Greece’s Parliament Building, “cue the black hooded hooligans,” “launch the marble chunks and molotovs,” “send in the police,” “pan to the politicians pontificating,” and don’t forget to “burn a few cars,” and “torch some shops.”

Attikon Cinema then

Okay, I admit that what happened in Athens last weekend was tragic beyond any demonstrations of recent memory (though Greece remains the safest country in the European Union, as difficult as that may be to believe with the patently violent (televised) demonstrations) as rioters destroyed the Attikon cinema—one of the few remaining neoclassical buildings from Athens’ glory days of 100 years ago—to punctuate misguidedly the general feeling among the Greek citizenry that its Parliament is corrupt, incapable, and out for itself as it allows Greece's destiny to slip more and more out of its own hands with every passing day.

...and now

And, yes, the country is gearing up for a very interesting summer of repercussions.

But, still, it’s the same old storyline with the same characters, same speeches, same inaction. Hmm, dare one say, “therein lies the rub”?

I recently saw a staunch supporter of her homeland describe it as “The Greece of Hopelessness.” That’s a pretty fair opinion on the state of things if you confine yourself to what’s in the news, but perhaps because I’m by nature more optimistic…or have seen first hand the granite that is Greece beneath its surface…I see things somewhat differently.

No doubt the country faces very difficult times, but there’s hope out there that this is Greece’s chance to find and hit its “restart button,” one that will return the country to its lost core values...such as one carved above Delphi by Athenians 2500 years ago: “Nothing in Excess.”

But how can Greece possibly return to such glory when so many consider their country a vast desert of despair? Suggestion: just add reason.

Jeff—Saturday

The Kids are All Wight

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Waddell) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 18:37:00 +0000

Apologies for the lateness of this blog, but I've just returned from a brief family holiday back in time. I say back in time, but I mean the Isle of Wight, though the effect is the same. The biggest island that belongs to this island is an old-fashioned place. When I mentioned I was going on Twitter I was followed by a spambot. But even she was innocent. She asked that I call her on Bembridge 452 for a jolly good time and she'd describe her shapely ankle.

The Isle of Wight was Queen Victoria's favourite place. It still cleaves to her memory, or at least tries to. The pace of life is slow; there are no motorways; the mobile phone signal is intermittent and one of its main attractions is a garlic farm. I used this often to whip the kids in line. 'Stop squabbling or we'll go to the garlic farm!' It worked a treat. Especially when I told them it sold garlic fudge (true.) Just the sheer ghastly prospect of eating that was enough to draw immediate silence. They also sell garlic beer. I think we have the new alternative to Guantanamo Bay.

There are, thankfully, many other attractions, not least the Jurassic coastline, its crumbling cliffs and glorious windswept beaches. The coastline is being eroded by a metre each year, and each slight fall or storm brings out thousands of fossil hunters seeking prize dinosaur finds. Our children spent many a happy hour scouring the sands for fossils. I will now spend several less happy ones standing on and tripping over lumps of worthless rock. Their guide made the mistake of telling them about a schoolboy who found a fossil worth £20,000. We ended up with bags of stuff, even if the the best find was fossilised dinosaur crap. The metaphor is way too easy.

But from rocks to rock (see what I did there.) While there is something quintessentially old-fashioned about the Isle of Wight, and well-heeled, given that it's home to the yachting set, it also has its place in music history. The Isle of Wight festival of 1970 is infamous, not least for witnessing one of Jimi Hendrix's last performances, an incendiary one, before which he was believed to have consumed at least two bottles of garlic beer.

And see what happened next...

Anyway, no guesses for the prize at the next Bouchercon MiE panel...

cheers

Dan - Friday

Monkey Business

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Sears (of Michael Stanley)) — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:46:00 +0000

On the 13^th of November 2010, a British couple of Indian descent – Shrien and Anni Dewani – were honeymooning in Cape Town. The couple hired a taxi to take them to a coastal dinner, and then they decided to see the nightlife of the township of Gugulethu, a very poor area outside the city. This proved disastrous. Soon after entering the area, the car was hijacked by two armed men. They terrorised the couple, and eventually pulled Shrien out of the car and drove off with his wife. She was later found dead in the abandoned car shot through the neck.

The endemic South African crime was immediately in all the headlines. Whatever the dubious reason for going to a slum area in the middle of the night, it was felt outrageous that a touring couple could be attacked and murdered so easily. Teeth gnashed in the South African and international press.

But there was a twist. The taxi driver – as part of a plea bargain – claimed that Shrien had hired him and two thugs for the princely sum of R15 000 (about $2,000) to kill the wife. In other words, the whole hijacking was just a façade to murder Anni Dewani. So it was not the endemic crime that was to blame but rather the evil intent of the new husband who had set up the murder within days of their arrival in South Africa. Gloating over the breakthrough in the case, police commissioner Bheki Cele infamously – and inappropriately – referred to Dewani as “a monkey who came all the way from London to have his wife killed here”.

Shrien Dewali denied any wrong-doing, and in the context of the media and police enthusiasm in South Africa, fought an extradition order which was nevertheless finally granted at the end of last year and is now on appeal. The resolution of what happened is still months or perhaps years away.

Enter Mike Nicol – well-known journalist and one of South Africa’s most respected mystery writers. His mystery trio – the Revenge Trilogy, which starts with the emotive Payback – is a fascinating series set in Cape Town, and very highly recommended. Get them all from Amazon as books or in Kindle format. Incidentally, it’s shooting the lights out in Germany.

Last year Mike did something very different and very intriguing. He wrote a true crime book on the Dewani murder by compiling the newspaper, blog, website, Facebook and Twitter reports of what had happened. The story itself, and the tensions it generated between the UK and South Africa, makes fascinating reading. Almost inevitably, the book is called Monkey Business. I asked Mike about writing the book and where he thought the case was heading:

You chose to structure the book as a set of quotes about the case from newspapers and internet reports and comments. What made you choose that format?

Two things, really. The first consideration was journalistic. I wanted to see if one could build a non-fiction narrative out of snippets of news from a variety of sources. When I was thinking about this book, I kept coming back to the point that the narrative already existed on the internet but in such widely dispersed places: websites, blogs, Facebook, Twitter. If I could collate material from all these sources could a narrative be constructed? After a bit of experimentation it seemed that it could and on the basis of the first 10000 words Umuzi decided to commission the book. The other constraints were money and time. The deadlines were tight: two months. And there was no money for original research. So I decided that this book had to be written entirely from secondary sources and I had to be able to do it from my laptop. And that is a long explanation for the structure. A combination of necessity and curiosity.

However, that said, I did try to structure the story as I would have written it had it been a normal tale of a murder. Start with what happened, go on to describe those involved, dig deeper, record the consequences.

'Set of quotes' makes it sound very dry. Actually, the book flows well and is hard to put down. What issues did you face in order to achieve that?

The issues were really about finding the best quotes. I couldn't just accept the first one that came to hand, I had to search further in case there was something better. So a time issue really. Inevitably, in all research I suppose, one afterwards comes across something that you missed but fortunately there were few of these. Or at least I think there were. Your comment about the flow is interesting as the construction of the narrative depends on the reader. You, the reader, have to fill in the linkages and the thing is that readers do. Says something about how we all construct stories even when they are not written out for us. It comes back to the power of the reader's imagination - which is a point I tend to go on about in creative writing classes.

The book reveals as much about the different perspectives in the UK and South Africa as it does about the case itself. Was that a deliberate theme or did it just evolve as you compiled the material?

It soon became evident that this story was read one way in the UK and another way in SA. Although there is a UK Facebook site - which, incidentally, hates me for capitalising out of this tragedy - that has pilloried Shrien Dewani from the getgo. (It's called Anni Dewani - what really happened.) I didn't set out to reflect this divergence of opinion but it soon became part of the pattern of the story and added an extra dimension. Although I was aware of the differences going into the project, I was unaware of the subtleties and so these evolved as the material built up.

Normally in a 'true crime' book, the author has a view which comes out during the book. In Monkey Business you restricted yourself to an Afterword. Did you find it frustrating to be always bound by what other people had to say?

No, actually, it wasn't frustrating at all, well not entirely. My primary motive was journalistic and because all journalism has a subjective element this manifested on this occasion as the structure of the book. Where I put what quote. What it was contrasted with. This was a fascinating part of the process. How to convey a message without stating it blatantly. Also I was very aware that this story has a long way yet to run and wanted to keep my personal take out of the text as much as possible. I really saw the job as being one of recording the murder and the consequences. The full story will only be written after/if he gets to court. When I say not entirely frustrating, I suppose when writing a book one wants to do the writing and here that wasn't going to happen. So I looked on the project as editing a collection of short stories. In other words I was more the editor and compiler than the writer.

After all your research into the case, where do you think it will all end?

Ah, the sixty-four dollar question! Maybe some questions are the answer here. For the conspiracy theorists: Does the unsolved 2007 hijack murder of Dr Pox Raghavee in the Eastern Cape have anything to do with the Anni Dewani killing? Perhaps not directly, but does it suggest that SA is a place where such murders become part of the background noise? Another question: the SA police claim they have text messages which will nail Dewani. It seems to me that these messages are the essence of this case. Without them the evidence may well be too flimsy - at least technically - to put Dewani behind bars. As for where it will all end: I like to think it will end in a South African court but if the Dewani family has very deep pockets this could still go to the European appeal court. If that happens and a judge decides that SA jails are too risky and that Dewani might be murdered or raped (and become HIV positive), the extradition could be denied. And then, as some cops have suggested, he could disappear into India. SA does have an extradition agreement with India where the rules are slightly different, but will there be the political commitment to continue the pursuit? I doubt it.

Michael (Sears & Nicol) - Thursday.

Tick Tock

noreply@blogger.com (Yrsa Sigurdardottir) — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 21:16:00 +0000

How can it be February 15th 2012? I just don‘t get it, last time I checked the new year had barely taken its first breath after having snuck up on the world without due notice. The only thing I am sure of regarding the calendar these days is that time gains momentum as the years go by. Maybe it has something to do with the writing, I find that the days, weeks and months since I took to this profession are on the side of the endless deadlines.

But being a writer sure beats being a fisherman.

I am going to India on Tuesday (by plane, not by boat). There I am going to participate in the first crime fiction convention ever held in New Delhi and I am very much looking forward to the trip. Correction, not the trip but the stay. Hopefully I will have something of interest to say next Wednesday as a result, - my string of deadlines are pretty much put on hold when abroad.

When I get back and have stayed a whole six hours in my country known for its "calm" seas I leave for Norway to attend a crime festival that I hear is the first in Oslo - this might be a misunderstanding related to me thinking that I understand Norvegian because my ancestors spoke it. But be it the first or the thirtyfirst it is being advertised on TV and in movie theaters which is something I have not heard of before. This is the trailer:

When I get back home I will start preparing for the next new New Years. It is safer seeing how time flies.

Yrsa - Wednesday

Salgado

noreply@blogger.com (Leighton Gage) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 05:01:00 +0000

Today, I’m going to take a page out of Cara and Jeff’s book and exchange photographs for words.

All of the images below were shot by one man, probably the greatest photographer the early twenty-first century has produced.

And all were shot in black-and-white, the medium he prefers.

This is the man:

Sebastião Salgado trained to be an economist, took a master’s degree at the University of São Paulo and worked for the International Coffee Organization. Then, at the age of 29, he decided to transform his hobby into his profession and struck out on his own as a photographer.

In the course of the last forty years, Salgado has travelled all over the world making photographs.

Sometimes of nature.

But mostly of people.

Capturing them from the rivers of the Mato Grosso…

…to the tea plantations of Rwanda.

And from the gold fields of Pará…

…to the oil fields of Iraq.

Some shots could only be called beautiful.

But others...

...many others...

sear the soul.

Probably his most famous quote: “It’s not the photographer who makes the picture. It’s the person being photographed.”

These days, Salgado works on self-assigned, long-term projects - and publishes them in book form.

His books aren't cheap:

http://amzn.to/AqqfA3

But, believe me, they’re worth every centavo.

Leighton - Monday

Mr. Coffee

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy Hallinan) — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 05:42:00 +0000

Honoré de Balzac, after a couple of espressos,

checking for palpitations

"When you have produced the finest grind with the least water possible, you double the dose by drinking two cups at a time; particularly vigorous constitutions can tolerate three cups. In this manner one can continue working for several more days."

We all know that writers are coffee hounds. But the grandpére of them all was Honoré de Balzac, whose two-fisted approach to the Drink of the Gods is quoted above.

Given his prodigious output, it's not surprising that Balzac relied on stimulants. His magnum opus, The Human Comedy, comprises more than ninety novels, novellas, and stories totaling millions of words and featuring hundreds of major characters and thousands of one- or two-scene walk-ons. There is literally nothing like it in the world; the works are layered over one another, the heroes or heroines of one subordinate (or just glimpsed) in another, the characters rising and falling through all the levels of society, from the fields and huddled houses of small provincial towns to the palaces and grand hôtels of Paris.

The Comedy is studded with individual masterpieces: Pére Goriot (a variation on "King Lear"), Eugénie Grandet, Lost Illusions, A Harlot High and Low, Cousin Bette, and others, short and long. Many of them were published in installments, as he wrote them, meaning that he was pantsing on a grand scale, making it up as he went along, absolutely stuck with what he had already written. And, of course, "The Human Comedy" itself, written over a remarkably short span of 14 or 15 years, was perhaps literature's supreme feat of pantsing. He did it all, writing session after writing session, by the seat of his pants.

And on coffee. Lots of coffee.

Balzac's entire life was arranged to accommodate his writing and his coffee. He ate dinner in the afternoon and went to bed around 6 PM. At midnight he was up and knocking back the first in an unending bucket brigade of cups of strong black coffee. He wrote through the night and into the following day, sometimes straight through the following day, without going back to bed. Pounding that caffeine, he occasionally worked for 48 hours uninterrupted, conducting the imaginary orchestra of Paris.

He wrote (probably after a couple of cups) about how it affected him: "Memories charge in, bright flags on high; the cavalry of metaphor deploys with a magnificent gallop; the artillery of logic rushes up with clattering wagons and cartridges; on imagination's orders, sharpshooters sight and fire; forms and shapes and characters rear up; the paper is spread with ink -- for the nightly labor begins and ends with torrents of this black water, as a battle opens and concludes with black powder."

This is a serious jones. But I have to say I'd take coffee intravenously if it would allow me to write like Balzac. I'd snort instant. Problem is, for coffee to help you write like Balzac, first you have to be Balzac.

Or maybe I could find a new grind.

Tim - Sundays

A Bit of Inspiration, Make that Two Bits.

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Siger) — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 05:05:00 +0000

These days, searching the news for anything positive about Greece makes me appreciate the position of social director on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg: it’s all about the crisis, stupid.

But if you look hard enough, you’ll find what assures us who know and love Greece that no matter what happens in that tortured/torturing bit of central Athens known as Parliament, Hellas will survive.

This week I found my inspiration through the Greece-Ellada Facebook page of my Mykonian friend, Milka Milada Piccini.

Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou

It was an aerial video tour high above some of Greece’s most beautiful and enduring landscapes. I’ve seen longer versions of the film before, some with subtitles and a guidebook soundtrack, others set to the music of Vangelis. You don’t know Vangelis? Think Chariots of Fire, Blade Runner and of one of the greatest composers of electronic music of all time.

But this is the best one I’ve found at capturing in fifteen minutes the essence of what is Greece. Done in high definition video and set to largely traditional music, it briefly touches upon the environs of Athens, then drifts out to sea and on to Mykonos and Delos before soaring on to other islands (mostly Cycladic) and mainland sites, passing over Macedonia, Mount Athos, Meteora, Delphi, Olympia, and so many others. Here it is:

By the time it’s over I promise you will be at peace. To remain that way, I suggest you stay away from all news for as long as you can stand.

I have one more inspirational site/sight for your consideration. It’s a photograph I took three days ago from the same window in my New York City office as I watched the World Trade Center Twin Towers crumble on 9/11.

Centered in the photo is the new One World Trade Center on its way to reclaiming a dominant position in Manhattan's skyline. Ninety floors up, fourteen more to go.

God Bless America. God Bless Greece.

Jeff—Saturday

Not a Joke

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Waddell) — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 13:34:00 +0000

I've written here before about how fond I am of Twitter. Not everyone shares my liking for it, which is fine with me. I think I've also mentioned a friend who seethes at the very mention of it. 'It's just egomaniacs passing on pointless observations of life, as if we should care,' he says. 'Or cracking terrible jokes. It's trivial and inane.'

He often has a point. But this week Twitter became slightly less trivial. A case that began with a lame joke on Twitter in January 2010 wound up in front of two senior judges at the High Court.

To give the background. A trainee accountant named Paul Chambers noticed that Robin Hood airport had been closed because of snow. He was due to fly out to meet his girlfriend in Northern Ireland (who, apparently, he met via Twitter.) So he tweeted: 'Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!'

I know. Hardly funny. Or subtle. But comments and reactions like these are ten-a-penny on Twitter. I doubt anyone following him, or seeing the comment, took it seriously.

Except for the police. A week later he was arrested by five police officers, had his computer and mobile phone seized, interrogated for eight hours and eventually charged with causing a menace under the Communications Act of 2003. A bit extreme you might think. After all most bombers don't announce their intentions in detail a week and a half in advance and give their name. But the police no doubt felt they should investigate. Once they realised it was a poor gag, it ended there, surely?

No. The case was sent to Magistrates Court in Doncaster where Chambers was, um, convicted of causing a menace. Understandably, not wanting this on his record, Chambers appealed and it was sent to Doncaster Crown Court where sanity prevailed. Or you would have hoped it would. It didn't. The judge upheld the conviction and said: "Anyone in this country in the present climate of terrorist threats, especially at airports, could not be unaware of the possible consequences. The message is menacing in its content and obviously so. It could not be more clear. Any ordinary person reading this would see it in that way and be alarmed."

It was difficult to work out who was joking now. Chambers was meanwhile left £3000 out of pocket in legal fees. He was tempted to let it lie until a ragtag group of lawyers, comedians, and ordinary Twitter users an, troubled by what this meant, came together to raise money and offer their services in Chambers defence. The result was this week's High Court appearance, when one hopes sanity will be restored. Don't hold your breath though. The QC defending the judgement said, with a straight face: "The message was posted at a time when the potential threat to airport security was high. It was capable of being read by members of the airport staff and members of the public as a threat to airport safety and public safety."

If I worked at Robin Hood airport - and before this case I didn't even know there was a Robin Hood airport and I used to live relatively nearby - I'd be consulting my lawyers for being made to look dumber than a box of frogs in court.

Judgement was reserved. Everyone now waits to see whether making a poor joke in questionable taste is a criminal offence. As one of Chambers' supporters, comedy writer Graham Linehan, said: "If we were all to be convicted because of bad jokes we'd be in terrible trouble."

cheers

Dan - Friday

Miscellaneous and then some

noreply@blogger.com (Yrsa Sigurdardottir) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 22:53:00 +0000

Sometimes I wonder how long it will take humans to introduce some of the technology available in most computer‘s to our heads. Just now I really needed to do a search in my brain that could have used a „find“ option or even google. Somewhere within my skull is the last name of an old friend who‘s first name is too common for me to find her in the phone book – which incidentally is organized by first name here. The internet proved useless in locating her but I know the information is hidden away somewhere in my brain. I could also use a rewind button, pause and undo. And a spellchecker. Not to mention built in reading lenses that would slide down from underneath my eyelids when the indents on the side of my head were pressed.

I am not often the receiver of threats from those in authority. This probably has to do with becoming older and behaving better as years add one to the other. But the other day, standing in line at the immigration at Orlando airport I did receive a threat from a very angry immigration/police official sporting a gun in a holster. My wrongdoing? Answering my cell phone when it rang and not having noticed signs forbidding the use of phones when in line. Why I do not know. It is not as if Bin Laden is taking any calls lately. Three hundred years in the future this would not have happened at all as I would have been able to press the sides of my head, enabling me to read the signs when passing them. Or able to press undo. But I know better than to try and make excuses and anyway the man did not seem like he wanted to hear about my ideas for bettering life with technology. So I stood through a lecture of the yelling kind which ended with a threat that had I not been smoke free for nine hours would have made me laugh, it was so ridiculous. It involved him evoking his power to move me to the very end of the line. Not exactly terrible stuff when you are standing next to last in this same line. Even the children in our group were unimpressed – despite the gun.

One thing regarding technology that did make me happy on my trip and that was the signs advertising the coming of 4G phones. My glee had nothing to do with me wanting a 4G phone. I was just happy that this means I can stop feeling bad about not knowing what a 3G phone has to offer. My time was not wasted trying to obtain this soon to be obsolete information.

I have now written the first paragraph of my new book. It is the seventh book in the Thóra series, my eight novel for grownups and my thirteenth novel in all when the pre-teen books are added to the mix. At the back of my mind buzzes a worry. Aren‘t the numbers seven and thirteen unlucky? Thankfully eight is my favorite number from childhood and hopefully potent enough to counterbalance the other two.

Finally, to end this erratic post on an even-more-so note – does anyone know why there is a general tendency to find odd numbers less likeable than even numbers?

Yrsa - Wednesday

Of all the Gaul!

noreply@blogger.com (Cara Black) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 12:23:00 +0000

Of All the Gaul!
France has been in the news a great deal of late and it's le grand froid now -really cold all over Europe so depending where you live you might be inside reading or possibly looking for books that are French mysteries--Here's a little list of my favorites - a wide variety of intriguing tales, all but the first of which were either written in English or have been translated:

L'ombre Chinoise (The Chinese Shadow), by Georges Simenon (1963). This Inspector Maigret book (available only in French unless you can find an old translation) is set in Paris in the quartier of the Marais and centered in Place des Vosges, where Simenon lived for a time. It's one of my favorites. Any of the Maigret books are a "must," especially since this year marks the 100th anniversary year of his birth. His psychological insights into human nature cannot be beat. Happy birthday, Georges!

Death from the Woods, by Brigitte Aubert (2001). A mesmerizing thriller centered around a blind, mute quadriplegic. You won't be able to put it down--I couldn't. I read it one night and, yes, its an engrossing puzzle, too. Aubert won the Grand Prix de Littérature policière for Welcome Rain.

Death in the Dordogne, by Louis Sanders (2002). Rural France as seen by an expat Brit, who discovers murder, mayhem and the charms of French women who smoke, drink, drive and look wonderful doing it. Sanders sees his fellow countryfolk with a laser wit and a self-deprecating English flavor. He draws searing portraits of old villagers still impacted by the Occupation.

Mission to Marseilles, by Leo Malet (1991). Features the adventures of private detective Nestor Burma. This book finds Burma in wartime, France caught between some villains and the Gestapo. He is soon heading for the unoccupied zone, where he discovers the secret of the mysterious Formula 5. I love Leo Malet who during his life was in the Surrealist movement, an anarchist and damn good writer.

Murder in Memoriam, by Didier Daeninckx (1984). Another recipient of the Grand Prix de littérature policière, this novel features the laconic Inspector Cadin, who attempts to solve the puzzling double murder of a father and son. The trail of clues he must follow leads to the World War II German occupation of France and links to the Algerian war. An incredible book, one that should be read by everyone who's ever been critical of France. That's just my 2 centimes.

Rough Trade, by Dominique Manotti (2001). A Paris correspondent recommended this to me. I still can't believe a woman wrote this hard-boiled, sometimes hard to take but fast-moving crime tale set in the Sentier. Thank God, I'd written Murder in the Sentier first. Immigrants, cops on the take, heroin and a bisexual police inspector--but that's just the tip of the Sentier, as they say. Dominique who writes dark and gritty in real life is sweet, devoted to her husband and makes a mean 'clafoutis'!

Salamander, by J. Robert Janes (1994). This book (part of a series) features Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Suréte and Hermann Kohler of the Gestapo, paired during the German Occupation of France and dispatched to catch an arsonist in Lyon. The riveting descriptions, wartime flavor and historical accuracy of daily life during World War II have no comparison.

Three to Kill, by Jean-Patrick Manchette (2002). Kind of mesmerizing, like a good Goddard film. You don't know why you watch, but you can't stop. With classic thriller elements and twists and wonderful style, Manchette is also a master social critic. City Lights has published a few more of his novels...he died young. Read them!

A Very Long Engagement, by Sebastian Japrisot (1993). In 1917, five French soldiers were court-martialed for self-inflicted wounds and pushed, their hands bound, into "No-Man's Land." The youngest of the condemned men was the fiancé of Mathilde, only daughter of a rich industrialist, who sets out to discover what really happened to him. And decades later, as we see in this intriguing "mystery," she succeeds. But there' more to it than that.

The Zig Zag Man, by Marvin Albert (1991). A tad dated, but Albert knows France and those narrow cobbled alleys, the system, and the ins and outs of French police procedure. I found these at a bookstore and maybe they're on ABE but he writes great tales. Why doesn't he write more?
Cara - Tuesday PS Do you have any French mysteries I should know about?

Chico Xavier

noreply@blogger.com (Leighton Gage) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 05:01:00 +0000

This was Chico Xavier, a Spiritist who claimed to be able to communicate with the dead.

And, around here, that claim is generally accepted.

So much so, that the Brazilian government even issued a stamp in his honor:

There have been, over the course of the last half-century or so, countless books and magazine and newspaper articles about him, even a feature film.

Check out the sheer volume of stuff on Google and YouTube. It’s impressive.

But I daresay few of you, reading these lines, have ever heard of him.

Because his fame never traveled far beyond the borders of Brazil.

Chico was born, a little over a hundred years ago, in a small town in the State of Minas Gerais. His mother died when he was five, but he alleged that she materialized for him after her death. And, he also alleged, from an early age, to sense the presence of other spirits and to hear their voices.

While still in elementary school, according to a well-documented account, he produced an essay considered to be far too erudite for a child.

And when his teacher challenged him on it, he went to the blackboard and began to write, and write, and write, spontaneously producing a profound statement on the theme.

One, he contended, had been dictated to him, by a spirit, as he wrote.

This became the first public manifestation of what later became his stock-in-trade: psychography, writing “automatically” without apparent awareness or premeditation.

In his lifetime, with this technique, and with only a limited grade-school education, he produced 413 books, some of them in languages in which he was not fluent.

Including English.

And always, as he claimed, with his hand guided by spirits.

He died on the day Brazil won the World Cup in 2002, having earlier remarked that he’d like to breathe his last “on a day of national celebration” so his “passing would not bring sorrow”.

And there are those that think he planned it that way.

His work led to the establishment of Kardecist Spiritism as one of the religions professed in Brazil.

Unfamiliar with Allan Kardec? You can learn more about him by following this link:

http://www.samsara-fr.com/kardec-uk.htm

The words that flowed from Chico Xavier’s pen took the form of religious tracts, novels, even works of philosophy.

And they were translated into Spanish, French, Japanese, Esperanto and English.

Up to now, an estimated 50 million copies of them have been sold.

And all of the profits, all of them, have been channeled into charity work.

Xavier never kept a centavo for himself. And he never tried to take the credit for any of his work. Each and every one of his books bears the line “dictated by the spirit of–” on the title page.

He lived on into his nineties, was made an honorary citizen of many cities and towns all across Brazil and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Tens of thousands of people attest that he enabled them to communicate with their deceased loved ones, and that he was able to tell them things he could not possibly have known about both the living and the dead.

He did most of his work in Uberaba, a small town in the State of Minas Gerais

And is buried there.

This is his tomb. It’s always full of flowers.

Leighton - Monday

Going Dutch

noreply@blogger.com (Timothy Hallinan) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 06:30:00 +0000

Okay, last week's topic was suicide, and for this week I promised something lighter. So here we are: teenage sex.

I seem to be in global comparison mode lately, seeking out indexes that rank countries in various ways. Global indexes are blunt-force data and, as such, present an irresistible temptation to do some baseless hypothesizing, which I did quite a bit of with the suicide tables. Ideally, data should lead us to conclusions, but there are people who approach data with their conclusions already drawn, like gunfighters waiting in ambush.

I'm one of those people.

Here's some data.

Percentage of Dutch teenagers between 15 and 17 whose parents allow them to have their steady girlfriend or boyfriend spend the night with them: 72%. (This excludes Muslim households.)

Percentage of American teenagers between 15 and 17 whose parents allow them to have their steady, etc.: approximately 16%.

And, you may ask, so what?

The "so what" is (are) more data, some of it (them) pretty startling.

The teen pregnancy rates for the Netherlands: 11.8 per thousand. For the U.S., it's 72.8 per thousand, or more than six times as high

The teen birth rate for the Netherlands is 4.8 per thousand. In the U.S., 42.5 per thousand or nine times higher.

The teen abortion rate for the Netherlands is 7.8 per thousand. For America, 19.8, or nearly three times higher.

The HIV rate for the Netherlands (in the general population) stands at 0.2%. In the U.S., it's 0.6%, or three times as high. I admit that this is a dicey statistic, given the various modes of HIV transmission.

But this isn't. The ratio of gonorrhea infection among American teens is thirty-three times higher than it is among their Dutch counterparts.

The teen Chlamydia infection ratio is nineteen times higher here than in the Netherlands.

And on and on and on.

So here's the point toward which I'm bending all this data. Those Dutch parents who are okay with sweetheart sleep-overs reveal an attitude toward sex that is more accepting, more natural, less censorious, and less Puritan than that of most of their American counterpoints.

Puritanism is a blight on the American psyche. The apparently unending reverberations of our Puritan and fundamentalist heritage have warped the national character to the point where our horrific attitudes about sex -- attitudes that literally baffle most of the rest of the world -- endanger our children. They've mandated the banning of great books and the creation of the most insane censorship code ever imposed on the motion-picture industry, resulting -- I think -- in the glorification of violence because sex was taboo. They lead us to vote for brainless pencilnecked peckerwoods whose only qualification for public office is that they keep it zipped and pledge to distort the entire science curriculum to bar apes from the family tree.

I was in Asia -- Thailand, China, and Japan -- during the Lewinsky incident, and people kept asking me what the fuss was about. In their eyes, America was close to overthrowing one of the world's most charismatic and effective leaders because -- well, because he was a man. Mirabile dictu -- think of that. A man. And, of course, as we learned later, much to the laughter of Asia, many of those who were leading the witch-hunt (Newt Gingrich among them) were similarly sinful. Little hypocrisy there? Of course, if America were sane on the subject of sex, the hypocrisy would have been unnecessary.

Puritanism is fundamentalism. Fundamentalism encourages knee-jerk reactions and discourages rational responses - although, if I believed a Supreme Being gave us the power of reason, I would also believe that implicit in the gift of reason would be the obligation to use it.

I know this has crossed the border into rant territory, but those statistics make it clear (to me) that Puritanical attitudes toward sex are physically endangering tens of thousands of young people every year -- not to mention the emotional damage. I also know that this is a classic example of whistling in the wind.

It's not much lighter than last week's post, either. Next week, I promise.

Tim -- Sunday

A Film Master Dies in the Manner of His Vision

noreply@blogger.com (Jeffrey Siger) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 05:05:00 +0000

Last week an article in The New York Times caught my eye. It was the obituary for Theodoros Angelopoulos. If you’ve heard of him you’re likely one of two sorts: a true film buff or Greek. And for those of you who think when you hear “Greek films” of Never on Sunday (not his, Jules Dassin was the director), Zorba the Greek (uhh, uhh, Mihalis Kakogiannis directed that one), or heaven forbid, Mama Mia, listen up.

Theo Angelopoulos ranked by many critics among the late 20^th Century’s greatest filmmakers, but not all critics adored him, for he was the antithesis of Hollywood style. His were moody art-house films, characterized by long, slow, silent shots and atmospheric, at times dreamlike enigmatic sequences. In one film of three hours he used only 80 shots.

Myth and epic were his tools of symbolism, and much of his work provided allegorical illumination of the painful history of Greeks from Nazi occupation through their brutal civil war. He was likened to filmmakers Akira Kurosawa and Michalangelo Antonioni, and worked with stars such as Marcello Mastroianni, Harvey Keitel, Willem Dafoe, Bruno Ganz, and Jeanne Moreau.

Irene Jacob, Angelopoulos, Willem Dafoe

Angelopoulos won a fistful of awards in his four-decade career, including the first prize Palme d’Or at Cannes for his film, Eternity and a Day (1998). That one starred Swiss actor Bruno Ganz as a famous writer left with only a few days to live setting out on a journey in search of answers to vast metaphysical questions.

Winning First Prize at Cannes

But Angelopoulos was perhaps best remembered at Cannes for his behavior three years earlier in connection with his film, Ulysses Gaze, starring Harvey Keitel. It won Cannes’ International Critics’ prize and was named European Film of the Year, but Angelopoulos had come there to win Cannes’ first prize. At the awards ceremony when his name was announced it was for the Grand Jury Prize—second place. For several seconds he remained in his seat, clearly enraged, and when he finally did step onto the stage it was to say, “I planned my speech for the Palme d’Or, but if this is what you have to give me I have nothing to say.”

He was born in Athens in 1935, studied law but found it dull and moved to Paris, ostensibly to study at the Sorbonne but spent most of his time at the Cinémathèque Française. He returned to Greece and worked as a newspaper film critic before turning to filmmaking. Angelopoulos directed more than twenty films and earned fifty industry awards.

I met him casually once or twice, and so I was drawn to the article when I saw his name. But what caught my attention and stays with me was how he died and what he was working on at the time.

Angelopoulos died in Athens’ port city of Piraeus while shooting his latest film, The Other Sea. News reports said the film was about immigration, the crisis in contemporary Greece, and the responsibility of the political class. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. Those precise subjects had consumed the last two years of my life, for they are the backbone of my new Andreas Kaldis mystery coming out in June (Target: Tinos).

Then I read how he died. It was not from illness. He was struck crossing a street in Piraeus by a motorcycle driven by an off-duty police officer. There is no more dangerous activity in Athens than crossing a busy street, and nothing wilder on earth than Greek motorcyclists. Yet, neither police nor government does what is necessary to make the roads and crossings safer. And, yes, I’ll take the mail on that.

Perhaps they put their faith in the ancient gods to protect the citizenry or upon some perceived innate deterrent effect of laws that send an offending driver to prison for any death caused by a traffic accident. One can seriously debate that legal approach—there are a lot of hit and runs in Greece—and one cannot help but wonder what will happen in this case where the driver was a police officer.

At least one Greek news source reported the accident as follows: “The accident occurred when Angelopoulos, 76, attempted to cross a busy road without wearing a special reflective uniform.”

A special reflective uniform. I’m sure that’s an item every Greek carries at the ready for those times a busy road must be crossed.

Angelopoulos actually died a few hours after the accident, in a hospital’s intensive care unit. It took 35 to 40 minutes for an ambulance to arrive at the scene, because the first two ambulances dispatched to the scene had mechanical problems. A representative of the paramedics union blamed it all on “personnel shortages and poor maintenance.”

Chilling, isn’t it, how one who spent his life immersed in capturing the essence of his countrymen’s tragic past died in a manner symbolic of what threatens it now—a system unwilling to accept responsibility for what all know must be done and quick to blame others for the inevitable results.

Anapafsou en eirini, Theo Angelopoulos (April 17, 1935-January 24, 2012).

Jeff—Saturday

Without Honour

noreply@blogger.com (Dan Waddell) — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:58:00 +0000

Much ado in the UK this week about banking. First, the news that the CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which had to be taken into public ownership to save it from tanking during the Fall, was due to be awarded a £1m bonus for, er, well actually no one seemed to be sure what the bonus was for as RBS was hardly doing well. Understandably the public reaction was rather negative. Eventually, under much pressure, the CEO said he would forego the bonus, with much the same grace as my eight-year-old hands over the controls of the Wii to his sister when I tell him it's time for her go.

Then, tumultuous news that a former CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland, Sir Fred Goodwin, was to become a mere mister. The honours forfeiture committee - and one can only wonder how you get to sit on that - decided that, because of his role in the crash, Goodwin, who was knighted in 2004 for his services to the banking industry, should have his honour removed. The committee said:

[We] are clear that the failure of RBS played an important role in the financial crisis of 2008/9 which, together with other macroeconomic factors, triggered the worst recession in the UK since the Second World War and imposed significant direct costs on British taxpayers and businesses. Fred Goodwin was the dominant decision-maker at RBS at the time. In reaching this decision, it was recognised that widespread concern about Fred Goodwin's decisions meant that the retention of a knighthood for 'services to banking' could not be sustained.

Great, you might think, especially if, like me, you believe the criminal, indecent greed of our bankers led directly to the economic armageddon facing us. It's good that they're finally getting their comeuppance, even if it's purely symbolic. Isn't it?

I have to say the whole thing left me cold. It smacks of the worst kind of scapegoat-ism. Fred Goodwin was already public enemy number one, reviled in the press for the massive pension he received (£16m), given an obligatory daft nickname (Fred the Shred), and revealed as an adulterer (for some reason that escapes most people a rich ex-banker having an affair was deemed to be big news).

Goodwin is clearly overpaid, incompetent and may well not be a very nice person. The bank that employed him did spectacularly badly under his charge. Yet surely these charges can be levelled at almost every person of financial seniority during the last decade? How are we going to punish them? Or is it right that Goodwin becomes the sole repository for all our ill-will and anger, a sort of banking Aunt Sally? Half the banking sector of Britain has an honour of some sort. Will they all be stripped of them? And while we're at it, there's a fair few Lords sitting in the House of Lords with criminal records, even the odd jail sentence in their past. Dear old Jeffery Archer (Lord Archer of Plagiarism) did jail time for perjury, and yet he gets to pass and ratify laws.

Which brings me on to the real reason the whole synthetic episode leaves me cold. The existence of a very silly, feudal honours system in the first place. What sort of place hands out gongs and knighthoods in the first place? They were original given by Kings to curry favour and loyalty among his subjects in more medieval times. Nothing has changed. Inevitably they're handed out by whichever party is in power to the cronies who helped them get elected - in other words, if you donated billions of pounds, you get a nice peerage or a knighthood in return. They are entirely bought. Yes, a few CBEs and OBEs are handed out to sportsmen and women and actors for kicking a ball well or dressing up and pretending, and the odd worthy bauble goes to a member of the public who has done good things, but it's all a farce, and an abomination in a forward thinking, progressive country.

If removing Goodwin's knighthood leads to a more grown-up, meritorious attitude to reward, a serious rethinking of how our banking sector operates, and the eventual abolition of the honours system then it might have been a good thing. Until then it seems pointless and showy.

cheers

Dan - Friday

Not Black Enough

noreply@blogger.com (Michael Sears (of Michael Stanley)) — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:00:00 +0000

I have to admit that this is a bit of a rant.

I want to say up front that I’m in favor of affirmative action – at least in South Africa. Take any country which has minority races, minority language speakers, minority religious believers, and you’re going to find some sort of discrimination which will spill over into jobs. Even a country with one race, one religion and one language will still likely have an unfair distribution of wealth and senior positions between men and women. South Africa in the apartheid days, however, was one of the few countries where the discrimination was against the majority of the population and was institutionalized in laws and structures. In that context, it does seem fair that some real effort be made to address the imbalances and spread the opportunities more widely across the people.

But there are problems. Discrimination in the old regime had extended to schools also, and few black children had received decent primary or secondary education. Several local Universities (including Wits University) attempted to bridge this gap in various ways, and the results were positive, but not universally successful. So, in the early stages, many people were appointed to jobs for which they were inadequately skilled. This led to the conventional wisdom among whites that “these people are not capable of handling theses jobs”. (This is patently untrue, and "these people" is, of course, a euphemism.) Worse, it sometimes convinced the holders of the jobs that they were inadequate. Things have improved on that front, and people appointed to jobs now are usually appropriately trained or at worst able to cope. The reality is that seventeen years of more equal education has taken place. I say more equal because the school system is still very variable. Now it is a question of what you can pay and where you live rather than what color you are. The majority of the country’s people are not able to pay very much or move to a good area.

Unfortunately it is young white men who are taking much of the pain of affirmative action. While older people may be losing hoped for promotions, they are seldom losing their jobs. (Not for affirmative action reasons in any case.) But the economy is weak – like everywhere else – so there is now a scarcity of jobs. Even skilled white university leavers – accountants, scientists and engineers, for example – are finding the job market tough. But they are getting offers from other places like Australia and New Zealand, and we will miss them when (?) the economy turns around.

Lindiwe Mazibuko

Well, no pain no gain etcetera. But now we come to the rant. The question now is if you are black enough. All women were regarded as discriminated against in the early stages, but soon white women were declared not disadvantaged enough. Then people of Indian and mixed race descent were not black enough. (You can argue the white women case – after all they benefited from apartheid too. That certainly can’t be said for the other two groups.)

Patrica de Lille, Helen Zille, Lindiwe Mazibuko

Even when someone is black in the black African sense, that may not be black enough. Allow me to introduce Lindiwe Mazibuko. This young lady is smart and talented and the parliamentary leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA) – the official opposition, and only group able to make any real challenge to the ANC government. While the DA was the rump of historically white parties – albeit liberal – and appealed to that segment of the population, it was treated by the ANC government as a minor nuisance, unavoidable in the democratic scheme of things. When its white leadership accused government members or civil servants of corruption, this was dismissed as white racism. (No, I don’t see that connection either.)

Ms Mazibuko is an affirmative action appointment. She has risen rapidly, and is strongly supported by the party’s feisty leader - Helen Zille. She beat a more experienced white male for the parliamentary leader’s job. The party understands that it will never achieve a breakthrough with middle class – let alone average - black voters unless it transforms itself. Last week Ms Mazibuko made the New York Times. You can read the article about her here.

But the idea of the opposition reaching out to blacks is altogether not to the ANC government’s liking. So, then, is Ms Mazibuko black enough? She was born in Swaziland and came to South Africa as a child. So is her iZulu-speaking black enough? Then her ideas. She says she used to vote for the ANC when she was younger but feels they have failed the “born frees” - children born after the change of government - and she is disgusted by the corruption. This is not the language of true blacks (i.e. supporters of the ANC). So Lindiwe Mazibuko is dismissed as a ‘coconut’ – black outside but white inside. Definitely not black enough.

There is so much that’s good in South Africa and exceptional. But the ANC government is going to have to learn that – in the long run – they can’t rely on every black African’s support as a given. And they need to start addressing that with appropriate policies rather than with derogatory language.

Michael – Thursday.

Memories for sale

noreply@blogger.com (Yrsa Sigurdardottir) — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 19:40:00 +0000

I am presently in Florida on a trip with my husband, teenage daughter, five year old grandson and a sweet niece of twelve. We are in Orlando where the magic is supposed to happen and the purpose of the visit was to visit the parks for the kids, do some shopping and relax. So far we have been to a mall or two and to Disneyland, our grandson‘s and first visit to this park as well as my niece‘s, while my daughter is more jaded and me and my husband could work as tourguides atfer a lifetime of such visits.

Disney is expensive, they do not give away the tickets even though now three of their main attractions are under repair and many of the buildings are hid behind canvas painted to look like what they did before, hiding what is probably refurbishment. Closing up for a period of such work is probably not an option so we remained understanding while trying to explain to our grandson what was going on after he pointed out one such house and exclaimed that it was a cartoon. We managed to keep our cool upon exiting one ride after another into strategically placed gift shops where pirate swords and laser guns from outer space were pointed in the direction of our grandson. Even when we were completely ripped off buying a 50 dollar photograph of the kids's heads placed into a Star Wars background.

We have Seaworld and Universal to go and it will be interesting to see if our calm reserve remains intact to the end. I am not so worried about Seaworld since animals do not awake the same annoyance as grown-ups dressed as rodents with big white glove-clad hands. But Universal I worry a bit about, it will be our last park and there instead of the rodents we will have grown-ups dressed as superheroes. The only similar figure I like is the Lego edition of Darth Vader. It makes you wonder if there might possibly be an evil race on a planet far away where all the evil guys are tiny like the Lego figure. It would completely ruin their evilness.

But I think we will be OK. Bring on the superheros. You see, we have been through the ringer and managed not to scream or lose it completely.

Ususally when we travel we stay in regular hotels. But this time around we needed something bigger and did not feel comfortable in taking two rooms because of the kids ages, so we booked at a resort. This we did through Travelocity and while booking there was nothing to suggest anything out of the ordinary. Turns out this is some sort of timeshare hoohah. Regarding such dealings, being from Iceland we are complete babes in the woods. There is no such thing as timeshare at home and the only mention we had heard about this was from a relative of my husband‘s who inherited two such slots from her brother who had lived in the States for a time and has now spent years desperately trying to get rid of them. Last I heard she was thinking of faking her own death.

A call from the lobby asking us if we would like a tour of the resort for an hour and a half in exchange for discounted park tickets sounded like a wonderful idea to us. Little did we know. We lost five hours of our vacation watching a stupid advertisment about the founder of this resort and how no one can take away your memories, walking into model apartments and being pretty agressively pushed into signing up for something that was such a ridiculously bad deal that you have to give them some credit for even trying.

The tactic was boiler room – first someone sweet with a crazy offer that only the drunk and otherwise thought impared would fall for, then a tall guy in a suit that joins the table and has a very special offer that just came in. When this does not work yet another with something less expensive and a new round of figures involving points, weeks and dollars. And the deal had to be signed that morning, no going home to mull it over, no google-ing or getting outside advice. How fishy can you get? When we asked why the put this pressure on people they said it was the law of Florida, they had to do it this way because of legislation. If we did not make a deal that same hour they would not be allowed to meet with us for two years. We must have looked particularly stupid. All other questions were answered akin to this: Question: „How do you get ut of this if you don‘t want to own a timeshare anymore?“ My husband‘s cousin buying fake blood made us think of this. Answer: „Why would you want to stop having vacations? Do you foresee in your future that you will want to stop enjoying life?“ Oh please.

For the two bedroom apartment they wanted us to finance for them, we were to recieve 200 000 points. These we could use at the resort or change over to hotels in other locations. When we asked how many nights this would get us for example in NYC it turned out we could stay 2.5 nights. Great deal right? To say nothing of the financing they offered. Sixteen point nine percent interest. Highway robbery. I am upset at myself for not standing up and yelling to all that were huddled around on the other tables to think about this figure. Makes me almost want to go back, just to throw that wrench into the cog. But the law of Florida prohibits me from doing so. Maybe in two years time.

But what was most amazing was the fact that five hours passed and that we did not walk out at any point. I have no explanation for this other than these people knew what they were doing and we did not. We were also too busy refusing to sign and pointing out that as soon as we knew what was going on we let them know we were not looking to buy anything off them. And then there is upbringing, you do not want to be rude. So we are now the proud owners, not of a timeshare but five hours of bad memories. Just the opposite of what they kept promoting as if they had the franchise of remembrance.

No one needs a resort or a timeshare to obtain cherised memories. My favorite one from this trip so far is my grandson asking us if the voice on the GPS was reciting news. He hates news.

Yrsa - Wednesday

Poor in Paris? Visit your tante

noreply@blogger.com (Cara Black) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 04:17:00 +0000

This may look like a bank but it's a pawnbroker used by the poor in Paris. My friend sent me an article from good business which is in English and clearly explains this peculiarly French version of going to the pawnbroker or visiting your 'tante'. So I'm using a lot of the article because for me it finally cleared up this confusion I've felt about this 'tante'. Researching a book several years ago, Laura my editor suggested I look up a man who used Bayonne's Crédit municipal bank - pawnbroker - to embezzle huge funds which resulted in a scandal and exploded in December 1933. The embezzler Alexandre Stavisky, known as le beau Sasha - the handsome Sasha - was linked to several government deputies in a complicated scheme and some say this brought the Daladier government down.
He later 'committed' suicide.
This week, thousands of lucky French people had their financial obligations forgiven after the country's oldest bank decided to simply wipe their slate clean. The 3,500 clients who benefitted from the bank’s largesse had debts of 150 euros or less - about $190 - with the Crédit Municipal de Paris, also known as the "Mont-de-piété," the bank of the poor, which has for centuries allowed the needy to get loans against their valuables—an ethical pawnshop, or the original microlender.
Celebrities of the past secretly used the bank: Victor Hugo, Claude Monet and Napoleon’s first wife, Joséphine de Beauharnais,
among others. Prince François d'Orléans, third son of King Louis-Philippe, once pawned his watch to settle a gambling debt. Ashamed when asked what happened to his precious timepiece, he answered, "I left it at my aunt's' ma tante'.To this day, getting help from 'ma tante' is a discrete way of saying one's been going to the "poor people's bank."
The unexpected gift is a way for the bank to celebrate its 375th anniversary. The Crédit Municipal de Paris was created in 1637 by Théophraste Renaudot, a doctor, journalist and philanthropist who wanted to combat poverty by giving the needy access to fair banking. Interest rates at the time could go up to 130 percent. The doctor's idea was to give the poor people of Paris loans they could reasonably hope to repay, at decent rates for the time (about 10 percent annually) against whatever collateral they could produce: pots and pans, linens, silverware, artisans' tools. Records show a 19th-century woman so destitute her only possession was her mattress. Every morning, she would carry it to the bank and pawn it. With that money, she'd buy potatoes, sell them for a profit during the day and buy back her mattress at night.
Today, the bank stores more than a million objects, from the small piece of jewelry to the grand masterpiece, in headquarters covering a city block in the historical center of Paris. With a capitalization of 60 million euros, the bank had 93 million euros in pawn-broking loans outstanding in 2010. Its 2010 profit of 1.3 million euros was partly assigned to improving shelters for the homeless. Similar city-owned, not-for-profit banks opened all over the country ie. Bayonne which Stavisky took advantage of, on the same principle: Pawn an object and you get a yearlong loan. Pay off the interest - 4 to 8.9 percent annually- and you can extend the loan; pay off the principal and you get your property back. If your valuable is sold for more than you owe, the profit is yours. These banks were eventually granted a state monopoly on pawn-broking loans, which continues to this day; France is thus a country without pawnshops."People were never very proud to go to the Mont-de-piété," says an official. It may be why people turned away from it: With the prosperity of the 20th century, people wanted to forget this symbol of poverty. But it is no longer forgotten."Our director likes to say our waiting room is like that of a hospital emergency room," the official adds "Everyone comes to it at some point."
Cara - Tuesday

Socrates

noreply@blogger.com (Leighton Gage) — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 05:01:00 +0000

No, this isn’t about the philosopher. I leave that kind of stuff to our Greek expert, Jeff Siger.

My post of today is about this guy:

Socrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira.

It’s been my privilege to be introduced to some of the greatest stars Brazilian football ever produced, Pele, Rivelino, Jairzinho, Gerson, Tostão, Falcão, Zico, but there was no one quite like Socrates.

We met first on the Lido, in Venice, back in 1983, when he was already a star, and I was still very ignorant about the beautiful game. He was there with a friend of mine. We boarded the same boat to go to the Rialto.

I’d heard of him, of course. In Brazil, Doctor Socrates was already a household name and widely-regarded as one of the greatest midfielders ever to play the game.

He’d been captain of the Brazilian team that played against Italy in the 1982 World Cup, a game of such surpassing skill and spontaneity that no one who saw it will ever forget it.

But I thought Doctor was just a sobriquet.

Not so. That day, in chatting with him, I learned that Socrates actually was a doctor, an orthopedic surgeon. And that he was also a folk singer, an author and a very modest and agreeable man.

Who, surprisingly, didn’t put football first.

The things that concerned him were eliminating poverty and building roads and schools.

And it wasn’t just talk.

In later years, after he retired, he went on to become a political activist. He wrote for newspapers, not only about sport, but also about politics and economics.

Unfortunately, he also became an alcoholic.

The activism was of a kind that could have gotten him killed during the military dictatorship of the 1970’s.

And the alcoholism did kill him.

Take a moment, now, to enjoy the Brazilian Team’s goals in the 1982 World Cup, from the days when Socrates was in his prime:

(C’mon, watch the video. Please! It’s a part of my continuing campaign to generate interest in the sport among you non-football fans. Remember, there’s only a little over two years to go before the event kicks off here in Brazil.)

Socrates died last month at the age of 56, just one day before his old team, Corinthians, won the Brazilian championship for the fifth time.

He was a doctor. He knew what the endless cigarettes and caiprinhas he was so fond of had done to his health.

Nevertheless, on the night he died, he went to a restaurant with a group of friends and overloaded his liver with the same degree of serenity that his namesake displayed when he drank the hemlock.

He was a most extraordinary man.

And Brazil is missing him.

Leighton - Monday