Down the drain

On the whole I am a person with a smile. But just now it got wiped off my face big time.

Today’s Times’ front page: “Big Brother database for phones and e-mails” – a foul excuse proffered as being for the good in the battle against terrorism. Come again?

I don’t often lose my temper but I am afraid I made a complete arse of myself when, last year, faced with airport staff at a tiny Southern England airport, they were confiscating about 100 pounds Sterling worth of my lotions and potions because the bottles held more than 100 ml each. I lost it – to my shame in front of both my son and nephew. Seriously, who would suicide bomb themselves flying from Southampton Airport with 60 people on board? 

On the return flight from Frankfurt airport it got even worse. You were not allowed to take a perfectly innocent Evian water bottle beyond check-in. It was a hot day but, being efficiently German, at least they had a bin right next to the counter. And don’t they just so love energising that little Hitler in their position of power when all you want to do is fly home.

The innocence when I first read Orwell. It’s come true - belatedly; nannied, supervised, watched at all times.

One day, not far away, I will retreat into a green hideaway, no electronics (though I so love the phone). Friends will know where to find me and knock at the door, or just send me a message in a bottle.

I am running amock just now, emotionally. How dare they (and who are THEY anyway?). Just turning on the computer you are ”protected” with firewalls etc etc etc only to learn that there was a hole in the fence and some sly fox slaughtered your chickens.

A real fox does what a fox must do: Which is to chase chickens – a matter of survival. Humans are blessed with brains – where is the compassion, some sort of respect for each other?

End of rant, for all the good that’s done.

U

In praise of the corset

There was Rubens, his fertile women with flesh in all the right places to attract man and consequently carry the baby.

Then there were the Marilyn Monroes and Sophia Lorens of the Fifties and Sixties, women with hips and tight waists, interlaced with the boyish Audrey Hepburn et al on the other end of the spectrum.

Now there is Lucian Freud.

His “Benefits Supervisor Sleeping” has just fetched a mind boggling sum at Christie’s, New York. That it did is, no doubt, homage to the man and his reputation; but also surprising in the day of the anorexic clothes hanger.

Lucian, slight omission: As the body cools down when asleep, by instinct, we will reach for a blanket, a duvet, even a fur coat. And anyway, when that shape - nobody goes to sleep in the nude, at least not in public - or so I hope.

U