Endtroducing...

As previously intimated, I think this blog has come to a natural conclusion. Alas and alack. It's all been tremendous fun but I think it's time to wind the old girl down. Yes, heart wrenching though it is, it's time to say goodbye to Liberal Elite.

But, whenever a door is closed, somewhere else a window opens.

Indeed, I've set up a new blog over at WordPress. It's simply called Citizen Sane. I thought I'd have another crack at writing on a (semi) regular basis. So far, so good.

Please, click on the link below. Come join me and my new cyber-witterings. Bookmark it, pop by whenever you can and be sure to say hello. For there is still much to talk about!

http://citizensane.wordpress.com/

Speak later!

It's the nothingness. The whiteness. The endless...ness. Stretching on beyond the human imagination. Desolation of the soul.

Two months! Two long months without so much as a whisper. Well, the intention has been there I promise you, just not the time.

I'm not even going to attempt to recap any issues from the last couple of months. I can barely remember anything anyway. On a personal note, my biggest news is that I am going to make an honest woman of Citizeness Sane. Yes, I finally proposed upon our return from a long weekend in Bordeaux over the August bank holiday weekend. (I recognise that a proposal would have been better actually in Bordeaux but, well... that's just the way it worked out.) We will get hitched on October 25th 2008.

With regards to this blog, I've been thinking about putting the old girl out to pasture for a long time now. It's been fun, but I think it might be time to move on to something else. I still plan to blog, but maybe in not the same way that I have over the last couple of years. It could be time to pop up again with something slightly different (and yet the same). I've loved writing this thing but it no longer feels right to be doing so under the Liberal Elite banner - the name just seems too restrictive and I want to just write about anything that takes my fancy.

I'm tinkering away on something at the moment and, if I decide to proceed with it, you can be sure that I will advertise the fact here. After all, I would hate to lose my five readers.....

Watch this space.

Back again, alas....

I've been away for the last week with Lady Sane, taking some well earned rest in Ireland away from the noise, crowds and general irritation of London. I didn't have access to the interweb during this time, but I did write up a couple of posts which I've posted below under their original dates.

Samuel Johnson famously stated that "When a man is tired of London he is tired of life." He was wrong, as anyone who has woken up to the below view for the last week would also testify.

Reefer madness

It appears to be fashionable once more for senior government members to disclose whether or not they smoked cannabis in their youth. Leading the way was new Home Secretary Jacqui Smith – now in charge of reviewing the 2004 declassification of cannabis from a Class B to Class C drug - who made her admission on GMTV yesterday. It was a stock politician answer: it was 25 years ago, I did it once or twice, I didn’t really enjoy it, I haven’t done it since, etc. What a big yawn. Harriet Harman did the same thing on the same programme this morning. It was a bland, forthright statement of fact. Even the interviewer John Stapleton couldn’t be bothered to probe much below the surface, his own indifference nearly equal to my own. A student? Smoking a joint? At university? I refuse to believe it! Next you’ll be telling me that students miss lectures, drink cheap beer, listen to indie music and have sex occasionally. The debauched animals!

Of course, the whole point of Smith, Harman, Darling, Kelly, etc, coming out of the cannabis closet is to once again put the spotlight on David Cameron and reopen the whole issue of whether or not he took drugs in his youth too. Cameron still refuses to play the game and increasingly one suspects that this is because his dalliances with illegal substances were perhaps a tad more extreme than the occasional toke of a joint at a student house party. Perhaps – and I’m trembling with trepidation at the mere suggestion of this – he smoked cannabis… regularly! And enjoyed it! Can you imagine? That is, after all, my own experience and, come to think of it, that of virtually everyone in my social network. So come on Dave, don’t be shy. Tell us about that good shit you smoked.

The whole affair underlines the rank hypocrisy and absurdity of the law surrounding the use of cannabis. Millions use or have used it on a regular basis, causing no harm to anyone but themselves, but become criminals in the process. And yet our own Home Secretary took it herself as did, it appears, a substantial number of the Cabinet. Of course, they all bleat now about the “folly of youth” and how they “regret it enormously” and all kinds of other platitudes that they feel duty bound to say, even though nobody outside of the offices of the Daily Mail or the Telegraph is in the least bit bothered by the revelations. (Speaking of the Telegraph, check out this reactionary rant by the deranged Simon Heffer.) The only real problem here is the fact that known ex-users of the substance will now decide the severity of the “crime” of future users as they redefine whether it is a Class C or Class B substance. They are determining how future users will be treated by the law even though it is patently obvious that the only sensible action is to decriminalise or even legalise the substance. When it’s legal it’s regulated, its supply is not determined by organised crime gangs, mobsters or terrorist organisations but, instead, licensed businesses. The strength and purity of the substance can be controlled, as can its availability. And, even better, it can be taxed and become a major source of income. At the present time and under the current legislation, none of the above is true. Instead we spend billions of pounds losing a war against a plant that grows naturally. The THC content is manipulated by the growers to dangerous levels, the content is mixed with other products, anyone of any age can buy the stuff pretty much anywhere. If they are caught in possession they risk a jail sentence and a criminal record for the crime of exercising their own choice over which poison they wish to consume. And it is about choice. Want to drink yourself to death? Go ahead - the choice and availability has never been greater. Want to smoke cigarettes? Oh, it might be forbidden in all public places now, but if you're over sixteen you can still take your pick from the various suppliers of the most addictive killer drug on the planet. Want to smoke a little weed and do no harm to anyone but yourself? Oh no, you deserve a criminal record or a custodial sentence.

Forget the ‘War on Drugs’, how about a war on nonsensical and downright hypocritical laws?

The cash for honours farce

After sixteen months of investigation at a cost of nearly £1million yielded no convictions whatsoever in the ‘cash for honours’ claims, only two things appear plain to me. Firstly, the long overdue abolition of the entire honours system is now more necessary than ever. An embarrassing colonial throwback, it is entirely inconsistent with our claims to be a modern democracy. What possible reason could there be to ordain somebody with the title ‘Sir’ in this day and age? MBEs and OBEs are even more of an anachronism: the United Kingdom is barely a cohesive entity at the moment, never mind titles referring to the age of Empire! Let’s ditch these silly little ceremonies right away. The other outcome should be a serious overhaul of the party funding system. As I’ve argued elsewhere, we should look at introducing state funding of major political parties. While this does cut across my own liberal principles (I generally favour less state involvement), I find it less offensive than parties auctioning their policy formulation to wealthy private donors, big business, professional lobby groups and trade unions. Although nobody has been prosecuted, the whole affair reeks of the sewer and the stench now hangs, rightly or wrongly, over the entire political system, thus reinforcing the level of mistrust and apathy that the British public routinely feel for their political system. This is a tragedy because, despite what many might tell you, we actually have one of the best democracies on the planet. Indeed, one could mount a case that the very fact that the police were investigating the issue at all, even interviewing the prime minister in the process (as a witness, not a subject) is testament to that fact. That said, it is not hard to see how the lack of any real outcome to proceedings has been very damaging. I rarely find myself agreeing with Sir (there we go again) Menzies Campbell, but he is correct when he says:

“This whole affair has diminished politics and politicians in the eyes of the public. Never again must there be any question of any link between preferment and financial support.”

You didn't think I'd let this one slip by did you?

As you can imagine, I was bitterly disappointed to learn that George Galloway might be facing an 18 day suspension from Parliament for "damaging the reputation of the house" with his comments following the inquiry into his Mariam Appeal charity. You see, I originally misread the story and thought the standards watchdog had recommended that he be barred for 18 months. So I was deeply saddened to learn the harsh reality. George Galloway not attending the House of Commons for 18 days? Who would notice? He's barely there anyway, busy as he is promoting his spoken word tours, hosting a radio talk show, appearing on trash television or praising suicide bombers.

He defended himself with the usual old bluster, highlighting the 'irony' that a 'pro-war' Parliament had attacked the leader of the 'anti-war' party. Except, of course (and we should never forget this) Galloway and the other contemptible clowns that make up the Socialist Worker's Party Stop The War Coalition are not anti-war at all. They are in fact very pro-war. They just happen to prefer the jihadist murderers that make up the other side.

What we really really don't want

Meanwhile, the world needs a Spice Girls reunion like it needs an outbreak of scrofula. This is almost as bad as The Police reforming. Almost.

"For us it's about celebrating the past, enjoying each other and it's about our fans. It was kind of now or never." - Geri Halliwell, today.

Hmmm, never would have been preferable.

Shirley, you can't be serious?

Gordon has only been PM for five minutes and already he's doing weird things. Like asking Shirley Williams to advise on the issue of nuclear proliferation. This is the same Shirley Williams who was a complete embarrassment on Question Time last week, especially on the question about Salman Rushdie's knighthood. In short, she depicted herself as a liberal who isn't prepared to defend the notion of free speech if it upsets a certain faction of Muslims. A pathetic, feeble response, characteristic of the Liberal Democrats who are wetter than a turbot's water tank. Why would we care what her views are on nuclear proliferation? I think we can probably guess anyway.

Big shoes to fill

I can’t believe you’ve gone. After all the rumours, the hearsay, the “will you, won’t you go?” conversations, we now have to get used to you not being around. The country is a different and, I would argue, poorer place for you moving on. I suppose we took your excellence for granted, grew blasé about having you around, thought you would always be there. But it was not to be. You’ve moved on now, never to return and we just have to get used to it. You’ve get a big job to do in foreign lands and, although we wish you every success, we will also miss you enormously. Oh, your place will be filled, for sure, but how does one replace the irreplaceable? You were a one off, a preternaturally gifted individual, a once in a generation phenomenon. We will probably never see your like again.

Thierry Henry, we will never forget you.

Hell is 177,499 other people in a muddy field.

I was just trying to think of something worse than paying £145 for the pleasure of spending a whole weekend camping in a bog in Somerset surrounded by thousands of people caked in mud and who knows what else.

But I couldn't, so I stopped.

Why would anyone do this?

Sometimes the BBC is worth every penny of the licence fee.

The BBC has many critics. And deservedly so at times. But every now and then it comes up with something that more than justifies the price of the licence fee, and tonight's Question Time could well be such an occasion. Just look at this panel and tell me it's not going to be priceless: both of the Hitchens brothers in one place on national television. Should be lots of fun. Oh, and Boris Johnson is usually good value, too.

UPDATE:
Anyone who missed the show but wants to see it can watch the whole thing here on the BBC website (although it will only be up for a few days). Otherwise the entire show is on YouTube in seven parts. Below is part 1, parts 2-7 are linked underneath.

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

I'm not condoning sectarian violence, BUT....

It wasn't me. I promise.

But what savagery. He was kicked, you know. In both ankles.

It was forty years ago today, etc, etc, etc, etc.

As everywhere seems to be reminding us, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles is 40 this weekend. Cue a barrage of nostalgic reverence and weepy eyed baby-boomer self-congratulation about "their" music and "their" era. It was the same ten years ago at the 30th anniversary and fifteen years ago at the 25th anniversary and twenty years ago at the... you get my point.

Let's be clear: I love The Beatles, and it would be absurd to deny the relevance of Sgt. Pepper in the canon of popular music's history. The iconic cover, the musical experimentation, the spirit of the age, the Summer of Love, flowers in your hair, make love not war, blah, blah, blah, etcetera, etcetera, yes, yes, yes. The fact is, for all the praise and significance heaped upon it, it really isn't a very strong album, either by general standards or The Beatles' own. They themselves bettered it before (Revolver) and after (The White Album, Abbey Road) and there have been hundreds of better albums made since, too, so I've never understood why Pepper continues to be showered with accolades and spoken about in such worshipful tones, much like that other incredibly over-rated album from the era, Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys.

To my mind, there is only one gold standard Beatles number on the album: A Day In The Life. And that only came about by fortunate accident, given that it was one unfinished Lennon piece intercut with an unfinished McCartney piece and spliced together by producer George Martin. What else do we have? The hideous music hall whimsy that is When I'm Sixty Four (McCartney at his most twee). The cod-Eastern sitar dirge of Within You Without You (light the joss sticks, maaaan). With A Little Help From My Friends: another relentlessly chirpy McCartney composition, thrown over to Ringo Starr much like one throws scraps of old meat to the family dog. Lovely Rita: Macca again with a another oompah-oompah music hall tune and a eulogy to a fucking traffic warden. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds sounds like Lennon knocked it out in about two minutes, ditto Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! - the lyrics to which were pinched from a Victorian-era carnival poster, as was the tune, which is largely circus music. Well, sorry, but circuses only make me think of one thing: gypsies.

Sgt. Pepper was The Beatles at their most indulgent. Yes, they were pushing boundaries for popular music by breaking away from the traditional guitar-drums-bass formula and yes, the production and recording techniques employed were revolutionary in their time. For this, Pepper deserves recognition. But the songs simply weren't up to much in the first place; it really sounds like they were just going through the motions.

I'll be celebrating the album's 40th anniversary by listening to Abbey Road instead.

It's goodbye from him....

Oh, the fun we had in the early hours of May 2nd 1997. 22 years old, just a year out of university, still aglow with the enthusiasm/naivete of youth, staying up all night at a friend's house watching the hated Tories get booted out of power. How we laughed when David Mellor was defeated, how we cheered as Malcolm Rifkind and Norman Lamont succumbed, how we howled with uncontrollable glee when Michael Denzil Xavier Portillo lost his seat in Enfield Southgate. Happy times, great memories. It honestly felt like a huge cloud had lifted from the country, that some sort of re-birth was underway. But now it doesn't so much feel like a decade ago as an entirely different universe altogether.

So now Tony Blair has finally stopped prevaricating and has declared an official leaving date, I'm not really sure what I feel. Insouciance, mostly. Which is what I've experienced for much of his ten years in office anyway, so it's just business as usual. Wasn't that the whole point of New Labour anyway? The stage managed, on-message, self publicising machine that existed only to make Labour electable in the first place? Everything else was kind of tacked on as an afterthought and as far as I and many others were concerned, it was good enough that they simply Weren't The Tories.

Tony Blair's problem was that the expectation was too high and his government did too little in the first term, preoccupied as it was with ensuring a second term and having spent such a long time thinking about getting into power, they had few tangible policies to set into motion once they did. They inherited a buoyant economy - a first for a Labour administration who had previously inherited only mess, which they then proceeded to make worse - requiring little more than 'lights on' maintenance. It would have taken spectacular incompetence on an unprecedented scale to have thrown that away. Handing control of interest rates to the Bank of England was a shrewd move, single-handedly demonstrating to the City and to the left that they were not intending to deviate from monetarist policy. And it is pretty clear to even the harshest of critics that the last ten years have witnessed uninterrupted economic growth, low unemployment, stable inflation and historically low interest rates. Yet with that has come a barrage of stealth taxes and a swollen, inefficient public sector. I'm staggered at the amount of money that has been poured into the NHS and education, yielding only negligible improvements. Gordon Brown will now have the dubious honour of overseeing what happens next in the social arena and I suspect he will be weighed down by the baggage of being a key decision maker in an administration that has pumped billions of pounds into dilapidated infrastructure for next to no return.

Blair will undoubtedly be remembered most for his foreign policy decisions, the most divisive of which was the involvement in the Iraq war and the close partnership he forged with America, inviting critics to describe him as Bush's 'poodle'. An inaccurate criticism given that, with British involvement in Kosovo in 1999 and Sierra Leone in 2000, British forces had already been dispatched to halt genocide and topple vile regimes while Bush was still an isolationist governor of Texas. Blair and Bill Clinton had also ordered air strikes against Iraq in December 1998 when it was clear that Saddam Hussein was continuing to resist compliance with UN weapons inspections. An interventionist foreign policy was already a reality under this prime minister. Meanwhile, September 11th 2001 changed everything. Blair was one of the first to recognise this fact and the immediate decision to stand shoulder to shoulder with the US was without question the right thing to do - Republican president or not. Some battles trump ideological differences and the threat - actual and, more crucially, potentially - from Islamist terrorism is one such example.

A mixed bag for Tony Blair then. Disappointing to non-effectual on the domestic front, but a huge legacy in the realm of foreign policy, it's too early to say how he will be remembered. The peace process (hopefully) finally being settled in Northern Ireland also looks like another late victory that can stand as a genuine achievement, but will it be overshadowed by the allegations of sleaze and nepotism that also tarnished the Blair years?

What Tony Blair really demonstrated was that a gifted politician with something of the people's touch could forge a presidential style of leadership that encouraged the electorate to give less consideration to the party as a whole and vote instead for a populist individual. Something that the Conservative Party have finally twigged and whose current tactic of keeping quiet about policy and instead stressing their own reinvention is finally making them look electable again. Their entire strategy has been torn from the New Labour Guidebook To Electoral Success (1994-97).

As Nick Robinson, the BBC's political editor, put it: "Tony Blair's legacy? It comes down to two words: David Cameron."

Get back, get back, get back to where you once belonged

I am still here. Quite an extended absence – the longest, I believe, since the blog’s inception – but I have had neither the time nor the inclination to write anything of late. Put it down to starting a new job. A new job where, unlike the last one, I’m actually expected to work quite hard for my money, usually finishing at around 7pm every day and where I cannot even access Blogger as such sites are restricted by the company’s web filtering software. (This is actually quite a good thing for my job security.)

I don’t know whether to be pleased or perturbed at the fact that, despite having not written a thing for three and a half weeks, I still average more site visitors a day than I did six months ago. Most curious. Not that I think many of them are regular readers, I must add, mostly people looking for something else and finding this place. The most common referring link is still people looking for the lyrics to I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor because of this post. I don’t think they stick around for long. Other frequent links are ‘cripple jokes’, that famous quote by Voltaire, ‘atheism is wrong’, ‘Cyprus Tavern Manchester’, loads of image searches for Agent Smith from The Matrix and, probably my favourite of late: ‘Elite Satan’.

Will try and write some bits of pieces over the long weekend….

Leaving New York, never easy

So, we’re back from New York. Did I miss anything? Keeping up with real news is very difficult in the US. They covered the sailors being released, but since then their media seems to have been obsessed with this story. Why? Perhaps any American readers can elucidate? I’m only barely aware of who Don Imus is, why is this such big news? For the last two days of our stay CNN seemed to cover nothing else. For British readers who haven’t a clue what I’m talking about, cast your mind back to the fuss a few years ago when Robert Kilroy-Silk caused a stink with his ignorant comments about “Arabs” and his programme was taken off air. Now imagine that the mainstream media at the time talked about nothing else for days on end and you get the picture. Baffling.

Banal news coverage aside, we had an excellent time. Freezing cold weather all weekend didn’t help, but never mind. Being taken to hospital in an ambulance early on Monday morning wasn’t exactly in the itinerary, either. I was awoken at 6am with unbearable pain in my stomach, chest and back and had difficulty breathing. A further, more extreme, episode approximately one hour later resulted in Lady Sane calling 911. I didn’t know what was going on, but it felt rather like what I expect a heart attack would feel like. So fifteen minutes later we’re in an ambulance and headed for St. Vincent’s Hospital and Medical Center on West 12th Street. And here I stayed for the next twelve hours in their emergency room. A series of further bursts of agony occurred between 11am and midday, which was good in a way because up until that point I was beginning to think they didn’t believe me, seeing as I had exhibited no symptoms whatsoever since arriving. I have never been in so much pain in my entire life – it was kind of like all the muscles in my upper body had turned to concrete, rendering me immobile and on the verge of hyperventilation. Each attack would last two or three minutes but would feel like several hours. A couple of shots of morphine later and I was feeling much, much better. I was given a litre of red liquid to drink and was told that I was going for a CAT scan. Lady Sane was there with me throughout, a pillar of strength as always (although worried sick).

To cut a long story short, the CAT scan showed nothing sinister and they believe the episodes were caused by a viral infection in the bowel and an inflamed colon going into spasm. I was prescribed antacids and finally discharged at 8pm. Not exactly how I’d planned to spend our penultimate day in New York, but I was so relieved that there was nothing seriously wrong with me I didn’t care. Knowing now that it was something trivial, it seems rather silly to have spent the whole day in ER. But at the time, when I had no idea what was wrong, I was scared shitless. As was Lady Sane, her sister (also in NYC for the weekend) and my family back home.

It struck me how we take our health for granted and that you cannot appreciate the joy of not being in crippling pain until you’ve experienced a dose of it. Thankfully, mine was short-lived, but it’s certainly made me less complacent and thankful I am generally in good working order. The medical staff that treated me were brilliant (although the nurses in ER are a bit scary – I suppose they have to be) and it was interesting to contrast the experience with British hospitals. It seems to me that, regardless of whether the hospital is privately or state funded, it will be understaffed, over-stretched and its patients subjected to long delays. Still, I did enjoy that morphine….

I wanna wake up in a city that never sleeps...

Busy times. Today was my last day in my current job, and I start a new one on April 16th. In between, Lady Sane and I are off to New York over Easter, just like we did last year. Oh yes, we do like it out there. Last year we stayed in a hotel right by Times Square, which was interesting, but not something we would care to repeat. So this year we're staying at a more sedate location in the heart of Chelsea village. Should be great fun.

So, expect the blog to be pretty quiet in the interim (and just as I was starting to get on a roll, too). Then again, there's free WiFi where we're staying, and I might take the laptop, so you never know, perhaps there will be a post from the Big Apple.

Back next Wednesday.

He's not a satirist, he's a very naughty boy

Check out this piece by Terry Jones (he of Monty Python fame). It's a piss poor slice of satire about the situation with the kidnapped British sailors currently being illegally held by the deranged state of Iran for their own egregious propaganda purposes. Jones applies a particularly pernicious brand of moral equivalence that seeks to draw a parallel with the treatment of the sailors by the Iranian regime with some of the methods employed against terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere.

It's a shame, because I'm a huge fan of Python but I now have no other option than to consider Mr Jones a tosser of the highest order. If you feel like further lowering your opinion of certain members of human society, read some of the comments underneath wherein large numbers of the self-hating left lap up his poorly considered bilge like thirsty goats.

For the record, the abduction of the sailors is an act of piracy, pure and simple. They were operating in Iraqi waters, under the auspices of the United Nations, on behalf of the government of Iraq. Iran's kidnapping and public parading of their hostages serves no purpose other than to stick up two fingers to Britain and the west and to try and buy some sort of bargaining chip in the ongoing row over Iran's intention to enrich uranium. The only conclusion we can draw is that Iran remains a menace to the region, we cannot believe a single word they say about anything and we should double our efforts to ensure that this crackpot Islamic dictatorship never gets its hands on any nuclear material, no matter how innocent they claim their intentions to be.

An assault on freedom of expression

The chocolate Jesus exhibit has been cancelled following an orchestrated campaign by the Catholic League, who called the piece an "assault on Christianity". The league, which boasts some 330,000 members, bombarded the hotel due to host the event with complaints, calls for a boycott and, inevitably, death threats. As I commented in yesterday's post, the exhibit looks poor: boring and devoid of meaning. It's not something I would choose to see, but the fact that it has been pulled in response to thug tactics is sickening.

The scary thing is the way such a response was so quickly generated, like some sort of SWAT team for religious sensibilities. From The Guardian:

On Thursday the league sent emails to 500 other religious groups - including Protestant, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist with a combined reach of millions - calling on them to boycott the Roger Smith hotel in which the gallery, the Lab, is based. Within 24 hours the hotel was so inundated with calls and visiting protesters that it pulled the exhibit.

I've written to the hotel myself, threatening to boycott them unless they put the exhibit back on. Alas, no response. One man cannot make a difference. Not unless he's Bill Donahue, president of the Catholic League, who went on to say, in something of a veiled threat:

"All those involved are lucky that angry Christians don't react the way extremist Muslims do when they're offended."

Perhaps, but the net result has been the same. A piece of art (bad art, in my opinion, but that is not the point) has been withdrawn to protect the feelings of a minority. Another smack in the mouth for freedom of expression from the proponents of fairy tales. It's like the Danish cartoons all over again. There may not have been riots, flag burning or calls for jihad, but it's still religious zealots playing the offence card to get their way; it's still setting a hideous precedent.

"We're delighted with the outcome," said Kiera McCaffrey, a spokeswoman for the League. Yes, I bet you are. It's a delightful small victory for you. But the question now is: where's next?

Sweet Jesus!

An art gallery in New York City has stirred up controversy with its latest exhibit: a naked Jesus made entirely of milk chocolate. Predictably, some Christian groups are outraged by this stunt - conveniently happening over the Easter period - and have called for a boycott.

Why is it always Jesus? I’d say that’s a subject pretty well covered by the arts over the last couple of thousand years wouldn’t you? Not that I would consider this to be ‘art’, incidentally: more a hackneyed stunt designed to ‘provoke’. Well, it’s certainly provoked a response from me: an overpowering yawn. The ‘artist’, Cosimo Cavallaro, is known for making use of food in his work, and once famously decorated a hotel room with mozzarella cheese. What creativity! Da Vinci would be jealous. What is the likelihood that Cavallaro will also be depicting Mohammed using Halal meats during Ramadan? That would certainly push a few boundaries and create a stir. Highly unlikely though. Because while Christian groups are likely to complain and be offended, they’re not very likely to kill him for his art, are they? They’re generally a much softer target.

Lady Sane and myself are going to be in New York City over the Easter period ourselves…. I think we’ll give this one a miss though.