HOW TO BE TOP DOG

REQUIREMENTS FOR BEING PRIME MINISTER, PRESIDENT, TOP DOG, BIG CHEESE, GANG LEADER:

1. Know how to lie confidently, fluently, boldly, shamelessly.

2. Lie about lying, as above.

3. Be a role model: let them learn how to win via all the above.

4. Be a boor, a bore, a buffoon, a bastard, a betrayer. They will call it charisma.

BODY REBUILDING

Here's me back from the gym, feeling virtuously achy. They have state of the art equipment, acres of it, full of people in various states of uber-fitness, uber-decay and simple normal what-the-hellness. All good.

ITALIAN THINKING

My old friend from Rome, Gaetano Trusso, architect-poet-translator of Persian poetry but not fitting any pigeonholes, as is the case with all my close friends and family, was here last week and of course we spoke Italian, with the odd French or English phrase inserted now and then.

I noticed that my ongoing inner monologue changes languages whenever I spend time with someone whose native tongue is different from mine, if I happen to know that tongue. I start to think in Italian, for instance, and my thinking takes on an Italianate character. I don't mean pasta adverts and lots of hand gestures but another range of thoughts, other vibrations, other colours. Finding links between apparently disparate things, a collage kind of thinking, more like flying than driving.

Dear Christine exhibition opens in Newcastle

I've never been to Newcastle. Newcastle is amazing. Those up and down streets, wonderful buildings, the river, the bridges, one of them glowing rainbowly at night, and the people, the people! Unbelievably friendly, all of them, at least the five ot six I accosted in the street to ask for directions. They instantly stopped what they were doing, talking on their phones or whatever, and accompanied me on my search. Where else would you find such friendliness? Eventually I got to the Vane, somewhat late at the Private View. 

I intended to take photos of everything and everyone but forgot that communicating with people and taking pictures at the same time doesn't really work. I did manage a few shots and no doubt lots more photos will be posted by others. There is an excellent hardback catalogue, fully illustrated.
 

I'm so glad I was there, the launching of the Dear Christine exhibition, and Fionn Wilson deserves more than one standing ovation for the persistence, dedication, attention and affection she has poured into this project since she conceived it. Christine Keeler would surely have been moved by this reframing and reclaiming of herself as an individual rather than a mere player in the he tragi-comedy that was the Profumo Affair.