…but I wouldn't want to decorate it.
Hitchin has just emailed me to say that he and the missus are flying to Rome tomorrow, and are visiting the Sistine Chapel on Monday. Of course, I immediately challenged him to play the Sistine Chapel Game.
The Sistine Chapel Game
OK, I don't do this very often, so listen up: I'm about to say something nice about the Vatican…
The Vatican has a rather good set of museums, and, unlike most museums I have been in, they are happy to let you take photographs of their exhibits. Good on them!
Apart from in the Sistine Chapel, that is.
I don't know why they won't let you take photos in the Sistine Chapel—the copyright on Michelangelo's famous ceiling must have lapsed by now, and it's not as if you're going to do any harm taking a few snaps, provided you don't use your flash.
Ordinarily, apart from when I'm at rugby matches, I reluctantly abide by photography bans. But, when I found myself in the Sistine Chapel last week, and I saw the hundreds of other tourists gawping (sic) up at the ceiling, while frantic museum guards ran amongst them shouting, "No photo! NO PHOTO!", I suddenly had a flash of inspiration, and invented the Sistine Chapel Game:
The Sistine Chapel Game is very easy to play: you simply have to take a photograph of yourself in the Sistine Chapel (with the ceiling in shot), without being caught by any of the guards.
So I eased my camera out of its bag and fired off a few shots.
"No photo! NOOOOOO PHOTO!" shouted a guard up at the front, who then started barging through my fellow tourists towards me. I quickly turned my back and pushed my camera back into the bag.
The guard practically swam through the crowd straight at me, then, at the very last second, veered to the left and started giving a right bollocking to the fat, bearded and very confused American tourist standing next to me.
Of course, you realise I'll probably be excommunicated for this.
See also: The Cathedral Game (and, before you ask, yes I did).
It's very nice to go trav'lin'…
…From Liv'pool to Florence via Rome,
It's oh, so nice to go trav'lin'
But it's so much nicer, yes, it's so much nicer to come home.
The tea's a lot better for a start. Well, better in the sense that tea actually exists in Blighty. They don't seem to have heard of it over there. And the cups of coffee are really tiny. God alone knows how they managed to knock an empire together.
Anyway, Jen and I are back from Italy, and the stuff we've been up to, you won't believe me: swearing at dead popes; encountering famous thesps; narrowly escaping assassination by nuns; gorping gawping at Galileo's finger; playing the Sistine Chapel game; coming to the inevitable conclusion that our Saviour was ginger. So much stuff. I am now officially a Renaissance man.
I'll fill you in on some of the details over the next few days, but I promise not to make you wade through through any of the 600+ 900+ photos I took.
Well, maybe just one or two.
But first, time for another cup of tea. I have some serious catching up to do.
Oh, and thanks for all the kind words while I was off, by the way. Serves me right, I suppose.
Brrr!
There's a cold snap on the way, apparently, so I'm heading south to sunnier climes for what remains of the winter. Back around 28th March. In the meantime, please feel free to talk amongst yourselves.
Callipygian
New Scientist: Curves were best for Stone Age women
Stone Age men would not have been impressed by size zero women. Female figurines dating back 15,000 years reveal that the preferred body shape for women was curvy with prominent buttocks.
You reckon?
… All of the figurines were headless and had hugely exaggerated buttocks. Perhaps strangely, given their allure today, few of the figures had breasts.
So, presumably, Stone Age men also preferred their women without heads and breasts.
… However, the figurines may have expressed more than just men's desires. "It is hard to say if this body shape was a social preference or if it represented a spiritual image," says Nanneke Redclift, a social anthropologist at University College London.
In other words, they haven't a baldy clue why these figurines were shaped in the way that they were. But congratulations to these social anthropologists for getting some press coverage by writing about buttocks.
Me? I suspect Stone Age man just wasn't very good at sculpture.
Previous buttock-related stories:
Yay! Scotch Pancakes!
It's over a year since Jen and I got our Aga, but it only occurred to us last week that we hadn't made Scotch pancakes on it yet.
Horrendous oversight now remedied.
Thank you, Scotland!
Agas are particularly well suited for making Scotch pancakes, as you simply rub a bit of lard directly onto the hotplate and drop your batter straight on to it. No frying pans to wash, and the hotplate soon burns itself clean.
If you're looking for an excuse to buy an Aga, that's it.
It isn't easy being green
Letter to New Scientist:
Last night, I took Fred Pearce's advice ('Look, No Footprint', 10-Mar-2007) and installed 111 energy-efficient light-bulbs to offset the 11.1 tonnes of carbon emissions that I will be responsible for this year. All went well, until a passenger airliner en route for Manchester tried to land in my drive.
There must be easier ways to be green.
Postscript: New Scientist published this letter on 7th April, 2007.
On Bog Eggs Moor Ba' Tat
Hebden Bridge Times: We've more footpaths than anyone
A hillside near Hebden Bridge has more footpaths than anywhere else in England or Wales, say the Ramblers' Association.
According to the group's magazine Walk, a 1km by 1km square including Old Town has the greatest density of rights-of-way compared to any other square in Ordnance Survey maps.
The association calculated more than ten kilometres of rights of way in the square, which stretches from Lane Ends and the Hare and Hounds pub in the south, to Bog Eggs farmhouse on the moors to the north.
I am very familiar with the 1km square in question: it was within spitting distance of Jen's old house, and I have spent many, many hours trudging the footpaths around there—often ending up at the Hare and Hounds pub (known locally as The Lane Ends), which is still our local.
Ever since we moved here five years ago, I have complained that it isn't as well situated for footpaths as Jen's old place. Now I know why: nowhere is.
Thin end of the wedge
This is how it began with the smokers (remember sweet cigarettes?):
BBC: Shows 'encourage teen drinking'
Teenagers may be encouraged to drink more because television soap operas are "awash with alcohol", according to a survey published in The Food Magazine.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, mark my words: it starts with think of the children, and will end with the banning of alcohol from pubs.
Welcome to the healthy, new, smoke-free, carbon-neutral, low-fat, tea-total, meat-is-murder, asterisk-the-swear-words, Puritan age.
Turn up for the books
Honestly, it's (almost) enough to restore your faith in politicians:
BBC: Gormley's statues stay out to sea
The 100 cast iron men statues fixed into the sand on a Merseyside beach are to stay.
The figures on Crosby beach, collectively called Another Place, are cast from a mould of artist Antony Gormley's body… Mr Gormley said he was "absolutely delighted" with the decision, made at a council meeting on Wednesday night.
The council heard objections from HM Coastguard, conservation agency Natural England, and certain residents who claimed to be offended by statues with flaccid knobs, then decided Bollocks to that! Those things are totally cool and are staying put.
Fantastic.
Seriously, if you get a chance, go to see them before some idiot politician changes their mind.
See also: My photos of the statues