30 January 2011

bd festival, Angouleme

Jean Giraud, who works under the pseudonym of Moebius
There were radio crews in abundance.


Heavy duty dudes looked like butter wouldn't melt as they read their hearts out.
A new generation who may well have studied bd in Angouleme.
Some of the venues were immense - everything was extremely well-organised.
Manga is always very popular
Jacques and Maggie with Angouleme TinTin originator, Herge.


Devoted fans queue patiently for a dedication (this is usually a drawing in the inside cover.)
tills were busy as fans queued to buy a specially dedicated copy.
A selection of Roger Morton's photos from the bande dessine (bd) festival in Angouleme. Now in its 38th year, it was written up in the Guardian on Friday 27 January. It is a huge and spectacular event and just what a small town in the middle of the Charante needs in the middle of winter. Thousands and thousands of fans turn up. Every street is filled with immense venues erected for this 3-day event. As well, the Beaux Arts, the Cathedral, Music Auditorium and any other likely venue either side of the river is roped in. The cartoonists are old and young and mostly men. I observed some years ago that they all seem to draw with their left hand and smoke with their right. Now, of course, there is no smoking.
Some of them never stop talking - I guess theirs is a solitary talent and so they welcome the chance for a good old chat - especially with fans. Often the atmosphere was electric. I loved very minute of it. Well done, Angouleme. ed

Poetry


The Beatles said it before

The Middle East is
creased and filled with
the fears of  hopeful citizens.
Dozens, no thousands demonstrate,
marching because they’ve had enough
of selfish dictators squeezing them tight
thirty years or more they have had to endure
a worsening regime. They brave the army, the
military tanks. Middle-aged mothers wrap their arms
round fresh-faced soldiers and kiss them like babies
Remembering their mothers’ embrace, they
 hesitate to hurt any more.
What can happen  in these ancient cities that hasn’t happened
before?
Algeria knows the pain of its poor when
bread costs more
and more
and more
Tunisia was the first to react
when a young man set himself alight.
Egypt takes heart and is ready to fight
to stop vote-buying, ballot-stuffing rotters
who rob the poor of their rights and mock with
state-sponsored intimidation
that wrongs a nation.
It’s election fraud,
weren’t you watching, God?
Rigging is wrong.
“Stay out of it, America,” we whisper
under our breath  “let these ancient peoples
decide for themselves.
Back off new world,
you’ve done enough already,
maybe you even got them into this mess
(with your underhand payments,
armament selling – male jewellery more
deadly than blood diamonds,
your mind-set of profit and greed
that can only lead
to a newer, bigger, longer
war.)
We’re ready to
implore.
“Stop. Change.”
The Beatles said it before
“Make love, not war.”
Joselyn Duffy Morton


Stephen O'R's Sydney

Today is the third day of my Ayurvedic treatment,  Kati Basti. This is a special technique aimed at providing relief to the lower back using warm  medicated oils. This involves the putting in place of  a dam on the small of the back made from sesame flour and water. Hot medicated black sesame oil is warmed and then poured into the dam that surrounds the lumbar region of the spine. The oil is absorbed by the skin and muscles – which in my case are quite spasmed up. The process releases the spasm. After five treatments I will return to the city where bird song is mostly, but not always, lost in the sound of a bustling and drunken beachside suburb.
On the first day (of five) I had such a strong reaction to this Ayurvedic treatment that the nerves in my toes could feel again and my feet were much less numb than they were before. Now they felt blissfully fresh and I could move them quite easily.
The second day after treatment I returned to the house on Saddleback Mountain where I had to supervise the clearing out of the shed. It had hundreds of bits of timber and pipe, some copper, some PVC and collection of plumbing bits and pieces.
There was a stainless steel oven from Germany, covered in Hammer Horror film-like cobwebs. There was an ancient AGA (a wood- fired stove from England). This souvenir from the industrial revolution that made Britain the big guy on the block was, fortunately, quite beyond repair due to the rust that had crept like a cancer through its imperialistic innards. It was a collection of cast iron pieces like an children’s Iron Man's  monkey puzzle. There were rings and short fat tubes like pieces of a cast iron bowel. Rats had eaten the heatproof lining of the two round and one rectangular tops that could be pulled down on top of the three cooking surfaces.
It reminded me of a cold Saturday night in 1971. We had just finished playing in a short season of Hamlet in Glasgow. Ian, now Sir Ian Mckellen had played Hamlet. Three of us, small-parts players had climbed into my mini van and drove off into the night – London-bound to surprise our unfaithful spouses.
About 4.30 in the morning we pulled into a beautiful posh English country house. One of us lived there and he took us into the large kitchen where a green AGA kept it all warm and mumsy. We made bacon and eggs on the hot plates in vast frying pans. No truck stops for these groovers.
The AGA stayed on day and night in that house (it was before the 1974 fourfold increase
in the price of oil - although those sort of people would probably still keep it going 24 hours a day, that is except for the annual the trip to Provence.)
I ran into the actor from that house two years later when I was cruising down the Kings Road dressed in the latest gear. I had a brand new car (nothing flash, just a Citroen Dyane) that had not been paid for by hard yakka but a windfall.
He said" well you’re doing alright then, I can see".
Acting had not paid for it. I wish! We had merely, by good luck, rather than ‘good management’ bought a house or three at the beginning of the great 1970's house price rise whilst on a disappointing trip back home to New Zealand, where I was born.
My girlfriend's mother, a wealthy Jewess in denial, on hearing that her daughter (whom she had sent to an English boarding school at the age of 7), was now pregnant; this titled, ice hearted, woman sent that same daughter a thousand pounds to have an abortion. The daughter, soon- to- be mother of my first child,  bought a grand piano with most of it and cashed a few shares left to her by an aunt. With the proceeds we bought two houses and then a third.
We did them up in between rehearsal and performances. Fortunately she had just spent two years living off one hundred pounds a year, whilst she toured around the backblocks of India with an ex- Jain monk, Satish Kumur.
Having been living so simply in India, she was uninterested in normal suburban things like spending money for stuff. She spent two months burning lead paint off wooden walls in the kitchen with a blowtorch just before giving birth. Unusually for a daughter of the Upper Class she had learned how to work.
In India she had helped build houses out of mud, which was held together with cow shit. She had found joy in being able to cut and shape a window with hands that before were used to play  the piano and oboe.
As we all know, any fool buying houses in a working- class suburb near the centre of a city in the 1970's could not help but make money. So with property development I joined the middle class and have not looked back. Of course I did not understand that this would lead to joys like private school fees and the rest of it.
We made a hundred percent on those three old house in less than a year and returned to old blighty before I shot any of my countrymen. When we transferred our underserved and inflationary gains, from New Zealand to London, Lakshimi smiled upon us. The money was transferred to the UK on the day New Zealand revalued its dollar by 20%. This was enough for the new wife and I to pop down to the local Citroen dealer in West Sussex and purchase a snazzy little car that later we found  would only go up the Yorkshire dales in reverse. Those Frenchies know how to make a fun, if underpowered car that drove like a newborn foal all gawky and bouncy that  startled and stared easily.
The old (first) wife had wanted to have a black baby. This was something that my pink skin would never deliver. Poor Frankie died when her beautiful black daughter was only one year old.
The new wife did not last long either. I was such a bad catch, although at least I was slimmer then. The lesson her anger at me taught her was that marrying a penniless actor with no prospects had been a bad idea. She ruined the next thirty years of her life by marrying two more husbands who had means but not the peace that would have come with marrying the ex-Jain monk.
Life's wonderful isn't it? Along with the AGA on the scrap dealer's truck heading for a new life, was  a set of cheap, low-profile,  pretend mags.
In exchange I finally had an empty shed with an old table and three wooden stools for guests. Rusty butchers hooks hung on the walls waiting for the new collection to begin.
Tomorrow,  if it's not raining I will supervise my lanky 19 year old who lives in his head like the guy in the Neil Young song. He will move the heavy old railway sleepers that he pulled up from where they had outlined some kitchen garden beds. With those lines removed that ground will  become a small gently sloping bank held in place by the dry stone wall and steps that we have built. Originally, all this had been constructed by  a surfboard shaper. His partner was an art and ocean studies teacher working through his holidays.
The kitchen garden was created by the woman who used to live here. She was the dreamer who got hold of the old AGA. The garden beds did not work either. Too dry. I was told this by her ex-husband’s best friend a 50-something hippie who had been a history teacher at the local high school. The ex husband had put his garden in, down the hill a bit, near the orchard. It grew things but also provided a food source for the wallabys who came out of the trees - too far away  to see easily and too far to hit with a 410 shotgun.
The ex-husband had been the deputy head of the local high school. It was there that he had met the aforementioned hippie who told me the story about the unsuccessful kitchen garden. I think the best friend might have been a misogynist. These two both quit their jobs as teachers and lived in cheap old houses where their wives, who had also quit teaching, went barefoot, floated dreamy-eyed into mothering.
We bought the place when it was sold to divvy up the worldy goods. We were loaded with cash from the hit movie (The Piano) that had been financed by the large French building company, Bouyges. The place was dubbed ‘Nirvana”by our movie’s Oscar-winning star ‘a North Carolina gal’,
Holly Hunter.
It feels isolated here; you can see the curve of the earth where the sky meets the ocean. The Pacific Ocean has various shades of blue and grey – depending on the sky. It also turns silver under moonlight and golden under a yellow moon.
The divorced couples each took their share of the house-sale and, with the assistance of financial advisors, lost it all within two years.
Tomorrow son Jack will load the old railway sleepers into the back of his old Jeep. Once loaded  he will drive across the leech- ridden, wet grass, to start the new shed collection. There the sleepers probably will remain to my third wife's horror ( in spite of my best intention to cut them up for firewood.) Some other old fool will get someone else to take them away. (However,  there will be no old AGA to tip the memory bucket over and expose parts of a life almost spent.)
Meanwhile, back in England that shining, warm well-remembered AGA will probably still be going quietly into another dark night whilst our grandchildren gaze through the low floating clouds at the ocean and wonder if it will ever stop raining and whether there is a seniors' discount on new AGAs.
Stephen O'R

Christchurch, NZ














Boxing Day in New Zealand used to be spent at the beach - parents recuperating from the Xmas day eating binge and children playing with their Christmas presents,  Now it is THE,  big shopping day when 50% off-sales scream from every page of the newspaper.  Not ever having time to shop, Chris decided he was going to get himself some half-price sandals and a pair of jeans. Just before we left Roland's place on the Port Hills, there was a thump and a bump and a 40 second jiggle.  Knowing that the house had withstood the  previous 7.1  earthquake, I was more interested than scared so we set off on the fifteen minute drive into downtown Christchurch with Ballantynes, THE, departmental store, with its massive sale of quality goods, as our destination. 
It was not to be.  A crowd, a commotion and the doors were being sealed off with plastic police tape.   Through the windows we could see the floor littered with  smashed goods.  So off to another shop where, just as we found the right jeans, the police arrived and hustled us out and closed off that shop. 
And so it went on.  One by one the shops were shut and eventually the whole of central Christchurch was cordoned off to the throng of Boxing Day shoppers, half of Christchurch I'm sure.  Finally we found an open shoe shop  in which as Chris tried on some sandals another tremor hit and this time seriously frightened Chris. 
"All out", someone shouted but then the tremor stopped and the building was still standing, so, in shock,  he bought a not-on-sale pair of Merrils for over $200.  After that, we needed a coffee. We were sitting at an outside table when we were set upon by the earthquake wardens with their walkie talkies and pointing fingers. 
We could see nothing but apparently there were cracks in the parapet and in case the next tremble dislodged the bricks onto our heads, we were told to go inside.  It wasn't good coffee so we moved off to the Arts Centre which also was cordoned off except for the Dux deLux, old student caf which was still functioning.  So we sat outside, under a small tree, (figuring that falling twigs and leaves would not hurt).
While waiting for our beer and pizza we chatted with an elderly Scottish couple at the next table.  They couldn't wait to leave New Zealand.  After five wet days in Auckland they had arrived thankfully in sunny Christchurch on Christmas day but that night, on the 7th floor of their  hotel, their bed began to slide backwards and forwards against the wall, the paintings crashed on the floor, the lights went out and they had no idea of what to do or where to go and truly thought their end was nigh. They were still in trauma that next afternoon when we chatted to them.
So poor Christchurch. It has a desolate air in the city centre with  scaffolding and keep-out tape round many buildings, shops shut, empty sites and the famous Oxford Terrace cafes, along the river, strangely  empty. Driving through the leafy suburbs, it still looks very pleasant but if you look carefully,  one sees sheets of plastic over portions of roof - once there was a chimney there.  My old school lost thirty eight chimneys.  As fires are outlawed in ChCh they may not be allowed to be replaced.  
But, due to the impressive knowledge on earthquake-proofing modern buildings, the new Christchurch art  gallery with its enormous angled wall of glass sheets has not even the tiniest crack.  It stands as a testimony to engineering skill.  Unfortunately homes are not so robustly built and the first thing one does when visiting a Christchurch home is to inspect their cracks.  After the Boxing Day quakes, my sister's cracks had widened and new ones had appeared - another call to the insurance assessors and once again a wait to be assessed. These latest shocks, which were only in the range of 4.1 to 4.9 I think, caused a lot of damage because they were directly under central Christchurch and were shallow - only three ks underground.  
But Cantabrians must rejoice. Despite over 3,000 recorded tremors,  no-one died and thinking of the Pike River mine disaster, not only did 29 men die but the economy of Greymouth,  previously flourishing with the Pike River mining, will be drastically reduced.  They are now talking of closing the mine for good and leaving the fathers, sons, husbands, brothers down there for eternity.
Tonia Matthews


BBC, Radio 7


Hello again
The British Comedy Awards began in 1990, and last weekend at London's IndigO2 the cream of home grown comedy talent assembled for the annual prize-giving to comedy writers, performers and shows considered to be the best  from 2010.
I didn’t attend, but eagerly watched the event on television.
Categories for the awards included: Best Comedy Panel Show, Best Comedy Entertainment Programme and Best Male/Female Comic.
But as I sat there glued to the sofa, I realised there was a glaring omission in the award category
line-up - where was  Best Radio Comedy?
Apparently there was originally a category for radio, but for whatever reason, it has been subsequently dropped. - which is an awful pity.
Anyway, it was good to notice that many of the nominees and winners not only work on television, but also have a lot of radio comedy to their credit.
A few years ago there was a category for Children's Comedy which, sadly has also been dropped. So it was interesting to see that this year a programme aimed at children actually won the Best Sketch Show. This is the first time a children's show has won an award in the main body of programmes. It was BBC's excellent series Horrible Histories. My congratulations to all involved.
Another lovely surprise was to see Miranda Hart picking up a well-deserved hat trick of awards. These were:
Best new TV Comedy
Best Comedy Actress

And the highly coveted People's Choice Award - based on the public's vote.
Of course you don’t need to watch television to enjoy Miranda's brand of comedy. As she has also made comedy series for both Radio 2 and Radio 4 (as well as appearing in At Home with the Snails). Her Radio 2 series, Miranda Hart's Joke Shop has recently finished a repeat run on Radio 7. Don't worry if you missed it - I can guarantee it will come round again!
Miranda is doing her bit for Comic Relief this year, Kazoos are involved and I'll let you know more about it in a later newsletter 
Mary Kalemkerian, Head of Programmes, BBC, Radio 7

Cover caption

One of the many extraordinary cartoonists at the bd festival in Angouleme. Sadly I failed to get his name either at the festival or at the tiny obscure cafe we stopped at for a coffee en route to the event. He had such a presence, I should have trusted my instinct and approached him. ed
Photo by Roger Morton

22 January 2011

Greece

asylum seekers...
Patra is a lovely coastal town in Northern Greece, with lively street cafes and bistros, just 2 and a half hours by coach from Athens - a great destination for a holiday break. However, its port is also the ‘gateway to Italy’ and thence to north and western Europe.  Each year, tens of thousands of illegal migrants and asylum seekers (from Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sudan, Somalia and the Magreb) pass through the port.  For every one who manages to make the crossing to Italy undetected, hundreds of others fail again and again, often incurring broken bones and other injuries as they make a rush to board a moving truck.
The dangers are enormous, but the desire to get to north and western Europe is so strong that many continue to try month after month, despite the difficulties.  Every day those attempting to gain access to the massive vehicle ferries, line up along the railway line in front of the port in full view of passers-by. The entrance to the port is surrounded in barbed wire.
These photos were taken during a stroll along the seafront last week. The first photo shows the attractive town of Patra;  the second shows Patra’s beautiful seafront promenade. However, there is also a darker side to Patra – the futuristic funnels of the transport ferries to Italy peep tantalizingly from behind the cruel barbed wire fences. The last photo shows an abandoned travel agency facing the railway line, rather ironically advertising ‘tickets to Italy!’That same day we heard that more than 200 people attempting to make the crossing to Italy in a small overcrowded boat had capsized off shore from one of the islands. Most were rescued but many others perished ...  And so the human tragedy continues.
Text and photos Chris Mougne


















Environment

Poetry

She
She has a feminine brain
On the left, on the right
And in the middle.
He,
he is macho, practo,
hetero
Joselyn Duffy Morton©

Rose petals
Throwing rose petals,
blasphemy supporters say
“hang him”.
In Arizona a judge is shot going home from mass.
The sheriff denounces his State for the violence it is breeding.
Was the shooter anaesthetised by adrenaline and thrill, to kill
like that?
Fighting for her life
not from a knife
but
from a gunshot wound
in her head
which left her for dead
white Jewish democrat and principled.
We used to share and care for each other.
What’s going on? Has it been too long?
Years of social protest, civil unrest,
governments who fail the test,
fraud, billionaires flaunting their wealth
while the poor are too many with too many cares.
In London a line of coke costs the same as a pint of beer
and the poor are who we fear.
Joselyn Duffy Morton©

Environment

   Please sign the petition to save bees and our crops; send this to everyone in your extensive networks: Largely unnoticed, and in silence, billions of bees are dying globally, threatening our ability to grow crops and food.
But a global ban of just one group of pesticides could save bees from extinction.
France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Slovenia have banned most of these pesticides - since 2000 AD in the case of France. 2008 in the case of Germany. In the UK and America they still allow the nicotinoids to be used on millions of acres of crops - and wildlife is vanishing fast.
Some European bee populations are recovering but these pesticide are also being linked to the dramatic crash in the populations of butterflies, bumblebees and insect-eating birds since 1995. In Holland and the UK, starlings, sparrows, tree-sparrows, skylarks and other insect eaters, have declined at rates from 50%- to 90% in just 20 years.  The lovely Corn Bunting - which has lived in Holland since time immemorial - became officially extinct in 2006.  The reason is simple - there is nothing for them to eat - no insects are left alive across vast swathes of mono cultural crops.
Recent studies from Holland point to a strong correlation between the usage of nicotinoid pesticides, and the disappearance of honeybees, bumblebees, butterflies, flying insects and soil invertebrates over vast areas of farmland.  But pesticide companies are lobbying hard to keep all their nicotinoid pesticides on the market.
America has lost 800,000 bee-colonies each year since 2007, more than 3,000,000 hives to date,  and there are fears that unless something drastic is done - honeybees could become extinct in American within a decade. The implications for food production and our quality of life are immense. The implications for wildlife and the countryside are apocalyptic.
Debate is raging in the UK and the USA right now; a global outcry now for a ban in the US and EU could provoke a total ban and a ripple effect around the world.
Please help us call for these dangerous nerve-toxins to be outlawed in the US and EU unless they are proven beyond all doubt to be safe.

   CLICK BELOW TO SIGN THE GLOBAL PETITION

https://secure.avaaz.org/en/save_the_bees/?cl=901238523&v=8134

If you sign, we may still have THIS in 20 years time

BBC, Radio 7


Hello again
Over the past few years, the fourth Monday in January has been dubbed by several newspapers as Blue Monday - a time of year when days are short, the weather is grey, post-Christmas debts are piling up, and our New Year's resolutions are falling by the wayside.
It's certainly a month when we can all do with a bit of cheering-up, and what better way to beat the Monday Blues than with plenty of laughter?
Ricky Gervais did his bit to brighten up last Monday - as reports came through of his hosting of this year's star-studded Golden Globes - although his cheeky jibes also attracted a share of controversy!
In what seemed like good timing, on Tuesday this week an all-day event was held at the British Library, entitled What's So Funny: the Languages of Laughter, where some of Britain's best stand-up comedians such as Arthur Smith, Barry Cryer, Tim Vine and Richard Herring discussed the power of laughter, with debates on the techniques of joke-telling, comedy taboos, regional differences in humour, and of course shared their favourite gags.
I didn’t attend the event, unfortunately, but I did hear Arthur Smith talking about it on Radio 4's Today Programme on Wednesday morning this week. Arthur posed the question to both Barry Cryer and Tim Vine: "What is the secret of comedy?"
If you're curious to know that the funny men's answers were , you can still hear them via the
iplayer. It was a delightful light-hearted addition to Today, and I did like the Japanese proverb quoted by Arthur towards the end: " Time Spent Laughing is Time Spent With the Gods".
We can’t guarantee you time with the Gods here at Radio 7, but we can certainly bring you plenty of laughter to see you through next week's Blue Monday and beyond...
Mary Kalemkerian, Head of Programmes, BBC Radio7

Cover caption

Photo of moonset by Roger Morton
Early one morning (ie about 8am) the  large full moon was still in the sky. Moments later it had set. However it was not a blue moon - that occurs when there are two full moons in the same month. (The next blue moon evidently occurs in August 2012.) but as Mary Kalemkerian explains "January is the month with blue Monday, that's because people are cold, debt-ridden and the skies are grey and miserable ..." ed

15 January 2011

Cambodia

Visiting Phnom Penh this year, we stayed at the lovely Villa Paradiso Hotel, an oasis in the midst of the dusty city.  The staff, a collection of walking smiles, as only the Cambodians can be.  We spent a lot of time at the Cambodian Childrens Fund (CCF) – cambodianchildrensfund.org   as I am a trustee of the UK fund-raising arm and we sponsor four children between Katie and myself.  There were several great outings buying them new clothes and feeding them on fried chicken (their favourite!) and all the bad stuff that they love.
I asked Scott Neeson, the founder and moving spirit of CCF, if there were any children who did not yet have sponsors and might feel left out … so I did a further trip to the shopping mall with three members of a family, all girls, and one of their friends.  I thought they were about eight years of age, but it turns out the oldest – twins – were actually fourteen and they had never been inside a shop. 
Later I read the CCF assessment and discovered that their father had been drowned in a river accident and their mother had brought the entire family (which also included a four year and a baby of 5 months) into Phnom Penh to try to scrape a living garbage-picking along the streets.  When they arrived they quite literally lived on the street, but managed to find a ‘cousin’ and shared his accommodation, a space no bigger than 2m X 3m, filthy and noisy.  The twins had had to leave school to help the mother with the garbage-picking in order to try to keep their heads above water.  When CCF first took them in, their monthly income was about £38 for the entire family and their outgoings about £45.  The children were unbelievably lovely and I decided we should sponsor all three of the girls.  Scott also found a new place for them to live which is currently being built;  it will have two little rooms and a tiny bathroom – an area 5m x 5m – which though still tiny for 6 inhabitants is luxurious by the standards of Steung Meanchey, the poor district in which they have landed.  Without Scott’s help, there is no doubt that the family would have foundered, and this is just one story in CCF’s record. 
Scott was originally President of Marketing at 20th Century Fox and had all the trappings that you would expect – the yacht, the Porche, the Hollywood mansion but found his life was still somehow unsatisfactory.  On a sabbatical to the Far East six years ago, he found himself on a rubbish dump in Phnom Penh on which 1,200 families were trying to scrape a living, sifting through the garbage, bulldozers running amok, heat, flies, mosquitoes and everywhere a sickening stench.  Today CCF educates more than 700 children, provides the best free medical clinic in Cambodia, clean water, subsidized rice, as well as pre-natal and vocational programmes.  For more information I strongly recommend you take a look at their website and check the videos.
Katie, and I are both extremely proud to be able to assist this brilliant work helping children (who would otherwise only have a one in four chance of survival) and their families to scramble out of the poverty cycle; we feel privileged to be considered part of CCFs growing family.
Mike Armitage












Our sponsored girls, Shrei Land and Sok Lee are in the middle.
photos by Katie Armitage

Film


On Wednesday we unexpectedly got an email from the Silverado cinema saying  they had to reschedule films that night and would now be showing The Tourist. We drove the 45 minutes through a deserted narrow country road to the small cinema in Marthon to see our old friend Steven Berkoff play a powerfully handsome villain. As he slid a knife menancingly over the luscious and renowned lips of Angelina Jolie, his hands were as steady as a well-practised surgeon.
The Tourist was directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck. I thought his The Lives of Others was one of the best films that I have ever seen. Angelina’s love interest was Johnny Depp looking more roundly cuddly than I’ve ever seen him. Venice looked good also.
Steven has a new book out. It’s his Diary of a Juvenile Delinquent. I’m such a fan of Berkoff’s, I don’t know which I like more – his acting or his writing. I think the publisher is JR Books. If you are not familiar with his work, you won’t be disappointed. He is an original powerhouse of natural talent.
Joselyn Morton
 Steven and Clara came to Matt and Anna's wedding at Spring Hills (Anna's mother and stepfather's lovely spread.) In those days Mitch was sporting a pony tail, Dominique was dressed in brown and as usual cuzzie Frances-Anne and darling Cheryl had plenty to laugh about and Missfred was having fun comme toujours. Roger and I just went with the flow.
ed