Purple-Rinsed Dinosaurs Roam The Earth ...

Return of the Technically Dead Dead

I know it's kind of masochistic and just a little bit perverted, not to go so far as to say actually disgusting, but given that "Dirty Politics" and various claims and counterclaims of wholesale surveillance in NooZild have managed to make it to the front pages even over here in Ole Yurrup, not to mention a sick secret fascination with Winston Peters, I try to keep up with your imminent erection by following stuff.co.nz.

Which is where I found this photo (original attribution retained, please note), which has to be one of the most frightening I've seen in a while. Who the hell was responsible for the lighting? Reminds me of something out of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, or maybe Bad Taste. The old bastard has obviously been cryogenically preserved and wheeled out of the crypt, you can even see the dry-ice smoke in the background. And I'm guessing they used plaster of Paris as a cheaper alternative to botox. Absolutely terrifying, do NOT let your children watch politics on TV.

Also, this: "According to psychiatrists specialising in sexsomnia, a condition that has not been widely researched yet, it is a sleeping disorder close to sleepwalking that includes sexual behaviour. Those affected by sexsomnia are completely unaware of their acts, specialists say. However, the affliction is very controversial among physicians and lawyers." If you ask me, it needs more study. And a semi-literate sub-editor, for it should read "has not yet been ..." Definitely more university grants. Mostly to statisticians, so that they can work out just how to do the double-blind trials. And I think that lawyers should be paid more.

Come to that, just how do you get to be a "specialist" in this? Do you get to make it up as you go along? Does having an erection at 5am count? Or having sleepy sex? An enquiring mind would like to know. Yeah, I know, they laughed at Freud too. Just saying, they're still laughing at Freud. (A barrel, in fact - of laughs, that is - every Friday on "Interpretation of Dreams" night down at Le Vieux Pissoir in Conilhac. You really don't want to know.)

And he's dead - Freud, that is - last time I checked down in the vaults. (Reminds me, I better go down there again and check that the real Winston is still in his drawer, if not there'll be hell to pay what with the accountants, and the family paying for maintenance and everything.) Which means that the last laugh is not his.

Whatever, at this time of year you're reminded that Moux, like Arbin, is basically a wine village. The tractors rattle incessantly through the streets towing their trailers heaped with grapes and when, as one must, you head off to the cave coopérative to pick up another twenty litres or so of wine (yes, I'm off to Chambéry again on Sunday, and Bryan put in an order) the air's heavy with the sticky, slightly foul smell of fermenting grapes. Could be worse.

Anyway, I need to go: got a long drive ahead of me tomorrow and as Margo's up in Alsace I have to drop our two retards off to be tutored for a couple of days: also, there's still some parquet flottant that isn't going to lay itself. Mind how you go, now.