Anne Billson

Excuse my long silence, I did not forget you, be sure of that.

Surely vagin is fairly formal? (I can't believe we're having this conversation!) On a similar note, just prior to a visit to my Parisian gynaecologist a girlfriend issued me with a stern warning I should say "relations sexuelles" and not "baiser". (Good advice; I would have said "baiser" for sure.)

Imagine how good he’d be with a nice wet piano.

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Americans do this all the time with food products. One example: www.petitebitesco.com

Also, in French it's LA bite and LE vagin! smh

LOL I can't think why that never struck me before!

Oh that’s brilliant. Properly hooting with laughter over here.
You should have heard the hilarity when I told the kids about Sunak’s “Eat out to help out” scheme.

Unconfined hilarity in a French bar when I got bitten by a mosquito and produced my After Bite pen.

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When the marketing guy dropped French at the first opportunity but still thinks it sounds cute…

aaagh.

Just don't go out in bare feet and step in it.

I really hope the sound I can hear outside my bedroom door isn’t a vomiting cat. If I don’t get up and look, it didn’t happen, right?

I can only quote the great Annie Dillard and her magnificent "Pilgrim At Tinker Creek: "Fish gotta swim. Birds gotta fly. And insects, it seems, gotta do one horrible thing after another."

3/3 Tower of the Westerkerk by Hendrick de Keyser, painted by Jan van der Heyden. Centuries later, Anne Frank listened to its bells from her hiding place nextdoor.

Ian is staying at my sister-in-law's with Sandy who has badly bruised his thigh muscle in a collision with his uncle.

Stunning view of the Westerkerk by Jan van der Heyden. Wish I were there right now! Today is his day.

Cronenberg's THE FLY is great, but Kurt Neumann's 1958 film is much better than you might expect. Different, but in its own way just as horrific. Also, a sad fate for Dandelo the white cat - though not nearly as ghastly as in George Langelaan's original story. See my book CATS ON FILM for details!

Two hands hold up a cat, looking straight into the camera, with a shawl wrapped over its head and a peculiar toothy grin on its face. caption" "It's dangerous to go alone. Take babushka with you."

oh my dear sweet lord, Donny Convict just dragged Little Miss Hair Extensions out back to the gravel pit. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

folks, please read my in-depth analysis of the firing of Kristi Noem. many people are saying it's a post like no one thought possible. it may be my greatest post ever. link is here: bit.ly/4cOlsnV

Dam in Amsterdam with focus on the glorious new Town Hall, practically glowing in the sunlight. Painted in 1668 by Jan van der Heyden, born OTD 1637.

YouTube video by arums Il Divo - Paolo Sorrentino [Opening - eng sub]

Falcone's assassination is referenced at the start of Paolo Sorrentino's Il Divo (2008). The mafia used a skateboard to plant explosives under the road and blew up his car.

Black and white photograph of Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsalino, sitting at a table. Falcone is saying something to Borsalino; they are both smiling.

Italian judges Giovanni Falcone & Paolo Borsalino, both assassinated by the mafia. If you want to read more about them, I recommend Alexander Stille's Excellent Cadavers: The Mafia & the Death of the First Italian Republic (1995), which made me cry.

Quite. I looked him up because I thought he might have been that Mafia boss who died recently, but no, that was Benedetto Santapaola, also involved in the Falcone assassination. He died in prison at the age of 87; somehow these scumbags all manage to live to a ripe old age.

I'm keeping my finegrs crossed. Lumiere also runs two cinemas in Antwerpen that I go to regularly, plus others in Bruges and Mechelen, so this is not their first rodeo. Let's hope it works out.

Sicilian Mafia: Anger as 'people slayer' Giovanni Brusca freed Dubbed the "people slayer", Giovanni Brusca has confessed to his role in more than 100 killings.

Incidentally, Giovanni Brusca, the sack of shit who ordered the kidnapping & murder of a child that inspired SICILIAN GHOST STORY, as well the 1992 murder of anti-Mafia prosecutor Giovanni Falcone by blowing up his car (which also killed Falcone's wife & three bodyguards) is currently a free man.

Arthouse cinema Studio Skoop in Ghent saved | VRT NWS: news A buyer has finally been found for the Studio Skoop cinema in Ghent (East Flanders). The cinema closed at the end of last year after more than half a century. Lumière, a Belgium-based independent audi...

Great news. I always liked Studio Skoop, which has an excellent bar. Among the films I have seen there during @filmfestgent.bsky.social: Who Can Kill a Child?; Todo Modo; Sicilian Ghost Story.

The Old Town Hall in Amsterdam, so conveniently destroyed by fire in 1652. Here depicted by Jan van der Heyden as example of bad firefighting practice. His pump would have saved it!

Clytemnestra (Irene Papas) despairs upon learning of the planned sacrifice of her daughter in order to set sail for the Trojan War in this adaptation of Euripides' classic tragedy.

Nearly posted a wrestling gif before remembering that I hate gifs on my timeline, so I imagine that goes for most other people too.