Thought for today: Arabs and Jews are both Semites (descendants of Shem son of Noah). The term also refers to language. How come Jews make terrific and on occasions self deprecatory jokes yet we've never heard of an Arab comedian or an Arab joke? Come forth Ali, and lighten up a bit.

Back from KatenCos' in la douce France - just inside the Aquitaine of today. A beautiful area just south of Limoges full of large ponds lakes and wonderful trees and history- my life. I was moved to read a book in our library- which like most of them, let's face it, have not yet been read by me- on Eleanor of Aquitaine. Definitely top moyen age crumpet. The book by one Desmond Seward; a serial populariser I surmise, was a jolly romp. Unfortunately, or fortunately if you're a part time nit-picker like me, he got a bit above hisself in quoting one of the Namenlose Lieder
( Mittelhochdeutsch c.a 1170)) and mis-translated chunich as queen (assuming his as a reference to Eleanor) whereas it is the word for 'king' and may indeed refer to Richard Lionheart and possibly his homosexuality. The latter hypothesis roundly declared out of place by a wonderful dry old stick who taught m.h.d. at Birkbeck. Natch' I wasted not a nanosecond in pointing out the error to Seward's publishers who have so far not graced me with a reply. Eleanor was a great patroness of poets and included Chrétien de Troyes in her ruelle. Now this man, despite my dislike of poetry as an art form (c.f. Edmund Wilson's essay in The Triple Thinkers, which neatly differentiates for the inculte like me between verse and poetry) is one of my favourites. His Le Roman de Perceval ou Le Conte du Graal was the precursor of Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parsival ( also M.H.D). The astonishing thing is that, if you compare the two, some passages are translated almost word for word by Wolfram in verse from an original which he almost certainly never saw written down and can have heard at best but a few times- O.K the stuff abounds with topoi but nichtsdestoweniger some memory. Wolfram, well ahead of his time also wrote the prequel as well as the sequel.

So back to reality whatever that may be. We both had the flu on return from France via Janet and Godi's place in the Ticino. Paid for a lousy meal. How come these Ticinese are 2mm over the border from Italy yet make lousy coffee, execrable wine and food beyond compare in a negsative direction and So Expensive. Saw a great exhibition of Hopper in Milan - the French paintings a relevation.

Italy, apart from admitting that the National Debt now stands at 120% ( they just give the figure as 1,787 billion Euros ) we are back to a full blown constitutional crisis . Mr B desperate to escape criminal charges trying to change the constitution and shorten the lenght of court cases and the left and magistrates-perforce politicised by the institutional relationship - all at loggerheads. Why not invoke the Socratic apologia inverted? Not , 'I'm innocent but if it helps to maintain the sway of justice I'll willingly die' but rather ' We know the bastard's going to be let off the hook ( sotto voce 'just wait till he retires') but in the name of improving the Italian legal system, believe me there's room, we'll grant a reprieve to Mr B. Sacrifices have to be made.

I see a black French speaking man at the head of FAO in Rome going on hunger strike - we're not giving Africa enough money. Bush did his best to conditionalise the giving of aid with better governance in receptor countries. Now's the time to get real. No more international posts UN etc.. for any country that does not meet certain basic standards of rule of law, corruption and democracy. For one thing these jobs which are well paid and absorb the very talent which should be back home shouting the odds for better government. The US en passant got tough with the Swiss about banking secrecy as far as US taxpayers?? were concerned. They missed a trick; what about disclosure of the amounts held by rulers past and present of so called developing nations?

Pretty soon with the march of the mobile 'phone in Africa and elsewhere as a marketing and banking service it will be possible to target aid direct to the recipients. These devices in conjunction with regularly topped up pre-paid smartcards will soon cut out all aid agencies and kleptocratic governments. The next big problem is to ensure Grameen type distribution so that the menfolk don't piss is all up the wall