inane grinning II

don't care if i look like a pathetic little fan. i love eve best!
and here i am with her signed photo (gulp!). it arrived in the mail today (NOTHING EVER ARRIVES HERE FOR ME SO AM IN SHOCK) and i literally let out a squeak and a squeal. i have banged on about our eve for a few years now (ever since i saw her, fresh out of RADA, playing opposite jude law in "tis pity she's a whore" at the young vic in london). i knew then she was special. anyway, she is now in the nurse jackie. and i love her more than ever.
Dear Flavia, with love, From Eve Best x

spotted

along the babuino (one of the poshest streets in rome).

the gay chinese

romolo (also the photographer) had mentioned his fondness for the "gay chinese" on via cavour. i remember it vaguely from my first days in rome when i lived in monti but recall it being a bog standard place serving bog standard asian fare. WELL.
what a difference seven years, give or take, can make.
one look at the menu (see above), the rather suggestive sapphic art on the wall, not to mention a good half of the clientele's clear sexual preference and i was sold. this is in fact a (gay) friendly chinese. and the food is not half bad either! they know and love romolo in there come uno di casa.

christmas as i remembered it:part V

christmas is about coming together




and spending time apart, innit?

christmas as i remembered it: part IV

the denouement



knocking one back



carol demonstrating a point





whiff of disapproval and bemusement




and, as i was saying before i forgot what i was saying

christmas as i remembered it: part III

forza a tavola.
mic's exquisite appetizer and table-setting (flavia is off camera lunging toward the champers)

christmas as i remembered it: part II

the prep work
and Miss BB (Boeuf Bourguignon) in the final throes.

christmas as i remembered it: part I

(liberally pinching other people's photos: jasmine, romolo and antal)

Now, where was i...



girls love to get flowers.





some same-sex affection



and a hot stud in pink




and a hound with no choice in the matter



a mother up for anything

destined for cult status

i was never a big brittany murphy fan, until i saw "Dead Girl" (2006), the last film of hers that got theatrical distribution and that undeservedly sunk into oblivion. to think of that film now, in the context of her premature and strange death, is eerie to say the least.
regardless, here is someone who agrees with me along with an interview with her at the time of the film's release.

XII: XIII

corny but true

the italian equivalent to a fish and chip shop is the down-market sliced-pizza takeaway. this photo was taken from one of the tackiest i know. close to the office. i only go there when seriously desperate.

this is all i have to say about climate change

photographed in vietnam.

alco-pops 10 years later

one dark night in furio clit, i took the hound out for a walk and came home swinging a 21st century version of the bacardi breezer. jasmine was understandably horrified. i tried to explain it was a throwback to my late 1990s london years when i was a teetotaler and was experimenting with the "idea" of alcohol.
needless to say my nanu-second of nostalgia was tipped down the drain. afterall, we had a nice bottle of wine, the perfect accompaniment to whatever we were eating.

swoon

my love for jeff bridges has been well-documented through the ages. here he plays a broken down, out-of-luck, hard-drinking, hard-living has-been country music singer. MY KIND OF MAN! and also maggie gyllenhaal's too. give that man an oscar! i also want to see the fabulous baker boys, tucker a man and his dream (underrated coppola) as part of a back-to-back matinee dedicated to Jeff, all-round sex god before he became the DUDE.


(thanks oatsy for heads up...)

`Gays Won't Go to Heaven,' Cardinal Says

see you in hell? i always thought St. Paul was a misogynist prick best left blind on the road to damascus


(ANSA) - Rome, December 2 - Gays and transsexuals
won't go to heaven, a top Roman Catholic cardinal said
Wednesday.
"Transsexuals and gays will never enter the heavenly
kingdom," said Javier Lozano Barragan, until recently the
Vatican's 'health minister'.
"It's not me who says so, it's St Paul," he said, referring
to the saint credited with forging the early Church.
St Paul (5 BC-67 AD) wrote many epistles (letters) to the
rapidly spreading early Christian community.
In one of them, to the Romans, he said about unbelievers:
''God gave them up to degrading passions. Men committed
shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the
due penalty for their error".

the way we were