This year's vampires

There are approximately 260 references to angels in the Bible, but only 6 of them mention wings.

This, and other fascinating factlets, cropped up on a recent radio interview given by Professor Peter Marshall of Warwick University, co-author of Angels In The Early Modern World.

Marshall was on mini-panel discussing the durability of these messengers of the divine, who seem set for a pop-culture resurgence in twenty ten.

Now, you might have expected them to have been first against the wall when the Reformation came, but it appears that there are just so many textual accounts of their activities in the scriptures that they proved rather difficult to expunge from the theological record.

Part of the explanation for this resilience may be the fact that angels pre-date the Judaeo-Christian tradition, and as representatives of a more ancient lineage of near-eastern superstition, which has been co-opted yet not contained by the church hierarchies, they appear to have genuine populist appeal.

In early Christian times the standard iconography presented angels as bearded males. But then came the Middle Ages and a whole load of hang-ups about sex. Pope Gregory VII and his fellow reformers insisted on a celibate lay clergy in order to ensure that church property held firm against the nascent nation state's inheritance laws; and so the de-carnalisation of angels ensued as a natural consequence of spurious retro-fitted ideas about purity.

I tend to equate angels with Tolkein's elves. Immortal yet somehow, not bored, they are a far more easy-to-comprehend embodiment of humanity's better self than God could ever be.

As Jeremy Rifkin puts it in The Empathic Civilisation, there's paradoxically no place for the more exalted human emotional responses such as empathy in Heaven or the Marxist utopia, because in such perfect environments there can be no suffering — which means there's nothing to get all empathic about. That an utterly perfect, omniscient being could take a real interest in the trivia of our miniscule existences is something only the vainest of believers can hold to be certain. Angels however, are just like us, without all those sinful tendencies.

Indeed, medieval thinkers started to relate angels to the formally chaste condition of human souls reawakening on the Day of Judgement, and pictorially angels duly shed their whiskers and assumed a decidedly androgynous look in medieval art.

An abiding characteristic of unregulated popular belief in the Middle Ages was the notion that animals and children were somehow closer to the supernatural than everyone else and could perceive beings on the edge of crossing over, so to speak. It's therefore hardly surprising that angels have developed a special bond with the immature and that one of the most attested loci for the summoning one of God's messengers has been the fingernail of a child. One doesn't have to be a qualified psychologist to detect a deep-seated fear of adulthood in western culture (And is it all that surprising given what priests — if not angels — have been getting up to with the children that they've taken a special interest in?)

Angeology, the hot new thriller by Danielle Trussoni (pictured above) — a recent addition to my Kindle 'pile' — is clearly pitched at a readership somewhere between those of Dan Brown and Umberto Eco. I'll probably get round to finishing it during my May odyssey.

The title is suggestive of another contributing factor to the unlikely durability of angels since science started to suppress superstition: they lend themselves to the empiricist's soft underbelly: pseudoscientific, occultic, taxonomic obessesiveness.

Anyway, so long bloodsuckers and hidehi super-seraphs. If Legion is anything to go by, this year's crop come with added testosterone. (No beards so far though.)

A Rake's Progress (7)

By now Tom has been incarcerated in the notorious Fleet prison for debtors and still leaking money, as both his jailer and the beer boy are shown attempting to rake off his last few pennies.

Both his old wife and his young discarded lover are showing signs of distress at their inability to help him out this time (though the former might well be carping on at him directly into his left ear) and incipient madness is suggested by the telescope set up to poke through the bars and the alchemy experiment going on in the background.

A Rake's Progress (6)

Tom has now definitively mislaid his fortune (and his wig) in a gambling den.

Here he is in the foreground pleading for divine intervention. Unfortunately, this is the cue for someone at the rear to set fire to the joint. 

Domingo de Ramos (28th March)

San Bartolo Alfombras etc. (21st March)

Suffer little children to come unto me

Pope Benedict XVI has been getting the full Bill Clinton treatment this week, following the Vatican's failure to ring-fence (as my former colleagues in the PR industry like to say) the sordid revelations emanating from the Irish branch of the universal church. 

Actually, one could say that the former Archbishop Ratzinger's level of personal guilt here amounts to even less of a clear-cut sackable offence than Ronald's Reagan's definitive deniability in the Iran-Contra scandal. God knows I never read every memo I was CC'd in on! 

But this hasn't stopped regular cassock-baiter Christopher Hitchens from going on the Bill Maher show in order to call for the Pontiff's arrest under US law. (26 States currently include members of the clergy among those professionals specifically mandated by law to report known or suspected instances of child abuse or neglect.)

Perhaps the only man in the whole world who would dare to indict the Pope, has himself been suffering some serious reputation damage this week, with a real possibility of career-threatening legal consequences.

Spain's super-juez Baltasar Garzón has been accused of wantonly acting outside his jurisdiction. When I heard this my first thought was, why has it taken the Spanish authorities so long to react to something that us anglophones cottoned onto the moment Garzón started issuing arrest warrants for the likes of Osama Bin Laden and a large part of Latin America's class of retired dictators.? (Starting most notoriously of course, with Pinochet.)
 

The irony here is that the judge has been pulled over now for abusing his authority in the one area you'd think could actually be said to fall within his remit: a probe into atrocities carried out during Spain's own civil war. 

In other news, the government of El Salvador officially apologised to the rest of the world this week for murdering their own Archbishop back in 1980, and I spotted a big poster for Gerardi, La Película on the way into the capital. Does any one know which version of the events surrounding the bishop's bludgeoning (if any) this new film alludes to? (i.e. Goldman's or  Vargas Llosa's.) 

Musical interlude

Panuchos del Valle

V's brother O very kindly came round with a generous ration of delicious, locally-produced quesillo — so we thought it would be nice to include it in a simple, but very yummy lunchtime recipe.

Guatemalan tortillas have two sides, a hard espalda and the softer cara. We put one inch squares of the cheese between two caras and then fried these little sandwiches until their filling started to melt. We then poured a beaten egg over our panuchos to seal them. (It's worth adding a little milk to the egg so that it doesn't turn out too scragilly revuelto in texture.)

Meanwhile we fried some thin pieces of bistec in tequila and honey, adding a few drops of sesame oil and balsamic vinegar towards the end.

Then, as a final touch, we sprinkled scissor-cut yaki nori (Japanese roasted seaweed) over our dish. It adds an unusual and delectable maritime tang, but can easily be substituted with baby-leaf cilantro or lemon basil.

Spoonfulls of tomato or habanero-based sauces can then be deployed to taste:

A Rake's Progress (5)

With pauperism seemingly imminent, Tom seeks a drastic solution: fast track courtship and marriage to a lady of means who would appear to be, might we say, no spring chicken.

The nuptials are interrupted — unsuccessfully — by the arrival of Sarah, her pushy mother and Tom's bastard child.

Rakewell's eyes are seen to drift towards his sugar mumma's maidservant. Meanwhile his bride's eyes drift in divergent directions.

First Words (26)

"Death is my beat. I make my living from it. I forge my professional reputation on it. I treat it with the passion and precision of an undertaker — somber and sympathetic about it when I'm with the bereaved, a skilled craftsman with it when I'm alone. I've always thought the secret with dealing with death was to keep it at arm's length. That's the rule. Don't let it breathe in your face."

Michael Connelly, The Poet.

A Rake's Progress (4)

By now Tom has some new characters following in his wake: Welsh bailiffs with leeks in their hats. Coincidentally it's St David's Day and Tom was on his way (in this early-modern version of the tuctuc) to St James's Palace to celebrate Queen Caroline's birthday. Ironies abound on this occasion, as it discarded ex-novia Sarah who intervenes here to save no-wallet Rakewell from public embarrassment. Meanwhile a young street urchin is relieving Tom of his cane.

80 days to go

A Rake's Progress (3)

Leaving behind his posse of chupasangres, Tom heads down to the Rose Tavern in Covent Garden, a house of considerable ill-repute, where the local hos wear black 'beauty' spots to hide their syphilitic sores, and are not above relieving our hero of his watch during a moment of orgiastic reverie.

Legion (2010)

God is 'fed up with all the bullshit*' and decides that it's time for another extinction event. That's what He wants, but what does He need?

Archangel Michael decides to risk his celestial paycheck on this tricky theological distinction, and in spite of being ordered to Earth to make sure one particular human baby doesn't make it, he changes sides, slices off his wings, loads up with automatic rifles and heads out to the Mojave desert, where a pregnant waitress and a few good folk are holed up in a diner resisting the assaults of a diabolic host...except that these neck-munching, ceiling crawling, black-eyed fiends aren't demons at all, but the Holy Trinity's angelic "only obeyink orderz" army, led by the more unquestioning Archangel Gabriel.

By now I have no doubt that you will either have been completely sold or turned off by this B-movie caper from Scott Stewart. The film knowingly helps itself to tropes from the Terminator and Tremors franchises plus countless zombie and apocalypse movies, which results in a mix of deadening cliché and entertaining pastiche.

Grade: B

* The Vatican's response to the Irish clergy's kiddlyfiddling shame was probably the last straw.

A Rake's Progress (2)

Tom has arrived in the big city and duly acquired a full set of hangers on — including music, fencing and dancing instructors, a jockey (complete with trophy), a landscape architect and an old soldier applying for the position of bodyguard. Hogarth has done the dancing and fencing masters in the much disdained 'French' style. (i.e. poncey.)

An alfombra of dry stone construction

The Sandoval family, proprietors of Antigua's one and only authentic Peruvian eatery — Inca* —- created this eye-catching ceremonial alfombra for the San Bartolo procession last Sunday. I've not come across one before which makes such clever use of the underlying texture of the empedrado.

* If you like your ceviche with added camote and lots of chile, then this is the place to go. They also offer a range of interesting platos típicos from the land of the Inca.

A Rake's Progress (1)

Tom Rakewell has come into a fortune upon the death of his father. His first act of largesse? To pay off his pregnant fiancee Sarah Young, seen on the left holding his ring despondantly as her mother remonstrates with the young master whose new strides are being fitted. A starving cat investigates a chest full of silver.

(Canvasses by William Hogarth 1732-3, Sir John Soane's Museum, London.)

Mysterious motorcade

This afternoon, seeking refuge from the calor insoportable, I decided to stand on the front balcony for a while in the hope of catching a passing zephyr.

Suddenly a strange whirring siren (rather like the politer sort of car alarm) announced the arrival at the nearby intersection of one of those deadly serious motorcades we see round here from time to time. First to cross were two cops on low Easy Rider-style bikes dressed, I fancied, a bit like the stars of that 70s show CHIPs.

The next section consisted of four enormous black, blindados Suburban-style SUVs. The process is always the same: the first and third cross the intersection slowly, checking for any approaching threats. Their back windows are open and yet completely blocked by armed and armoured men facing out. Once they have satisfied themselves of the integrity of this particular T-junction, they move on, closely followed by the second and fourth vehicles in the line — the ones carrying 'the packages' — which then zip across as fast as they can.

After these come an assortment of back-up vehicles which varies from motorcade to motorcade. This time there was a plain white pick-up and a PNC van. On one previous occasion there was a light truck in the train, fitted with a huge pedestal-mounted machine gun, a set-up reminiscent of the 'technicals' favoured by Saddam's Fedayeen in the immediate aftermath of the 2003 invasion.

Today the men staring out of the last goonmobile quickly made me on my balcony, so I was glad not to be holding anything that might even vaguely have resembled an RPG.

So, who could it have been? Colom is in Moscow. Perhaps, we later speculated, it was J-Lo and Marc Anthony popping in for a spot of pre-concert afternoon tea with Ex-Prez?

Ever since the time he was out riding with his wife and his ever-keen presidential guard (the dreaded EMP) accidentally executed a milk delivery man, Ex-Prez has appeared to prefer more low key security. Indeed, we often see him zooming around the neighbourhood at the helm of his Mule with only one bodyguard (hanging on for dear life).

Once he even came visiting alone. Well, in fact he tapped on the door belonging to the house of V's below-radar brother R, and duly asked if she was around. R must have thought 'WTF??'. Along with his motorcycle crash helmet, Ex-Prez was wearing a thick kevlar vest with an antenna sticking out the chest pocket. V also relates that he had a big button on his left cuff, as if all he had to do was press it and the SWAT team would start descending on ropes from above.

Anyway, the substantial PNC presence here in Panorama means that one has had to get used to men with AK-47s on their backs wandering slowly up the road ruminatively munching their Tortrix.

None of this really fazes V. Back in the 80s and early 90s she had her run ins with the much dastardlier (and now thankfully defunct) Guardianes de la Hacienda. She remains thoroughly freaked out however by the occasion that she came across a nuclear submarine passing our Thameside balcony around 2am one morning.

Substantial vessels of one sort or another are regular visitors to the Pool of London and the naval variety, passing sigilosamente under cover of darkness, sending a fleeting wraithlike shadow across our bedroom window, tended to steam up-river at speed — completely blacked out — with only their red and green navigation lights illuminated. No doubt a precaution against canon fire from disgruntled members of the East End Bangladeshi community.

Oveja Perdida

Long-bearded Rene fabricates a mechanical alfombra every year outside his home in San Luquitas. Felipe and the boys were out there helping to construct the 2010 version from around 9pm last night.

This year's was perhaps a little less ambitious than some of his previous contraptions...and the same must be said of the San Bartolo anda. And what's with those shiny new centurion outfits? They all look a bit Carry on Cleo dressed like that.

Jalea de Café

We've just had an unexpected visitor — V's friend Don Willy, who came by to drop off a sample of his latest creation, coffee jam. Don Willy is our local entrepreneur, churning out delicious jaleas from his home-factory in Panorama.

His Valle de Panchoy jams are almost without exception delicious (I say almost, because the jalea de mango is a bit too sickly sweet for our tastes, but Don Willy says it's a kiddies' favourite) and this latest addition is no exception...even though I have so far only run my finger around the inside of the lid.

Guatemalans tend to like their coffee ralito with copious quantities of sugar, but Willy doesn't seem to have stinted on the beans here.

My father sounded sceptical when I told him about this novel Chapin delicacy, but then remembered that he likes tiramisu. He certainly loved the marmalade I took him on my visit last summer, and quickly identified the secret ingredient in all of Don Willy's jaleas: lemon juice.

Update: The more I try it, the more I love it. We're starting to think of dishes we can concoct with this wonder-jam as the base. (As well as lemon juice, Willy has blended in papaya with the coffee paste.)