Here’s the real-life flipside to Valley of the wolves, Iraq: a Turkish military court has released the phenomenally brave gay consciencious objector Mehmet Tarhan. An excellent piece by Bernard Bouwman in Dutch in the NRC describes how our man decided after 9/11 that this fight was not his in any sense and–traitor!–refused to serve when…
Life is skittles, life is beer, and, where possible, life is adultery. There’s a lovely bit in Enrique Jardiel Poncela’s But … were there ever eleven thousand virgins? where he says that amor is Spanish for two people eating stew together. Resistance is futile, my dear, particularly with the roses up in the Cervantes gardens…