December

A December boar hunt at the Château de Vincennes, in the Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (ca. 1416)

December was the tenth month

in the old Roman calendar of

Romulus, which started with March

—hence its name, from Latin decem,

ten. It's also National Fruitcake

Month and National Eggnog Month.

December 22's Global Orgasm Day.

Come in Peace! (Or at least fancy

doing so.) The Holidays, ditto.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!

The hours of the ducs de Berry haven't all been rich.

One such lost his head to Louisette in 1793.

The latest would be Louis XX if he succeeded

—an outcome unlikely to be needed.

What can one say? History's a bitch!

Note: The inventor of the fatal device later wrongly attributed to Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was, in fact, Antoine Louis, a contributor to the Encyclopédie. It was originally called the Louison, or Louisette.

Cartoon by Rico in the Daily Maverick (Johannesburg)

December 22, 2025

The Deposizione

Rosso Fiorentino ("Firenze Red"), Deposizione

(ca. 1521). Pinacoteca Comunale, Volterra, Italy

“If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise. . . .What is now proved was once, only imagin’d.”

—William Blake, "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell"

Unpinning from the Cross was hard,

with even Seraphs at a loss!

yet human creatures braved the task.

After we'd bribed the Roman dogs

(easy—they were Krauts or wogs)

making mercy's scaffolding obligatory

took ages, till in Nicaea's fair and pleasant city

Great Kostas* forged officious pity.

Persisting in their folly, bishops contrived

monstrosities once only found in thought.

Long they've thrived, long the faithful bought.

Now in this annus horribilis, 2025,

it is uncertain what these days gives.

But—Oh, say it ain't so!—Kostakis lives.

*The Roman emperor Constantine I, called Constantine the Great (r. 306–37 CE), who founded Constantinople as his capital and in 325 imposed the straitjacket of the Nicene Creed on his newly Christianized empire.

Tuesday, December 16. 2025

À propos de Nice

Georges-Antoine Rochegrosse, Thaïs (1890). Alexander the Great's lover Thaïs leads the burning of Persepolis

On reading The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

“To be on a daïs with Thaïs, how naïs.”—attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald

Reading Henry James, I fancy be-

ing owner of a palazzo in Florence

and wintering there, by way of Paris,

Nice, and the Promenade des Anglais,

after a dip in the Baie des Anges,

—an Anglo-American swell in late

Victoria's reign, with a hundred

thousand a year Home Counties domain.

Who wouldn’t trade for that in a trice!?

But in fact all mightn't be nice.

They died of gout, sepsis, and TB,

and suffered atrocious dentistry.

Breaking the bank at Monte Carlo,

Muggs my cat would mock the mice.

And worst of all, if Mary-Rose

metamorphosed into Madame Merle

or some presumptuous foreign girl . . .

What to do, Heaven only knows!

Friday, December 12, 2025