British understatement

Ray

Well, let's face it. In this day and age of political correctness no one is going to call him 'perverted'!

Bill Corr

The tragic story of the gay cannibalistic chef is an example of art-becoming-life but not at all unprecedented.

"I could eat you up, darling. Every last little delectable morsel!" - there is a Waugh novel, 'Black Mischief', which encompasses the tragi-comic theme exquisitely.

It will be remembered that Sagawa Issei, the celebrated Japanese cannibal of unqueer-but-gay Paree, was spurned by the very toothsome Renee Hardveldt while both were resident in Paris.

Distressed beyond reason by the rejection of his advances, the cannibal-of-restricted-growth shot and dismembered the young Flemish cutie, consumed selected parts of her and discarded much of the remainder in a suitcase in the Bois de Boulogne [some tasty morsels and gastronomic delicacies were retained in Issei's fridge for further snacking.]

In short order, the suitcase was sniffed out by a M. DuPont's little terrier Toto - not at all unlike Tintin's faithful and resourceful pooch - and in next to no time Sagawa was in handcuffs and helping the police with their enquiries.

The story ended happily, after a fashion. Sagawa spent a modest amount of time in mental hospitals in France and Japan and is now to be seen as a guest on late-night Japanese television.

Memorious readers will recall that there was a minor scandal in the U.S.A. not so long ago when it was claimed that the bones of some of the recently-deceased, including the widely-venerated Alistair Cooke, had been recycled and had been subsequently implanted into the living, quite without the unwitting donors' prior permission.

Sounds a ggod idea to me; on my death I might supply a rather dull stew for a few famished war orphans but I'd be delighted to know that my bones - or a few fragments of them - were marching on, even if my corneas are barely worth throwing to the mortuary cat.

Sam Armstrong

Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel for a blog entry.

Tim

Stephen, you may have noticed that there are some rather interesting political and economic events going on. I had thought of you as a heavyweight commentator (in every sense). Are you going to share your views on these interesting subjects with us, or are you going to stick to tabloid twitter?

Fergus Pickering

Frankly I think the chef is much more interesting than the money stuff.

Hysteria

lighten up guys -

anyway - isn't all the talk of "melt down" "armagedon" etc all a bit much - we need some British understatement sometimes!

Edward McLaughlin

Tim and Sam.

Plenty of coverage of the crash stuff is very close to hand, we're not exactly being kept in the dark are we?

After a fortnight of it I have to say it's become quite boring and so items like this are worth a mention.

A man is murdered by his Mr Gay UK friend, parts of his body cooked and eaten. Hardly the 'twitter' or 'scraping' you describe.

Why such hostility?

Frank P

"Darling", he thighed, "You are so sweet and tender and rare among -er- shemen."

JohnAnt

As Peter Simple would have said, 'Are we not all guilty?'

Bill Corr

"JohnAnt is a fool, a product of a warped educational system," thundered Dr Heinz Kiosk giving expert evident is the case.

"We are all - ALL - guilty!"