* Just finished reading 'Madame Bovary' by some frog called Flaubert. This book was recommended as very depressing and reading it could spur a reluctant suicide to cross the line and enter the big black void. First it is extremely well written (allowing that obviously I was reading a translation. As a true englishman I have no foreign languages.) , once I got into it I couldn't put it down. This is another book starts at the top and slides down into the pit of despair. It is very dispiriting and makes you thankful you didn't live in those dark times. (This does not detract from the increasing bleakness that comes on the reader). I don't mention the plot line as you may very well want to read it. As the feeling of sorrow builds as the slide continues it has a bitter conclusion that just about finishes off any sense of optimism you might have. I give it **, two stars, as a slit your wrist read as a certain amount of distancing is provided by the time within which it is set. I guess Flaubert was no barrel of laughs either.

* Dishing the dirt on intellectuals: Jean-Paul Sartre gets a sizeable amount of coverage and is very rock-n'-roll. This populiser of Existentialism was what most women might describe as a real bastard. It is generally considered that Existentialism is dead in the water possibly because it had no where to go. But lets face it what can be more fundamental than the mystery of Being, in MHO, summed up by the thought 'Why is there something rather than nothing?'. I can't understand why there is something, I reckon there should be nothing, however I digress.
JP Sartre was a heroic seducer of women, mainly students from the university where he taught. He had a strange relationship with the excellent Simone De Beauvoir, i.e. one of those 'open' relationships where both could sleep around, old JPS took maximum advantage of this. His success is bizarre as he was only five foot two and as ugly as a bag of toads. Not only that but was none too hot on personal hygiene. Sometimes he seduced his own students and sometimes Simone pointed him at a few of her own. Apparently as he got older his taste for women got younger e.g. 17 yr olds.
He and Simone would get together and compare notes on their latest seductions, a bit grubby I think, but very R&R.