November 26, 2008

Photo of the Day

Home. Monday afternoon. Oddly calm.
P1040150

26 Nov 2008 09:30:00 | Photo

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Sexy Horse Noises! Another lovely obituary from the Daily Telegraph (of course) that is, as always, written with panache: Nick Mills, who has died aged 54, was a country vet with a practice which took him across the world as an anaesthetist for wild animals, an insurance adviser to the racing industry and a "sex therapist" to thoroughbreds at stud. Among the famous racehorses he examined before they were purchased or put out to stud were Epsom Derby winners such as Galileo and Benny the Dip. When the 2002 Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem showed a lack of interest in the opposite sex, Mills made several journeys to Japan (where the horse was standing) and drew on his research with the Cambridge University veterinary school. This included using chemical stimulants; placing a blanket soaked in mares' urine on stallions; and even introducing reluctant thoroughbreds to a harem of carthorses in the hope that they might be stimulated by "rough trade". Mills's efforts with War Emblem led to productive coverings. During the past year he had been working on a CD, to be called Sexy Horse Noises. Whole life here.
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To the barricades! There's something splendid about this. Brent Whelan, an American in Paris, runs, as you do, into yet another demonstration. There was the... sound truck and chants, flags and banderoles, a regular labor action. But I missed the front of the cortège where the leafleters and signs were, so I couldn't tell what it was about. So I asked a guy on the corner, who told me, "It's the archaeologists." And that's just who it was: several hundred archaeologists marching down the street, shouting and chanting, demanding that the government withdraw plans to disperse the headquarters of its national archaeological service from Paris. Only, I think, in Paris. And long may this remain the case. There's a serious point here too, however: everyone wants to sty in the capital. The scariest moment in any teacher or university lecturer's career, for instance, comes when they discover where the state has assigned them. At one end of the scale there's a plum posting in Paris itself, at the other a position in some grim or stupefyingly dull provincial town just beyond commuting range from the capital. Or there are, of course, the banlieues of which we do not speak. Then again, France is,...

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