Categories
Dogs

The Water is So Wide

I watched the end of Jacob’s Ladder and the end of The Accidental Tourist.

Both films, at their heart, are about fathers and sons.  Death, coming to terms with death.  Letting go.  Dying.  Returning to the empty house.  Taking the taxi through Paris.  Allowing ones self to love again after being ‘shut down’.

Unconditional love.

It’s been a fucking tough two years.   The Big Dog, The Cancer, The Penguin.

Not necessarily in that order.

I think about her everyday, her tangled bloody body.  Waiting for her to die after the lethal injection.  Carrying her home to the grave we dug for her in the garden.   Now she is just skin and bones under the rock, hidden so the coyote couldn’t dig her up and eat her.  Laying there with her collar on, wrapped in my shirt, laying by my shoes.

Waiting patiently for us to join her.

I just couldn’t stop crying.  Apologizing.  She was innocent!

As I write the Little Dog is dreaming.  Yelping in his sleep.

It’s been tough to concentrate, to make anything happen, to imagine any sort of future.   I need all my wits about me to make things happen.  I don’t have the energy.

If by chance I look in the mirror, I don’t recognize the man staring back at me.

Who cares?

I don’t really know who I am.  Drifting inconsolably since she was killed.  Inconsolable when I saw the truth about him.  Me reflected in him.  The grueling hospital.  Private desire that it would kill me.

That the doctor would say, “Mr. Roy, you have six months to live.”  He didn’t.

I let myself believe that it was all over and frankly, I was furious that all my body wanted to do was teach me a lesson.

Then I got involved with him.  He was nothing.  A sick, lost man.  I thought I could help.  He was nothing.  He wasn’t the one.  Like crumpled paper.  Like chewed gum.  A crude, inelegant parasite come to suck my blood.

Then I got involved with him.  I was nothing.  A sick, lost man.  He thought he could help.  I was nothing.  He wasn’t the one.

I was never going to be good enough for him.  For anyone.  Let’s face it.

Letting life and its dangerous current drag me across this angry ocean.  Untethered.

It feels like I am finally waking up from the past two years.  Waking up, yet desiring, desperately to sleep.  I don’t want to wake up.  Why in hells name is there any reason to be awake?

There is no child waiting to deliver me from madness.  There is no innocent boy to take my hand and lead me to a better place.   There is no Big Dog because I was a bad owner.  There is no lover because I am a bad lover.

I did not leave the house today.  I filled another can with weeds.  Compulsively weeding the garden.  I close my eyes and all I can see are weeds.  Panicking that there is one last weed to pull…and I may have missed it.

Categories
Malibu

Cinderella

Misty mornings in paradise.

I harvested the last of the delicious plums as the sun rose, beating the parrots at their own game.

Last night I heard a deer in the garden.  So, at midnight I am chasing the bloody thing all over the property.  We both gave up at about 1.30am and either it fled or hunkered down until it knew for certain that I had gone away.

Regardless, by this morning, there was no sign of the deer or any damage…thank God.  So many critters to keep away from the vegetables.  It seems hardly worth the effort.

My tomato plants are not yielding anything yet.  The little flowers don’t seem to want to fruit.

Yesterday I spent another full day on the land.  Pulling leaves from between the shrubs and filling another big trash can with my efforts.  I now know exactly how and why my grandfather took so much pleasure in his tiny garden in Herne Bay.

The plants seem to know that you care about them and respond.  I can’t explain how.  A gardener, a real one, will understand.

I replanted the squash.  The pumpkins are doing really well.  The beans and grapes too.

My whole body tingled after the exertion.

I found a huge snake lizard, it looked at me.  I looked at it.  We have an understanding.

Robby drove me home from the Piettes, they move out on Monday.  The twins return to their natural habitat:  Hollywood.

We saw Hannah and Lily at The Malibu Stage Company performing their summer camp spectacle.  A mash-up of Cinderella and Frankenstein.  It was really very good, brilliantly written and performed by these eager little kids…some not so little.  The age range must be 7-15.

I complimented the guy who writes for the company not realizing that he hadn’t written it.

Embarrassing.

Hannah really was excellent.  She takes her acting very seriously and has style and flourish.  Lily who is usually a little weak excelled last night.  A huge performance from a very little girl.  I felt incredibly proud.

Last year Barbra Streisand told Lily what a good singer she was which was a pretty good review I’d say?  Lily thanked her and said, “Mummy that woman told me she used to be a singer.”

As for my writing?  Fuck, writing a novel when the original aim was revenge…when that feeling fades?  What am I left with?  I talked to the editor yesterday about recalibrating the entire thing.  He gave me a lecture about focus….yes.  Thanks.

The problem is, when I am not writing my blog or a film script I am prone to turgid…crap.

Tom is headed over today.  Robby is spending the day with me tomorrow.  Alexis is painting the ceiling.

Hope the tomato plants come to their senses.

The road to the PCH is nearly complete.   26 years after it fell away.  26 years.

Categories
Gay Hollywood

Lady Gaga

I thought yesterday was Wednesday.  So when Dane turned up I was utterly surprised.

We drove into Hollywood via Home Depot to buy more tomato plants and return the oscillating sprinkler that no longer oscillated.

Had my first lunch with John.  Gossiped.

Had my second lunch with Tom, Dane and Robby at Chateau Marmont.  We fought our way past an ugly crowd of camera toting Lady Gaga fans who, by the time we left, were being corralled by burly police men.

Some of them thought Dane was Taylor Lautner.  Huh?  Are they blind?  He has a tiny head.

Fun lunch, a great deal of card swapping with the folks who sat at the table beside us.

Everybody wants to know Tom.

After lunch we picked up laundry and I was home by 6pm.   I spent an hour or so at dusk raking leaves.   Sitting quietly in the garden.

Categories
Rant

The Scarlet Empress

My 500th Blog!

Such delight and disdain it has caused.  Such heartache and joy!   Thanks readers.  Thanks.

Duncan x

There’s almost too much going on inside and outside of my head.

Firstly, the garden.  Every day for the past few weeks I have worked in the garden.  Pulling tons (literally) of weeds and leaves out of the flower beds.  Reclaiming the paths.  Defending the vegetables from the gophers and rabbits.

I have planted Datura and Hibiscus.   Salvia, basil, onions, beans and tomatoes.

A bumper crop of plums this year!

For the first time in 4 years I managed to get to them before the birds.

Have hooked up a pump to the spring water reservoir.  It’s located at the bottom of the garden, now watering parts of the estate I can’t usually justify irrigating with expensive, potable water.

The previous owner built the two huge tanks.  Until last week I just hadn’t gotten around to buying the small, inexpensive pump.  Absurd isn’t it?

Having this free supply of water means that I can clear part of the garden and lay turf which in any other situation would be immoral, irresponsible.

Everything in a tropical garden has spikes or thorns or needles.  My hands are cut to ribbons.  Robbie has been here twice this week helping me and his arms and legs, poor thing, are shredded too.

Dinner last night with Anna and Jeff at Nobu in Malibu.

Apparently I was mentioned in passing by Derek in the ‘A’ List last night.  I can’t imagine that I will escape lightly from this situation.  I am perfectly sure my posing as the ‘Mister Big’ will make me the laughing-stock of Gay New York.

Whatever.

The weather in Malibu is perfect.  Hot as hell in the sun but a delicious sea breeze blowing onshore.

The crows are hunting chicks.  They bombard the trees. Tiny dead chicks on the paths.  So sad.

I took the picture at the head of the post last weekend at the Piette’s.   Their house is soooo depressing.  Even though it’s located on the lake and the twins are living there now.  It’s so dark inside at night.  Gloomy.

You know what?  I should be getting on with something else.  I should be leaping all over my novel.  I should be writing the film.  You know what it’s about don’t you?

Two gay men want a baby but end up with an old man instead.

This was one of the videos Charlie and I shot when we were researching our film.

Trans Alexis, The Scarlet Empress, must be in her 80’s.  She was at Triangle House, a home for elderly gays and lesbians in Hollywood.  Getting old is a pain in the ass for everyone but elderly gays seem to find it particularly difficult.  Most of the men and women at Triangle House have endured homelessness.  Old age, as they say, is not for the faint hearted.

Lesbians, apparently, don’t seem to end up so isolated but gay men do.  Lesbians are often dialed into an extended family of other lesbians and are less ageist.

Anyway, I’ll write more about Alexis and our film which maybe should be a documentary.

I don’t know.

The elder gays we met were really quite wonderful.  The gay men we met who had surrogate children or were going through the surrogacy process were less wonderful.  Downright awful in fact.

Robby is on his way over to help me in the garden.

Is Toby right?  Do I live in the past?  Am I addicted to what was rather than what is or what could be?  Fuck.  Maybe he’s right?

Amy Winehouse is dead.  It comes as no surprise.  She was an out of control drug addict and alcoholic.  She dies alone.  She died an addict.  I am sorry for her family.  It is always the family that has to pick up the pieces and go on living.  Amy did not choose life.  She sneered at the prospect.  She thought she could get away with a dance with death.  She failed.

I will remember her like this:

Categories
Death Love

Doubt and Death

It’s 4am and I can’t sleep.  My head is full up with doubt and death, my heart remains broken.   I don’t think it will ever be fixed.  It was herculean, the task of keeping what I thought was worth fighting for.

How long does convalescence take?

There are solutions to deal with this…like prayer…but it’s not always easy to get the path cleared sufficiently.

Yep, after a week of gardening, path clearing…well…the path in my head that leads to clarity and peace of mind is still cluttered.

There’s a great deal to sort out before I leave for France this December.  I am trying to organise a house swap.  Somewhere for paradise.  I want to be in Paris.

I had dinner with Toby on Saturday night and he asked if I had any desire to go to places I hadn’t already been and the answer is no.  I don’t want to visit anywhere I don’t already know.

Who isn’t shocked by the angry white man who murdered all those people in Norway?  I am not often shocked. Angry white men who can’t bear the way the world is changing.  Turning on his own to make a point.  What’s the point?

I have a painful bite on the back of my head.  Mosquito I hope.  Itchy.

The A List airs today.  Why did I get involved?  I know why.  Part of my Jake madness.  Making so many bad choices.  Then I saw Midnight in Paris, it’s a sweet film.  Charming.  Going to Paris with a man you think you love only to find out you can’t stand each other.

I wish him well.

I began to have the same feelings for somebody else recently.  Banished them.  I will not go through anything remotely like the misery of the past year.   I can’t.

Then I thought about the film Charlie and I started writing.  My idea, he developed it.  Neither of us had the stamina to complete it.

It was a beautiful idea.

I am going to write the research this week.  Let you know what we saw, who we met.

I may try sleeping more.  Crawl back into bed.

 

Categories
Gay

Trader Joe’s

Frank collected Willy from me yesterday afternoon. It was so sad to see him go.

Frank looked very handsome, returning from Brazil where he had been shooting his pilot. Such a serious boy. I like that.

As I collected Willy’s bits and pieces I nearly cried. He is a wonderful, kind, loyal dog. A real dog. Not like The Little Dog who really is a human trapped in a dog’s body, with all our human delights and foibles.

I woke by the lake again this morning. The twins are staying here so it feels just like nothing has changed.

Jen and Jason now have staff: a cook and a cleaner. I could get used to this. They also have an errant, fledgling addict, thirteen year old boy. He was out last night being a lost teen.

OK, this will delight my more homophobic readers.

We dropped into my favorite super market…and for anyone who has recently moved to LA and doesn’t already know…Trader Joe’s is by far the best super market in town. It is clean, easily negotiated, good products and will not cost an arm and a leg.

So, after I had loaded the trolly with the good stuff we sat in line waiting to be checked out. Lucas, the handsome young man at the till was discussing going to church with a morbidly obese male. So, when it came to my turn I asked him what sort of church he was looking for.

He said, “Moderately conservative.”

Well, you know what that means don’t you? It means creationism and homo hate.

So I said, “So that means you believe that Dinosaurs were on the ark and all gays are the devils work?”

He looked askance and said, “I don’t care if gays exist, as long as they don’t do anything in front of me.”

“What do you mean?” my blood began to boil, “You want me to live invisibly and in shame, well fuck you.”

I grabbed my smoked trout away from him. “This gay wants you to know that your hate filled brand of Michelle Bachmann Christianity STINKS!”

“I don’t want homosexuals to do anything sexual.” He stumbled.

He was a good-looking man, he had that look in his eye and I just KNEW what his problem was. I had seen it before. He wanted me to know, the gay who was trapped inside this Christian prison…he was dying. I could hear him screaming…help me!

He picked up the coffee beans and asked if I had a grinder.

“I’m gay, of course I have a grinder.”

Another man arrived suddenly and told Lucas that he was relieved, he didn’t have to serve the mad gay any more.

We filled the car with the groceries.

I decided to ask the store manager if Trader Joe’s had any gay or lesbian policy. I was told that the company was privately owned and just employed the best man or woman for the job regardless of sexual orientation, colour or religion.

Trader Joe’s said officially:

“Trader Joe’s policies do not allow discrimination or harassment based on sexual orientation,” a spokeswoman said. “In addition, we do extend all health benefits to same-sex domestic partners. We have addressed gender diversity on many levels and in our opinion are leaders in this area. ”

I do hope that the Trader Joe management make the handsome young man who serves at Agoura Hills Trader Joe’s just off the 101 freeway aware that gays are not going anywhere.

As I said to Lucas when I left the store. “Let’s hope that your child is born gay so you can delight in him, love him unconditionally and help him live a free and open life.”

Amen.

Categories
art

Goodbye Twins

The twins moved out yesterday and I now know for certain exactly how Dan feels when I leave NYC.   I felt a mixture of sadness and relief.

I needed my home back.  I need to be on my own now.

I need not to wait up at night wondering if they were ever coming home.

They have gone to live and work with friends of mine in the valley.

The bedrooms have been returned to their neat selves.  The fridge has been emptied of Enchiladas and grated cheese, peanut butter and jelly.  The bathroom shelves: no more contact lens solution, acne medication.  The pile of sneakers by the door, all gone.

They hugged me as they left but I have no use for unsolicited affection.  I don’t want any flesh next to mine unless I pay for it.

I don’t want you to stay here.  That was a joke.  Of course you can.  Come on, come stay.  Then I will wait for you to leave.  I can’t wait.  Just don’t stay too long.  Don’t over stay your welcome.  

Less interest in hosting these days.  Especially here, here on the mountain.   Just leave me alone.  Let me wake up at dawn, in my own time.  Let me wander naked, grind coffee, watch bad morning ‘news’ without prying eyes.

I listen to BBC Radio 4 on-line.  The Archers, Front Row and Question Time.  I miss British news.

Somebody blew up Oslo.

Both Willy and The Little Dog are learning to love each other.  They play in the evenings as I settle in to watch Rachel Maddow or bad but addictive HGTV.

I am less likely to write my novel.  I want it to be finished NOW.

My head is in Paris.

My head is with Bella and Esther Freud whose father died yesterday.  I never met Lucian Freud.  I don’t know Esther very well but I spent a great deal of time with Bella and her family.

Bella once told me how she felt about her father painting her naked.  I’ll write about that one day.  Now is not the time.

Did you ever see Freud’s portrait of Andrew Parker-Bowles?

If his Leigh Bowery portraits shows compassion for a fellow human being, his portrait of Andrew Parker-Bowles is perhaps his most insolent, scathing, and melancholy study.

Sprawled in his guards uniform, Parker-Bowles – the former husband of Camilla Duchess of Cornwall – evokes, with his red striped trousers, glamorous 19th-century images of officers and imperial heroes.

Yet, he looks exhausted, saddened, wiped out.

Look at the way Freud paints diamonds and pearls.

Diamonds
Categories
Hollywood Rant

London Hotel West Hollywood

Really!  What has happened to the London Hotel West Hollywood?

My friends Michael and Yaniv who are visiting from New York very sweetly invited me to lunch there yesterday.

I loved their room which has a nice, easterly view over the Hollywood Hills and a huge bathroom.

Lunch was less charming.

According to the verbose London Hotel website:

Gordon Ramsay has recreated the Hollywood culinary scene, with dining inspired by the sunny, savvy and social setting of L.A. From his Michelin-starred signature restaurant and casual bistro, to private, poolside and in-suite dining, cuisine is truly superb, highlighting California’s fresh abundance of produce.”

The luxurious appointment that was The London when it first opened is no more.  The faux suede walls, the marble foyer, the topiary…has dated incredibly quickly.

The poolside dining was a disgrace.

The astro turfed roof looks a mess.  It looks unkempt.  The tables strewn rather than arranged.  The staff uniform one step away from Macdonald’s, with the ubiquitous polo shirt and a hideous recent (?) addition…a huge corporate name tag stamped in shiny silver and black plastic pinned haphazardly onto the waitresses grubby white outfit.

We ordered from the polite and attentive young waitress, two salads and one burger.

Gordon must agree that the Devil/God is in the detail.  So, whenever I am in any of his restaurants my expectations are high.   Surely his personal standards should be greater than those he insists of his hapless TV show victims.

Am I being unreasonable?

Like going to the theatre or a movie, when I sit down in any restaurant I don’t go looking for trouble.  I want to be delighted.  Especially when my lunch is being paid for.

Unlike a movie or the theatre, however, when I sit down to eat it doesn’t take much to please me.  I have never walked out of a restaurant half way through a meal whereas I often leave the theatre/cinema huffing and puffing with disgust.

Authenticity delights me.  Generosity too.  Appropriateness thrills.  Detail is everything.

It was an uncomfortable experience.

The table and chairs were crammed behind an immovable planter.  Three big men at a very small table.  We were all a little surprised that the condiments were served in ugly plastic sachet.

We ordered drinks.

My Arnold Palmer was far too tart.   Too much lemon and not enough iced tea.

We had loads to talk about so waiting a little bit longer for our lunch didn’t seem to matter.

When Yaniv’s burger finally arrived the bun was crushed.  It looked cheap.  It looked unloved.  The miserable burger sat forlornly on the plate.  Instead of fries it was served with a tiny cup of chips (crisps).

My skirt steak salad was pathetic.  The undressed salad of various leaves including raddiccio dwarfing the tiny amount of steak.  No ‘abundance of Californian product‘ here.

We thought better of desert.

We ordered coffee.  Yaniv was amused to note that every sugar sachet bar one was empty.

It served as a fitting metaphor.

The experience of being at The London West Hollywood looks like it might be full of surprises but ends up an empty promise.

BTW the London Hotel website ‘poolside lunch’ menu is inaccurate as of 21st July 2011.

We drove to Santa Monica where we met the gorgeous Jeff.  Ate a late dessert on Third Street.  Wandered around the new Santa Monica Place.  Walked to the beach where we watched my friend Armand, as nimble as a monkey, work the rings.

Went home to dogs who were delighted to see me and bounced around crying with pleasure.

Must make coffee.  I have desk work to do today.  Need to write to Jake’s lawyer re iPod incident.

Categories
Rant

Casey Anthony v Nancy Grace

Casey Anthony was acquitted.

Why? Because there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her.

Even though Nancy Grace seems to have witnessed the murder with her very own eyes she was loathed to take the stand and tell the jury what she saw.

Even if Casey Anthony was partying (according to an amazed Drew Pinsky) after her child went missing we can’t send someone to the electric chair for being insensitive.

Justice was served in the case that was presented to Casey’s peers.

If Nancy Grace and Drew Pinsky are outraged by the jury’s decision perhaps they should talk with the police or the prosecutors who failed to find any evidence that linked Caylee’s death to her mother.

Nancy Grace was outraged that Casey referred to herself as a celebrity even though Nancy Grace caused Casey Anthony to become one.

It is notoriously difficult for celebrities to be convicted.

If they had just left this trial alone, this morbid story, the jury might have convicted.

If they had left this woman to her own fate rather than trying to shape it for us all like so many bad soap operas and by doing so creating a celebrity who can now demand a million dollars per interview…justice may have been served.

There is no hope of a fair trial in the USA whilst uninformed, bigoted people like Nancy Grace are allowed to say what ever they want to say…creating a celebrity firestorm in their wake.

A baby girl was murdered.  It is very sad.  It is sadder still that due to an unregulated media justice may never be done.

 

Categories
art Rant

Hell is: Other People

Forgive me for rambling….

Rather lovely day yesterday.

Had lunch with Daniel Darling and his adorable girlfriend (?) in Cross Creek.

We were joined by Toby Mott and his friend Elizabeth.  Daniel went surfing and we drove to Malibou Lake where we sailed and then had a wonderful dinner at The Old Place on Mulholland.

Excellent food and service.  Charming!

A bird just hopped into the house and is now flying around.  We have just been for a five-mile walk so the dogs are strangely disinterested.

Willie is here visiting and we are all getting on like a house on fire.

I am going back to NYC next week.  I have people to see.  I think my Navy Seal may visit soon.

It has been fun having Toby visiting.  I sort of fall in love with my house all over again when he is here.  I am proud of the mountains, the house and the garden.

I see that my nemesis Amanda Eliasch and her truly talented friend Lyall Watson (whoring himself out to artifice) have written and performed in a ‘play’ called As I Like It.

Apparently it is rather ‘whiney’.  Apparently Amanda’s son Charles serves the actress who plays his mother as a weird, incestuous acolyte.  He has a huge head.  Apparently there is an opera singer with real talent who barely gets to sing.  Apparently the writer refers to ‘hairy legged lesbians’.  As we know, at her core, she is a homophobe.

Apparently this ‘play’ is crap.

It really isn’t any wonder, Amanda can scarcely string a sentence together.   It’s worth quoting the theatre programme notes:

This is a play what I wrote for my Father several years ago which he asked me to do after he had died. I turned it into a play with the help of Lyall Watson who had taught me at RADA in 1989. There are only a few plays for women and I wanted to contribute and increase the material available. It is a modern restoration comedy.

Yes.  You are going to do wonders for women with this pile of  tripe.  Wonders.

I once played Mr Puff at The Edinburgh Festival in Sheridan’s The Critic.   Have you seen that play?  A comedy of manners.  A real one.

Like Mrs Eliasch Mr Puff, the author of a terrible play, invites critics Sneer and Dangle to a dress rehearsal.

Puff explains to Sneer that he is ‘‘a Professor of the Art of Puffing’’: an author who has taught newspaper men and advertisers how to inflate their diction so they may ‘‘enlay their phraseology with variegated chips of exotic metaphor’’ and ‘‘crowd their advertisements with panegyrical superlatives.’’

Break a leg Amanda.  Read the review here.

By the way.  I was a terrible actor.  Terrible.

OK.  Next!!

What’s going on?  What’s really going on in the UK?

This ousting of the Murdoch family is well over due, applauded by the regime, the chattering classes, the aristocracy.

The public are baying for blood, hollering at the beastly Murdochs, “Get back on the boat like your criminal Australian ancestors.  Good riddance to bad rubbish.  Take your newspaper with you”

Hold on.

The British relish tittle-tattle.  We love it!  We love gossip!  The steamier the better.  Surely we didn’t lose our appetite for rooting through other people’s dirty washing?

Now The New of The World has gone…and the other news media get more cautious…

What, in heaven’s name, will replace it?

Are we witnessing the changing of the guard?  Has the internet (Google, Facebook etc.) and on-line news outlets like the Huffington Post trumped traditional media?

Apparently people don’t read The Huffington Post for the news..they read it for the gossip.

Was Murdoch simply too old, too complacent, too rich to have a grasp on our changing world?

Is this coup de grace being played out in the British press a pantomime we will see in the not too distant future in the USA?

One of the most telling quotes of the entire debacle:

The BBC’s business editor Robert Peston points out, the News of The World phone hacking scandal has hurt the entire UK newspaper industry, making News International less attractive to potential buyers if, as is now being posited, the British arm of News Corp is amputated and sold.

Does real, forward thinking money sees a future for print media?

Controlling the British has always been a huge problem for any invader and Murdoch will end up like all the rest.  Chucked out on his ear.  Romans, Saxons (initially invited), Norsemen, Murdoch.

The British public don’t a give a fuck about Jude Law having his phone hacked, that was just par for the course.  He deserved it.  They only started giving a damn when they realised that the police (who they loathe) were benefiting financially.

They only started caring when ordinary people just like them were proved to be abused, their ordinary stories sold, their phone messages ransacked.

Until Milly Dowler they didn’t give a flying fuck.  Then, rather amazingly, for an usually inert general public…they did.  And when the public speaks (remember Diana’s death) the establishment listens.

Remember the Queen of England reading/performing that excruciating statement televised by the palace at the behest of Tony Blair before Diana’s funeral?

The British let their leaders get away with much until they take too much.  A prudent leader will know when to stop.  Murdoch, his son and cohorts became too..how shall I say this without provoking your ire…they became too American.

It is obvious that American politicians are bought and sold by The Corporation.   They live huge lives with fantastic wealth and are applauded for doing so.

What baffles me is why a regular British MP with nothing much to gain should ideologically side with those who seek to do us, their constituents, harm?

During this entire scandal as heads began to roll I wondered again and again how British politicians benefitted financially from New Corp.  Unlike the paid for politician here in the USA it is unlikely that anyone in Parliament could benefit financially from anything…ever.

There are simply too many prying eyes.  Unless I am being absurdly naive.  Am I?

Is it simply the acquisition of power that our MP’s crave?