What are you, FBI or something?

Yves Montand in Grand Prix en 1966. Photograph French National Archives, Joop van Bilsen / Anefo, Public Domain

Editorial

The July issue opens with Ulises Paniagua mourning the loss of authentic football and the traditional World Cup spirit, overtaken by commercialization, betting, corruption, and spectacle, while celebrating the successes of the Mexican team in The 2026 Football Simulacrum. It has been very hot in Europe, with many of us in the north at a loss about what to do, and Arun Kapil comes to the rescue, drawing wisdom from Indian culinary traditions, kokum sherbat, chaas, shikanji, coconut water, cooling spices, as a response to British heatwaves, advocating collaboration with heat rather than fighting it with technology. Ismaël Diadié Haïdara sends us on an infinite journey, exploring Saharan two-verse poems as fractal structures, linking them to broader African traditions of architecture, fabrics, braiding, divination systems, music, and design, in Tebræ, African Art and Fractal Geometry. Africa had fractal geometry long before Mandelbrot, and knew it. Sukrita Paul Kumar is awarded the rare and prestigious Poet of Honour recognition, which celebrates her poetry blending Rumi-like mystical rhythms with yogic realism and raw human loss.

Richard Steinhardt suggests that while the UK and the EU are strategically fortifying regional security, at the prompting of the USA they are also risking catastrophe. To be clear, Phili Mills is not an advocate for extreme ethno-nationalism, but she is arguing for the strengthening of Cornish identity, a language revival, land rights, and autonomy within the UK, with the good news that the Cornish language is experiencing a revival. Richard Steinhardt, in his exploratory piece Stasis and the Infantilisation of Humanity, writes that political stasis is not an accident, it is induced, and draws parallels between the relative powerlessness of people to change society for the better in the 2020s and the powerlessness of actual slaves. The unscrupulous hoard all agency, economic, political, social, moral, spiritual (and even sexual), and mechanisms are used to infantilise the masses and keep the stasis quo. Richard Tuley and Phil Hall discuss whether Israel is the USA’s cat’s paw, and how the European project, so essential to the wellbeing of all Europeans, was undermined.

Peter Cowlam explores the tenuous connection between himself and two notoriously colourful reprobates. Is this guilt by association? David Yip, the impressively honest and competent Lake District chef, writes the penultimate instalment of his memoir, And Then Came COVID.

Arun Kapil also writes about sane food in insane times, when people are ruthlessly manipulated and food trends are managed for profit, arguing for mindful, traditional eating, without prissiness, as a response to the chaos of modern life. Paul Halas, in À Bas le Fast Food, is amused at the British media reaction to French President Jacques Chirac criticising British food, which prompts Halas to discuss the state of French cooking. Halas is in love with it, but regrets how its glory is fading.

Derek Bright writes a short history of the Pilgrims’ Way, the ancient English pilgrimage route that is acquiring greater cultural and religious significance as the new archbishop walks to Canterbury, the British Pilgrim Society grows in numbers, and millions walk the Camino de Santiago. Stephen Hoare expertly describes Edwardian clobber. If you were ever tempted to be retro-stylish (like a gentleman dressing at the height of the British empire) or you are tempted to be a flâneur, Hoare is your guide.

Phil Hall is personal, open, and descriptive about his experiences of Christmas celebrations and culture in Michoacán and Guadalajara, Mexico, and in another travel piece he describes a visit to Venice which left him gobsmacked, overawed, and a little exhausted. Abhay K, the former Indian ambassador to Madagascar and poet, celebrates the uniqueness of its natural beauty with photography, carefully gauged description, and a beautiful string of haiku. Thomas Levene ups the adrenalin. The smooth operator goes to the biggest poker game in the world in Macau and comes out a winner.

Ars Notoria published an interview Tony Hall had with Yves Montand, on the French actor-singer’s career, politics, and art in 1966. The interview was published in The Daily Nation, so only Kenyans read it at the time. As the seasoned reporter who interviewed Nelson Mandela in hiding, and an activist, Hall surprises Yves Montand into a series of frank and illuminating responses. Norman B. Schwartz, the veteran sound editor of many a Hollywood blockbuster, forays again into film and politics with a description of the rise of John F. Kennedy. In Unto Us, a Son Is Given, Norman gives us the inside dope in elegant prose. His articles on Hollywood and Politics published here first, have now been compiled into a book by CentreHouse Press. Inge Colijn, the photographer and former UN senior development worker, combines her social insight with flamboyant colour and thoughtful composition in her photo essay: the Women of the Indonesian Markets.

Our short stories are both unsettling. Tina Bexson writes about a ghost girl she encounters while walking along the Thames. The girl is very far from home. Francesca Young, in her Letters to Former Lieutenant Yamaguchi Hiroshi, 1947, immerses us into what could very well be Yukio Mishima’s worst nightmare.

Ars Notoria is blessed with poetry. This month, in addition to the wonderful Sukrita Paul Kumar, we publish work by outstanding poets like Ulises Paniagua, Dimitris P. Kraniotis, Kiriti Sengupta, Dominic Fisher, and Sonnet Mondal, and we also publish a moving community piece from John Grant at the New Malden Writer’s Workshop about his reflections on fatherhood.

Finally, Phil Hall discusses the wonderful achievements of Eric Laithwaite and furthers the conspiracy theory that his Inertial Cruiser Drive was scotched in public, but developed by the US military into weird darting, spinning craft. Yes, you guessed it, UFOs!