3rd November 1998- Minnesota elects Jesse 'The Body' Ventura as Governor

Remember when Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected as Governor of California and put in charge of the 4th largest economy of the planet, that had somehow ended up being built on a fault in the Earth known as "God's Etch-a-Sketch"?  Weird, wasn't it? Weirder still was that, when Arnie was made 'The Governator' in 2003, he was actually the second man from the movie Predator to have held that role in a US state.  5 years earlier the great state of Minnesota, previously famous for having Prince live there, elected as Governor a former Navy SEAL who had no affiliation to the two main parties, spent a fraction of the money his opponents did, and suggested the possibility of legalising prostitution.  And who used to be a wrestler with a taste for Elton John shades and feather boas.  This guy...

This guy.

He was Jesse 'The Body' Ventura, who instantly gained more cachet than almost any politician by changing his nickname upon election to Jesse 'The Governing Body' Ventura.  That and the fact he'd been in Demolition Man.  He took a refreshingly earthy approach to issues as befitted a no-nonsense movie henchman; for instance he advocated gays in the military on the basis that, if he'd served alongside them in the Navy, he'd have had "less competition for women"- although to be fair he could be much more eloquent than that on the subject of gay rights.

Minnesota is a state with a history of progressive politics by American standards, not just for voting wrestlers into office, but also for things like education and having a strong Green Party, and it's likely that the voters were attracted to Ventura's stances; pro-same-sex-marriage, pro-choice, pro-marijuana and, a guaranteed vote winner this, pro-giving-budget-surpluses-back-to-the-people-by-sending-them-a-cheque-every-year.  All pretty cool.  And if that wasn't enough, they could always remember that he was this guy...

This guy

Naturally, the rest of the world had the sort of jealous laugh that comes with wanting to feel superior but actually wishing you were governed yourself by the man who played Captain Freedom in The Running Man.  Everyone was convinced that now a testosterone-fuelled wrestler was involved in American politics, he'd spend his time trying to punch all the oil out Alaska, fight the Taleban single-handed and insisting everyone at the UN speaks English and eats ribs.

As it turned out, he went on trade missions to China, advocated the lifting of sanctions on Cuba, opposed the Iraq war, spoke out against water-boarding and, incredibly for an American politician, publicly announced that he was atheist   And people listened to him, partially because of his ability to debate the issues and partially because of, well...

Ed Miliband's bumper sticker says
'Our party leader had watched more episodes
of Buffy than your party leader'

And then, he quit politics because, touchingly, he didn't like the intrusion upon his family life; although he still found time to record an advert criticising his former co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Tragically, the ad didn't feature the two of them recreating their epic ruck in a spiked cage in The Running Man.  Intriguingly though, he's suggested that he'd be tempted to run as a third-party candidate for the White House in 2016.  We need to make this happen.

After all, with constant apocalyptic predictions of the world going to hell in a hand-cart very soon, it's probably for the best if we have a man in the hot seat who's already taken on Predator (admittedly he got killed but he'd be better prepared next time).  I know I'd feel safer if Ventura was occupying the White House when we finally all inevitably face Armageddon in the wake of financial meltdown, climate change, an asteroid, a killer virus, nanobots, starvation, aliens, a mummies curse, Triffids, trans-dimensional winged beasts or Earth being destroyed to make a bypass- Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy style

Of course, we needn't worry about all of those things.  Just the ones which have some sort of basis in immediate reality.  Like the financial meltdown. Or climate change.

Or a mummies' curse.

Coming tomorrow: A man unleashes a mummies' curse! 

2nd November 1960- The novel 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' found not guilty of obscenity

For those of you that don't know, Lady Chatterley's Lover by D.H. Lawrence is the story of an upper-class woman who seeks solace from a cold, sexless marriage to a war-crippled husband by embarking on a torrid affair with his earthy gamekeeper.  So far, so Mills and Boon.  Except the book was actually taken to court (well, the publishers were) for being obscene and 'likely to corrupt', based on the fact that a) there's quite a lot of adulterous sex in it, b) Mellors, the gamekeeper, drops the f-bomb all the time, and c) he drops the c-bomb too.

Obviously, in the 21st Century, with the Fifty Shades series keeping the women of Britain up to speed with vanilla fetishism and cutting-edge sexual terminology, prosecuting a book because a Yorkshireman says 'fuck' while fondling a posh lady seems rather silly.  But back then, plenty of people seemed terrified enough that, upon contact with the book, the unwashed masses would immediately starting banging anything that moved while liberally sprinkling the air with as much cussing as they could muster up.

Obviously, this would only happen to poor people- who the prosecutor made it clear he was out to protect, ominously asking the jury if this was a book "you would wish your servant to read"; apparently on the misapprehension that he was holding court around the dinner table at Downton Abbey.  In fact, he often seemed less upset that the book features a few rampant accounts of sexual abandon, and more worried that Lady Chatterley had chosen to have them with a man who wasn't at the very least a Duke.

A book in court.  In 1960

Luckily, a number of learned witnesses defended the book, including the Bishop of Woolwich who suggested all Christians should read it; though he had to spoil the party somewhat by insisting this was to be done in a way that was "not instructional".  So by all means appreciate Lawrence's ability to depict the sexual act as a spiritual, almost sacred, thing- but strictly no picking up tips on how best to roger someone in a woodshed.

The subsequent clearing of the book meant that Britain began to usher in the permissive society that would eventually lead to all the drugs and free love which apparently everyone got up to in the 60s, in between wearing kaftans and listening to Donovan.  In fact, you could say that Lady Chatterley caused the decay in British society that the Daily Mail laments so much; which probably explains why, whenever anyone does a film or TV adaptation of the book, that paper tends to pour over the nude scenes in forensic detail out of sheer disgust.  Luckily, no such decline could be seen in Australia which not only continued to ban the book for many more years for being too saucy, but also banned a book on the trial as well.  This seems oddly litigious for a country where a 'libel' is usually just what you find on the side of a tin.

Getting back to adaptations of the book, Ken Russell did one for the BBC which starred Joely Richardson alongside Sean Bean's bottom, while there was a French version a few years back which is notable for featuring the superbly monickered actor Hippolyte Girardot.  The BBC version is of particular note to people of my age as it was screened when I was 12.  To a boy on the cusp of puberty, in those pre-internet days, the realisation that TV could be a portal to beam into my room unabashed lady parts and, what Simon Bates always used to call "sexual swearwords" on the BBFC classification inserts at the start of videos, was almost dizzying.

It was time for the annual barn dance at the
Borrowers Naturist camp

For men of my age, Joely Richardson romping through a meadow in the rain while, and let's not be coy about this, stark bollock naked, was what those a decade older must have felt whenever they saw Jenny Agutter go for that swim in Walkabout. And yet, did Lady Chatterley corrupt me, either as a book or a TV show?  Or course not.  Mind you, that was then.  Nowadays, a child rarely reaches their teens without having unfettered access to the internet's seemingly boundless supply of filth of every flavour.  Most 13 year old boys have an understanding of the inner workings of a woman which, until recently, would have required several years of medical training to achieve.

Is that corrupting?  Who knows.  Maybe.  But that's where we are just 50 years after a book nearly got banned for having some f-words and sex with a Yorkshireman in it.  Clearly, the world moves fast and the law hasn't bothered trying to keep up.

Maybe we need to be governed by someone tougher.  Some, I suppose, combination of a muscle-bound wrestler and an action hero.  That'd be a great idea, right?

Coming tomorrow- An American state chooses to be governed by a muscle-bound wrestler and action hero.

1st November 1512- Michaelangelo's painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is unveiled to the public

It was all happening this week in the 1510's wasn't it?

500 years ago today the people of Rome got to see what Michaelangelo had been up to while lying on scaffolding in a church for the last four years.  This is what constituted a long-awaited release by a major artist in the 16th Century.  Nowadays, the equivalent would be Avatar.  Isn't it weird what progress looks like sometimes?

The painting itself was on the ceiling of a new chapel in the Vatican, which had been called 'Sistine' after the pope who built it called 'Sixtus', which derives from the Greek word for 'polished'.  It's a shame he wasn't bigger on etymology otherwise he might have decided that a shiny surface was appropriate and installed a few mirrors up there instead, thereby beating to the chase by several years whoever it was that actually first got themselves a ceiling like that (my money's on Rod Stewart).

Anyway, 20 years after the chapel was built, the new Pope (Julius II- who I assume went to Eton) decided to get the ceiling painted and asked Michaelangelo a young sculptor from Florence- or California if you've seen Charlton Heston's staggering performance in The Agony and the Ecstasy- to do it.  This was even though Michaelangelo himself was busy at the time sculpting the pope's own tomb for whenever it was going to be needed.  The artist didn't want to do the ceiling and actually ran off to get away from Julius while the Pontiff was visiting France.  Not to preach sermons to football stadiums and kiss the tarmac at the airport, by the way; he was there to fight a war.  That's what popes did back then.  Which probably explains why they had their own tombs on standby.

Once the war was over, Michaelangelo caved and agreed to do the ceiling, probably on the basis that it's not too wise to say no to God's representative on Earth when he's just returned from battering the hell out of the neighbours.

And now he'd agreed to the work, he went to town on it.  That's why it took him four years- which it turned out was a little too long for French-hammering Pope Julius who threatened to throw Michaelangelo off his scaffolding if he didn't get a move on.  Try that next time you've got a painter and decorator round and see if you get a major piece of art out of it.  Even if you are the Holy Father.

There are 343 figures in this work.  344 if you count the
game of Where's Wally which was added in  1973

Once it was finished, Julius' mood probably didn't lighten up much as he held a mass to celebrate the public unveiling of the Michaelangelo's work on the roof.  Now, any Catholic will tell you that when the Pope's giving a mass, you pay attention.  And that's the case even with the modern, preachy, peaceful pontiffs, never mind the warmongering old fashioned ones like Julius who threaten to fling artists off a scaffolding when they're in bit of a tizz.  Yet when Julius tried to deliver his mass in the now-completed Sistine Chapel, he was confronted with a room full of gawping chins as everyone gazed up in the air at the naked people and God and angels and Noah and floods and Adam and Eve and prophets and a-cherub-giving-the-finger (there's one in there).

Luckily for Michaelangelo, Julius went and died within the year- probably having simply angered himself to death, and was replaced by Leo X- the first Pope to have a name that sounds like a Japanese children's cartoon character (except Pope Pikachu: 967-988AD).  He was mightily impressed with Michaelangelo's ceiling and asked him to do some work on the Basilica of San Lorenzo in Florence which the artist agreed to do, one assumes on the proviso that the new Pope didn't threaten to twat him with a mallet if he took his time.

Unfortunately, the work never got done as the Church was starting to run out of money- as it turns out that fighting wars and commissioning fabulous ceilings costs a bit of gravy.  Leo X needed to raise money fast and started selling absolution for sins to the wealthy of Europe in exchange for cold, hard cash.  This annoyed quite a few members of the church, including a monk in Germany.

His name was Martin Luther and he was sharpening his pencil...

31st October 1517- Martin Luther posts the 95 Theses on the door of the Wittenberg Palace Church

Most people are aware that the Protestant reformation started when Martin Luther pinned a list of complaints to a church in Germany, and was then given some forward momentum by Henry VIII wanting to sire a male heir by banging as much European royalty as possible.  This in turn lead to England being caught up in a bloody struggle between Protestants and Catholics, and pinging backwards and forwards between the two faiths with enough rapidity to make everyone's head spin- which wasn't actually a massive problem considering how many people were being burnt alive at the time.  Eventually it all settled down and Britain became a mostly Protestant country, except Ireland.  Where it all kicked off again and continued to do so for centuries more.  All because a man nailed a note to a door and we once had a dicking machine on the throne.

But did you know that this all started on Halloween?  Because that's when Martin Luther got busy with his quill and hammer and hacked a major schism in one of the dominant religions on the planet.  And this leads to an important question which ought to be addressed.

What if he was trick or treating?



Try as he might, Luther couldn't remember where he'd put that sock


Now, admittedly, Luther was 34 at the time he nailed up the 95 Theses but that's not to say he didn't turn up at the church with his kids, who'd really made an effort dressing as a mummy and a witch, and get miffed when the Priest told them to bugger off.  It's just that he went a bit far with the 'trick' bit and instead of getting his kids to go back and throw toilet paper over the altar he instead sat down, wrote a list, attached it to the door and hoodwinked the church into forming one of the world's major Christian denominations instead. I bet he was mortified when it all took off but, you know how it is when you commit to a joke that everyone takes seriously.  You can't turn round after a bit and say "I was only having a laugh" because everyone then thinks they look stupid.  And the priest at the Wittenberg Palace Church sounds like a miserable sod; after all, he didn't give Luther's kids any sweets (admittedly, a lot of this is conjecture but that doesn't stop me from insisting that it all definitely happened).

And if you think all this sounds a bit far-fetched, it's worth noting that Luther also ended up marrying a nun after he smuggled her out of a convent hidden in a barrel of herrings.

To be fair, I don't want to belittle people of faith too much because there's enough of that out there already.  The march of science, and in particular Richard Dawkins- a man who could suck all the fun out of a jelly fight on a bouncy castle- has led to anyone with a semblance of religious belief being treated like a reactionary, backward simpleton who shouldn't be trusted with scissors, never mind opinions.  This often stems from the rational minds of scientists who insist that it's ridiculous for anyone to believe a man in the sky is in charge of things, but also that it's perfectly fine that if something they thought of themselves doesn't work or can't be found, they can just add the word 'dark' to it and say that it's invisible.

I'm currently reading a book on quantum physics, because I desperately want to believe I'm much smarter than I actually am, and it's about as easy to sit through as a Chinese algebra lesson.  I'm currently being told to think of an electron as having a probability of existing at some point of a wave, as defined by a clock.  Now, I understand each of these individual concepts but hammering them all together in one place makes no sense and is faintly terrifying. It's the intellectual equivalent of the feelings engendered by eating a deep-fried Mars Bar.  And yet I'm being asked to believe it all, based on nothing more than the writings of scholars (although one of them is that lovely Brian Cox who spends a lot of time on the telly in exotic locations gazing through his fringe at the stars like he's never seen them before.  Which is a bit of a concern for a physicist).

Compare this picture to the Luther one.  Which of these two men
looks more likely to try and tell you he knows where to find God?

Imagine if, instead of his Theses, Luther had pinned a guide to quantum physics onto his local church instead.  Henry VIII would have had a lot more trouble trying to talk his way into divorcing and executing all those wives by insisting that light is both a particle and a wave.  Henry's kids wouldn't have easily been able to tear England back and forth between different interpretations of the existence of gravity by burning at the stake anyone who tried colliding atoms together at light speed.  Cromwell would have struggled to justify subjugating the Irish by claiming that the act of observation affects the thing being observed so it's impossible to know where an electron is at any given time.  Actually, thinking about it, things really would have been a whole lot more peaceful if it wasn't for Martin Luther. 

That man killed millions.

Just by writing a letter.

Now that is scary.  Happy Halloween everyone.