the monkey

A picture of Juno. Although if you look very closely it says 'Hera Ludovisi' at the bottom. But I checked that out too and it's apparently a bust of Antonia Minor. Whoever it is it fits the whole 'lucky draw' theme...

And speaking of busts, Hashmi's got the bust of the above Australian fertility goddess in his office. What you don't know is that Hashmi's got the bust of the above Australian fertility goddess... (It isn't called Victoria's Biggest Bloody Secret for nothing, mate ;)

Anyhow, the evil and villainous Emperor Claudius II (yes he was both evil and villainous, and yes that is quite an achievement. Did you think just anyone could get up and be Emperor?) decided to put a stop to all this nancy-shmancy neck-romancy because he needed more men for his armies. Clearly men with wives or lovers are less willing to leave their behin- them behind. So Emperor Claudius II banned all marriages in Rome. Cries of shock and awe all around.

Enter St. Valentine stage right. Apparently he helped to secretly arrange marriages just to spite Claudius. (When they were but young lads, Claudius and Valentine had the libidinal appetites of recently pubescent rhinos on hormone treatments. This of course led to a certain amount of competition between the two which the romantically christened Valentine usually tended to get the better of. *Gasp* that's your actual name? Ooooh. I've got Trojans. Claudius eventually got sick of it and decided to re-direct his energies into raising armies of celibate Romans in a really perverse attempt to invalidate his past. Valentine just went on like a hatchful of inebriated bunnies.)

So anyway Emperor Claudius found out about the secret marriages and had Valentine thrown in jail but did that stop old Valentine? You bet it did. It's not like being brilliant in bed gives you superpowers.... Well, you know what I mean.

But did being in jail stop old Valentine's libido? (And why do I keep calling him 'old' Valentine?) Hah! No it didn't. And it didn't stop the jailer's daughter either. However, old Valentine was hanged on the 14th of February, the day he wrote his last love-note to the jailer's daughter. ("Hey - happy my day! Have a blast kitten, and remember - can't take my eeeyyyyeesss offa you, can't take my miiiind offa you.") Oh, and apparently all of Valentine's supporters used to come and throw flowers and notes at him while he was in jail. They'd have thrown chocolate too but Claudius had the jailer put up a "Don't Feed the Prisoners" sign on the jail door.

And speaking of prisoners and food and inane signs, let's take a moment to reflect on this beautifully pasted warning on the PDC glass entrance...

And that, in a rather large, rambling nutshell, is the story of Valentine's Day. Mazel tov.

// posted by "the monkey" @ 3:18 pm