Walking Commentary
Thoughts and cycling from Manchester to Rome in 2023
C: If you were in Rome, you’d find that C used to be a hundred. You and I knew that anyway but until today I had no idea that the Latin for 99 was undecentum which might occasionally be written as IC rather than the more standard XCIX. Useful trivia for a pub quiz perhaps?
There’s an ad that’s been on our fence for over 10 years. We brought it home as a souvenir from a week on the Côte d’Azur in the fishing port of Villfranche-sur-mer, a place widely known because of the Cocteau Chapel or U2’s video Electrical Storm or the retired-Bond movie Never Say Never Again. A great place to spend a few days even if we’re not Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.
The ad is in metal and enamel, a touristy replica of the famous fin de siècle poster for Absinthe Blanqui. A fully clothed red-headed woman is adorned in green ribbons with an upper arm wrapped with a serpent. Or at least she was. The green devil dress and every other colour has drained away, a metaphor for the absinthe itself dripping through sugar cubes.
[Read more…] about Absinthe