Quentin Crisp speaks at séance: 'Even homos live beyond death'

A winged Quentin Crisp

The Australian contingent of the Church of Madame Arcati informs me that the late Quentin Crisp has communicated his thoughts via a medium. A recording of the séance has been posted on Australian former lawyer and outspoken Spiritualist Victor Zammit's website  (scroll down for the link on his site).

The voice purporting to be that of Quentin says: 'One of the reasons that I come through is to prove that even homosexuals live beyond death... It proves that the Catholics are speaking out from where the sun doesn't shine. Why, pray, would you not live beyond death because you're homosexual. There's lots of ignoramuses ...'

I have to say that the voice sounds nothing like Quentin's, though the speaker has adopted a pawsh drawl of the Lady Bracknell variety: and the opinions expressed would predictably be those of Quentin. The vulgar allusion to an anus is out of character, however. And Catholics do not claim that homosexuals do not survive death; rather, that eternal damnation is the devil's Pontin's for poofters, though you won't hear old Ratzi with his pussy cats saying that publicly.

As for the voice of Quentin, where's Rory Bremner these days?

William & Kate's wedding day: virgin on the ridiculous

St Catherine of Siena

Further evidence that Madame Arcati anticipates the zeitgeist is the date chosen for the wedding of the century (so far). Prince 'Big Louis' William will take Catherine Middleton, the future Duchess of Cambridge, to be his wife on April 29 next - which just happens to be the feast day of an Arcati favourite, St Catherine of Siena!

I alone among bloggers have written extensively about the virgin St Catherine. She may have passed away in the 14th Century for the sake of her hymen but she is in fact still fully sentient and engaged with our modern world. She employs as her current mouthpiece the US medium Elizabeth Baron to convey her funkily-expressed thoughts and recollections. I have been unstinting in chronicling them.

St Catherine was instrumental in the capture of the Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega; and who can forget St Catherine's claim that Joaquin Phoenix is possessed by the troubled soul of Johnny Cash? Ms Baron, too, likes to name-drop: do read my tale of her seance with the Hollywood siren Lana Turner, still screaming beyond the grave in a most unseemly way about this and that.

Is this honouring of St C by the House of Windsor (1917 - ) some sort of augury of things to come for Wills and Kate? St C's persistence in staying alive bodes well for marital longevity. But her militant virginity may prove irksome in the creation of an heir and spare. Others, more sceptical than I, may wonder about the royal couple's connection to reality given the heroic claims of St C.

Certainly old Ratzi in his Vatican palace must be delighted as Anglicans flail about under old beardie. It's a wonder the Pope is not marrying the pretty pair.

Almine: Mystic countess is now the voice of an archangel

Almine: a model, too

Ah, the Rt Hon the Countess of Shannon! Another one of my favourites. If you're not familiar with this exotic, do catch up via labels over a long drink. She is also known as Almine or Almine Barton, wife (estranged or ex) of the former Deputy Leader of the House of Lords, the 9th Earl of Shannon alias Richard Bentinck Boyle, once the husband of Eurovision polyglot Katie Boyle.

Almine has exceeded mere aristocracy and taken her place among the gods as an Oregon-based global mystic. Thanks to Madame Arcati you know of her reported miracles and whatnot, including her activities involving a python.

What you may not know is that the countess is also a singer-songwriter, the voice of an archangel. I commend her album An Affaire of the Heart, and for a free listen to a few tracks click here. I particularly like The Passion Begins which has the line 'I need your maleness to make me feel complete, to still the hunger and quench the heat.' What she really needs is a fire extinguisher.

Manuel Noriega: Did the 14th Century Saint Catherine snitch on his whereabouts?

Manuel Noriega

It's not every day I get to write about the former dictator of Panama, Manuel Noriega, lately extradited to France from the US to face charges that he laundered $7 million in drug profits by purchasing luxury apartments in Paris in the 1980s. I have a strange tale to tell about him, so settle down... and stay quiet!

The respected American medium Elizabeth Baron has confided in her followers that it was she who helped the US military find Noriega in 1989. She writes in a monthly newsletter just released: 'Just after December 20, 1989, when the US invaded Panama, a US Air Force major showed up at Elizabeth's door. This Air Force major was part of Elizabeth's local meditation group at the time and he had just put some young soldiers on a military transport plane to go to Panama. He asked Elizabeth if she would tune in to find the whereabouts of Noriega. "This is urgent, Elizabeth. Could we have a session with St. Catherine? My General is waiting for help."'

The 14th Century St Catherine, I should explain, is Baron's spirit guide: her full name is St Catherine of Siena. Anyway....

St Catherine

'So they met later at her office to see if she could help. Elizabeth lay down on her couch, and began to channel St Catherine in hopes that she would help. She stated that Noriega was being sheltered in a large white building with a red slate roof on a beautiful lake or body of water. He is being hidden in this place where women wear long flowing robes (habits) and they are treating him well.

'The Major immediately knew that Catherine was talking about the Vatican Embassy in Panama. Within a few hours, according to what he relayed to Elizabeth, black hawk helicopters were surrounding the Embassy with foghorns, demanding Noriega to come out of his hiding. Sometime after, he was arrested and brought to Miami, where he served many years in prison.'

It's certainly true that Operation Nifty Package - the US Navy SEAL operation tasked to capture Noriega - found him in the Apostolic Nunciature in Panama City. It was perhaps unfortunate that though St Catherine owes her modern celebrity to the Roman Catholic Church, The Holy See back in 1989 was most put out by the raucous music played by the US soldiers in order to flush Noriega out - this included I Fought The Law by The Clash - and was not entirely helpful.

Is there any merit in Baron's story? I have no idea. But I'm not going to tolerate some newspaper moronic atheist censoring it.  Here's Elizabeth Baron's website.

Reward Showbiz™: The 10 most pointless celebrity books and TV shows

I'm a great follower of reward showbiz™ (© Madame Arcati 2010) - gigs bestowed upon slebs only because they have a name. Many showbiz or media projects are dreamt up simply as an excuse to get a star to front them. Such projects have three essential characteristics: 1) a star; 2) a journey, quest or list; 3) pointlessness. Here's my latest top 10 rewardees:

1. Joanna Lumley for Joanna Lumley's Nile, a new four part series on ITV1 starting this week. No earthly reason why the Nepalese goddess should be associated with this river, but it's an opportunity to wallow in cultivated mellifluousness as she bears her polished teeth at familiar sights - such as a lookalike camel - in various gurnings of rapture. Oh look, there's a pyramid.

2. Quentin Letts for his throwaway read 50 People Who Buggered Up Britain. The Daily Mail's right-wing attack dog is a professional frother who appears to favour a return to Feudalism and the use of the rack. An utterly pointless addition to the listerature genre - he is after all part of the problem.

3. Michael Palin and his various TV/book tie-in travels, from the Sahara to his Hemingway Adventure. Nothing in Palin's career quite prepared us for the unedifying sight of a perfectly credible comic actor turning into a Phileas Fogg freebie tart. If he has shed new light on any part of the globe do let me know.

4. Andrew Marr for History of Modern Britain. Any excuse to get this gesticulating barker on the box. Rest assured, his "history" will be referenced by no serious scholar; it's just a loafer's guide to event whatnots, the sort of crap Reader's Digest might have once published for leisurely reads.

5. Jeremy Paxman for The Victorians: Britain through the Paintings of the Age (book and TV series). What does he know about art? The book was substantially written by someone else in any case. A great vanity juggernaut to keep a familar face on the screen.

6. Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman for Long Way Round: TV series and book. A chance to ogle at two leather clad arses in different international locations. Shamelessly the book's publisher writes on Amazon "The fact that those men are figures with notable film connections ... may be the reason the book got written ... but so what?" How sad are the punters?

7. Richard Hammond for all his TV shows but Top Gear. TV looks for any excuse to have him either blowing up things or testing things that may blow up, all because he nearly got himself killed once. Each promise of doom leaves us cruelly tantalised.

8. Sophie Dahl for Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights (book/TV show). A Nigella Lawson copycat  - famous surname + food erotica. The book boasts Dahl's "Matisse-like line drawings" destined for no public exhibition. Only two years ago or so she was presented as the great white hope of literature after a spell as a waif on catwalks.

9. Peter and Dan Snow for 20th Century Battlefields (book/TV series) - lanky father and son become visibly excited in the historical presence of slaughter. Where's a swingometer when you need one?

10. JLS - for all those fucking endless music rundown shows they've been fronting since they didn't win The X Factor but went on to become the show's biggest boy band stars. Testicle hugs and downward spastic finger thrusts conduct their guides to Michael Jackson and others. The tiny one especially requires treatment.

Madame Arcati gives Telegraph.co.uk its first best read of 2010

What a delightful way to start the year. My exclusive story on Prince Philip and Molly Parkin found its way onto the Telegraph's website and was this morning its most viewed read. At the time of writing, its second most viewed read. The delightful Tim Walker moves the story on a bit: Molly's "strip-lighting" sex toy, as improvised by her lover James Roberston Justice, has become a light bulb: I think it most unlikely that anyone would place a light bulb up her cunt, but I suppose anything's possible. Also, author James Hogg confirms the truth of my report: of course it's true, Molly Parkin told me! I think this is a story waiting to be treated with bigger fanfare, don't you? It's certainly the most interesting of the stories kicking off the New Year, amid the fake predictions, dreary look-backs and -forwards and yawny posturings of the political parties.

(Telegraph ups the ante: When James Robertson Justice told Prince Philip and others of his buggering at Marlborough)

Prince Philip censored Molly Parkin sex chapter in James Robertson Justice book

Isn't it a fright? I learn that a book celebrating the life of the late British comic actor James Robertson Justice was censored by Prince Philip.

James Robertson Justice: What's the Bleeding-Time? was published in paperback last year with a Foreword by the Duke of Edinburgh. But before publication the Prince read the book in manuscript and took exception to graphic sex scenes described in the Hello Molly chapter which chronicles the bawdy, enchanting romance between the actor and the former Sunday Times and Nova fashion editor, novelist, poet and painter (and my gorgeous fiancée) Molly Parkin.

The Prince was so appalled that he threatened to withdraw his Foreword if the chapter wasn't removed - or at least toned down. And so the chapter was laundered by royal command.

Molly tells me: "I was saddened by how much of the fun was excluded about our love affair. All the adventurous sexual stuff, like inserting the bedside strip-lighting in my twatty (a la Fatty Arbuckle). And the easing of a soapy toothbrush up my arsehole. All at his deflowering of me at the age of 22, in the Cadogan Hotel, Belgravia.

"He claimed I needed to familiarise myself, get on friendly terms with every orifice. I trusted everything he said.

"All that juiciness was in the original manuscript. I understand Prince Philip was vehement in his disapproval and had refused the inclusion of his Foreword unless my chapter was toned down (preferably withdrawn).

"So it's a painfully shortened chapter with all the spunk drained out of it. James would not have been pleased!"

This is a pity. I should have thought that such sexual detail would sell more copies than some anodyne words from Prince Philip. News that James Robertson Justice had a highly imaginative libido and a penchant for DIY sex toys makes him sound most fascinating.

Madame Arcati recommends that the book be reissued with the old chapter restored and Prince Philip's Foreword fed into the shredder.

Picture above of Molly Parkin by Tommy Candler

James Robertson Justice as Sir Lancelott Spratt in Doctor in the House (1954)

Goddess Almine survived assassination attempt and danced with a python

And so back to another Arcati favourite, the Oregon-based global mystic Almine alias Almine Barton alias the Rt Hon the Countess of Shannon, wife (estranged or ex) of the former Deputy Leader of the House of Lords, the 9th Earl of Shannon alias Richard Bentinck Boyle. His other titles include Viscount Boyle, Baron of Castle-Martyr, Co. Cork; and Baron Carleton of Yorkshire.

A kind reader has drawn my attention to a Mail on Sunday article published in 2005 on the business travails of Boyle. Tagged on at the end of the piece is the intriguing claim that he and Almine met after she bought one of his titles, becoming Baroness Almine Barton of Colbry. Mischievously, the paper reports, "She performed ethnic dances with a python called Delilah."

Self-described "as one of the most profound spiritual teachers of our age", a worker of miracles, etc, she is an unlikely purchaser of an aristocratic title. What can beat "goddess"?

More alarming, I have discovered a claim that she survived an assassination attempt! An Almine disciple tells how at an undated Florida convention, digitalis was put in her water with the intention of "stopping her heart". However by some miracle she survived despite ingesting enough of the drug to kill her.

She also has elemental powers. The same disciple tells how a tornado was heading towards the hotel of the same convention. Happily Almine was at hand to deal with it. She "gestured at the sky and said a prayer." This had the effect of deflecting the storm south, "killing 40 people in a mobile home park." Apparently this act saved the lives of the 1,000-plus at the hotel, though I should have thought your average hotel could withstand a tornado. Still, at least the dead were just trailer trash.

I just hope none of their loved ones take it too personally and bring lawsuits for acts of goddess. (More about Almine at labels)

Christmas books: Madame Arcati's supremely discriminating gift guide

The white beard you can keep, but Madame Arcati is happy to recommend a few books as gifts this Christmas. Unlike certain other media types who take their cues from old buddies in orthodox publishing, Madame Arcati does not discriminate between the self-published and the unself-published and the vanity published: I do not need the approbation of mediating editors to tell me whether a book is worthy of publication. I'll decide, thank you.

My few titles come under two categories: the recommended are under Tomes for the Tights (aren't stockings rather Joan Collins these days?) and the worthless mingers under Tomes for the Cheese Grater (I was shocked to learn that the slave kids of Haiti are punished by being forced to kneel on cheese graters). As I wrote in the below post, shredding a pointless book with your cheese grater (1) promotes wellbeing and (2) creates debris useful for rodent litter or snow in one's Nativity tableau (vivant or toy), as recommended by a reader who put Madonna's Sex book to this excellent use. All Tights titles are hyperlinked for easy purchase; all Cheese Grater titles you can find for yourself. So ....

Tomes for the Tights

Roger Lewis' Seasonal Suicide Notes: My Life as it is Lived is an absolute must this Yuletide - by far the funniest memoirs published in years. Even his father's terminal "bum cancer" is framed by comic poignancy - ideal for those contemplating copping out at the Dignitas death camp in Muslim-hating Switzerland.

As comic, but set exotically, is Duncan Fallowell's travel book Going As Far As I Can, the pb of which came out in August. We head for the trog-world of New Zealand in the company of a merciless champion of Western secular culture: the resultant clash of aesthetics (and phwoar of cock-cockings) is both pyrotechnical and exhilarating. DF's prose is the bastard child of an aristo-plebby one-nighter. Reading him is like being fucked at an egalitarian orgy.

As creator of the cock-cunting and cunting-cock neoligisms, it's only right then that Madame Arcati recommends the German title Vulva by Mithu M Sanyal.  The vulva is one of history's Cinderellas - feared, ignored, abused. Yet today we have the designer "yoni puppets" to pat and stroke. What could these be? Well, learn German and find out and delve into the history of the vulva, bitches.

An Arcati fave is the ever notorious Farah Damji and her glorious, playfully-titled autobiography Try Me. It is both mea culpa (frauds, darling) and breathtaking tease: in one chapter she mocks the naive for falling for her pose in the redemptive confessional: as if! Its dishonesties are likely subtle, between the lines; in grey areas. Her story as told feels broadly true. Media, sex, drugs, slebs, jail - they're all here. Trashy novel content in classy narrative.

And for total teeth-chattering joy do buy Jonathan King's memoirs 65 My Life So Far, which I shall review shortly. How could I not like a book that favourably name-checks this blog on p570? We all know what JK was done for: over-worked cock-cunting newspaper scrotes have decreed a persecution. Yet this book is an immense surprise: gossipy, revealing, insightful, scandalous, huge fun. A recommended gift for the multi-millionaire maiden aunt who refuses to die and whose legacy you impatiently await. She'll die usefully with a pre-rot rictus on her wrinkled mug. You won't be charged with her homicide.

Me: The Authorised Biography by Byron Rogers is the blissful tale of how one of Britain's most stylish writers became the object of an intense infatuation: Does Mr Rogers have a cock as big as that of his former employer, Prince Charles? The title may or may not reveal all.

For cookery lovers, may I introduce you to the Rt Hon The Countess of Shannon alias the global mystic guru, Almine. A few years ago Almine gave up her life of ermined British privilege and turned into an international goddess served by angels. So who better to pass down tips on puff pastry? She has two titles: Cooking with Class and Memoirs & Meals (click here). Makes Nigella and Delia look like the raucous lower class cook Mrs Bridges in Upstairs, Downstairs.

Shena Mackay's The Atmospheric Railway: New and Selected Stories was released in late 2008 but who cares? A more wonderfully surreal short story writer you will not find: her quirks are encoded not manufactured: queerness and peculiarity run through her soul. She is most otherly. I want more, more, more.

Philip Hoare's Leviathan gets it wrong on sperm whales - no,they cannot swallow a grown man. Never mind. His prosaic quest to commune with the warm blooded spurters of the seas helps to cutefy the whale kingdom: a species to be protected must first have the ah factor.

Interior designer Nicky Haslam's memoir Redeeming Features reports that Wallis Simpson's Edward was once a bisexual drag artist and that Lord Snowdon cock-cocked with the author. Wallis herself may have been hermaphrodite because her maid once whispered that the old girl's knickers were stained with urine always at the front. Gorgeous society flim-flam in which people merge at times with their stylish inanimate objects. So that at one point I became convinced Tallulah Bankhead was a wallpaper.

For the less demanding, Katie Price's novel Sapphire should not be scorned: her ghost writer Rebecca Farnworth is as smart as they come, weaving in sly digs at her subject (Katie Price aka Jordan) in a fictionalisaton of the tabloid-trimmed life that requires dark orange model flesh topped up daily by 18-minute sessions in a carcinogenic sunbed. Simply mindlessly thrilling, dearies.

A few months back I reviewed the novel Dazed & Aroused by handsome male model Gavin James Bower. I hadn't read the book and still haven't but I don't see why that should inhibit me from recommending the British version of Brett Easton Ellis' Glamorama. Your OK!-reading brats will adore it - I believe Kate Moss has a walk-on part, but I don't know. Perhaps someone will confirm or correct.

And finally, the "psychic barber" Gordon Smith has a book out titled Why Bad Things Happen. Why was my pet pussy run over by a cripple in his fucking cripple car? That question is not asked or answered, more's the pity (for that's what happened to my Prudence aka Pruce), yet this famous medium tries to shed light on the question of misfortune's purpose, with insights on the next life. Derren Brown is a very poor substitute for this sort of thing.

Tomes for the Cheese Grater

Clive James' The Blaze of Obscurity: The TV Years is fatally hobbled by its author's incessant need to remind us of how brilliant/famous he is. Whether working through Linguaphone to read a classic in its original tongue or telling us why he deigned to take a phone call from Tina Brown, his book reeks of a clever juvenile wanker locked in a mirrored closet.

The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution is Richard Dawkins' latest piece of propaganda against faiths - even though his brand of science is akin to faith, such is his messianic zeal to mix facts with popular theories. Though Dawkins reviles all divination, he has never researched such lowly topics as palmistry or mediumship. Very scientific!

Some time back I wrote an affectionate item about a strange little one-man industry called Chas Newkey-Burden. He churns out about half a dozen books a year - many of them in the genre of listerature. Since then the Julie Burchill once-time co-writer and right-wing squirt has foolishly picked an argument with me, so the first casualty of this is all his books. Let's see:  Simon Cowell: The Unauthorised Biography; Amy Winehouse: The Biography; Michael Jackson: Legend 1958-2009: all manically churned mayfly productions that suffer expiry after a brief fuck of publicity. The sound of a writer is tap tap. The sound of Chas is snip snip.

Illusionist Derren Brown is quite a talented caricaturist as his book Portrait demonstrates. However, his demeanour irritates me. He should not be encouraged.

Worst, most successful writer in the world Dan Brown released The Lost Symbol this year as part of his mission to keep Tom Hanks busy. His quasi-mystical thrillers are rutted with awful clangers: is the Pope a Protestant?

Most pointless book ever is The Atheist's Guide to Christmas by Ariane Sherine. Silly cunts like Richard Dawkins, Charlie Brooker, Derren Brown, Ben Goldacre, Jenny Colgan, David Baddiel, Simon Singh, AC Grayling, Brian Cox and Richard Herring contribute their tips both serious and not. Yet for most, Christmas is already just a secular exchange of gifts, with carol song as sentimental soundtrack to retail park festive forage. No real need for a Church of Atheism, then.

Though a late 2008 release, foodie tome Table Talk: Sweet And Sour, Salt and Bitter by the Sunday Times writer AA Gill affords an opportunity to remind people that he recently shot dead a baboon, to see what killing a primate was like, or at least he made this claim in a restaurant review. The minor Twitter controversy this provoked must have disappointed the fathead ligger.

Stephen Fry in America (pb out last May) and its TV series may have persuaded the cultural Zelig to piss off to LA. If he goes, re-cut 'n' paste this under Tights. Job well done.

I detest family photo albums so why the pompously titled Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History's Glare should be an exception I do not know. Should it not be titled Snapshots in History's Footnotes? The cover pic of young handsome Gore is very Freeman's catalogue: longevity is his undoing.

Last and least, a title can ruin a book for me. Ant and Dec's Ooh! What a Lovely Pair: Our Story is very Mike and Bernie Winters. Get it out of here!

Sophie Parkin: JRJ and Madame Arcati's books for Christmas

Dear Madame A,

I was reading one of Roger Lewis' pieces in the Spectator online about Betty Box. I am not allowed to read his book Seasonal Suicide Notes as in true Molly fashion mother has already told me that's my Christmas present. He asks if anyone has ever written a biography of actor, James Robertson Justice. Surely he should do that and my mother Molly Parkin could enlighten him with the juicy details of their liaison in the 50's when they met in The Swallow club off Piccadilly when she was a teacher, and he was her svengali.

Just a suggestion.

Sophie Parkin

PS. May we have your suggestions for best books for Christmas presents?

Darling Sophie

How sweet of you. I've actually cancelled Christmas this year for various reasons. But because the mood takes me - two Full Moons in Gemini this month - I shall put together two book gift guides: One for the stocking, one for the cheese grater. Grating a useless book is a marvellous way to relax and the result can be scooped up and sold as hamster litter or set to some made up ecological purpose in a carbon trade off with a fake princess scammer in Burkina Faso.

As to Roger writing the bio of James Robertson Justice, he (Roger) tells me "I have a piece on the glorious James R-J in my forthcoming Growing Up With Comedians book." I should say a book on JRJ came out last year, titled unpromisingly What's the Bleeding Time? (see book cover above) with a foreword by someone called HRH the Duke of Edinburg (sic). If the Duke is reading this perhaps he could confirm he gave an honorary doctorate to the Countess of Shannon, alias the global mystic guru Almine.

Love to one and all, MA xx

Oh, and here's Roger Lewis ...

Dear Madame

A plea. Can we have a change from that (rather old I fear) photo of D Fallowell showing off his assets? It is getting to appear oftener than Andrew Neill and the foreign girl in Private Eye. Everytime I peep at your great website I get my eye knocked out.

Yours,

ROGER

Countess of Shannon: Her adoption fight and the other Almine

Almine aka The Countess of Shannon, mystic goddess

A number of you have written to me privately about the intriguing global mystic Almine Barton, aka the Rt Hon The Countess of Shannon, and my recent discovery of her. Some of you have confused her with her 30-something daughter, also called Almine Barton, who is a practising acupuncturist in Oregon - her website. Almine - the mother and seer - also has a young adopted daughter called Jaylene.

How Almine found Jaylene among the "Native American tribes of North America" is worth a read on her website: "I taught at Indian Lodges as the first white woman and attended the Native ceremonies few outside the Tribes are ever privileged to see. That part of my journey brought me a gift more precious than words can express: Little White Horse Woman." Almine had to fight the girl's family in court for permanent custody after they decided to have her back. Click here for the rest of this lyrically told tale.

The Countess is the wife or former wife of the former Deputy Leader of the House of Lords, the 9th Earl of Shannon, who was once married to the TV personality Katie Boyle. So far as I can tell she has never talked about her life with the Earl, aka Richard Bentinck Boyle. The nearest to a personal revelation can be found in an "interview" with her young daughter Jaylene -

J: “Mommy, why did you leave the palaces and the pretty evening balls and evening dresses behind?”
A: “A day came when I couldn’t hear the music of the stars singing to me.”

The Countess plainly has a fan club in the House of Lords. "Almine is truly the most profound mystic of our time. She is the personification of compassion, clarity and light." - The Right Honorable, Lord Palmer.

I am pursuing other lines of inquiry and thank you for your contributions and suggestions.

Prince Philip conferred 'doctorate on the world-renowned mystic Countess of Shannon'

The Rt Hon the Countess of Shannon: "One of the greatest mystics of our age". Via husband the Earl of Shannon she is indirectly linked to former TV personality Katie Boyle, apparently

I am intrigued that the Duke of Edinburgh once conferred a honorary doctorate for literature (or "writings") on a woman who describes herself as "a Toltec three-pronged Nagual" - or put simply, "one of the greatest mystics of our time" or even "one of the most profound spiritual teachers of our age."

That at least is the claim of the woman in question - someone called the Rt Hon the Countess of Shannon aka Almine Barton. Her disciples know her simply as Almine. Quite what the Countess has written to warrant the Duke's interest when literary talents such as Martin Amis, Jeanette Winterson and Duncan Fallowell are left withering on the royal vine, I have no idea.

Perhaps it is her proclaimed divinity which impressed the Duke. Her website chronicles: "In 2000 I entered into God-consciousness which is a state of losing all identity and becoming a being as vast as the cosmos, having a human experience." Elsewhere it's explained, "In February of 2005, Almine’s body underwent a transfiguration, changing from mortal to immortal in the twinkling of an eye. Her books have been a roadmap to lead others into the same mastery and beyond. Masters populate her classes and are a fulfillment of a mission given to her in January 2005: prepare the leadership for a Golden Age about to be birthed on Earth."

A scurrilous claim that Almine was once a belly dancer in Oregon cannot be true. It is entirely possible that the writer misunderstood the mystic's interest in the flamenco (see pic above).

Almine would appear to be a US citizen, born in South Africa, who gave up the British aristocratic life for her higher calling a few years back. Richard Bentinck Boyle, 9th Earl of Shannon, certainly took a third wife in 1994 called Almine, or Alamine de Villiers (daughter of Rocco Cotorsia de Villiers of Cape Town), depending on your source. The Earl's first wife was the TV personality Katie Boyle, former polyglot hostess of Eurovision. The precise state of Almine's union is unknown, but she doesn't name her husband in her literature. And in an interview on her site she describes herself as a "single mom".

Photos on her website reveal an elegant blonde at the very heart of the British government and royal life. I am beside myself that I have never heard of her. Not even in Tatler. The magazine must try to keep up.

The 9th Earl of Shannon (business woes)

As a global mystic, the Countess is up there with another goddess - the domestic one, Nigella Lawson. Almine has co-authored two cookery books, Cooking With Class and Memories and Meals. Curiously, at least one of the titles is presented with a commendation from the chairman of the vanity publisher Serendipity, Tony Clarkson.

A Google delve into the life of this extraordinary woman leaves one gagging for a lot more: it is Gatsby-esque in its glamorous murkiness, to say the least. Incomprehensible even.

"Death is optional" - a thought that may reassure the Duke ... (Click film once to play).
Her music (then click "Play all") is more to my taste - let's dance.
Another Almine site at Spiritual Journeys

Lana Turner still screaming beyond the grave

Lana Turner

As all the action on this site is happening over a post I put up last year on the pathetic Madeleine Foundation - its Express-reading rabble fans think I'm Dame Antichrist (titter) - I suppose I should keep things going up top. Just as I am about to give up for the day - even I am sometimes stilled by a lack of wind - a newsletter from a New York-based medium plops into my inbox. Among its many themes: the late Hollywood siren and MGM queen Lana Turner.

What a great name. The only other Lana I've ever heard of is Lana Lang, the redtop bitch rival of Lois Lane for Superman's cock. Anyone called Lana must be a case.

Anyhow, the newsletter. It's from a medium called Elizabeth Baron ("Liz"). She's quite well known in psychic circles. Her guardian angel is St Catherine of Siena, and Liz believes in aliens. In her latest epistle she tells of a seance she held at the Palace Theatre in NY before an audience of Broadway queens. The plan was to contact the spirit of Judy Garland. Unfortunately the dead diva was so fashionably late she didn't turn up at all. Lana - an old neighbour of Judy in life - did instead.

Liz reports: "Lana Turner came through screaming at her dead husband for molesting her daughter. One of the stars knew her daughter and passed on Lana's cry to her for forgiveness."

Lana was married eight times to seven men so her screaming fit must have been at her fourth hubby, Tarzan star Lex Barker. Lana's daughter, Cheryl Crane, alleged his sexual assaults in her 1988 autobio Detour: a Hollywood Tragedy - My Life With Lana Turner, My Mother. Doubtless Liz is well acquainted with this work lest we imagine Lana was offering an exclusive here.

Cheryl Crane

It's awful to think Lana's still screaming at Lex after all these years. And since Lana and Cheryl were reconciled in 1981 it seems odd that Lana seeks forgiveness through a medium, even though she threw Lex out at the point of a gun when she learnt of the abuse. And last year Cheryl wrote the affectionate Lana: the Memories, the Myths, the Movies which, as the Sunday Times put it, "is a celebration of her mother’s extreme beauty ... in a touching way, it’s also a deliberate act of forgiveness."

There, Lana. You're forgiven. No need to trouble Liz anymore.

(And here's Cheryl's estate agency website in Palm Springs. On her books is this delightful property below in Los Altos, CA. A snip at just under $5m)