Islamic cartoons; Strange virgins; Sex & smoking; & The sun and smoking, before & after.

About the cartoon I posted yesterday, of the 2 women and the niqab - When downloading it, I saw it came from a site called islamthegreatreligion.wordpress.com and I assumed this was an anti-Islam site. But I checked and it isn't. So, the retort "It's hotter in hell" was actually a criticism of the girl not shrouded in a niqab. And a prediction. The joke was at her expense and not, as I'd thought, at that of the woman in black. Different beliefs, different perspectives, I guess.

This morning I had 3 things to do and, after doing them all (a rare achievement), I treated myself to a visit to the first floor of our new museum building. Apart from the fact that all the explanatory labels are only in Gallego, this is a decent exhibition of pre-Roman, Roman and Greek archeological finds and Galician art from the 15th to the end of the 19th century. The latter was predominantly religious until the 19th century, of course, and I found myself wondering - despite my atheism - what we would have done for art without religious inspiration. But, anyway, one particular statue caught my eye. It was of the Virgin of Succour (La Virgen del Socorro) and what surprised me was that there were apparently 2 toddlers at her feet, one white and one black. The former was touching her gown but the latter was held by a chain which went from his throat to the the right hand of the Virgin, which was raised and holding a large, knobbed stick. And here's my picture of her:-

I resolved to ask my Catholic sister about this but shortly thereafter came across another statuette of the same Virgin. This time there was no chain and the explanatory note said, basically, that the Virgin was about to beat hell out of the devil. Well, not literally, of course. And here she is. :-

I don't know about you but I hope Christianity has moved away from denoting Good as white and Evil as black. Or even brown. After all, the Devil is pretty multicultural and will take sinners of any colour.

But, anyway, moving away from religion . . . Yesterday I walked past what - years ago - was the city's sex shop but which has been empty for years. Now it's called The Happy Smoker (in English) and is dedicated to the electric cigarette. The place looked so enticing I was almost tempted to take up smoking. I wonder if they'd converted it into an anglers' shop - and we do have one - they'd have called it The Happy Hooker.

Finally . . . I'm not remotely judgmental about los liftings (facelifts). If a woman (or man) wants to improve her/his looks in this televisual age, then who am I to comment? But now and again one comes along that has to be seen to be believed. And so it is with a woman who was a vice-president in the last government - Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega. To be frank, back then she was probably the best (worst?) example of what happens to your face if you both smoke and stay out in the sun too long. Witness:

But, after her lifting, she's gone back - facially at least - several decades and looks completely rejuvenated. Witness:-

And here's a side-by-side comparison:

Actually, it's just occurred to me we're still being religious; this is nothing short of a (Faustian?) miracle.

To be honest, I used to atavistically shrink back when I saw her when in government (her, not me) but she looks so good now, it's almost a shame she's no longer gracing the pages of the press. But I wonder what she'd do if a new boyfriend (or, as rumour has it, girlfriend) asked her where all the fotos of her between 1970 and 2013 are..