We (I, my private secretary, my cook, and the members of our chapel) have just returned from a weekend spent with our cousin, Gerard de Kalamazoo, who is a junior sub-preceptor of the Imperial Television Station and third-rank chamberlain's assistant at the court of the esteemed Stupor Mundi Federico Hohenstaufen di Sicilia, Caesar of the Romans, King of Jerusalem, and scorner of popes: as we write, we are getting the juice of the last Granada orange on our manuscript. We set up camp in Gerard's apartments in Frederick's palace, which had been filled with white and yellow flowers in celebration of our arrival. Although we were not making an official state visit (it was purely on the pretext of visiting our esteemed cousin that we set sail for Palermo), we were received by a veritable banquet of Frederick's fat dignitaries, lawyers, statesmen, admirals (emirs of the sea, you see), not to mention a slightly more exciting gathering, later at night an in another, altogether more disreputable part of the castle with Frederick's troupe of poets, trobadours, minnes�nger, and scientists. It was like dessert after the wearying hour and a half of Latin jurisprudical conversation to slip into three or four simple vernaculars and more tumbles of Greek wine than we have math to number. Frederick had left his apologies (in the form of a post-it note marked with the royal sigil), since he was in the Empire on family business, so I am unable to verify whether those close to him really do call the Wonder of the World "Stupy" to his royal face.
However, it was only really a lightning visit: I had enough time to snog a very nice Benedictine in the mosaicked chapel palatine, flatter several of the ladies of the royal harem with occasional verses composed to various parts of their anatomies, and spend an evening hashed out of my mind with an Egyptian astrologer in the palace gardens: we were found the next morning stark naked in a fountain trying to sing the greatest hits of Gace Brul� in Hebrew. I was told that I had tried to employ an astrolabe in a most amusing manner the night before. I had time only for a quick qahwah (with a peel of lemon and a long shot of correzione in it) before my ship weighed anchor for Marseilles.
Current music: Haydn, late symphonies with la Petite bande.
Current project: brush up my music theory, which includes the sweet torments of writing fugue. I suppose it appeals to the crosswordy side of my personality, but it's the sort of thing which is frustrating if one hasn't had much practice, and, well, you know, I don't think I'll be getting much practice at it, really.
Other current project: food.