THIS YEAR'S MODEL

It's not every issue that Jesus appears on the cover of the historic left-wing weekly paper (now a magazine format) Tribune, whose famous past editors include Michael Foot. Indeed it has probably never happened before. But it did occur on 11 April 2008. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the cover in question - featuring a famous portrait of the cleansing of the Temple. The latest issue has the much less appealing visage of one Boris Johnson adorning it. Many of us sincerely hope that la Boris will not be the next elected Mayor of London come 1 May 2008. Sadly, I don't have a vote in that one, though I do regularly inhabit a room in the capital. However, I got taken off the electoral register due to not being there enough to count as resident. My landlord while I am away from Exeter is actually a candidate in the May local authority elections, so it was self-sacrificial of him to have me removed. Or perhaps he just doesn't trust me. But I digress. The Tribune topic which occasioned this unexpected visual delving into the New Testament was about the global credit crunch and capitalist crash-landings. Concerning all of which, in a tangential way, see Patrick Hynes' article on alternative finance and the estimable Oikocredit.

[Pic: Bernardino Mei, (c) Getty Center, Los Angeles, USA]