This is an automated post logged on 05/25/05.

To put at ease conflicting rumours that the author of these lines might be either the fruit of extra-terrestrial genetic engineering, or spawned straight from the mouth of Hell…

Here is a shot of my grandma…

She was born in Cairo and grew up in colonial Egypt.

Her dad spoke 12 languages, worked for MI-6 and received a lethal gunshot wound while on mission in Vatican at the end of WWI (I couldn’t make that stuff up if I tried).

During the blitz in London, she drove an ambulance under the bombs, while her husband (my granddad) was hard at work figuring a way to Calais that did not involve swimming all the way across.

Nowadays, she does Tai Chi five times a week, goes to her club from time to time, and half-heartedly grumbles about the youth of today, the way only real grandmas can.