STATEMENT IN RESPONSE TO THE NEW VARIANT
January 2022

Just before Christmas, I received this email from a former student. I’m sure he won’t mind me reproducing it here in full :

Dear Gemma
Hello, how are have you been? I am not sure you’ll remember me - I graduated from your course last summer and I know you had so many students in ‘zoomworld’ - but perhaps you’ll recall my red hair, yellow wallpaper and enthusiatic sausage dog?
Anyway, I’m getting in touch because I learned so much studying with you, you are such an inspiration, but I realise that I have since forgotten everything you taught me. And with the recent news from South Africa, I find myself confused about kissing again - whom to kiss, where and how so… I wondered - Do you have any revision guides???
I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that they’d be super useful right now.
It’s funny to find myself wanting to study again - I guess we never stop learning, do we?
All the best,
Bert.
x
(20.12.21)

It really is such a joy to receive emails like this from former students (and Bert of course I remember you and little Bratwurst!). So I have hastily put together a glossary of terms, published below. I hope it’s useful!

GLOSSARY OF TERMS
(in no particular order)

wall :
/wɔːl/

A wall is one of the things that gets in the way, when it comes to kissing. See Pyramus and Thisbe (Ref. Lesson Three), The Berlin Wall (Ref. Lesson Six) and American Isolationism (Ref. Lesson Seven). The first city ever to build a wall was Jericho (9600 BCE). According to The Bible, the Israelites blew a trumpet and the wall came tumbling down (Joshua 5:13-6:27). This set the trend for all future walls, none of which have really worked 100%.

plague :
/pleɪɡ/

Another thing that gets in the way of the traditional kiss. Plagues have happened for ages. Popular examples include The Athenian Plague 430 BC; The Antonine Plague 165-80 AD (also called the Plague of Galen); The Black Death 1346-53 (also called The Great Mortality); The Great Plague of Milan 1629-31; The Great Plague of London 1665-6; The Great Plague of Marseilles 1723-4 (also called Not Again); The Red Plague (also called Smallpox or the Speckled Monster); The White Death (also call Tuberculosis or Who Killed Vivienne Leigh) and, more recently, the Coronavirus, which is my least favourite.
(Ref. Lesson One).

bat :
/bat/

A rotund little mammal with wings shaped like The Devil. Bats have been blamed for spreading plague by kissing creatures outside of their own species. They have also been blamed for turning into vampires, but this isn’t scientifically accurate. Bats in fact practise The Kiss of Life (Ref. Lesson Six). However, they get a bad rap due to human ignorance.

mask:
/mɑːsk/

Masks are worn to keep out both kissing and the plague which can be confusing, since the former is pleasurable and the latter is horrible. They are also worn by actors in theatre and by doctors in theatre, which only adds to the confusion. How to tell the difference? Actors’ masks in Western tradition go back to Greek plays. They cover the whole face except for the mouth which is pretty pointless (hence theatres are closed during the plague). Doctors’ masks, on the other hand, traditionally cover the mouth. They also tend to have extremely big noses and funny eyeglasses (as designed by Charles de Lorme, medic to Louis XIII of France). Medical masks definitively get in the way of kissing but do help stop the plague, so it’s six of one and half a dozen really. There are also Venetian masks which come in all shapes and sizes and can help provide a party atmosphere if you’re feeling down.
(Ref. Lesson Three)

saccorhytus coronarius :
/sakur8əs/kəˈrəʊnəis/

Derived from Latin saccus (meaning - bag), Greek ῥύτις rhytis (meaning - wrinkle), Latin coronarius (meaning crown).
The saccorhytus coronarius is a tiny wrinkly sack-like creature with a big mouth. It is approximately the size of a grain of sand and is thought to be our earliest ancestor. It belongs to the Deuterostomia group (meaning - second mouth). Thus, we come from mouths. Other deuterostomes include starfish, sea-squirts and rabbits.
(Ref. Introduction to Ancient Kissing)

judas iscariot :
/i.uˈðas/is.a.carrot/

Of all Jesus Christ’s friends, Judas was the most expert at kissing, hands down. However, this provoked an inordinate amount of jealousy in Jesus’ other friends who ganged up on Judas and called themselves Christianity. These ‘Christians’ then posted pictures of Judas kissing Jesus all over the place and teased him for his red hair, calling him ‘the carrot’, even though no one knows for sure what colour his hair was and it was probably not red in real life. This provokes the question, do people really like the truth?
(Ref. Lesson Two)

rescue annie :
/ˈrɛskjuː/ˈæni/

Rescue Annie is not a real person, though she works for the NHS alongside loads of real people (NB these NHS people get sick just like other people). Rescue Annie can’t get sick per se, so it is always safe to kiss her, which is why we call a kiss with Annie, The Kiss of Life. Paradoxically, Annie is in an almost permanent state of cardiac arrest, which led to Michael Jackson writing a song asking her over and over and over again if she was OK. It turned out, on this occasion, that she wasn’t.
(Ref. Lesson Four)

sleeping beauty :
/ˈsliːpɪŋ/ˈbjuːti/

Or Belle au Bois Dormant (from the French).
A sleepy beautiful person (English version) or a beautiful person in a sleepy forest (French version). Also, the state of being when no one has kissed you for ages and ages.
(Ref. Lesson Four)

socialist kiss :
/ˈsəʊʃ(ə)lɪst/kɪs/

A socialist is a person who practises or advocates socialism. The socialist kiss was developed by said socialists towards the end of the nineteenth century in Russia. It was then practised even more after the revolution by Joseph Stalin who totally missed the point and made it fucking horrible. Hence, the picture of the socialist kiss painted on the Berlin Wall with the slogan - My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love.
(Ref. Lesson Five).

america :
/əˈmɛrɪkə/

First used to describe South America, now more generally used to describe North America. Another confusing thing.
(Ref. Lesson Seven)

queen of the night :
/kwiːn/ɒv,(ə)v/ðə,ðɪ,ðiː/nʌɪt/

The queen who sings Mozart’s famous aria Der Hölle Rache in The Magic Flute, which is really delightful. Also a black tulip, which is really delightful. Also a Mesopotamian terracotta plaque in the British museum, which is funny because it depicts a goddess with the feet of a bird. The Ancient Persians may have kissed the feet of Goddesses just like this. We wouldn’t do it now of course.
(Ref. Lesson Thirteen)

kama sutra :
/ˈkɑːmə ˈsuːtrə/; Sanskrit: कामसूत्र

Literally The Principles of Lust. The कामसूत्र is a really good place to start when it comes to kisses. It documents twenty five different types of kiss, including kisses that can be performed without even touching the object of your kiss. Masterful. This exceptionally important document in the history of kissing was written in Ancient India - recognised by many to be the birthplace of the Indo-European kiss.
(Ref. Lesson Nine)

nefertiti :
/ˌnɛf rɪˈti ti/

Another queen. This time an Egyptian one. Nefertiti radically redefined kissing in Ancient Egypt with her husband Akhenaten. She’s not around any more but she was really great so we still think about her often.
(Ref. Lesson Twelve)

priam :
\ ˈprī-əm

A king this time. The king of Troy. Known for kneeling in front of his enemy (the Greek warrior Achilles) and kissing his hand. Achilles had killed Priam’s son, Hector, and dragged his corpse through the dirt around Troy, before returning with it to the Greek camp. Priam went to the camp in disguise and he knelt before Achilles and kissed his hand in order to beg for his son’s body. This is the most famous Ancient Greek kiss.

osculum :
/ˈɒskjʊləm/

From the Latin - literally, little mouth. We use this ancient word even today, especially if we are in a religious mood.
(Ref. Lesson Ten)

osculum pax:
/ˈɒskjʊləm/pax/

The kiss of peace. Possibly of Persian origination. Or some say it was Roman, after all it has a Latin name. Or maybe the Roman Catholic Church had the idea - after all, they put it in Mass. Or maybe it was the English - they enshrined it in law. Or the French probably did it better than the English - who’s heard of English kissing? Or bats in fact predate both those countries. Or maybe the socialists came up with it - or if they didn’t exactly come up with it, then they definitely do it better than everyone else.

silence :
/ˈsʌɪləns/

A complete absence of sound - example usage : "sirens pierce the silence of the night". Some argue that silence is a necessary part of kissing. In Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, Benedick ‘stops’ Beatrice’s mouth with a kiss. Silence is also an inescapable part of plague. It is funny, how much plague and kissing have in common.
(Ref. Lesson One)

zoetrope :
/ˈzəʊɪtrəʊp/

A nineteenth century optical toy consisting of a cylinder with a series of pictures on the inner surface that, when viewed through slits with the cylinder rotating, give an impression of continuous motion.

music : Tarantella Napoletana : Legend the Band

This one comes with Merriest wishes to all my friends and family xxx