Seven round the table for dinner. Wild mushroom risotto. I was told to sit next to Michael. Good.
Michael makes Palissey ware, which is to say ceramics made in the style of the 16th-century French potter Bernard Palissey. A typical piece of Palissey ware is a platter decorated with three-dimensional casts of snails, snakes, frogs, lizards and fish forming a glazed aquatic or reptilian menagerie. The casts are made by placing a mould around the freshly killed or expired creature. The realism achieved is startling, even slightly shocking. Michael is always on the lookout for undamaged reptile corpses.
He also collects 18th-century champagne bottles and probably knows more about old glass than any living person. His knowledge is so comprehensive that I would say he probably needs help. Also, years of living in attentive isolation in the French countryside have given him a profound knowledge and appreciation of nature, which never ceases to surprise or delight him.
Dinner table talk is so often merely a comparison of consumer taste.
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