The catacombs of Palermo are quite another matter. Here, in the dry soil which desiccates the dead flesh, are long corridors flanked by the upright bodies of the Palermitans, from the seventeenth century right through to the Risorgimento.   Some of the corridors are well lit; the mummies seem to have just stepped off the street. Other corridors are darker, and colder, and there are mummies with rotting clothes and the skin almost gone from off their faces. There are lawyers, doctors, priests, landowners; ladies still in their finery, but their pretty faces fallen to dust. The most touching of these relics, though, were the two babies, one still in its cradle, a tiny skeleton of almost unbelievable delicacy. Strangely, in this place of the dead, you feel very close to the lives of these people. It’s an interesting thought for genealogists. However close you may feel to the past generations of your family, would you really want to take a promenade to see great-granddad in his Sunday best? That seems to have been the rule for well-to-do Palermitans. At University College, London, the philosopher Jeremy Bentham still attends council meetings. Since he was born in 1748, that is quite some feat.

Following his own idea for disposing of the illustrious dead, his body was made into an ‘autoicon’, and is kept in  a little glass-fronted cupboard most of the time. He has beady eyes and rests on his walking stick, but I was told that he doesn’t usually vote. (However, he will vote in favor of the motion if there is a tie.) Unfortunately his ‘autoicon’ idea didn’t catch on, or there would be more like him. Equally unfortunately, his idea of the ‘panopticon’ - a prions-cum-surveillance system - did catch on. Both Big Brother and little Jeremy are still with us today.