Despite her laudable fondness for gin and tonic, the Turtle will not be
joining in the Queen Mother's hundredth birthday celebrations, but will
be staying at home and organising quietly instead. If s\he takes to the
streets later today, it will be for the quite unrelated purpose of marking
Bastille Day and glorying in French Revolutionary Tradition, wrapped in
the Red, the White and -- especially in light of the triumph of the national
football team -- the Blue. For the sans-, as well as for the beaucoup de-
culottes among our readers, we hope you have a good one. As with the French Republican Breast, so too with the People's Organ.

The Turtle continues to swell with new articles and new paraphernalia. Raj
Patel was so moved by a photo of some policemen and some Boy Scouts that he wrote an essay about it; Dave Renton was so moved by England's exit from the group stages of the European Championiship that he did the same; and
Brendan Larvor is so frequently moved by the forms the Government sends
him to fill out that he has turned his hand to fiction. Brendan's words have
not been spotted in the Turtle since the Summer of 1994, so we're
especially pleased to welcome him back into the ranks. Peter Lowe
continues to read fiction, and we are grateful for his thoughts on Michael
Ondaatje's recent novel, Anil's Ghost, in our under-utilised Review pages. We
published the Diane Di Prima poems, as promised, and we were so taken
with the Manifesto of the European Social Movement that we've posted the text of the call to arms in many European languages, including Dutch, Danish and Portuguese.

Our Francophilia knows no bounds this month, and continuing in our Gallic vein, the Turtle is particularly pleased to award our July Salute to José Bové, our favourite anti-capitalist gastronaut, whose August 1999 assault on McDonald's seems destined to be met by the French courts with a slap on the wrists and a pat on the back. If you haven't quite caught up with l'affaire Bové, we have written a short eulogy in our Salutes pages, which we urge you to enjoy. Meanwhile, as the procés continues, the Turtle is happy to pinch the cheek of an old comrade, Alan Beattie, to shame him for his recent contributions to Fabian Review, and to inscribe his name in our Hall of Shame as our Third Comrade of the Month. Alan, you're a disgrace.

As ever, we look forward to receiving, reading, pruning and publishing your Prose, Poetry and Wit for the Turtle. Your contributions keep us airborne, and your enthusiasm keeps us sane --

Liberté! Egalité! Fraternité!

The Editors