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film de genre - a thinly-veiled pastiche of third-rate movies which the French, for reasons best known to themselves, refer to as navets (turnips). Firmly-rooted in the grotesque tradition of Arcimboldo, Légumes de bonne volonté (loosely translated as "Goodwill Grosseries") was viewed by the hypocritic as an extended metaphor; the metaphor, as Dr Chasuble would put it, being drawn from vegetables. What the film actually meant at the end of the day, you had to rise early to ascertain. For the reviewer - who made it a point of principle never to get up before idday - it remained a bottomless mystery, which was all for the best, really, considering that explanations are wicked when works are incomprehensible. Suffice it to say that the plot was based on some sentimental passion of a vegetable fashion : Bertolucci was cast as an old has-bean and Rossellini as an artychoke, but Mastroianni towered above them in the part of the lanky leak.



   MUM'S THE WORD

At least one of Godin's rave reviews had truly far-reaching consequences. It prompted a French historian of Asian cinema to travel all the way to Thailand in search of Vivian Peï, the very first "visually-challenged" film-maker who, on closer inspection, turned out to be a lot of eyewash. When he came back, incensed, Godin greeted him with a bottle of bourbon and the complete works of Rabelais, to make sure he did not let the word out.



   SCHOOLBOY ANARCHY

The word was made flesh shortly after Godin teamed up with Bouyxou in 1968. Bliss was it that dawn to be young, but to be a perky prankster was very heaven ! The two men shared a passion for popular movies and uprisings; they shared their girlfriends, and even their employers (by penning each other's reviews pending more subversive activities).

Their brand of schoolboy anarchy was reminiscent of the antisocial antics which Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell had celebrated, more than a decade earlier, in The Boy Hairdresser : "Donelly had a great enthusiasm for anarchy. The theft of toilet-rolls from public lavatories, pens from post-offices; the obscene telephone calls, the cards inserted in Praed Street windows giving the addresses of vicars' aunts and aldermens' widows." This heady mix of high jinks and low comedy - Godin is the proud owner of a daunting collection of slapstick movies including the complete works of the Three Stooges - also harks back to the insurrectionary humour of late nineteenth-century French anarcho-pranksters like the Hydropathes or the Zutistes to whom he paid homage in his anthology of radical subversion ( Anthologie de la subversion carabinée , 1988).



   CONFECTIONERY CON

It was Godin who transformed the original, far-too- farfelu Le Gloupier concoction (buggery, humbuggery and maybugs) into an explosive Molotov cocktail. Although the very first custard pie was a confectionery con, its impact soon snowballed out of all proportion.

In 1969, Godin wrote an article reporting that Le Gloupier had been so outraged by Robert Bresson's latest film, that he had felt compelled to chuck a "Mack Sennett-style" pie smack in the director's face. In a sequel worthy of one of Orton's classic epistolary pranks, he went on to describe how Marguerite Duras had avenged the initial "creamy affront" by giving Le Gloupier an impromptu pastry pasting while he was dining out in Saint-Germain-des-Prés. "Madame," said the biter bit after licking his frothy chops, "I prefer your pâtisserie to your novels."



   INCREDIBLE, EDIBLE WEAPONS

Through some quirk of fate, the publication of the second article coincided with Mme Duras's arrival in Belgium on a promotional tour. This proved a godsend to Godin. The affair was causing so much fuss that the novelist was immediately forced to hold a press conference during which she repeatedly denied all prior knowledge of "Le Gloutier" (sic). As was to be expected (this is l'ère du soupçon after all) her protestations fell on deaf ears, most commentators suspecting her of being a two-faced, po-faced killjoy who could not appreciate a custard pie if it hit her in the visage . The punters, obeying their baser instincts, were baying for cream. Godin decided to give a final twist to his burlesque saga, thus illustrating Wilde's dictum that life imitates art. He ambushed the prime exponent of the "empty novel", and treated her to a real custard pie this time round. A visiting card was nestling in the incredible, edible weapon. It read : "With the compliments of Le Gloupier."


   NOBLE BANDIT

The seminal Duras drubbing provided a blueprint for all the subsequent pie attacks. Le Gloupier's metamorphosis from Ubuesque clown into a latter-day noble bandit figure had occured overnight. A few months later, it was choreograher Maurice Béjart's turn to fall victim to a chantilly crime. By that time, Le Gloupier had acquired all his distinctive features : the refined dinner jacket and bow tie of gentleman-cambrioleur Arsène Lupin, the false beard and spectacles of a cartoon, bomb-throwing anarchist and, last but not least, the infamous "gloup ! gloup !" absurditty. From then on, the "creamy revolution" gathered momentum.

According to Godin, custard pies are the weapons of "the weak and powerless" ( L.A. Times ). A well-aimed pie can shatter the pompous and vacuous public image of a celebrity in a matter of seconds. Le Gloupier's targets (politicians, journalists, actors, pop stars, writers) are never selected at random ("Every victim has to be thoroughly justified," The Observer ) and his weapons are chosen with the same meticulous care ("We only use the finest patisserie ordered at the last minute from small local bakers. Quality is everything. If things go wrong, we eat them"). Pseudo-philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy was flanned on five different occasions because he was "totally in love with himself" and epitomized "empty, vanity-filled literature."

Godin claims that a custard pie is "an uncannily precise barometer of human nature." It breaks through the public image and lays bare the victim's true character. News cameras caught Lévy, the champion of wishy-washy tolerance, beating the shit out of Le Gloupier on one celebrated occasion. Had he responded in good-humoured fashion like New Wave director Jean-luc Godard, Godin would not have pursued this personal vendetta.

The "creamy revolution" has many sympathizers. Bill Gates, for instance, was flanned in 1998 thanks to the information provided by a member of his entourage. Godin can also count on Alfred, a pedigree dog who sometimes carries the pies through security barriers. Pastry cooks of the world unite! You have nothing to lose.