CRICTOR

Once upon a time in a little French town lived an old lady whose name was Madame Louise Bodot. She had one son who was in Africa studying reptiles. One morning the mailman brought her a peculiar O-shaped box. It held a snake her son had sent her for her birthday. She named her pet boa constrictor Crictor, mothered it, fed it bottles of milk and took it to the school where she taught. (Crictor by now could setout the alphabet and the first eight digits). Crictor captured a burglar and there is a pretty monument to him in the park. This Gallic spoof has absurdly beguiling pictures, eerily, airily, weirdly delightful. A rapturous reptile reverie.