There's something I want to say about arms but not sure how it's going to come out. It is generally accepted that this Aphrodite is beautiful but I wonder if, for some people, her beauty comes from her lack of adornment and, more importantly, her lack of arms.

Defenceless, certainly she and that might make her appealing to some appetites. But it is thought she had orginally been looking at an apple that she held up in her left hand just below her eye level, whilst her right hand was resting on her raised left knee holding up her slipping drapery. Add to this that it was thought the statue was intended to be viewed from the right side profile then, to quote my source, the wonderful Wiki, ...'the sensuous juxtaposition of flesh with the texture of drapery, which seems about to slip off the figure, adds an insistent note of erotic tension that is thoroughly Hellenistic in concept and intent'.

So here is our entry to speak of arms and of love and beauty and whether beauty does, or should, matter. I think there's a beauty that comes from confidence, style and negligence. What S would call effortless style. That which does not appear so but which is actually highly contrived. Cue poem, Delight in Disorder by Robert Herrick:

A SWEET disorder in the dress
Kindles in clothes a wantoness :
[...]
I see a wild civility :
Do more bewitch me than when art
Is too precise in every part.

So back to arms, of which Patti Smith is possessed a most beautiful pair, with hands to match. Fascinated by her style and, having watched Steven Sebring's 2008 documentary Dream of Life, I think I detect that negligent contrivance; in her shiney clean shoes and fabulously sensuous arms and hands, and all that happens in between, Ms Smith has created her style.

Rooted in Ginsburg and Blake to mention but two, and still delivering beat poetry, she manages still to beguile her audience. And for the record, I think Ann Demeulemeester has a lot to do with it. Last Saturday evening may have been considered dated and lazy delight, but when she sang this, the audience was transported once again. Look out for those arms on the album covers - I am not alone.