Saturday, March 08, 2008

[out of control] danger of hypocrisy

High Priestess of the New Youth Culture

I was out of Britain for years from before the time of Pink Floyd's "We don't need no ejucashun" and if what we read in Australia was any indication, the ASBOs have been around for quite some time.

Not that it was any picnic in Oz but there seems to be an element to the Brit of the sort of provocative behaviour in the young which didn't get to the colonies till later. The Sex Pistols were no accident and the Ramones emulation was more like posturing - in Britain it was the real thing, with razors and so on.

I had a British "girlfriend" at the time from Sutton Coldfield and she used to write to me about Brummieland and her inner city school. There were some wild things going down it seems and when I got back to the U.K. in '88, the acid house parties were starting up - you know, you listen to the DJ on the radio and he gives the venue for the rave - hundreds of cars turn up.

So the Gemma Anscomb thing did have its precedent. When you think it out, if she's 15, it's likely the boys are 17 to 19 or even older but even so, it gets you thinking of how bad we were [or not]. When I was teacher training at 19, there was a girls' school not far away and there was a house - probably belonging to one of them - everyone knew what happened at lunchtimes in there with up to eight or nine girls.

I never got to the party, more was the pity but my mates did.

Grass, acid and coke were rampant down to maybe senior school level - 17 or 18 but this sort of thing at a much lower age wasn't really all that prevalent. My parents bought me a house when I was 22 [with my saved pittance thrown in] and I had an 18 year old guy in with me to help cover costs.

Gemma Anscomb

These guys partied but the really rampant stuff was at other parents' places and I spent half an hour at one party and felt out of place - the boys were 17 to 19 but the girls were 16 on average - although they didn't seem fazed by me being there. Then one night I was elsewhere, as it was Paul's birthday and they were having a stripper.

Even now I think I should have stopped the whole thing before it started but hell - my mates were getting married and having stag nights - well, all right. I should have said no.

They trashed the place and when I got back, paralytic myself from my do, mid morning, there were two couples in my room, the stripper had used my bed but next door was insane.

One girl called Ruth, maybe 15, was being used by virtually every boy in the house and the living room had other couples round, most out cold on the floor by now, evidence of coke was about, they'd urinated over the kitchen bench and so on. Things had been torn off walls.

The fact that I still remember that girl's name is because I was shocked to the core, not because of the sex, per se but because it was indiscriminate. She was from a good family and apparently she'd gone outside to phone home at intervals.

The little b-g--rs were playing on my reputation to give them the room to move with parents.

It stopped there and then, the neighbours were relieved when that crew moved out lock, stock and barrel and I never saw them again. But I feel guilty about that kid. Really bad. Even now.

Which brings me back to Gemma Anscomb. Even on our floor here in this building, there are teenagers of 14 and we had a recent incident when the parents went out and local boys were let in from the downstairs security door by the three girls in neighbouring flats.

I'm certain the parents would not believe in the least that their little Alina, in whose mouth butter wouldn't melt, would be up to gang bangs. I know and she knows that I know and gives me strange but defiant looks when I sometimes see her.

So I've read people's comments to the Mail - oh how could the parents be so naive and so on. Hey, c'mon - your kids are angels, aren't they? They'd never do such a thing, just as you'd never if you were that age again. Yeah?

I wish I had a pound for every time a parent's said, "I know my son/daughter and he/she would never lie to us."

All kids lie, all kids try to feed off the gravy train for their expensive lifestyles, all kids have a separate, dark internet world to their parents who themselves think they're pretty cool dudes and eminently broad-minded. It's trendy to completely trust your kid.

It's not just the age though which upsets me and the way parents facilitate these things today through their own naivety. It's the totally lost way in which it's all being done now. - kids don't even go to a separate room any more, to the toilet or to the back of the car. It's a gangbang. Any vestige of decency does not exist any more because it's not been taught, not instilled.

Adults are terrified of appearing uncool in their kids eyes and the kids are becoming hedonistic monsters, turning savagely on anyone who tries to stop them. I had a 15 year old girl here for English, again from a good family and she didn't want to do one exercise.

When I said we needed to, in order to get to the next part, she turned apoplectic and threw her pen across the room. This sudden anger at being thwarted is all part of the culture enveloping kids now. Confirmed by my students who have kid brothers and sisters.

When I was in a boarding school, I once told my colleagues about what I knew was happening behind the girls' boarding house and what was the reaction? Suspicion of how I could have known that, when they'd not seen or heard anything. This was an ego thing - each thought he/she was savvy enough and trendy enough to know, so how could Higham know?

It was bleedin' obvious. Plus kids did use to say things or give things away and I'd never shopped them until this point. I was never trusted after that, the kids didn't say anything at all any more, anywhere near me and I went back to being one of the ignorant - until the night fifteen of them were caught in the sixth form room. Hell, I could have told them that.

One lunch time I'd gone up there and there were two boys studying at desks and one in bed with two of the day girls, sisters. I let the girls get out of there but a note one had written to a boy saying what she was going to do with him was apparently dropped in the driveway and picked up by the school dragon woman.

It hit the fan.

So - kids are kids and they'll always test the limits, push against the barriers and try to find out who they are that way. If adults are just jelly or even putty, the kids have no limits - over here they call it "byespryedyeli" - and they'll descend to the bestial within a few years.

While they'd curse you for opposing them, for being a brick wall, while they'd find ways of circumventing you, some part of them would eventually forgive you once they grew up.

There's decency inside there somewhere but no one seems interested in it these days.

Election Time! Guest Post by Matt

Well, tomorrow the general elections will be held in Spain. Attempting to hold on to his position at the head of the government is Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero. Now, I might have only been here two months but it seems awfully strange that the man´s podium are the initials of his last name (originally it was ZP then changed to just Z).

Hoping to get his position is Mariano Rajoy. Zapatero is from the PSOE (Spanish Workers Socialist Party), Spain´s version of the Democrats or Labour. Rajoy is from PP (Popular Party), Spain´s version of the Republicans or Conservative. I just make that comparison so you all will have an idea, as the two parties are not completely alike their US or UK counterparts.

Both sides have pulled out all the stops as far as posters are concerned. I could also list what each party wants to do but I figured you all would probably have looked for the info if you really did care. So, I´ll just stick to posters. Here are two that can be found in the metro line near Plaza de España for PSOE.




"It´s not the same (without PSOE in power)," says the poster. Note the Z I was talking about earlier.



"The eighth most powerful economy (in the world, if I´m not mistaken), the number one in social rights. Motives to create." Note that someone defaced this poster.

Popular Party´s HQ as seen from the street.

The gigantic poster of Rajoy in Puerta del Sol. I thought I had seen it all in terms of gigantic posters. I was sorely mistaken. I´m writing this at 5:38 p.m. I went to Circulo de Bellas Artes for lunch (I´m a member there). As I was walking towards the metro station here in Argüelles, I saw this!


That´s on Princesa Street right before you hit the metro station in Argüelles. That poster is by my estimate at least seventy five feet in length. As you can see, it basically spans the enitre building. Here´s one of Zapatero in the metro:


Unfortunately, this campaign didn´t end on a happy note. Yesterday was the day the campaigning must end, in accordance with Spanish law. ETA decided that they needed to get involved (maybe they were ticked that two of their parties were banned for three years). So they killed one of the ex-advisors of Zapatero´s party in broad daylight in front of his wife and kids. They shot him twice in the stomach, once in the throat, and twice in the arms.

A friend sent me a text message right as I got out of class telling me what had happened. I didn´t understand at first, as he gave me the name of the city in Basque, not Spanish. After asking someone where the city was, I immediately understood. Another friend sent me a text message later last night which read, "Han vuelto a asesinar, a pocos días d las elecciones. Así llevamos 40 años."

In English, "They´ve gone back to killing a few days before the elections. That´s how it´s been for us for the past forty years (in reference to how long ETA has been around)." So, on that note, I end the post with this image, the monument to those killed on March 11, 2004. I hereby use it for Isaías Carrasco who needn´t have died yesterday. I´ll be in a high school tomorrow, checking ou the elections for my own benefit. I´ll send photos later on.

The Metro - Guest Post by Matt

Having never lived in a city with a well developed mass transit system (I just use my car in Indy and the surrounding suburbs), Madrid´s metro subway is a jewel. It is fast, efficient, and always reliable. Even though we´ve had the occasional hiccup due to construction (like line 1, my line, being stopped for a few hours (I wasn´t on it at the time) due to a water pipe being struck during construction on the streets above), I am told it is the most reliable subway on this side of the pond (sorry James!). Having not gone to the United Kingdom, I´ve yet to see if it´s true or not.

The metro has it´s own TV channel with gigantic projectors in the tunnels, like this one:


They often run their own version of news, showing the top stories from around Spain. Occasionally, they´ll run their own ads to encourage you to use the metro. Generally these are transmitted on TV but they show this one, which is relatively new, all the time (it´s one of my favorites).



For those who don´t speak Spanish, here´s a translation.

The guy comes back from Madrid, Spain to Madrid, Phillipines and the town sees him, saying, "Hey, he´s here!" They´re gathered around a table and they ask, "How´s the other Madrid?" The guy says, "La Cibeles (a plaza here in Madrid) is good. The Prado Museum is good, too. But what really makes the difference is the metro." They ask, "Metro?" and he lays down the map of the routes. The old guy looks up and says, "So, let´s build one!"

They bring in all the stuff and someone says, "Hey, the tunnel (for the subway car) is here!" They´re inside the tunnel and the guy says, "Hey, it´s just like the one in Madrid!" So, they get in the subway and this is the truly funny part. The car moves maybe ten meters and the new station tone (which is the real deal from the metro, as well as the sub way car) sounds and the automated voice says, "End of the line (also genuine)."

The voiceover says, "The metro that every city wants to have when it becomes big. Metro of Madrid, let´s go!"

A final thought: they had to have shot that commercial in one of the metro tunnels here because the scene where they step in to the car and it moves ten meters has too many aspects of one of the tunnels I frequent. Plus, I doubt they had an extra 30.000.000€ lying around to build everything again.

International Day of Women


Today is International Women's Day and my thoughts are here. They're long. Better I prefer this simple statement by Nunyaax:

As much as a source of frustration men can be and likewise women, I'm all for the recognition men do deserve. The age old saying , you can't live with them but sure as hell can't live without them either. Yes women and men maybe equal but we are not the same, I believe there is many things you can get from man, excluding breeding , that women just cannot provide.

By the way, her post shows that there is indeed an International Men's Day. Never knew that. The Soviet February 23rd is not exactly the same thing.

To the women, those I adore and even those I don't, of course men must try to stop the abuses your sisters suffer but as friends, not as the enemy. What's the point on standing on rights if one half of humanity won't listen? Work with us, not against us.

To my mates - hey, you're sick to death of these posts on women but just this weekend, suspend any little niggles and tune yourself into her - she might not be expecting it. Shower her with attention and give her what she wants. Hell, it's just one weekend - go out on a limb and work her all weekend.

Or else phone your ex and suddenly go soft on her. Sudden, strange surrenders.

Whatever. We'll get back together for a beer on Monday.

[referendum defeat] creeping or creepy?

If a people vote in a referendum not to ratify a treaty and then the parliamentarians go ahead and ratify it, does this constitute high treason?
Selection
Votes
Yes 89%16
No 11%2
18 votes total
pollcode.com free polls


See here for the post. I have great respect for Bob Piper and when he says:

I sat down with half a dozen people at our local jazz club last night and the consensus was, "we should have had a referendum". When asked what it was they wanted a referendum about, which parts of the Treaty upset them... silence. When the election takes place in June 2010... and their world hasn't disappeared down a black hole, it will be so much wind and piss, I suspect.

... he's partly right. The mistake is that their world really will have "disappeared down a black hole" and it's been amply demonstrated why. It's just that they will be blind to it - the oldest political problem in the book.

Cassilis says:

With one or two exceptions I find both sides in the EU referendum debate intensely irritating. Too often the Europhile agenda seems built on nothing more substantial than an intense self-loathing, distrust of the US and a belief that further integration will help facilitate more social democracy than any Westminster election could deliver. The Europhobe agenda often boils down to an exaggerated fear of that same social democratic ‘creep’, a ridiculously outdated view on ‘Johnny foreigner’ and a geopolitical outlook still rooted in the 19th century.

Even on these pages and of course in more august journals, the direness of the EU swallowing England, far from being "creeping" is "creepy" and can be seen, if people would only look. Look at tag "eu monster" for some articles. Coupled with Lisbon itself is the equally dire Common Purpose which is nefarious in the extreme.

Perhaps, at first, the average Englishman will see only peripheral incursions into his self-centred world but it's the "boiling frog syndrome". This is what socialism is and I should know - I was a paid up Fabian before I grew up politically.

The world which the EU paints is bleak and joyless but more than that - it depends on an Englishman meekly surrendering his Englishness. The EU is certain he will, on a promise of filthy regional lucre.

Friday, March 07, 2008

[march 8th] international women's day



[To Guzel, Masha and Tanya - I promised to say hello so here it is. S nastupayeshem, dyevchonki. S prazdnikom!]

Please check this post as well, by Nunyaax. She puts it nicely.

Tomorrow, March 8th, is International Women's Day and Wiki says:

In some celebrations, the day lost its political flavour, and became simply an occasion for men to express their love to the women around them in a way somewhat similar to Mother's Day and St Valentine's Day mixed together.

Oh what a wonderful thing that, over here, the day still retains its proper meaning, that it is still about men's celebration of the woman instead of International Misandry Day.

While western Feminists have now succeeded in alienating most of the masculine gender to a state of unreasonableness through their overt misandry in the past few decades, here the day is one of softness and kindness. Whilst in the west, it's a U.N. sponsored Fem-fest of "look how we've managed to skewer men", here it's a day of gifts and flowers and lots of lovemaking.

To the girls today, I quoted the exact words of one western lady at this site, expressing surprise that men would have anything to do with it tomorrow and they were shocked. The whole idea of it, in Russian women's minds, is for the men to pay homage and be there in a very real sense.

Despite the patriarchal society and very real abuses, most women, especially the young, do love the menfolk although they get frustrated. It's love/hate, ragther than just spiteful hate.

We had our little celebration this evening, the girls and I and now I'm sad because they've gone - I walked one girl to the station turn-off in the falling snow and it looked lovely on her jacket. She was so amenable, I was so amenable but it clearly couldn't be so it was left at that.

The Pyramid was lovely too and "she " was there.

On the way home in the car, I asked the driver, 'You ready for tomorrow?' He smiled and in that smile was recognition that women rule for these three days. The fireworks started some thirty minutes ago.

Real issues - a modest proposal

I'd really like men to get some sort of organization together - a sort of reverse Kelly Mac, supporting oppressed women, contributing to women in countries where they are the underdog [as distinct from the west where they shrilly rule the roost], booting out all this talk of "rights" and "all men are rapists" and such guff and reinstating love for women, sharing domestic responsibilities without being asked and re-establishing the true relation between the genders - complementary, tuned to each other and wanting only the best things for the other.

This might have some chance. While the current insanity continues with Feminists demanding, in an ever-escalating stream, to rule the very planet, it has absolutely no chance with men.

Imagine it - a Kelly Mac group doing their darndest for men and a Pro-Women men's group doing their darndest for the women. Then, in a cross-over dialogue [and there truly would be dialogue here in a very real sense] the men would be amenable to the girl's suggestions. It would only be to their advantage to listen.

This Pro-Women men's group would then try to present models and paradigms to our own gender and get some sort of repair job done on the Feminist devastation of the past few decades, while Kelly Mac's group could work on her sisters to get some sort of realism into their approach.

I'm the first to admit that at the point I came over here, my attitude was pretty bad but these twelve years I've been on a learning curve and have started to understand what a woman is truly about. This is the sort of thing we need.

Finally

Congratulations to all women and girls and may only good things come to you in the next year.

[dissociation] the only way to kill


I tried to dissociate from that last post but couldn't.

Take away the Colombian girl and substitute Vinnie Jones, take away Colombia and substitute the East End of London - in the end it still comes down to dissociation - the ability to psychologically come to terms or shut out what you're doing.

The Colombian "freedom fighter" Marilyn:

Watching her take the pistol from her belt, unbutton her jeans and slip into bed I somehow couldn't quite equate the woman in my arms with the bodies I had seen in the local morgue, their heads shattered by gunshots at close range, murders she confessed to having committed.

One morning, Marylin told me that the previous night she had persuaded a friend to help her decapitate and dismember a woman she had been contracted to kill. This was no informer, but, rather, a friend of hers who paid her to kill her boyfriend's other girlfriend.

"You have to lose the fear. Now I am still killing and nothing happens. I feel normal. Before, I had an obligation to kill, I was sent to kill. But once I left the organisation, I was not obligated. I now only do the job for money."

How could she do this?



I quoted a woman some time back on "porn stars":

We know how women in the sex industry -- not all, but many -- routinely dissociate to cope with what they do. We know that in one study of 130 street prostitutes, 68 percent met the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder. I realize that this task is difficult.

This alienation and dissociation is what the C.I.A. experiments were about. It's what killing in war is all about. In a small way, it was about how I played rugby.

My playing weight was 80kg, way too small for minor division flanker and yet that's what I played, it's no lie. Too slow for half-back, not enough straight line speed for a back, not big enough for a forward, they put me open side flanker because I was quick over three metres, which meant everything depended on me getting to that victim before he got away or to the breakdown, otherwise they'd drop me from the side.

And there was another factor - you had to hit the man hard, shoulder to thigh to get him off balance, nothing lacking. You had to then maul him and savage him and break the play down, ready to take off with the ball yourself if you saw a chance and look for your support.

You give only 90%, you get hurt. You give 110%, you have sore shoulders at the end of the game and respect. And one more thing - it puts a little reticence in their minds about you, which in turn gives you a margin of safety.

So I understand why people do it but I also understand how much closer to the bestial we become. With one arm over my second rower, eyes firmly on the victim and him knowing this little toe-rag was gunning for him, it also gave a feeling of power, which is an adrenaline rush.

Rugby's one thing - cold-blooded murder is another but how far apart are they?

Didn't think twice about killing those children - all in a good cause, of course - the cause trumps everything.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

[pondering] angel or female assassin?

For Nunyaa - to feel good on a Friday

Coincidence. Yesterday a few things happened. The first was a visit to this site by an Indonesian, Santi W, who speaks English but blogs in Bahasa.

It's a most unusual blog and beautifully laid out. I urge you to visit her and look around the site. Naturally, I visited and vice versa and she wrote:

I watch the sea in the night. It feels like you're alone and it scares you to death, but then you realized that you're addicted to it.

I imagine that scene in Indonesia and say to her:

Hari ini hari terbaik pernah!

She continued her comment:

I noticed that you wrote a great novel. And that one of the character is the Indonesian lady you met on the flight? Did she tells you interesting things about Indonesia?

Well .. er .. yes .. she did. That was a most interesting flight but the character, Frederika, using her real name and who was studying in London, went in to the book as a female assassin. Here's a little fragment where the man she tried to kill momentarily turns the tables on her in 1997 [before security procedures came in] and forces her onto the Greenwich to London ferry where he tries to disarm her:

‘My business. Now give me your handbag.’


‘Do gentlemen do that?’ She gazed at him and passed the bag across. He rummaged around inside; just the usual women’s stuff. ‘Definitely not a gentleman.’

Then he spotted it, not in her handbag at all but under her loose T shirt, poked into her jeans. ‘Take it out of your jeans, put it into the handbag and don’t insult my intelligence.’

She complied and he noticed the slightest softness to her tummy. Perhaps she wasn’t all that hard after all. Perhaps she liked her pastries a little too much.

‘Now give me the bag.’

She complied again. Too easy, too easy, Hugh thought. She’d given up her gun just like that. Next thing he’d flung the handbag out of the open window, just as the boat was coming into dock at Tower Bridge. ‘Oh wonderful, Hugh, thank you so much. All my cards, all my money and my mother’s photo were in there.’

‘There was no photo and no purse.’

She’d now tired of the game. She sighed. ‘Hugh, you put a ridiculous replica into my waist, pretending it was loaded. I went along for the ride but now I have to tell you, darling, what you must already realize - you’re not long for this world. I really liked you – I really did.’

Sketch made from a photo of the Indonesian girl

Stay with it, people - I am coming to the point. Yesterday I met someone quite special - this is back to "real" life now - and wrote a maudlin post last night around midnight - here it is condensed:

This is pretty personal and I'm going to take a leaf out of Ruthie's book and do a post. It might make things clearer to see it in print.

Met someone today who is as close to right as I'm likely to find and this has thrown your humble correspondent into a tizz. On paper, given that it might be a chance and it seemed so today, then what happens when she finds out things which my regular readers know already?

I mean, look at those tramvai posts.

She loves walking in the forest, which I love and there were many bases covered. I'm sure the thought might have flitted across her mind too this evening but it's possible she's already concluded in the negative, which is more in line with what I'd expect.

There are just so many barriers and now it's 01:00 and I have to get some sleep.

That's what I did and then this morning checked the comments and there was one from the Jailhouse Lawyer:

Don't want to put you on a downer but...

Check this out before you make your next move

Here's a fragment from John's referral:

But what happens if your new girlfriend has a much darker and more sinister secret than having slept around a bit?

Sitting naked on the edge of the bed in a cheap, sweltering hotel room in the heart of a war-torn, drug-producing region of Colombia, I lit a cigarette and listened as the girl I had just made love with told me a secret dark enough to shake anyone from their postcoital bliss.

She then hit me with a confession that would both thrill and confuse me. She explained that in the months that I had been away in Iraq her role within the AUC had changed; she had joined the urban militia and become an assassin. Her job was now to eliminate informers and traitors.

So far, she told me, she had killed at least 10 people in the area. I lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply, Marylin looked at me through the smoke as I exhaled, waiting to see how I would respond to what she had just told me.

How uncanny is that?

Er ... think I might have to change Frederika - judging by Santi W's blog, they're pretty gentle people out that way. While learning Bahasa, in the meantime, I'll just have to rely on this, which might help you too if you get over her way.

So now it's time to get over to Oestrebunny, the exotic Scot:

Too lost in it all to see what's amiss, she'd risk her whole life for that - one - sweet - kiss. But that one sweet kiss is never enough.

You're right and it applies the other way too. So, with Women's Day tomorrow and the 14 Russian girls at 17:00 today, followed by the Pyramid, I'm off to descend into the maelstrom. Snow's everywhere in the air out there.

I'll report this evening if I'm still alive.

[id cards] question of time


Scarcely any need, wouldn't you say, to add anything else?

Shadow home secretary David Davis said: "The government may have removed the highly visible element but they have still left the dangerous core of this project.

"The National Identity Register, which will contain dozens of personal details of every adult in this country in one place, will be a severe threat to our security and a real target for criminals, hackers and terrorists. "This is before you take the government's legendary inability to handle people's data securely into account."

Still, these ID cards beat a chip in the wrist or forehead.

We'd all be part of the EU Android Army then.

[airports] the issues today



Short post on airports. Ian Appleby replies in a post:

But really there's no joy in flying at all, these days. I was 15 the first time I got on a plane, and I can still remember the excitement. For many years I could tell you instantly how many times I had been on a plane.

I had bought into the fantasy of the champagne glasses and cigars of some 1930s golden age hook, line and sinker. I've done two trips already this year, and frankly just now
I think you'd have to pay me to get on a plane again.

Shuffling round in long lines in your stockinged feet with one hand holding your kecks up because your belt will set off the metal detector and the other hand clutching that ridiculous plastic bag with your squeeze of toothpaste in - when there was
clearly no substance to the liquid bomb plot anyway - just to perpetuate some illusion that there is some sort of war on, what a farce.

That man can write. There's one other issue in particular which needs immediate resolution before I fly again - bag-nav throughputting and the café latte:



I was at Terminal 2, being farewelled by my SIG-OTH, sipping at our final CAF-LAT when, over the tannoy, following the obligatory ringtones, a young lady's sing song voice quelled the hubbub of terminal conversation:
"Ladies and gentlemen, from check-in to baggage reclaim, tens of millions of passengers entrust their belongings to ALSTEC's baggage handling systems at Heathrow Terminals 1, 2 & 3 and Gatwick North Terminal in the UK and at many other international airports."
It was time to check in. The smartly uniformed cynosure of all eyes went through her routine, then added:
"Do you trust ALSTEC or BAGLOSS?"

"Er … ALSTEC."

"Fine. Because much of ALSTEC's success can be attributed to innovation both in system design and equipment. The latest evidence of this is ALSTEC's low maintenance linear drive carousel, which is setting the standard in terms of performance."

"It carries the bags in a line, in other words?"

"Sir, the screening of all hold baggage presents problems in terms of maintaining levels of throughput within the baggage handling system. ALSTEC has solved these problems, with proven 100% HBS systems where there is no significant impact on passenger throughput. Have a happy throughput".

"Er … thanks."
Tearfully, my SIG-OTH disappeared down the concourse and I went through. Four hours later, at the other end of the longhaul, the cheerful Customs and Immigration official perkily asked:
"How was your throughput, Mr. Higham?"

"Fine thanks."

"That's due to the proven HBS and BAG-NAV."

"BAG-NAV?"

"Originally developed for London Heathrow, the world’s busiest international airport, BAG-NAV is arguably the most advanced baggage handling system control and management software suite available today."

"Suite?"

"BAG-NAV brings together all parts of the baggage handling process into a single easy to interpret and manage system. Would you care to hear the listed Benefits:

* No delays at check-in
* Bag screening remote from passengers
* No bottleneck in baggage handling system

… you can stop me at any time, sir, by kissing me just … here."
I tickled the tonsils of this Snoggable-Nubile-Official [Govt.], she sighed and the clunk of stamp on passport was all that disturbed the heady atmosphere of terminal bliss.
"Have a happy perambulatory TRIP-BIZ in our country, sir. Next! Hello sir. BAG-NAV brings together all parts of the …"
Throughputting via the green channel, I reflected that I'd completely forgotten to ask her about Babcock continuing its successful strategy of acquiring and developing technically sophisticated businesses in growing infrastructure and asset management markets, plus the acquisition, on a debt free basis, of Alstec Group Limited for a net cash consideration of £44.9 million, funded from existing banking facilities.

I sighed.

Due to the down-modem software support to facilities management with a team of engineers permanently on site to operate and maintain the facility, it had all gone too swiftly and I'd been whisked away from my new IMMIG-DEPT-LOVE, perhaps terminally.

And yet I could also breathe a sigh of relief, to be honest because the 5 Level Whetstone Scanning Device [SCAN-DEV-WHET] had 100% overlooked my second heart and the keys to the TAR-DIS.

[conscience vote] some decency returns to politics


Please don't present this as "bringing religion into politics". On all major human based issues there is a parliamentary precedent for a conscience vote so why not on this? Who is to decide this is not a matter of private conscience?

I'm not a Catholic but I say well done to these three on standing up on a question of principle. If only more of us would stand up and say, about this issue or that, this is wrong.

How long is it since we saw any Labour politician do that?

Oh and Gordon - say "England". Come on - you can do it. Let me help you. "E-n-g-" Good, good, you're doing well. Now "-l-a-n-d". Oh dear, you bottled it again.

[israel] if denmark attacked britain

If Denmark were to launch daily rocket attacks on the U.K., would the U.K. sit back, do nothing and comply with do-gooder charitable organizations' requests to take a humanitarian view of the loveable rocket launchers?

What if the rockets, far from being stuffed with high explosive designed to "simply" kill instead filled the warheads with ball bearings designed to indiscriminately maim the civilian population but when Britain pointed this out, learned world experts pronounced that it "probably was not so" and was the aggressive Britain's attempt to justify its outrageous attacks on little Denmark?

What if the U.K. were to then blockade Denmark and conduct attacks on military targets where there were known mobile military units using weaponry and technology from another European power equal to the U.K. in strength and using human shields to create a humanitarian outcry every time the U.K. struck back?

What if the tiny group who'd seized control in Denmark had vowed that the U.K. was a 'festering sore' which should be wiped off the map and that G-d was directing them to destroy every man, woman and child in those fair isles which were historically theirs by right?

What if the U.K. were then to expostulate that history clearly showed that the land belonged to the Anglo-Saxons but the international community got behind Denmark's version of history instead and ordered the U.K. to desist from these "unprovoked attacks on a sovereign nation", whilst conveniently ignoring the daily rocket attacks?

What if the U.K. launched an offensive which was inconclusive because the Danish military units simply faded back behind the mischievous European power's borders where they denied this was happening?

What if the humanitarian situation in Denmark, as a result of the blockade, meant that people were sleeping rough in their own faeces, dying in the streets of malnutrition and the malcontents who had a stranglehold on Denmark were to hoodwink the people into believing how evil the the U.K. truly was and that all this human misery should be laid at the U.K.'s door?

Meanwhile they continue to rain rockets on Britain and the people in France, over their daily coffee and croissants, shake their heads at the aggressive Brits because the French media, which they all slavishly believe would never tell a lie, has assured them it is so, showing only the results of British "atrocities" on state television?

What if the U.K. was to turn, with open enquiring hands, to the world and ask, "Why does everyone hate us so?"

Wednesday, March 05, 2008

[meme] fifth sentence on page 123

Illustrations above and below by J.H. Wingfield

Beaman has tagged me and though I loathe and detest memes, if it's Beaman, I suppose I must comply. So, the book close at hand is Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson [Black Swan, 1995] and here are those sentences:

5 Once, many years ago, in anticipation of the children we would one day have, a relative of my wife's gave us a box of Ladybird books from the 1950s and 60s.

6 They all had titles like "Out in the Sun" and "Sunny Days at the Seaside" and contained meticulously drafted, richly coloured illustrations of a prosperous, contented, litter-free Britain in which the sun always shone, shopkeepers smiled and children in freshly-pressed clothes derived happiness and pleasure from innocent pastimes - riding a bus to the shops, floating a model boat on park pond, chatting to a kindly policeman.

7 My favourite book was called "Adventure on the Island".

8 There was, in fact, precious little adventure in the book - the highpoint, I recall, was finding a starfish suckered to a rock but I loved it because of the illustrations [by the gifted and much missed J.H. Wingfield] which portrayed an island of rocky coves and long views that was recognizably British but with a Mediterranean climate and a tidy absence of pay-and-display car parks, bingo parlours and the tackier sort of amusement arcades.

I pass the meme onto anyone on my blogrolls and may the Good Lord have mercy on your souls.

[rain] everything's the same


'People ask me what music I listen to. I listen to traffic and birds singing and breathing. And fire engines. I always used to listen to the water pipes at night when the lights were off, and they played tunes.'




'Half the musical ideas I've had have been accidental. The first time I discovered backwards guitar was when we made 'Rain'. This was a song I wrote about people moaning about the weather all the time.' [John Lennon]


[tramvai of dreams] the french motif

Foggy day

Wish I'd had a camera today. About half the snow has gone and it was foggy, not unlike in this photo from Flickr.

Crossing the bridge to town, the river still frozen and snowladen and with the fog patchy in places, it was other-worldly, atmospheric and I was hurtling to my Day of Women.

Officially this Saturday is International Day of Women [March 8th] but I have two days of women each week - Wednesday and Friday and it can get crazy. My Day of Men is always Thursday and it's a nice relief.

I was supposed to deliver my first lecture on Australia early afternoon to the 5th Course and when I got there, there were no girls anywhere. Now this was weird because I was expecting around 90 to 100 of them and it's a bit hard to hide that number away in a corner.

Turns out they had me down for the following "pair" [time period] and so it was a waste of time - couldn't go anywhere as I was being picked up by a French woman in her SUV at 14:00 so the only thing was to go down to the stolovaya for a coffee but as I hate sitting on my own, I took a girl I knew down with me and the woman who runs the place was highly amused - you don't take girls to stolovii - it's a little lower than a cafeteria.

This is the one I mentioned some time back is always passing me on the stairs or happens to be where I am or vice versa - it's become a bit of a joke and really is coincidental.

Trouble is, she's French-English and I'm English-French, which means we had to speak in a combination of French, Russian and Pidgin-English. She was telling me about going to Paris to the Sorbonne and so we discussed Paris.

Then a whole load of French-Englishers came in and that was worse. Eventually they all disappeared and the 5th Course rocked in, ready for my lecture but I had to tell them I wouldn't be there.

'But you are here.'

'Da but I shan't be in five minutes.'

'Why not?'

'Because I'm being collected.'

'But you have a lecture with us.'

'No, I have a lecture with you now, in this pair.'

'But you're in the stolovaya with us instead.'

This was clearly going nowhere so I tried to explain but they still felt I was pulling a swifty on them or didn't want to give them their lecture or whatever. I had to say, 'It's not my fault,' and then blamed the administration and they understood that one well - everyone does that. Well, that was all right then.

So I left and was collected and she looked amazing. Mistake was to take her to the Pyramid because there was a girl there I'd given to understand I was keen on two Fridays ago [tramvai of dreams post] and I understood she'd not be working today. This was tricky and then my French friend said about her that she looked uncannily like my ex-girlfriend and I'm wondering how she knew that.

Then the penny drops. This is where I'd brought the French lady some months back when my ex-girlfriend had come into the cafe and we'd made an appropriate reconciliation in the middle of the floor. This thing was now turning into a French farce.

Back to the uni and just as I'm about to have my last pair, a French festival starts up and kills that idea - the topic I was planning to do was The Art of French Dressing - you've seen it on this blog. We eventually managed and a photo will be forthcoming hopefully this evening, maybe tomorrow.

I'm getting very nervous now about this Saturday. There are about twelve women and a whole load of girls expecting some little prezzie from me and I'm thinking out how to be ill or out of town but even if I do, they'll get me the following week. So nothing for it but to open the wallet but what to buy them? Chocolates?

The driver on the way home muttered, "I hate this time,' meaning March 8th. Some years back the police pulled me over for some infraction on this day and I reminded them that it was The Day of Women - a day of peace, love and reconciliation.

The head honcho, I remember, retorted, 'Woman's Holiday', meaning he was still going to give me the full fine. What a bstd.

So - are all you boys gearing up to buy your women something super-duper? The ladies are waiting in anticipation. Or shall we declare it International Day of Men and retire to the bar?

[airports] best and worst


This blog loves opinionated articles and fellow bloggers with chips on their shoulders - something you can really get your teeth into. Here's one on the world's worst airport:

Ezeiza. It has to be Ezeiza ... There was one - that's right, one - place to eat, where a simple "cafe chico" and a roll cost me about three times as much as the hour-long cab ride from the Argentine capital. Then, of course, there is the constant threat of fog, the flight cancelations that come with it, and the chaos that ensues.

Considering how often they have to deal with this, you'd think it would be a bit more organised.
But no. People scream around in a Spanish-speaking mess, clambering to get seats on other flights. Uni-lingual goons such as myself are in all sorts of trouble when the huge queues start forming at the check-in desk.


And the world's best?

Some airports are palaces, the sort of places you could imagine yourself staying for a few days (and in some cases, you do). Changi is brilliant, but I'm not breaking any ground mentioning that. KL International is also a great place to wander around, and Dubai is all right, too.

My choice? On access, facilities, servicing, something to do whilst waiting and processing on and off the plane, for best I couldn't go past Tom Bradley 8 in the old days - don't know now. Another excellent airport is Domodedovo in Moscow. They've refurbished and coordinated and it's a nice place, check-in is easy and it seems friendly.

For worst - possibly Dubai [nothing open and nothing to do] or Ashgabat, [where I had the police come at me]. The very worst in the world would have to be Sheremetyevo 2. I had $2000 stolen in a scam with a bank there on the lower floor and was refused exit twice, which resulted in me paying a fine for being correct. The taxi drivers are appalling and the mafia everywhere. I fly everywhere from my home airport.

And for you?

[clinton] are americans fickle

I took Ohio and RI and I'm acummin fer yoo now!


Update: via Lord Somber on why Americans shouldn't vote.



I suggested on somebody's site yesterday not to write off the Lizard Queen yet:

Over the last few days, the tone of the Democratic contest seems to have shifted, with Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign more buoyant and Senator Barack Obama’s more defensive.

That shift may be traceable in part to the “Saturday Night Live” show on Feb. 23, when, back from the writers’ strike, it mocked the news media for treating Mr. Obama more gently than it treated Mrs. Clinton. Mrs. Clinton amplified that view later in a debate, and her aides stoked it all week, practically browbeating reporters.

She takes Texas and the world is in trouble.

What I'd like to look at is just how fickle the American people are - being swayed in their votes by how Tina Fey acts or speaks or what happens on Saturday Night Live. For goodness sake, aren't the Americans capable of doing some research on the candidates? Why do they seem to go through these mood swings? Can't they stick with their chosen candidate?

And McCain. He's Conservative? Save me!

[political compass] calum carr's version

Following on from yesterday's short political test, here is Calum Carr's longer version and my results - between Friedman and Thatcher:

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

[quick science quiz] five for you


1. Highest mountain in the solar system?

2. Who named Pluto?

3. Direction finding - Pole Star in the North ... and in the South?

4. Might become the largest telescope - what does SKA mean?

5. How many have supposedly walked on the Moon?


No peeking!

Olympus Mons, Venetia Burney, Southern Cross, Square Kilometre Array, 12.

[political scale] where are you

ACCORDING TO YOUR ANSWERS,

The political group that
agrees with you most is...

.

LIBERTARIAN

LIBERTARIANS support maximum liberty in both personal and

economic matters. They advocate a much smaller government; one

that is limited to protecting individuals from coercion and violence.

Libertarians tend to embrace individual responsibility, oppose

government bureaucracy and taxes, promote private charity, tolerate

diverse lifestyles, support the free market, and defend civil liberties.

The RED DOT on the Chart shows where you fit on the political map.

Your PERSONAL issues Score is 100%.
Your ECONOMIC issues Score is 100%.
(Please note: Scores falling on the Centrist border are counted as Centrist.)

[economic forecast 2008] various sources

First a round up of various sources

Urged on by the tip of the Anonymous whip, the Higham takes his first faltering steps into the field of economic analysis. Why not start with the future?

Might as well go in off the deep end ... would you august economists out there give this the once over?


The World Bank forecast of growth


The IMF forecast of output


China growth recession

the odds of a significant growth recession in China – at least one year of sub-6 per cent growth – during the next couple of years are 50:50. With Chinese inflation spiking, notable backpedalling on market reforms and falling export demand, 2008 could be particularly challenging.

Financial sector

On the one hand, we have a banking sector that has a demonstrated capacity to generate huge crises because of the incentives to take on under-appreciated risks. On the other hand, we lack the will and even the capacity to regulate it.

[The] financial sector that generates vast rewards for insiders and repeated crises for hundreds of millions of innocent bystanders ...

Relief measures in the U.S. include:

* The Mortgage Forgiveness Debt Relief Act of 2007
* GSEs to expand their purchases of conforming mortgages effective March 1
* Proposals to aid homeowners directly at lender expense

Price of crude

[S]ky-high price of crude oil and refined product. Pushed upward by world-wide speculative Mid-East war fears and increases in demand (especially from China), increasing energy prices act as an inflationary "tax" on domestic production and consumption throughout the market economy.

Higher costs of production will lower profits; higher prices will reduce some consumption. The only good news here is that any substantial economic slowdown in 2008 will eventually moderate the price of oil and other commodity prices as well.

Oil consumption

Consumption.. World oil consumption is expected to grow by 1.4 million bbl/d in 2008, about 0.2 million bbl/d lower than last month’s assessment, due to increased risks of a global economic slowdown in 2008 (World Oil Consumption).

Commodities overall

We expect commodities to perform well over 2008 – Commodities are anticipated to benefit from turbulence in other financial markets “This asset class tends to do well in periods of rising inflation and political uncertainty – events which tend to depress other asset classes, such as equities and bonds.”

Systemic risk - Morgan Stanley

But even this uncertain and wobbly outlook is subject to downside risks. If the combination of monetary and fiscal stimulus fails to get traction, the adverse feedback loop might intensify, promoting, as Chairman Bernanke noted in testimony this week, bank failures and systemic risk.

Systemic risk - LEAP 2020

In the United States, this new tipping point will translate into a collapse of the real economy, final socio-economic stage of the serial bursting of the housing and financial bubbles (1) and of the pursuance of the US dollar fall. The collapse of US real economy means the virtual freeze of the American economic machinery: private and public bankruptcies in large numbers, companies and public services closing down massively

...any comparison with the previous crises of our modern economy would be fallacious. It is neither a “remake” of the 1929 crisis nor a repetition of the 1970s oil crises or 1987 stock market crisis. It is truly a global systemic crisis, that is to say a crisis affecting the entire planet and questioning the very foundations of the international system upon which the world was organised in the last decades.

Neither Asia nor Europe (or more precisely ‘nor the Eurozone') will suffer the roughest, the most sustainable and the most negative impact of the ongoing crisis; but the United States will, as well as all the countries/economies strongly linked to the US (what our experts have decided to call “the American risk”)

The global systemic crisis is in fact the beginning of an economic « decoupling » between the US and the rest of the world, knowing that the non « decoupled » economies will be dragged down the US negative spiral.

Bloomberg disagrees on decoupling

...stock markets have already lost between 10 and 20 percent since the beginning of the year (10), and, on the other hand, the collapse of the real economy in the US by the end of Summer 2008 will drag down all stock markets. According to LEAP/E2020, international stock markets will probably drop by 50 percent in average compared to 2007 (including in the emerging countries) ...

Mervyn King at the Bank of England says:

Sending a warning to families who expect the value of their home to increase in the coming years, Mr King added: "Looking several years ahead, there’s no reason to expect house prices to be markedly above where they are now. It’s conceivable there might be falls in house prices."

Analyses by the Anonymii

Commodity prices will continue to rise in the short term until the increase in global inflation draws a response from central banks, especially in China.

(1) no reason to think that commodity prices or inflation will stabilise in the short-to-medium term. Energy and commodity prices are being driven by two factors that will ensure they are largely insulated from any slowdown in the United States:

(a) Strong demand from China which is offsetting slower commodity consumption in the United States and (prospectively) in Western Europe.

(b) Strong investment inflows as institutional and private investors re-allocate funds from large and liquid but underperforming equity and bond markets to small, illiquid but out-performing commodity assets, which is having an outsized impact on commodity prices.

(2) prices for crude & other commodities have continued to soar, and that trend looks set to be extended. Until China’s commodity appetite slows, or investors lose their enthusiasm increases fuelling inflation will continue.

(3) perceptibly faster inflation ... none of the major central banks ... ready to push back by raising interest rates to curb growth. In fact, interest rate reductions in the United States and United Kingdom appear designed to stimulate otherwise slumping demand.

(4) Higher commodity-driven inflation will make bonds less attractive ... further allocation into commodity futures, intensifying upward pressure on prices .

Thinking about the inflation end-game: H2 2008

(1) speed limit for global growth is set by the availability of adequate raw materials and transportation capacity ... bottlenecks drive inflation rates worldwide ... no "icking up" slack in the global economy.

(2) Fed, Bank of England and ECB largely powerless to control commodity-driven inflation within their own economies. ... only way to return inflation to target levels would be to engineer deep local recessions in which massive unemployment and sharp falls in the prices of non-traded items and non-energy intensive items offset the continuing upward pressure from internationally traded energy and commodity items.

Central bankers prefer to anchor expectations and hope something will turn up to solve the problem for them.

(3) short-term commodity prices and inflation will continue to accelerate

(4) Until global growth slows, especially in China, either of its own accord or because the central banks start tightening monetary conditions ... inflation will intensify.

(5) [V]arious processes suggest the end-game for global growth, inflation and commodity prices is now starting to emerge:

(a) becomes increasingly difficult for central banks to ignore the problem.

(b) challenge to the competitiveness of China’s exporters and its internal social stability ... price controls in autumn 2007 and early 2008 to hold the inflation rate down

(c) Sooner or later, measures to hike domestic energy prices and slow the pace of growth in the manufacturing and real estate sectors ... in H2 2008.

... possible housing-driven slowdown will spread to Western Europe and translate into slower growth in China

... in the US ... homebuilding has slowed but commercial construction activity has held up well. Consumer spending has slowed but is not yet falling and business investment expenditure has remained strong.

... corporate profits have started to fall ... household debt ... default rates ... consumer spending will fall later in the year.

... good reasons to think that the full impact of the crisis will not be felt until H2 2008. Moreover, the slowdown is likely to spread to the United Kingdom and Western Europe, but only slowly ... more apparent in H2.

Bottom line

... the global economy looks set to enter a period of stagflation throughout H1 2008 and extending into H2

... central banks ... set to accommodate rather than push back ... further devaluation in the USD

... upward pressure on prices.

... increases in commodity costs ... if the slowdown spreads to Western Europe and China, commodity demand and hence prices and inflation will moderate ...

... global economy has hit the limits (and gone beyond) its capacity for non-inflationary growth

Note

... above commodity analysis omits to mention the search for better returns by international investors, exiting very large bond markets and low performing equity markets, into much smaller commodity markets.

... true rate of inflation in the US, UK, etc, is anywhere between 6%, and 10%, notwithstanding the constant lies and manipulation of statistics by the respective governments

Anon 2 says

... major uk banks, hedge funds, and other financial bodies are solvency impaired, UK level major clearing banks telling bare-faced lies about their provision (or non provisions) for toxic paper

... millipede is a liar - criticizing China when he is a communist (check his background, father, check the labour peer who kept his father from conscription, etc)

... so China would invade us - their best export market?

... UK, US nationally bankrupt ... taxed to the point of insurrection, and certainly to the point of GDP growth inflection

... millipede [trying for] control of the worlds finite resources.

... currently fighting a proxy war in Afghanistan

... Saudis funding (sometimes indirectly), hezbullah, hamas, iraqi insurgents, al Qeda, thousands of wahabbi learning centres ... we have been providing advance weaponry to these same princes, and backhanding them ... Blair has squashed one inquiry, who will squash the current?

... In geologic and mining circles, Afghanistan regarded as Nirvana

... in another corner of Afghanistan, the Chinese are building roads, railways, schools, hospitals, houses, and monstrous mines

Money supply

... money supply growth in Russia is up 44%, India up 23%, Australia up 23%, Brazil up 18%, U.S. up 16% (M3), UK up 12%, etc.

... massive industrialization taking place in China and India, representing 40% of the humans on earth. While the breakneck pace may slow this year, the need for increasing amounts of commodities will continue for many years.

... supply the major issue

From The Broadsheet Rag

Not exactly economics but I had to put it in somewhere:

We already have a Eurocorps. And the EU are carrying out operations in Chad and Kosovo. So, if anyone thinks that the EU aren’t trying to create an army — Well… They’re a moron.

This week I found more worrying evidence on this subject. The great Javi Il Duce gave a speech at the European Defence Agency Conference.

Home

Meanwhile, I'm looking at ГОРБУЛИНА Ирина Вячеславовна and the Asian Pacific markets.

Prediction

U.S. to implode, decoupling then an issue, commodities high till China slows, systemic meltdown, lying incompetent toadies taken to a public place and hung, drawn and quartered.

Conclusion

Weez knackered, folks ... have a good 2008 :)