[sex predator] allegedly at it again

Sex predator Debra Lefave

I know I'm late to the party on this but:

Why on earth didn't I have her as my teacher at 14? I can't think of one of the guys who wouldn't have been into it with her. We were all looking about for likely girls at that time and would have welcomed a bit of "lewd and lascivious battery".

Don't understand the "battery" part. We'd have been the ones doing the battery.

Not now of course - you don't know who's been in there and at what level of hygiene. Besides, she doesn't seem to be so much into the immature man.

It appears she's now at it again. Wonder what her problem is? Perhaps she was raped as a young girl, perhaps she enjoys undersized, under-aged equipment. She might even be a victim, visiting her victimhood on others. Can you feel any pity for her?

Either way she's in trouble and could be put away for 15 years. Do you feel it's as bad for a woman to be doing it with boys as for a man with girls?

I didn't ask if you "thought" it was as bad - I know you'd say yes to that but the question was - do you "feel" it's as bad?

Actually, if you look at the official file, she looks remarkably like someone I briefly knew and who was also not noted for her chastity.

Doesn't thrill.

[commercialmas] fractal landscapes and escape

More than one girlfriend has concluded I'm s-o-o-o-o passive. One perspicacious wife said I was impossible to live with. Good - I like being impossible.

The high energy, high output level you see on this blog is no illusion but it's fragmented. The other 30% of the time I wish to do nothing and see nobody. I detest shopping of any kind and my mate's birthday/Christmas double is filling me with foreboding. And his woman wants me to come round there for a meal because she likes me and I know that means presents buying, whatever they say to the contrary.

Why would they want to bother with me?

There's a "fabulous" three level department store complex not 300 metres from me but I can't bring myself to enter that Palace of Glitz. I know I have to, to buy the gillette products we traditionally give one another but it's pressing on the brain.

Buying them is no problem. Entering that monstrosity is.

I put that down to my last girlfriend who forced me into every shop and boutique in the city more or less all day, every day. Nice negotiating those perfect breasts in boutique cubicles all day, every day but we could do that better at home. I detest shopping. And dancing. Sometimes dancing is good, in some cafe in the evening where there's a small floor and just her but the imperious dancefloor where everyone has to find a jostled piece of floor to face one another like Wyatt Earp at High Noon, wiggling one's appendages and pretending it's fun?

Where can I run to?

Enforcement is the problem. Well, in Higham's case, it's very real and it's getting worse. I have to go to Uni today - ugggh. I have to go to the Min. When I eventually get to both it'll no doubt be fine and we'll make the most of it but I don't want to.

Commercialmas is the pits and office parties are the direst of all - fine for young people who can only deal in externals, as someone famous said but well nigh soul destroying for someone with half a brain. And not only for the young. Was trapped some years back, tricked in fact, into something I'll never forgive that girlfriend for.

She knew about these things and insisted I come to the Big Do at her parent's place which would have been bearable if she'd been there but where was she when I punctually arrived and no one else was there?

She was in the city doing the rounds of parties, wasn't she?

Guests from the outlying reaches of the extended family [hers, not mine] started awkwardly arriving with their enforced smalltalk and after the first few vodkas, the direness really began. When the first tipsy pair of middle-aged shriekers got up to sway to the television music, that was the signal to leave.

About 22:30 she arrived. I glared, made my excuses to her mother and left. Enforcement and trickery. Two things I detest.

Yesterday the water didn't arrive. There were supposed to be two 19 litre bottles delivered and they didn't. Someone phoned mid-afternoon but wouldn't announce him or herself so I didn't speak on the other end. Happens all the time. So, no water. Did I phone to enquire? To complain? Not Higham - it happened, so it happened.

Now it appears they're terribly sorry and can they make it up to me today? The van broke down in traffic and the man could only get here outside the appointed time range. Could they deliver it today? No. I'm too busy. I'm working. My Wednesday girls want to come earlier tonight [I have two girls visit me every Wednesday evening for a few hours] but I'm going to phone and tell them I can't.

This is going to surprise those of you still reading this but I detest December 21st to 23rd, the winter solstice. Three things I detest. You know why? Because the days get longer after that and I love short days of five to six hours. I adore December 21st to 23rd for that reason. This is my time of year now and it's disappearing fast.

The snow fell yesterday and fell and fell. I adore it. Two things I adore, apart from the Holy Infant [had to get that in somehow] and a girl in my arms. Four things I adore. And nice food. Ach, I need a woman. But I can't go near one. If I do, the arms will be lovely and the lips a delight but she'll drag me round to parties and want to go last minute shopping and want to talk, talk, talk the whole time and introduce me to people.

All I want to do is to hold her and take her for a meal and spring pleasant surprises on her and get the urge to dance with only her and then to snuggle up while the snow falls outside and watch some video we've seen 200 times.

But she won't. She'll want to DO things, achieve things and complain about my passivity and buy huge amounts of pointless food [and shoes] but she can't get one ingredient she needs at this shop so we trawl all the shops in the city until I'm keeling over with weariness and she'll make us waste what little end of year money there is on irrelevancies. For guests we're never going to see again till next Commercialmas.

So, if I can't have a woman to keep warm [one of my specialities in the night] because of all the other baggage which goes with it, the only alternative is to shut off all the lights and telephone and hide. Everyone who invites me for a drink I'll profusely apologize and promise to see them in the New Year, which I shall.

Around January 7th, up will pop the Higham and he'll be raring to go, even to shop a little. [Well, on reflection - not to shop.] Uggh, it's all so depressing this season. Tell you what I really must do and I'm going to get off my butt and do it today or next week - I really must buy the wood at the Stroy-Mart [DIY] and build that little feed table for the birdies. The little dears have been visiting everyday, pecking about and hoping for a winter feed and I've done nothing about it yet. I feel s-o-o-o guilty. What delight that will be through the winter for all of us.

So, enjoy all your parties and bonhomie - I wouldn't wish to take it away from you for one second. Don't let me be a wet blanket in the back of your mind - think of it as a catalyst to determinedly party even harder and enjoy every minute of the Palaces of Glitz and clubs and the swirling mass of crowds you have to negotiate.

Why are there no available women who just like a quiet Christmas at home without presents of any note? Just one Gillette deodorant will do for me. Why can't I just go downstairs, not 300 away, find a nice pot plant to give her and why can't she be satisfied with that? [Well of course I'd no doubt add a number of other little things I'd know she'd love.] Why does it have to be The Expensive Present? The gold ring or some such? Isn't there a non-acquisitive woman anywhere on this deteriorating planet of ours? Are they all on the take? All the ones who come near me are. But there have to be some honeys somewhere. Why can't we just spend a set amount of Christmas money on each other instead of wasting it on acquaintances and going into hock? Why can't we just make love for a week and only go out to walk in the forest and across the square to the opera house in the falling snow to see Swan Lake or the Nutcracker and to pick up champagne and supplies and then pop our heads up above the snowscape on January 3rd?

With genetic engineering, we might be able to create such a woman. I think the model would sell like hotcakes, particularly to impossible men such as myself.

[unexpected pleasures] moment of truth

There'll be no strings to bind your hands
Not if my love can't bind your heart.
And there's no need to take a stand
For it was I who chose to start.
I see no need to take me home,
I'm old enough to face the dawn.

Just call me angel of the morning Angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
Just call me angel of the morning Angel
Then slowly turn away from me.

Maybe the sun's light will be dim
And it won't matter anyhow.
If morning's echo says we ve sinned,
Well, it was what I wanted now.
And if we're the victims of the night,
I won't be blinded by light.

Just call me angel of the morning Angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.
Just call me angel of the morning Angel
Then slowly turn away,
I won't beg you to stay with me
Through the tears of the day,
Of the years, baby baby baby.

Just call me angel of the morning Angel
Just touch my cheek before you leave me, baby.

[moving violation] written in the psalms

Today's cautionary tale:

A poor priest has been ordered to recite Psalms daily for three months as "punishment" for being unable to pay a parking fine. Father Jose Conejo told Chilean judge Manuel Perez he could not pay the $A116 fine. "He will have to recite seven Psalms from a book in the Old Testament," Perez said.

Here are some suggestions for psalms he could cite:

Psalm 32 1: Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Psalm 51 16: For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. 17: The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Psalm 111 7: The works of his hands are verity and judgment; all his commandments are sure. 8: They stand fast for ever and ever, and are done in truth and uprightness.

So, with your next "moving violation" [somehow sounds better than "traffic offence"], get out the dog collar and bib, whip it on over your tie, slip on the porto-cassock then, when they pull you over, mumble: "Bless you, my son," make a few humble hand gestures and quote the above.

That should do the trick. But whatever you do, don't say I put you up to it.

[posh girls] spicy tension bubbles over

Posherexia doing the lion's share of the work

Time for a bitchy post:

Geri Halliwell, Mel B, Mel C and Emma Bunton became incensed at the special treatment Posh was receiving. Beckham wore the highest heels which meant she towered over the rest of the girls, and during the encore she did not wear her cape with her hood up, as was part of the ensemble, preserving her perfectly groomed hair.

A source said: “All of these silly petty things just got on the nerves of the other girls. And to top it off when Victoria kept getting the loudest applause and cheers, it really grated on the others."

Ooh, claws retracted, ladies - the Beck's not worth the stress. And what was it George Harrison said?

The good thing about them is that you can look at them with the sound turned down.

Although in Skeletal Spice's case, the anorexia isn't a pleasant sight.

[ecb] altruistic bastards

Ah, isn't that so altruistic of the ECB:

The European Central Bank has allocated 348.67bn euros($502bn; £249bn) to banks at a below-market rate in a refinancing move to ease tightened credit markets.

It is one of five central banks that have injected billions in emergency cash into money markets.

The aim is to cut the cost of lending between retail and commercial banks, which has jumped in the past few weeks.

Excuse me, the aim is to go silent on speculative lending [including sub-primes] in the banking sector then, when it all implodes, to lend directly to said greedy institutions at fire-sale rates, thereby creating direct indebtedness, as distinct from statutory indebtedness and thereby creating a direct pressure line on the average punter.

Something very useful when the crunch comes.

[touch and go] find you very attractive

The test of an ongoing concern of any note is if it is readily accessible in Wiki.

Touch and Go are not so accessible unless you type in all the words Touch and Go Band Wikipedia.

The thing is, they never really were a band, let alone that there is an entity called Touch and Go Records as well [not them] and heaps of Touch 'n Go other things. So it's a labour of love but finally worth the effort. And even if you do get into their personal site, it says not too much.

They themselves say, in their blurb, which has definitely changed from the scratchy liner notes in the early 2000s:

Touch And Go is the progeny of an unholy alliance between television composer David Lowe, veteran radio presenter and music journalist Charlie Gillett and co-founder of Oval Music, Gordon Nelki. The trio conceived a new concept based around largely instrumental jazz-based tunes with an ‘economical’ use of lyrics — quite unconventional by today’s chart standards.

Would You…? [uses] a sampled vocal clip and trumpet jazz licks played by James Lynch, over a Latin rhythm.

And the girl? The sultry voice behind the success of the project?


Her name is Vanessa Lancaster and she's a UK based "voice-over artist for numerous UK TV commercials and has modelled both on the catwalk and for beauty products. Her other television credits include Emu’s World for ITV and the James Bond movie Octopussy."

The trumpeter, James Lynch, is one of the UK's top session musicians, appearing in a lot of shows , including with the BBC and has also toured with the Spice Girls and Robbie Williams.

So you've got the picture - a studio project without a face but a fun one nonetheless and a unique sound for all that. And that girl .....


Now cut to the 2000s. Clearly, David Lowe felt that it would all just fade away but Eastern Europe had other ideas, expecially the Ukraine and there was a demand for a human presence as some sort of face for the "band" - Eastern Europeans don't fully understand music they can't "see".

While David Lowe "writes [most] of the material, produces, arranges, and plays drums, keyboards, and most of the bass, as well as doing some of the vocals. Most of the parts are filled in by a cast of various musicians, none of them part of Touch and Go officially, contributing vocalists, brass, and wind parts, guitar, and violin," Vanessa and James front the "band" and co-write songs.


Now, here's the thing again - Vanessa Lancaster just don't gel in my mind as a vamp singer - look at that body language. She comes across to me as a happy girl, flattered to be included in something as much fun as an ongoing Europe-wide touring band. I mean, she clearly doesn't get down and dirty - look at the way both of them are dressed and he's the epitome of the cleancut Brit TV show session muso. And yet they sing:

I find you very attractive ... would you go to bed with me?

Vanessa was taken to task about this by the host of a late show in Bulgaria, Slavi Trifonov, who was keen to know if she often asked strangers to sleep with her.

She replied that when they wrote the lyrics they were looking for the craziest questions that they could ask somebody. The songs are often constructed around the sort of come-on lines used at the social get-togethers of the well-heeled and fashionable, added Lynch.

Uh-huh but there's more.

The song's accompanying video feature[s her] asking the same question to various inanimate objects including an iron and a shopping trolley.

Now I'm already beginning to really like this bit of fun, let alone the duo themselves and the superlatively catchy music but the next part clinched it for me. As the Sofia Echo explained, they visited "Sofia's First English Language School for a question and answer session in a small classroom packed with eager pupils."


Whoa there! This is a sultry nightclub act whose songs have been used by American pole dancing troupe G String Divas, raunchy and heavy with sexual innuendo. And they're invited to a school, to talk with the children? Well, you know, I'd probably ask them too - there's something very attractive about this pair.

Now, in a very minor way, I've also trodden that path. When I first came over here, I was taken to a school to meet "staff and students" and was also very politely mobbed. In their case it differed:

The pupils were keen to know if the two stars liked the school, what they thought about Bulgaria, and if it was difficult to compete in the music business. Lancaster answered and asked the students what they wanted to do in the future and if they found it hard to study English.

I too was mobbed by dozens of kids demanding autographs and I know full well the attraction of Eastern Europe for urbane westerners enjoying something a little different. There's still a fresh eagerness over here and great honour bestowed on guests, which is just lacking back home.


Wiki also notes:

As of 2007, the ensemble is still touring Eastern Europe and performing their popular tracks from the mid 1990s

Members

• Charlie Gillett
• Vanessa Lancaster
• David Lowe
• James Lynch
• Gordon Nelki

Now one of my favourite "bands", Touch and Go's website is here. Google if you'd like to get this music. More here.

[whatsamatter you] itsa notsobad

Getta yerself ova here quik 'n press play.

When you've listened and the window goes small, go to the frames at the bottom, scroll across and press help.

Then listen to it one more time with a difference.

All comments on this ditty at Ian's place, please.

[lizard queen] warmth and integrity

The Lizard Queen, alleged felon and shady customer, in her latest campaign strategy, now wishes to be seen as compassionate and caring for the ordinary American. It's quite touching:

New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, trying to warm up an image some voters perceive as cold, starts a drive Monday to showcase her personal side with testimonials from friends, associates and constituents she has helped.

I think that's fair enough. No point swinging over to Overt Compassion before Monday - it must have been apparent at their strategy meeting that there would be no votes in it before Monday, after all.

Lovely lady, Hilly - the quote indicates that only "some" voters perceived her as lacking warmth. Actually, 50% of them.

It's possiby a little unfair to her - reptiles are cold-blooded creatures, after all. If I could offer some advice - she needs a Checkers Speech of some kind, even a Socks Speech but she must be careful not to dump Socks N2 on an unsuspecting friend once the presidency is secured, otherwise the press might get hold of it again.

[today grain] tomorrow meat and water

Simultaneous floods in Europe, drought in Australia and cold in South America has both depleted grain supplies and are currently inflating food prices, coincidentally as the expanded, newly expanded EU and the SPPNA come into being, with one major thrust being relief in poorer areas such as Africa:

Officials forecast US wheat stocks would shrink to their lowest level in 60 years, dropping from 312m bushels to 280m by the end of the 2007-08 crop year. The US is the world’s biggest exporter of wheat and importing countries are bidding heavily for its crops as other exporters cut supplies.

Cold weather damaged crops in Argentina and drought affected Australia’s wheat production. Flooding also damaged European crops. Michael Lewis, of Deutsche Bank in London, said the decline in stocks and rising shortages in large parts of Asia suggested 2008 “could deliver another year of . . . price shocks”.

Other commentators aay the stockpiles are due to increase, not decrease, in 2008/9. The EU has reversed it's 10% fallow rule to start stockpiling again plus the French farming Minister has called for a rethink of the whole farming industry. Uh-huh:

So is Mr Barnier ready to take the next step, and contemplate a radical shrinking of the market-distorting Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), now that farming is, in his own description, back to being a more straightforward business involving profitable supply, and rising demand?

Is he a French farming minister? Why yes, he is. So instead, his conclusion is that more state intervention is going to be needed, and the CAP will have to remain the "primary economic policy of the European Union".

Interesting. What effect will this have on, say, sheep farmers who depend on reasonably priced grain? And will calling land back from fallow work in the short term, given the deterioration factor? And are biofuels to blame for a large portion of the problem? Has it been artificially induced over the last two decades with changes in farming technologies?

So, all this has pretty well been written up and perhaps it's time to look at the next items on the list - meat supplies [soy production targets a good indicator here] and drinking water. I'm particularly looking at the latter.

The former is in the news mainly through foot and mouth and bird flu. The latter is a longer term problem this blog has touched on before. In this country almost everyone buys pre-treated bottle water - a huge industry indeed but still cheap, at 90 roubles for 19 litres.

At least they still bring it to your door here, unlike in other parts of the world. And in Southern California there is yet another solution.

Whichever way you dice it or slice it, it's going to mean big money to those in control of basic life-sustaining supplies. So your choice seems clear - either work your way into the upper echelons who are barely affected by global crisis, stay with the other 98% blithely oblivious until it happens or be one of the micro-percentage who are adopting lateral solutions until such time as they're shut out of the food chain altogether.

Another interesting study is the largely unsubstantiated fungal toxin warfare, such as Plan Colombia amd Agent Green but it seems to me it is becoming increasingly unnecessary, what with the poisonous air and water we now endure - we currently have an epidemic in our city anyway, for example.