Draculette

The wrong end of the stick

Quote of the day:

"You stupid bastards. I've been trying to set this up for months. You've just ruined it when it was getting interesting"

Woman, Holland.

This words were uttered by a lady whose gag was removed when police in Holland, supposedly 'freed' the handcuffed, gagged, blindfolded, high-heel-fishnet-stocking clad young woman. "That really is a gun in your pocket officer and I don't think you're very pleased to see me" is probably what the little hussy was thinking.

The road was blocked and her half undressed friend was ordered to lie face down at gunpoint before she kindly cleared up the little misunderstanding. This was meant to be a hassle-free elaborate sex game with real-life motorways and vehicles and everything.

Police had received reports that a young woman was manhandled by three men and bundled at the back of a van. The police, doing what they do, chased the aforementioned van. The 22 police officers , believing they were foiling a kidnap plot, tracked the van for 30km in a helicopter, squad cars and motorbikes, (yes, helicopter, squad cars AND motorbikes). The three men aged 36, 39 and 58 were subsequently freed.

Listen love, I know you're probably a freelance accountant or maybe something twee like a middle-class-yoga-going-wheat- and-gluten-free housewife who thinks about things like the different uses of flaxseed oil, but LOVE, you are not completely guilt-free when it cums to wasting police time, so either set up an elaborate-fantasy club with your own grounds or just stay at home and use your imagination and a battery powered implement like the rest of the world. 

Nice bit of skirt

Well, here's something that might cheer us all up. Now, there has allegedly been this craze in Japan where these skirts are worn and they look see-through but actually they are prints to make it look like you can see their arse. Men or women no longer have to imagine, they can look and linger withour fear of being caught. I did a little site trawling and everyone was giggling at the Japanese and their silliness, blogs, websites etc....

I eventually came across the sceptics. It seems that it's possible that the pictures were carefully posed to create the striking image. You see, the arses are remarkable since the leg position of the real woman match the upper thigh position of the pert printed arse.

Imagine if people really wore these clothes, hours of fun on a depressingly crowded tube, people would be unashamedly staring because they can. or imagine if the front was like that (no, not another arse, that would just be weird but the front, you know) and imagine if men wore them too. People should be made to print their real body parts on to their clothes, does it make it ok if it's someone else's arse but really rude if it's your own?While

I ponder these questions of universal significance, it is of paramount importance to note that I have become a rather sad individual with obviously too much time on their hands to be thinking and writing about this.

But (butt ...geddit), even if someone has made this all up just to take some funny pictures, I salute you, whoever you are Mr I-made-funny-pictures-to-keep-the-world-guessing-but-in-a-coquettish-and-pseudo-voyeuristic-mildly-sexually-alluring-sort-of-way-man, for giving me something to snigger about when I sit alone, at my computer writing this, drinking wine (alone again), safe in the knowledge that there are millions of people sitting on their posteriors doing something not completely disimilar.

Bottoms up...can't think of too many puns (buns...geddit).

I give up.

The Jazz singer

I went to a fantastic concert recently courtesy of my friends at the Leo Film and Books Agency.

Alisa Kaufman is an accomplished musician and jazz/bossanova singer and this was her London Debut. Sitting there, listening to her, I almost forgot about the bitter cold and damp greyness and the northern line and cheap wine that awaited us upon our exit. Her passion for the music made me think of Brazil, Spain and South America, nice weather, nice people, Rioja and tapas and that is some achievement during the drab London winter.

Her clear voice  provides a very disctinct style which allows her to make each song her own. The jazzy beat was very satisfying and in a couple of pieces, the composition wavered from the norm which gave the songs a modern edge and developed a new sound. The second guitarist and pianist/keyboard player were showcasing their individual skills as well as supporting  Alisa. The excellent musicianship of each performer gave the music a very rich and meticulous feel which was just wonderful.

This lady and her musicians will be snapped before you can say "My my, it's hot in here", and it certainly was.

I wish them the very best of luck.

Sex bomb, sex bomb, you're my sex bomb, Tom Jones 2000

It seems that some people at one point contemplated the well known anti-war slogan "make love not war" and interpreted it literally.  Jim Wolfe (Reuters News Services) reported on 19 January that the "US military rejected a 1994 proposal to develop an "aphrodisiac" to spur homosexual activity among enemy troops but is hard at work on other less-than-lethal weapons, defense officials said Sunday." I'm sorry, cum again?

So it took them a whole decade to reject this mind-bogglingly ludicrous suggestion? Are we going to have a Knobular Missile? Are they going to sprinkle fairy dust in the Middle East? Carpet burn bombing? Weapons of mass suction? Were they thinking of catapulting over Anne Summers hampers complete with battery operated toys, US flag print fluffy handcuffs, the latest in bondage gear, master-of-the-house and serving-wench role play costumes and not forgetting AK47-Y- jelly?

Wait...there's more:

The idea of fostering homosexuality among the enemy figured in a declassified six-year, $7.5 million request from a laboratory at Wright Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio for funding of non-lethal chemical weapon research.

The proposal, disclosed in response to a Freedom of Information request, called for developing chemicals affecting human behavior "so that discipline and morale in enemy units is adversely affected."

One distasteful but completely non-lethal example would be strong aphrodisiacs, especially if the chemical also caused homosexual behaviour, "said the document, obtained by the Sunshine Project. The Watchdog group posted the partially blacked out three page document on its website. Lt. col. Barry Venable of the Army, a Defense Department spokesman, said: "THis suggestion arose essentially from a brainstroming session, and it was rejected out of hand.

Out of hand eh? whose hand I wonder. Maybe in this brainstorming (brain?) session they partook in the pleasures associated with smoking a natural herb known to induce strange behaviour, paranoia and coming up with concepts that seem pure genius at the time:

Official 1: Hey dude, I got this cool idea man

Official 2: What dude

Official 1: Like, you know if people like one another, they're more chilled.

Official 2: Riiiiggghhht...

Official 1: Hey, seriously, we make everyone want to do it to eachother, dude...We could make films called Saving Mohammed's Privates, It's Raining Men and Akissonthelipse Now...

Official 2: Wow, totally, like free love...(thinks)... Naaaah. won't work

Official 1: Why dude?

Official 2: No one will get any work done, like ever, if the police, politicians, farmers and shop owners are at it, no one will ever have anything or eat.

Official 1: ok, we'll stick with the sensible plan, we'll give them halitosis so we can smell them out when they blend in with regular people.

Official 1: Yeah, cool, man...let's eat.

food glorious food

Like a great deal of other females in the Western world who have the luxury to worry about things like this, I am trying to lose weight. .

I am addicted to health magazines which is in itself, very unhealthy. I know a huge amount about nutrition and healthy weight loss (red wine is very very good for you). I know what to eat, when to eat it, which angle I should be in relation to the sun to get the most benefits from buckwheat. I eat very healthily, my real problem is I eat too much of anything.

Especially after a couple of drinks, there is no stopping me. I pertain to not be a dessert person, yet if I try something (especially home-made pecan pie) "just to taste", I will keep "tasting" it, not actually put anything on a plate which makes me feel like I am not eating it and it doesn't count. But because I do that, I end up eating a lot and feeling very very bad and queezy.

I could eat most men I know under the table, bloody wimps.

Then when the Pecan Pie is long forgotten by my fellow guests, I creep into the kitchen like a burglar and pretend to be a good and helpful guest by washing some crockery and then...stealthily... I demolish a little more pecan pie. I felt like Bambi drinking water fearing the predators. I quickly rushed past them, to go upstairs, trying not to chomp with squirrel-like cheeks.

This is an adult dinner party for adults, what the hell am I doing here? I tricked someone again into thinking I was a grown up...again.(I missed a plane, had my passport stolen and was threatened by my gym for a missed payment all in the space of 4 weeks) This is a gratuitous picture of pecan pie:

Every month, I have an obsession with a certain food item. This month, it is roasted red peppers stuffed with anything I can get my hands on. Once, I put a small layer of mozzarella and then made an omelette mix with loads of herbs, chillies and pepper and poured it into the pepper and roasted it for 30 minutes, sort of like an omelette in an edible cup.

This month, I am eating spiced lentils, much to the horror of those around me. I was in the tube, to avoid anything escaping, I had to clench so hard, I was trembling with the effort, looked like I was having some sort of fit. Worst comes to worst, I attempt a controlled exit of gently flowing air and walk away like an experience shop lifter, without a care in the world. The following picture is entitled Lentils midair.

Wasn't me, honest.

I have also been known to eat a whole ball of Mozzarella with my hands, straight from the fridge, I bit into like an apple, my teeth sinking into that soft fleshy piece of heaven in my hand, the flavours penetrating my mouth, then I close my eyes and I am no longer in South London. I am in Sicily, I can smell the olive groves, the Chianti tantalising my greedy nostrils...

...then I hear Keith from downstairs playing the yellow polker dot bikini song. Merda.

Bus Boy

                                             "My mother used to take me on buses so that I would become immune to the germs of the common people"

Brian Micklethwait 2005

Celebrity Big Brother

Endemol, the company whose name conjures up images of medicine inserted rectally to cure piles (quite fitting), has done it again. Celebrity Big brother is back with the usual group of people hoping to revive something in their lives, make a bit of money and be on telly.

Peter Bazalgette is the Chairman of Endemol Uk and newly appointed Creative Director of Endemol UK and he is a very clever and successful man. I may not have the same taste as him but I admire him for being able to find highly lucrative formula that seems to work every time.

I was walking past Victoria Embankement the other day and saw a memorial for Joseph Bazalgette 1819-1891. He was Chief Engineer for the London Metropolitan Board of works and between 1856-1889 built, amongst other things, the Victoria Embankement and London's entire sewer system. The sewer system was so effective, it helped prevent Cholera outbreaks that other cities had to cope with. This is not a very common name so I did some research and found Joseph Bazalgette was in fact Peter's Bazalgette's ancestor.

So, in effect, it seems that the distribution of crap seems to run in the family

This celebrity Big Brother is yet another plop in the toilet water that is reality television. This is voyeurism for the lazy, except REAL voyeurs, the peeping Toms and Peering Pams of this world, get to see people when they don't know they are being watched, twitching curtains, the illicit nipple here, the clandestine spot-squeezing there (not that I know, I've just heard...).

These individuals are being voyeurees, quite happily relinquishing their privacy and they obviously know there is a camera nearly up every orifice, so they do not behave naturally, they behave like people pretending to behave naturally.

                                                           

This time we've got a young geezer from Busted (a boy band, I didn't know who he was either), a dj, Germaine Greer, an attractive but weary looking actor, Caprice (the model who sounds like a Toyota), Brigitte Nielsen (former model and ex-wife of Sly Stallone) and John McCririck, side-burns, eccentric, silly hats, lots of bling and television friendly anti-social behaviour.

Oh Germaine, Warwick university not paying you enough? Run out of bras? Things must be bad love.

The Swan

I saw this program the other day on one of the Sky channels called The Swan. I'm afraid I watched all three episodes back to back. It was horrifying and fascinating, like open heart surgery and the number of dust mites in your pillow you try to ignore when you go to sleep.

This program took 12 women deemed ordinary and transformed them from the proverbial ugly duckling to a swan. This involves physical and emotional transformation and many women had serious depression and hard lives that were suitably dramatic. The Swan is the fairy godmother that will take them to the ball. The team includes plastic surgeons, a dentist, a food coach, personal trainer, arse wiper and bogey picker. They have a tailor-made program created and are not allowed mirrors for the whole period, in case they see themselves after surgery and leg it.

Many of these women had huge problems with self-esteem which were worsened by the fact that there was a pageant at the end of the show for only a few were chosen just to add insult to obscenity.

The program asks you:

"Are you ready to take the amazing journey from wallflower to beauty queen? You can be among 12 women who will discover what it's like to walk into a room, have all eyes on you and for the first time in your life, command attention with dignity, poise and beauty."

Can anyone feel their dinner slowly creeping up, sickly acids burning their throat with maybe a hint of retching? I can.

Then after 3 months away from their families, after the Swan  program, they look different. They are shoved into sparkly dresses, hair and make-up to rivial the keenest tranny in town and photographed a lot. Here are some more before and afters, some attractive women who did not need surgery feature particulrly Patti C who looks like a model anyway but because mild neurosis and ageing anxiety, she wanted to be nipped and tucked because she had younger partner and wanted to feel as young as his friends. Some of these women look older, some better and some can't move their upper lip.

Of course they only chose those women who weren't too fat and those who had so-called obvious flaws that were easy to correct in order to have the most visual impact so we can all gasp in our sofas when they all emerge with a tweaked nose and bigger boobs and stand dramatically in front of mirror before it is unveiled.

The plastic surgeons are very smug, they know that we know that they know, all this is down to them and who can make the closest thing to Barbie.

Maybe the producer, Nely Galan, who calls herself the 'Swan coach', should be cooped up for few months and undergo tailor-made program to convince herself she should live in a shoe-making, buckwheat-eating, facial-hair-wearing commune in France and never ever leave. Now that would be worth watching.

The male sat next to me as I watched said (and this is normally an intelligent person) "I'd like to shake the hand of the surgeon who made those breasts". I inquired whether he really liked the fakeness, the caricature that those immobile, stretched roasted volleyballs represented and answered "yes". Fair dos.

The presenter is so embarrassingly insincere, it made my eyes water with disbelief. Her I-understand-what-you're-going-through expression looked like she had sporadic bouts of mild lady-like constipation. Maybe a few acting classes are in order for the lovely Amanda Byram.

Dr. Nolan Karp, an associate professor of plastic surgery at New York University School of Medicine in New York City explained that although this program is in effect a showcase for what plastic surgery can achieve,  " a lot of the result is not related to the surgery. A lot of the results in many cases are related to the dental work, to the grooming. Some of these shows sequester people for two months and give them a special diet and get them trainers and buy them new clothes."

I became an awful, unthinkable thing that I vowed never to become: a sad statistic in the cut throat world of reality TV viewing figures.

Victims are remembered in Kuala Lumpur

Since boxing day, we have seen pictures of communities being destroyed. I won't forget the image I saw of mother running towards her children in the sea as everyone was running away from it. We will never forget this indescribably brutal manifestation of nature at its worst.

Global aid has now risen to nearly £1bn, Japan has donated £260M and the US has increased its pledge to £180M and more is sure to come from personal contributors within each country as well material donations. Despite this, Paul Reynolds (BBC foreign affairs correspondant) is worried that

When natural disasters strike these days, the international response tends to be the same - immediate interest, immediate help but long term neglect.

There was an earthquake in Iran last year and survivors are still living in shelters.

This cannot happen here, the sheer scale of the disaster leaves no option other than to start rebuilding communities and lives as soon as possible. Bill Clinton suggested that countries should take responsibility of one or two countries to avoid duplication. Joe Egeland, the UN disaster co-ordinator wonders why certain countries are so stingy and declares this to be the worse natural disaster ever.

The next few days are critical due to the waterborne diseases and flash floods that will elevate the death toll as an indirect consequences to the Tsunami. We cannot imagine the grief and loss felt by people who have lost a brother, sister, friend or parent. Hopefully, by this time next year on the first day of 2006, we will see some very different pictures.

Ceasescu's legacy

Being Romanian, I took particular interest in this. Every year, the death of Romania's former dictator, Nicolae Ceaucescu's death is mourned by his former supporters. He and his wife were executed by firing squad in Christmas day 1989 following the so-called revolution.

Maybe they were blind to the perverse destruction he caused and the lives he ruined. Maybe they have no idea that some of his extended family are allegedly living in mansions in LA somewhere and large amounts are hidden away in some convenient account in Switzerland in a bank run by a rotund man with an immaculately cut suit and a glint in his eye.

Maybe they did not realise the extent of corruption created during those 40 years of Communism that severly interfered with the economy and people's lives. On a daily basis, everyone from doctors to train ticket sellers had to be bribed in order to provide an adequate service.

The dwelling of a self-obsessed megalomaniac

An image of revolution    

Ceausescu's Government were the people who decided what sort of equality was to go to whom. His non-sensical Stalinist       ideals only applied to people he didn't know. His friends, family and party members lived in the palaces, villas, ate and drank  the very Western products they prohibited for the people. It is hard for me to comprehend this mourning, when my parents lived such hard lives and fled with great difficulty with a small child and worked as soon as they arrived in the UK.

The Paris of the East   and remnants   

Fifteen years after his death, some people still miss the days when the state was your God, things were in place and very little had to be done. Things are slowly changing and independance is a strange concept to people who were dependant for so long. In any sort of period of change, there will always be people who wish it hadn't.

To those, may I recommend a summer holiday to Cuba or a short city break to Pyonyang?