Running away from dogs- the FUN way to fitness
Vibrating ab-belt changed my life
I was unamused by the kitten photos
Chat up line- guaranteed results!
My iPod is a glorified herd of cows
You are more likely to die in a car crash than be eaten by a fox
Which Spice Girl would you eat first?
Woman says her best friends are cats
They're making great strides in China
Buddha joke 2
It's not my real ladder- it's my step-ladder Hitchens bellows at students, sobs uncontrollably
Capricorn- beware of falling masonry King of the blogs competition! This training day is as welcome as a cockroach in my salad I'm in love with a wonderful helicopter
Man, that's what I call real coffee
The Campaign for Real Swearing
How would you like to get your hands on my dong?
This "election" in our revolted colonies is essentially a form of treason
Hitchens' double bluff irony impasse
(That last one from Decline and Fall.)
Hunting debate. Vote now!
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ALL PREVIOUS HITCHENS SCHOLARSHIP IS NOW OBSOLETE
Hitchens is now backing Bush again. Last week’s "double-bluff irony feinting manoeuvre" turns out to have been nothing of the kind: it was more ironic even than that.
I called my nephew with the news: "He’s backing Bush, you say? Goats and monkeys, this is even wittier than I had feared! It is too early to say with any confidence what he is talking about –Hitchens scholars will be arguing over this one for years- but it looks as though we are dealing with something more like a triple-bluff ironic pincer movement. It’s bloody clever, whatever it is. One thing is certain: all previous Hitchens scholarship is now obsolete."
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ECONOMICS AND POLITICS
I agree with Abu Hamza- up to a point
The time I punched JK Galbraith
Who was worse: Blair or Hitler?
CELEBRITY NEWS
A Rolex, though ugly, will pay for itself in quim
Colombian death squads dump Kate Moss
50 Cent almost too stupid to speak
Nothing fishy about monster carp says Krugman
MEANINGLESS HOAXES
Correspondence with the Ku Klux Klan
Correspondence with Boris Johnsons
British Airways- I'll show those fucks
Is this a library or a bordello?
TEACHING ENGLISH
Your child is an illiterate cabbage
Like a trouser, yet not a trouser The British Council- at least it's not run by a drunk
Non-academic sub-adult clowning
You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear
No sane man cares about such things
Your daughter is very beautiful, but unfortunately completely stupid
The Dunderheads shall inherit the earth
This is a real pain in the arse
BRITAIN
I'm sick of this country and its stupid taps
The British public are deeply stupid The UK's most successful ethnic group
The man on the Clapham omnibus is a cretin
Reflections on the British drunk
Do you want a punch in the mouth?
How many divisions has Eddie Izzard?
Most of the world’s problems still caused by Britain This country's really gone to hell since we stopped burning papists
Many of my best friends are bishops
Reading, Berkshire, is a dog hole
COLOMBIA
Shut your cake hole, you lunatic
I don't care about human rights that much
That which does not kill you almost kills you
I don't know how much more I can take
VENEZUELA
Dancing on the deck of the Titanic
You toucha my pies, I shoota you head
The pros and cons of domestic violence
Life? Don't talk to me about life
The evil Castro cured my cough
Breast implants out of control
Venezuelan crude is heavy and sour, like the women in High Wycombe
One of those parties that got out of hand
Do you believe everything The Economist tells you?
Don King has lots of good ideas
BLOGGERS
The Instapundit: a master of the bore's craft
Pie attacks on Professor Krugman Eminem, Bin Laden, Tim Blair, etc.
If you don't clear off, I'll set the dogs on you Malkins and Hinderaker: not for an age, but for all time
Instapundit failing the boring man in a pub test
THE GREAT BIG WAR AGAINST TERROR
If you stick your dick in a bees' nest you'll get stung
I am opposed to the hacking off of heads
Iraq- it's all a matter of perspective
Bush pursues terrorist beyond the grave
NORTH KOREA
Kim Jong Il wouldn't do that- it's irrational
If London is still standing in 2020, I'll eat my hat
The time I saw a woman get savaged by a bear
SPORTS JOURNALISM
People who like football should be put in boxes and bulldozed into the sea Please hit our fans with clubs
I love Brazilian Ultimate Fighting
PALESTINE
The time I worked as a film censor in the Gaza Strip
Someone threw a bomb in our garden
It is high time Mr Arafat made up his mind if he is going to live or die
Israel / Palestine- the problem of two men in one trousers
AUSTRALIA
Is it wrong to execute Australians?
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation
LITERATURE
Your severed foot would look good on my coffee table
STUDENT WORK
When you sleep on the "cheap" bed, you will feel it is too bad TRAVEL
Christ were those peasants ugly
TODD MATHERS
MISC
Survey: Britons marginally less unpopular than the French If you like rock music you must be stupid
People now idiots- TV to blame
Goldman Sachs makes billions shorting Goldman Sachs stock
BARRY HUTTON'S POSTS KILLER FACTS! Killer Fact! (Quality of life index) Killer Fact! (British National Party) Killer Fact! (Brazil, World Cup) Killer Fact! (Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Engels)
Killer Fact! (Iraq / foxhunting)
Killer Fact! (Drug abuse in Iran)
Killer Fact! (Saddam Hussein / New York Times)
Killer Fact! (Suicide bombers)
Killer Fact! (Australian women)
Killer Fact! (Cocaine mark-ups)
Killer Fact! (Nobel Prizes by nationality)
Killer Fact! (King Shaka of the Zulus)
Killer Fact! (highest-grossing film in history)
Killer Fact! (Churchill's mother)
Killer Fact! (Fastest growing economies)
Killer Fact! (First English sentence)
Killer Fact! (Wodehouse, Raymond Chandler)
Killer Fact! (Swiss Civil War)
Killer Fact! (Alcohol consumption)
Killer Fact! (Anglo-French Wars)
Killer Fact! (Price of barrels)
Killer Fact! (Top ten warmongers)
Killer Fact! (Karl Marx' uncle)
Killer Fact! (Yuletide murders)
Killer Fact! (Romeo and Juliet)
Killer Fact! (New York Times / Saddam Hussein)
Killer Fact! (The Evil Castro)
CONGRATULATIONS, IT’S AN ULSTER UNIONIST!
Good news from Belfast: an old school friend of mine, who comments in these threads as "Ball Bag", has had an infant, a baby Ulster Unionist (he wanted a boy, but never mind). The child’s name is Michael: Michael Bag. He has his mother’s eyes, and his father's sarcastic expression.
I just hope young Bag doesn’t let us all down by growing up to be a glue-sniffer.
UPDATE: An email arrives from Ball Bag: "He has his mother's nose and his father's hair – the worst of both worlds." (Ball Bag has red hair; not sure what is wrong with Mrs Bag's conk. Either way, it’s too late to do much about it now, I'm afraid. Unless you want to drown it and try again.)
MEET THE ARAFATS
I was sorry to hear that nice Mr Arafat is unwell. I used to be his neighbour when I was working in Gaza. His part of the street was blocked off by an armoured vehicle, a kind of small tank thing, so if you wanted to pop round to borrow some sugar, it was difficult. Most of the ex-pats in Gaza seemed to have spoken to him. I never did, though I saw him several times. Pity- it would have been a great opportunity for him to meet me.
His wife once turned up at the place I worked and gave us a coffee machine, so I’ve always tended to feel that he can’t be all bad. When people are denouncing him for crimes against humanity it often gets overlooked that he gave me a coffee machine.
A charming couple, the Arafats.
DON'T GO TO AUSTRALIA- IT'S DUSTY
My friend Jim Blair points out that right-wing Americans now have their own Canada option: if Kerry wins and there is an exodus of refugees, they can go to Australia, which these days is as right-wing as could be wished.
Well maybe, but I wouldn’t go to Australia, if I were you. It’s very dusty. If you want somewhere right-wing and English-speaking, I’d have thought Singapore would be more your cup of tea. Taxes are lower, and they’ve got some serious law and order going on there. None of that community service nonsense that they have in Australia.
Failing that, the most right-wing government in the hemisphere is probably here in Colombia. They are certainly not squeamish about the right to bear arms, if that is what you’re worried about.
HEGEL- A SWINE BY ANYONE'S STANDARDS
Disturbed to learn that my friend the Virtual Stoa is hanging out with the Hegel crowd. If there are any young people reading this, my advice is to avoid Hegel like a bargepole. According to my old history tutor, Nazism was "racial Hegelianism" and Communism was "economic Hegelianism". If this is true his books should suppressed immediately, before the swine does any more damage.
This one philosopher has caused more destruction than all the terrorists in history combined; he has more crimes on his soul than Attila the Hun. And yet a child as young as six could walk into a public library, borrow some Hegel, and no questions asked. Is it any wonder there's a crime wave?
KILLER FACT!
Today's Killer Fact from Matthew Yglesias. I suspect the explanation is that the Cow States tend to vote Republican, and rural areas have a higher suicide rate than cities. (In the UK the Scottish Highlands have the highest suicide rate).
The most suicidal American state of all, however, is New Mexico, which is a swing state. Suicide Killer Facts available here.
UPDATE: Please don't kill yourself. It's a beautiful world.
HITCHENS’ DOUBLE-BLUFF IRONY IMPASSE
I am a native speaker of English, and I like to think that I am of at least average intelligence. But this endorsement of Kerry by Christopher Hitchens is too much for my little head."There is one's subjective vote, one's objective vote, and one's ironic vote. Subjectively, Bush (and Blair) deserve to be re-elected because they called the enemy by its right name and were determined to confront it. Objectively, Bush deserves to be sacked for his flabbergasting failure to prepare for such an essential confrontation. Subjectively, Kerry should be put in the pillory for his inability to hold up on principle under any kind of pressure. Objectively, his election would compel mainstream and liberal Democrats to get real about Iraq.
What? If I’ve got this right, the subjective votes and the objective votes cancel each other out, but Kerry wins on some kind of ironic level. You would need a fucking PhD in Irony Studies to make any sense of this.
The ironic votes are the endorsements for Kerry that appear in Buchanan's anti-war sheet The American Conservative, and the support for Kerry's pro-war candidacy manifested by those simple folks at MoveOn.org. I can't compete with this sort of thing, but I do think that Bush deserves praise for his implacability, and that Kerry should get his worst private nightmare and have to report for duty."
As luck would have it, my nephew is in the third year of an Ironic Degree at Oxford. He explains: "There are several layers of irony here, most of which you will be too dim to perceive. His endorsement of Bush a few days ago is best interpreted as some kind of sophisticated double-bluff irony feinting manoeuvre, rendering today’s support for Kerry even wittier than it already would have been.
There is no way that Kerry should be elected –indeed, he should be "pilloried" and pelted with fruit. And yet Kerry should be elected, precisely because he doesn't want to be. What we lose in "principles", we gain in irony. Genius.
I’m still trying to decode that bit about Pat Buchanan. I’ll get back to you."
BASEBALL IS IDIOTIC
All the blogs I normally read are suddenly droning on about baseball, I'm not exactly sure why. I suspect that some kind of imbecile tournament is in progress.
I went to a baseball game once; it was hellish. All that happens is that an enormous fat man comes up and hurls a ball at another enormous fat man, who swipes at it with a stick. Sometimes he hits it, sometimes he doesn’t; it is excessively tedious. And they all look so stupid. The outfits they wear seem designed to make them appear as fat and foolish as possible. All professional sportsmen are more or less cretins, of course, but only in baseball do the clothes seem designed to emphasize this. From time to time one of these overfed jabbers would hit the ball, and everyone would run around in circles, as the rules dictate. It bored me to tears, but my students had invited me, so I had to feign interest when this happened. I had the new Flashman in my bag, and was anxious to get on with it, but I didn't want to seem impolite because I was a guest and they had paid for my ticket.
Mercifully, baseball games, like all human phenomena, eventually come to an end; and after an eternity of it, it did indeed cease. As far as I could tell, the fatties of Caracas had triumphed over the fatties of some other town or region, though I could be mistaken.
SPEAKING OF PIM FORTUYN
I think a lot of Americans would have trouble understanding the special Dutch sense in which Fortuyn, a gay sociology professor in favour of legalised drugs, gay marriage and euthanasia, was "an extreme right winger".
TROUBLEMAKER
I forgot to mention that I found the Powerline article via John B. Some of you might know him. He often turns up in my comments section trying to start rows.
I AM RELAXED ABOUT THE HURLING OF CAKES AND PASTRIES
Arrah, sit down on the parliamentary side of your arse for Christ’s sake and don’t be making a public exhibition of yourself. Jesus, there’s always some bloody clown or other kicking up a bloody murder about bloody nothing. (From Ulysses.)
Just spent a couple of hours clicking around on blogs. I see that everyone is absolutely furious as usual. If you read Power Line you might get the impression that they are angry because someone threw pies at Anne Coulter. But this is not the case. They started angry, and then worked backwards from that looking for something to be angry about. Had the pies not been thrown they'd be huffing and puffing about some other piece of nonsense. (One of their readers wrote in arguing that pies are a kind of gateway drug: today they say it with pies and, if appeased, tomorrow with bullets.*)
Last year it was the left who were suffering from pastry rage, when Donald Luskin called for pie attacks on Paul Krugman. No one would be sorrier than I would if Professor Krugman had the misfortune to be struck by a pie. On the other hand, I believe he would survive it, and the US elections could go ahead as planned. Maybe I have a defective outrage gland or something, but I am relaxed about the hurling of cakes and pastries.
*Based on the fact that Pim Fortuyn was attacked with pies a couple of months before someone else shot him. Tip from me: never take seriously any argument based on "the latest evidence from Holland / Scandinavia."
YOU FILTHY ANIMALS
Do any of you filthy animals know how I can turn the left margin into a sidebar? I need the div tag, do I not? These sidebars are a big ugly mystery to me.
I'd be most awfully grateful.
AARGH! PUMPKINS!
Halloween is coming, and the goose is getting fat. And I, being frightened of pumpkins, am starting to sweat and become hysterical. Pumpkins have always terrified me, I think because they are so large. Some girls down the road are organising a Halloween party and asked for help with blowing up the balloons. They weren't going to sleep with me, realistically, however many balloons I blew up, so I sneaked off as soon as their backs were turned. Sneaked off I did, like a low sneaking hound. When I got home I unplugged the phone, in case they should try to summon me back to the balloon-blowing fun. Is it possible that life now consists of this? Of running from gangs of half-mad Colombian balloon-blowers, blowing up balloons as if their lives depended on it, as if it were important? Alas, it is all too possible.
But can you imagine a world without balloons? Just close your eyes for a moment, and try to picture what it would be like. Weird, eh? Everything is so similar. And yet how different everything is! The birds are still singing, the seas are still full of fish. But north, south, east and west, as far as the eye can see, there are no balloons.All changed, changed utterly,
I told my father about this imaginary nightmare world when I phoned him just now. He said I should be grateful I had a job, not whinging about balloons.
A terrible beauty is born.
KILLER FACT!
Only one British Prime Minister has ever been assassinated: Spencer Perceval, during the Napoleonic Wars. He was shot, in the House of Commons, by a man named John Bellingham.
Henry Bellingham, the assassin's great-great-etc. grandson, is now a Conservative Member of Parliament.
UPDATE: By the way, the British public -or at any rate the London mob- seems to have warmly approved of the murder. When John Bellingham was leaving the House of Commons, under arrest, a crowd tried to help him escape.
IF KERRY GOT DEATH THREATS FROM THE GUARDIAN HE'D PROBABLY SOIL HIMSELF
Relax, everyone. Bush is in no danger of being murdered by Guardian readers. I feel pretty confident in saying that. He stands more chance of being eaten alive by a pack of dingoes. Guardian readers don’t even have guns. No one has ever been killed, or even bruised, on the strength of a column in The Guardian.
In England we have a rich comic tradition of calling for people to be shot dead. It’s like an in-joke, but I guess it doesn’t travel too well. Our jokes are like our puddings: no one else has any taste for them. On the bright side, I see that Bush is still up and about and making speeches. That shows real guts. If Kerry got death threats from The Guardian he'd probably soil himself.
THE EDITOR OF THE GUARDIAN SHOULD BE SHOT
I see that The Guardian has written an editorial calling for President Bush to be "shot like a pig". They’ve gone too far this time, those tossers.
I personally would be very upset were anything to happen to the President. In my opinion he is doing an excellent job, and the thought of his getting blown up, poisoned or shot fills me with sadness. God forbid that some enemy of democracy should plunge a knife into him, bash him over the head with a lump of wood, or that he should fall out of a window and break his neck.
Having said that, murdering politicians is as American as apple pie. If Bush does get killed, whether by Guardian readers or anyone else, it will take the number of assassinated Presidents back over 10%
Though obviously I hope and pray that this never happens.
UPDATE:
Take the American Presidents Quiz at Killer-Fact.com
THE JEWS MADE A CLEAN GETAWAY
Bought Handel’s Israel in Egypt. It covers the same sort of ground as Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, and is, in my opinion, just as good. In fact, it starts where Andrew Lloyd Weber left off, with the death of Joseph –"The Ways of Zion do Mourn". Don’t want to spoil the ending for you, but the Jews make a clean getaway, and it all ends happily. Incidentally, if Moses had turned right instead of left, the Jews could have had the oil, and the Arabs would have got the oranges."The Lord is a man of war… Pharaoh's chariots and his host hath He cast into the sea; his chosen captains also are drowned in the Red Sea. The depths have covered them…."
It’s a different approach, but who is to say which is better?
"Shalala Joseph you're doing fine,
You and your dreamcoat ahead of your time."
Here in South America Andrew Lloyd Weber is known for his "sheet music".
KEEPING IT REAL
This is no time for cats. Cats are a substitute for action. Deeds are my cats.
On this site you will find:
Someone has to take a stand.
NO SANE MAN CARES ABOUT SUCH THINGS
Some people in the comments were discussing whether you can end a sentence with a preposition. Of course you can; who says you can’t? Some meddling parson called Robert Lowth made up these rules in the 18th century, but his rules are not true. Otherwise "people worth talking to" must become "people with whom it is worthwhile to talk". You'd need to be a real horse's arse to talk like that. (See Fowler).
And there is no such thing as a split infinitive. "To" is not part of the infinitive, any more than the article is part of a noun. If "to boldly go" is a split infinitive, then "the happy cat" is a split nominative.
No sane man cares about such things.
HE WAS LED FROM THE ARENA DROOLING, WITH HIS LIMBS HANGING OFF
The place I’m staying is having cable TV installed. Now I can bring girls back to my place to watch the Brazilian Ultimate Fighting. They love it, the ladies. You dim the lights, pour her a glass of wine and sit back to watch the stomach-churning violence unfold.
Mn, Ultimate Fighting. It is basically just a brawl, although there are rules: you are not allowed to poke him in the eyes, kick him in the knackers, or bite. But basically it's Liberty Hall. If you wish to elbow a hole in his front teeth, or tug his ears off, you may. You can be as creative as you please. The bout ends when one of the contestants has tapped out, or been pummelled unconscious. He is led from the arena drooling, with his limbs hanging off.
It is difficult to see where they can go from here, how they could possibly make it more violent. Unless they give them weapons, and let them cave each others' heads in with bats and hammers. At least it has settled those arguments about who is hardest, a boxer or a kung-fu man, etc. The champions are all ju-jitsu or wrestling experts. Boxers and karate people never get anywhere because they don't know how to fight on the ground, and after the first few seconds it usually degenerates into a snarling scrap on the floor. It is appalling, really appalling; yet at the same time hugely entertaining. Indeed, it is the only sport I can be bothered to watch.
There is an exciting style of brawling called Brazilian ju-jitsu, which seems to win most of the tournaments. It was developed by the Gracie family- Scottish Brazilians, if you can imagine such a thing. Helio Gracie is in his 80’s now and has dedicated his entire life to beating people up. He has also passed on his ju-jitsu "philosophy" to his vast family, and his dozens of whelps and grand-whelps are also extremely proficient at personal violence. World leaders at it, in fact, since they are in full-time training from the age of about three. One of them, Rickson Gracie, is said to have had over 450 fights without a single defeat, though you could still sneak up and bash him over the head with a shovel, if he wasn't expecting it.
In Russia they have Junior Ultimate Fighting, for children with irresponsible parents.
KILLER FACT!
Ramón Mercader (Trotsky's assassin) died in Havana in 1978, the year that Barry Manilow won a Grammy for Copacabana which, in Barry's opinion, was "north of Havana". (Right now we've got the US elections and the Great Big War Against Terror, so I don't want to spend too long fisking Barry Manilow lyrics from quarter of a century ago. But, for the record, the only thing north of Havana is the ocean. Barry was 4000 miles out in his calculations, yet they gave him the Grammy anyway. I'm still quite bitter about that.)
Mercader got twenty years for the murder, the same sentence that Gavril Princip got for starting World War 1. Barry Manilow remains at liberty.
KILLER FACT!
Went to Trotsky's house this afternoon (it's in Mexico City). This is the desk he was working at when he was murdered.
Killer Fact! Ramón Mercader was a Catalan.
ANOTHER NON-PROBLEM
The Peking Duck is worried about obesity in China. Until a couple of months ago I was a teacher in Hong Kong and can confirm that the younger generation are tubby little brutes, now that they've started eating potatoes, bread and dairy products. A lot of my students used to remind of some rodent I saw on the Discovery Channel that needs to eat its own bodyweight in nuts every few hours.
I confiscated a kid's cheeseburger one day and its mother contacted me and asked would it be OK in future for the fat young weasel to bring snacks to class, or arrive ten minutes late so that he would have time to cram a couple of Triple Cheese Fried Whoppers into his nasty mouth, washed down with a litre of Fanta. She felt it was unreasonable to ask him to last from 4.40pm to 6.00pm without something to tide him over until his dins. I told her that as far as I was concerned he could arrive late if he wished -not at all would have been better- but it was out of the question that he could consume a huge picnic in my class. I was prepared to resign rather than permit such a thing.
But seen in its proper context all this is good news. This is the first generation in history that has the problem of too much to eat, rather than too little. Only a few decades ago 20 million Chinese died in history's worst famine.
Next time I'm in Gaza or Zimbabwe I'm going to say, "You think you've got problems. We're having an Obesity Epidemic."
CALL NO MAN A PERVERT- LOOK INSIDE YOUR OWN HEAD
Is Bill O'Reilly a pervert? Of course he is. So am I, so's everyone. You can find evidence of this kind of thing anywhere you look for it. The falafel / vibrator thing is very far from being my cup of tea, but if that is how he wishes to spend his Saturday afternoons, good luck to him.
I do not wish to defend O'Reilly, who is a complete toad. But this scandal just isn't scandalous, in my opinion. Have you seen some of the things our British Conservatives get up to? It would put you off your breakfast.
LESS ETHNIC CLEANSING, MORE BUS CLEANSING
The Mexican Army has been accused of ethnic cleansing of indigenous people in Chiapas. I don't know about Ethnic Cleansing, but they could do with a bit of Bus Cleansing, in my opinion. The one I travelled on yesterday wasn't fit for swine. (As luck would have it, some of the backpackers on board were swine- but that's not the point.)
The bathroom light was broken, and the air had a fine tang of faintly-scented urine. When you can piss accurately in the pitch black, flying round mountain bends at 60mph, you have nothing more to learn.
The driver had a habit of breaking sharply, propelling my snoring head into the seat in front, in accordance with Newton's 1st law (a body in motion continues in motion unless acted upon by an external force.) I'll stop there -few things are more tiresome than trying to be humorous about other countries' driving habits. I prefer to state plainly that they drive like f***ing idiots, and leave it at that.
Three times soldiers got on. Twice they asked to see my (Hong Kong Chinese) girlfriend's passport, and once they searched her bag. When I offered them my passport they said no, thanks, that won't be necessary. I'm all for racial profiling -I myself have a complete set of racial stereotypes that I believe in profoundly- but what have the Chinese ever done to Mexico? The Japanese couple behind us got loads of grief, too. The Mexicans don't seem to have got the message that the Japanese are now rich and respectable -less likely to cause trouble, in fact, than any other ethnic group.
And to think that just a couple of generations ago they were using our grandparents for live bayonet practice.
CHE GUEVARA (3)
Just to clear up a couple of things. I don’t seriously believe that Che Guevara was a racist. He was from Argentina- this hyper-sensitivity about race is a North American thing. In the south they are much more carefree about tossing racial epithets around. It isn't necessarily evidence of burning ethnic hatred.
It is also worth mentioning that neither Che Guevara nor Winston Churchill was as racist as a guy called Steve, who lives in High Wycombe.
As to whether Che was wholly or partly a slap-head, my research is on-going. Still not certain- if I had been, I’d have run it as a Killer Fact. Churchill was bald, I believe. We did that at school.
Will there ever be another bald Prime Minister, or American President?
SORRY I DIDN´T UPDATE YESTERDAY- I WAS IN JAIL
If you are Chinese you do not need a visa to visit Mexico. They changed the law on September 18th, but apparently haven't got round to telling their immigration officers. I tried to cross into Guatemala with my Chinese girlfriend and they told her she was "an undocumented".
At this point I didn't want to continue into Guatemala because if they refused to let her in, and the Mexicans refused to let her back in, she would have to spend the rest of her life in the 4km strip between the border posts*. We tried to go back into Mexico, but were hauled off the bus about 10km from the border and spent the night in a cell. I took a photo, to show you the unbelievable filth, but they confiscated my camera.
*This happened to a friend. He left Mexico for Belize, but Belize wouldn't let him in. His Mexican visa was single-entry, so they wouldn't allow him back since technically he had left the country. He sat down in the middle of the road to starve to death, then a nun came up and asked him what was occurring. When she grasped what was going on, she started screaming at the Mexican officials calling them inhuman beasts, a disgrace to Mexico, etc., and eventually they condescended to let him back in, saying that they hoped he had learned his lesson.
CRAPPING OUT OF THE WINDOW ONTO A PILE OF PEACHES- THAT'S COMMUNISM
Brad Delong, Matthew Yglesias, Armed Liberal and others have been having a discussion about whether Che Guevara can be considered a hero. Here is the hero in his own words:During the night I had a bad case of the runs and, being ashamed to leave a souvenir in the pot under my bed, I climbed out on to the window ledge and gave up all of my pain to the night and blackness beyond. The next morning I looked out to see the effect and saw that two metres below lay a big sheet of tin where they were sun-drying their peaches; the added spectacle was impressive.
Sorry, but I see nothing heroic in sticking one's arse out the window and letting drive onto a pile of fruit. I would never do that- but then, I'm not a communist.
(From The Motorcycle Diaries)
CREEPING VENOM'D THINGS
Sorry I haven't updated. I've been in the rain forest on the Mexican-Guatemalan border, and they don't have many internets. They don't even have salad dressing- it's barbaric.
All they've got is dengue, and creeping venom'd things. And something you find all over the third world: teenage half-wits with machine guns. I hate that.
Right now I'm in San Cristóbal de Las Casas, in Chiapas. It was one of the towns that got overrun by the Zapatistas in 1994. I've been setting up secret Branch Davidian compounds in the jungle. For when the trouble starts.
Anyway, the point I'm making is that I'm not dead, otherwise I wouldn't be attempting to update this blog.
THERE IS SHOUTING IN THE STREET
There is shouting in the street. I think someone is getting mugged. I would like to go down and help, but I can’t, because I’m wearing my best trousers.
UPDATE! Come to think of it, this shirt wasn’t cheap, either. Got it in Hong Kong.
WIDOW-HUGGER BUSH
I have moved the Bush post. Going to try not to let this blog get polluted by the US election.
(More Killer Facts and other things in the archives.)
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