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!
07/01/2000 - 08/01/2000
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08/01/2024 - 09/01/2024
SOME TRAGEDIES REALLY WRING THE HEART
CNN headline- Tsunamis shatter celebrity holidays.
(Via Mr Brown.)
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THE BRITISH COUNCIL
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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)
KILLER NON-SEQUITUR
-The average American spends more on Doritos in a day than an Indonesian village spends on clean drinking water for children in a decade.
The internet is full of that kind of thing at the moment. Best example wins a Virgin Mary Toast Maker.
-George Bush spends more money polishing his helicopters than the Aid Budget for Africa.
FAMOUS OPENING LINES
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
I have posted a new quiz at Killer-Fact.com. I just want you to relax, and enjoy your quiz.
Of arms and the man I sing.
Man is born free but he is everywhere in chains.
KILLER FACT!
There are no balconies in Romeo and Juliet's "balcony scene". Juliet appears above at a window is all it says in the text.
WRITERS QUIZ
Just posted a quiz about writers over at Killer-Fact.com. I have also buried it in Irish peat, so that it can be enjoyed by future generations.
I wonder if there will still be wars in the future. What do you think?
GIRLFRIEND SAFE, NOT CARRIED OFF BY BIG WAVE
My girlfriend just got back to Hong Kong. She was in Phuket this week, but left a few hours before the tsunami hit. That’s a relief. If she’d been washed away by the sea it would have been a real pain in the arse. I'd have had to start looking around for a new one, which would have cut badly into my tea-drinking time.
HOW TO MAKE A RUM AND POTATO ZINGER
Was global warming a factor in this week's tsunami? What the fuck are you asking me for? You'd be better off talking to the experts, such as former TV weathergirl Ulrika Jonsson. (See tomorrow’s Daily Mirror.)
But I have a question. If the ice caps melt, surely the sea level should go down, since water expands when it freezes, and ice takes up 9% more space than the equivalent amount of water. They have Nobel Prize-winning scientists working on this, so no doubt I have overlooked something stoopid. But what? When ice cubes melt one's Rum and Potato Zinger doesn’t overflow.
How to make a Rum and Potato Zinger:Slice potato, then throw at pedestrian. Pour one part absinthe to two parts Dr Pepper over crushed ice. Sprig of parsley on top, stir in the fried egg, and you have your zinger. Add Rice Crispies to taste. Throw up.
I generally take a glass before bedtime, to help me retch.
EARTHQUAKE FACTS
The most deadly earthquakes of the 20th century:242,000 dead; Tangshan, China; 1976
Earlier earthquakes:
200,000 dead; Nan-Shan, China; 1927
140,000 dead; Messina, Sicily; 1908
140,000 dead; Tokyo, Japan; 1923
110,000 dead; USSR; 1948
100,000 dead; Gansu, China; 1920
70,000 dead; Gansu, China; 1932
67,000 dead; Huaras, Peru; 1970
50,000 dead; Iran; 1990
45,000 dead; Erzncan, Turkey; 19391556 Shanxi, China- 830,000
Worst ever floods:
1737 Calcutta, India- 300,000
1703 Japan- 200,000
1693 Southern Italy- 150,000
1731 Beijing, China- 100,000
1290, Gulf of Chihli, China- 100,0001931 Yellow River, China- 3,700,000
From The Hutchinson Dictionary of World History. A list of Chinese disasters here.
1887 Yellow River, China- 900,000
1939 China- 400,000
1642 Kaifeng, China- 300,000
1969 Shandong Peninsular, China- 200,000
1228 Netherlands- 100,000
A PLAY ABOUT THE BUDGET DEFICIT
I have posted a play over at Killer-Fact.com. It is basically Jane Austen's War and Peace condensed into two minutes to make it more accessible to a modern audience. It can also be read as a satire on the budget deficit.
KILLER QUOTE!
"Prisoner, God has given you good abilities, instead of which you go about the country stealing ducks."
Judge William Arabin.
There is going to be a page for Killer Quotes over at Killer-Fact.com. If you know of any, send them along. You could win your own bodyweight in Tony Parsons novels. To make it as a Killer Quote it must be a. Killer; and, b. Not in the ODQ.
KILLER FACT!
The British murder rate goes up 4.2% over Christmas.
More Yuletide KFs here, but it’s The Independent, so one is obliged to wade through a lot of extraneous matter about starving Africans and third-world debt.
2 DOZ. INFANT JESUS WITH RABBITS
It used to interest me to see the brutal cynicism with which Christian sentiment is exploited. The touts from the Christmas card firms used to come round with their catalogues as early as June. A phrase from one of their invoices sticks in my memory. It was: "2 doz. Infant Jesus with rabbits".
George Orwell, from Bookshop Memories.
NORMBLOG GERAS
I have been profiled by Normblog Geras. A hopeless amateur: there wasn't even a question about my favourite cheese. But since you ask, don't mind admitting that I'm a bit of stilton man.
Before I go, it would mean a lot to me if I could sing you some carols. We wish you a Merry Christmas,
I'm going off now, to slip into something more comfortable. You know how it is.
We wish you a Merry Christmas,
We WISH you a Merry Christmas,
And a "figgy" pudding.
LONDON: THE SOONER THEY BLOW IT UP THE BETTER
I'm back in Blighted. I rose from dreamless hours at 6am, and stepped from the plane into a blast of freezing air. "Bollocks," I said.
Since I got back I've been meaning to write an angry satirical attack on the stupid English and their stupid taps. But no, I thought, it's the season of good cheer, and what would the point? These days I have nothing but goodwill for my half-witted countrymen; and ho, ho, ho to their taps.
I do not extend this seasonal benevolence to Heathrow Airport, however; nor indeed to London. The sooner they blow it up the better, in my opinion. Merry Christmas.
IT'S HO HO HO TIME
Fuck, it's Ho Ho Ho time again. What can I buy my nine-month-old niece? I was going to get her Norm Geras' Marx and Human Nature, but my three-year-old nephew told me that it is "unsound", and that Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky would be easier to chew.
I would welcome your thoughts on this. Not very good with kids.
WHAT WE ARE READING THIS CHRISTMAS
Books published the US. Never buy British books if you can get them in an American edition from Amazon. As well as being cheaper, the quality is much better. British books go brown and fall apart after a couple of years, because the publishers are thieves. It would be helpful if book reviews could tell you when a book was published on cheap acidic paper. Then the stealing toads would have to stop doing it.
Next time I'm at a party and I meet someone in the publishing trade, I'm going to get him in a headlock and push his face into a cake. Then I'll follow him home and leave a roller skate on his drive, in the hope that when he treads on it he will sail through the air and land on his arse. If there are children living nearby I will buy them drum kits. And then, just when he is least expecting it, I'll hurl a nest of bees through his window.
LETTER TO DONALD RUMSFELD
Dear Lucy,
You don't mind if I call you Lucy, do you? It seems ridiculous to go on calling you Mr Donald after all we've been through together. We must keep business and pleasure separate, of course, but outside work I don't see why we can't be on first name terms, however much we hate each other, however much you made me vomit with your suggestions.
I have decided to name our child Shirt, in memory of all the shirts we wore when we were together. Then we can say, "Have you ironed Shirt's shirt?" Or: "Shirt will be starting school next week. We'll have to buy him a shirt." The possibilities are almost endless. Ruining the kid's childhood for the sake of a tiresome non-joke is just your style, I guess. Poor little Shirt. With a father like you he never really stood a chance.
You wicked, wicked man.
Melvin
I sent this about four beheadings ago, and I still haven't had a reply. That's why I'm going public.
KILLER FACT!
Canada is the easiest place in the world to fire an employee, according to the World Bank.
TAKING LIFE SERIOUSLY
There are also the Koufax Awards, but it's restricted to the left, and the very left. Don't vote for anyone who puts a copyright sign at the bottom of their site. That's taking life way too seriously.
No one is going to get rich stealing blog posts.
THE CORINTHIAN SPIRIT
The Asia Weblog Awards have started. Please vote for me: it would be fucking monstrous if any of those other tossers won.
UPDATE! Fuck! I'm up against that Japanese guy.
LETTER TO GREENSPAN
Japan has a new ambassador to London. I sent him an email: Dear Your Excellency,
I saw a flock of live parrots in Costa Rica the other week, and this question has been gnawing at me ever since. His Excellency didn't reply. I didn't want to cause him any loss of face by forcing him to admit that he is ignorant of the ways of parrots, so I wrote to Tony Blair, Dick Cheney and Alan Greenspan -"FAO GREENSPAN, RE: PARROTS". They didn't know either, though Cheney thanked me for my comments.
I am a busy man, so I'll come straight to the point: what do parrots eat? I reckons they eat seeds, but my friend Kevin says he once knew a parrot that only ate sour cream. What does your government think about parrots? I suppose the official line would be that they are uneconomic. Banzai! Banzai! Banzai!
So that's that, then. If Greenspan doesn't know, I guess no one does.
PHILIP LARKIN
Lenin has taken to posting snatches of verse. Two can play at that game:My wife and I have asked a crowd of craps
By Philip Larkin. Whole poem here, if you're interested.
To come and waste their time and ours: perhaps
You'd care to join us? In a pig's arse, friend...
KILLER FACT!
In 1981 the average purity of heroin in the US was 10%. This had risen to 60% by 1993, and is now at about 45%. Over the same period cocaine purity went from just under 60% to peak at just over 80% in 1987, and is now back to about 60%.
This Killer Fact dedicated to Jim Leitzel. (Source: Semana magazine.)
HOW VERY PLEASANT
Ireland is the world's most pleasant place to live, according to The Economist's Quality of Life Index (2005), though if you deduct them a point for their plaintive whinging ballads they drop to 19th, just ahead of Portugal.
The whole index is deeply flawed, in my opinion. It seems to be weighted in favour of lame-o Scando-Canadian-style countries, where no one with any self-respect would live. Yes, yes, they are having the mass literacy and the vonderful social spending; but they are even colder and more depressing than Britain, and any realistic assessment of life there ought to take this into account.
But here, for what it's worth, is what The Economist thinks:1. Ireland
Britain comes 29th, which sounds about right until you realise that this is 22 places behind Iceland. Iceland!- if the editors of The Economist had any faith in their own index they would vote with their feet and move to Reykjavik, in search of the good life. But they don't, because it is plain even to them that their index is tosh. Singapore higher than Hong Kong? Ireland higher than Italy? Denmark higher than the USA? What nonsense is this?
2. Switzerland
3. Norway
4. Luxembourg
5. Sweden
6. Australia
7. Iceland
8. Italy
9. Denmark
10. Spain
11. Singapore
12. Finland
13. USA
14. Canada
15. New Zealand
16. The Netherlands
17. Japan
18. Hong Kong
19. Portugal
20. Austria
Here is my own, far more realistic index:1. Brazil
Others will have their own ideas.
2. Italy
3. Hong Kong
4. France
5. Spain
6= USA / Australia (Might have scored higher, but docked points for the brutish ignorance of their inhabitants.)
8. Holland
9. Germany
10. London (Lost points for the trains, and the fact that the people who live there have the manners of baboons.)
UPDATE! Someone asked if I was referring to Australians or Americans with that "brutish ignorance" remark. I meant both of them, though neither is worse than my own country. The English-speaking peoples are very stoopid, compared to continental Europeans.
WE'VE ONLY JUST BEGUN...
1500 more days of the Bush Presidency, assuming he doesn't choke to death on a snack. 
I'm really going to enjoy the next four years whether he chokes on a snack or not. It's just so damn great to be alive.There may be trouble ahead,
Come on, everyone. Why aren't you joining in?
But while there's music and moonlight,
And love and romance,
Let's face the music and dance...
KILLER FACT!
Luxembourg has both the world's highest alcohol consumption, and the world's highest GDP per capita.
TEACHING ENGLISH= NON-ACADEMIC SUB-ADULT CLOWNING
I went to a language school today, to meet a friend. When I arrived the students were charging up and down the corridors, howling, much as I expected. On the wall was a text. Student A would run to it, try to remember some, then run back to his chum in the classroom, who would write it down. The first team to reproduce the text was the winner.
This particular brand of non-academic sub-adult clowning is called a "running dictation." It sounds foolish and it is foolish, yet it is a standard part of the EFL repertoire. It is supposed to be good because it "practices all four skills" (reading, writing, speaking and listening) which sounds okay in theory, but in practice is absolute tosh. The effort/benefit ratio is enormous; greater even than synchronised swimming.
Nothing can dissuade my colleagues from the view that English is best learnt when the situation in the classroom is a free-for-all, a bun fight or minor riot, with the students all roaring themselves hoarse and looning around with vocabulary glued to their noses. Indeed, it wouldn't occur to them that it could be done in any other way. This nonsense is known as the Communicative Approach. (I myself prefer the Uncommunicative Approach: the teacher shows up, writes some verbs on the board and falls asleep. No one learns anything in either version –that would be too much to hope for- but at least my way you get some peace and quiet.)
Next time I do a running dictation I’m going to use Paradise Lost as the text. That will wipe the smiles off their faces! Or I might just dispense with the text entirely and make them hop up and down the classroom in a sack race, using the desks as an obstacle course. I could get them to chant verbs as well; that might make it more worthwhile.
Yeah, I’ll give them a reading race all right. I’ll make them sorry they were born.
KILLER FACT!
The fastest growing economies next year, according to The Economist's World in 2005:1. Equatorial Guinea 16.0%
I don't know who they think they're kidding with those decimal points. That's what my father does when he's making stuff up. He'll toss a couple of decimal points in, then claim it is based on research at the University of Wisconsin, or some such place.
2= Azerbaijan 14.0%
2= Chad 14.0%
4. Georgia 12.0%
5. Angola 11.9%
6. Iraq 10.3%
7. Sudan 8.3%
8. Algeria 8.2%
9. China 8.1%
10. Kazakhstan 7.9%
Before Google it would have taken several hours in the British Museum Library to refute one of his ludicrous claims.
THE BRITISH COUNCIL- AT LEAST IT’S NOT RUN BY A DRUNK
Just called the British Council to see if they’ll give me a job. The thought of teaching English again fills me with acute suicidal instincts, but I’m running out of money and it’s either that or sell one of my kidneys. The British Council is better than most language schools. It’s run by the UK Foreign Office: all the other places I worked at were run by drunks. They could use this in pamphlets as their "unique selling point." It would be an improvement on “Creating Opportunity for People Worldwide,” which is the current slogan.
And when people ask me what I do I will no longer have to stare at the floor and mutter that I am a teacher "but I do other things as well". I can look them squarely in the eye and say, "I work for the cultural arm of the British Embassy, and if I don't get some respect around here I shall have you all shot."
At least it's not run by a drunk.
The other advantage of working for the British Council is that there are no British Council inspections to put up with: they don't inspect themselves. Other schools have to be "accredited" by the BC, which means that every so often some bearded fuck with a clipboard will appear in your classroom, poking his long nose in. Usually, he wants to see your lesson plan, which I never have, lesson plans being strictly for poofs in my opinion. "Oh," he says, "You don't have a lesson plan," and writes something on his clipboard, deeply shocked by such depravity. When the class is over you get feedback, and he will express disappointment that you aren't using the phonetic alphabet. And do you want to know why I don't use the phonetic alphabet? Because my students couldn't tell the difference between a plosive, a fricative and a poke in the eye with a burnt stick. And if I tried to force them to learn it they would rise up and pelt me with fruit.
In these observations you get criticized if you open your mouth at all. However little you speak, they will tell you that Teacher Talking Time was too high. The kind of lesson the inspectors would enjoy would be for the teacher to sit in silence while the students talk gibberish to each other. Student Talking Time would be 100%, Teacher Talking Time would be zero; the best possible, literally unimprovable, lesson, according to the latest theories. If the teacher wanted to do something to earn his money, he could write things on the board in phonetic alphabets. The students could stare at it uncomprehendingly, and wonder why the teacher was writing in Klingon.
Next time I see one of their inspectors in my class I am going to grab him by the lapels and throw him out with an angry roar. "Leave us alone, you corduroy-clad arsehole. Clear off out of it." But, as I say, inside the British Council I will be safe from them. Who shall inspect the inspectors?
KILLER FACT!
Europe's city populations did not become self-sustaining until the 20th century. Before then city dwellers were wiped out by epidemics faster than they could replace themselves, and had to be topped up by a constant stream of healthy peasants.
(Source: Guns, Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond.)
IF YOU HAVE NOTHING MORE PRESSING TO DO...
...why not visit the World of Simon and his Asia Blog Awards, and nominate me for every category? I've never won an award before- it is my secret sorrow.
We're gonna crush them like weasels.
UPDATE! Alternative categories here:-Best Porn Site Masquerading as a Blog
-Most Anti-Muslim Blog
-Filipino/Malaysian/Singaporean Blogger Most Sensitive to Perceived Slights Against Their Ridiculous Country
-Worst English by Native Mainland Chinese Blogger
-Biggest Copyright Material Thief
-Blogger With the Most Moronic Readers' Comments
KILLER FACT!
"This she-wolf is a reward to my kinsman," is the first known sentence written in English.
AH, WELL
It looks as though I didn't win anything in this year's Weblog Awards, not even best Belgian blog. On the other hand, Robert Kilroy-Silk had several pints of liquid manure emptied over him. They can't take that away from me.
UPDATE! Thinking about it, this attack was horrible. Custard pies are one thing, but liquid pig waste was excessive, in my opinion. I like to think of myself as a moderate.
Even if you approve of the dung, you would presumably balk at a bear trap or live boiling. Where do you draw the line?
FREE MANDELA
Just heard a restaurant playing that song Free Nelson Mandela. Yeah, it's about time they released that poor sod, languishing away down there.
I've a good mind to boycott their grapefruit.
DEATH TO HOLLYWOOD CELEBRITIES
Before I went to sleep the other night I watched a TV show called "Hollywood Celebrities Uncensored." When Bin Laden denounced our "dry, miserable and spiritless materialistic life", I think he was on the right lines, and I have decided to become an Islamic Fundamentalist. If you think about it, it really makes sense.
Would have done it years ago, only beards aren't really me.
More Bin Laden zingers here.
KILLER FACT!
Since the revolution, Russia's leaders have alternated between bald people and normal people in perfect sequence: Lenin was a slap-head, Stalin had hair; Khrushchev was a slap-head, Brezhnev had hair... and so on, right up to Baldy Putin.
What can it all mean?
(Via the drunken student.)
WIPE THAT SMILE OFF YOUR FACE
Anyone who finds the idea of Robert Kilroy Silk drenched with a bucket of liquid dung amusing ought to be ashamed of himself. Mr Silk is doing his best for us under difficult circumstances and does not welcome such dousings.
On the other hand, this way he learns the value of things, and not just the price.
DRAG THEM FROM THEIR HOMES AND SHOOT THEM LIKE DOGS
Sorry to hear that my friend Max Sawicky is having a bad time with comments spam. If you ask me what to do about these spammers, I have nothing to suggest. We could hunt them down and shoot them like dogs, but that would only give them the publicity they crave.
Anyway, I have other fish to fry. As luck would have it, the Nigerian government has just offered me an enormous oil contract and if you send me your bank details I can let you have 5%, or $80,000,000. I can also provide Viagra and Hot Teens should anyone require them.
BBC HOAXED
This sort of thing happens all the time. I myself once appeared on News at Ten, pretending to be the Minister of Transport. Would have got away with it, too, if my beard hadn't fallen off.
NEWS OF A CARJACKING
Two people were murdered, or at least shot, outside my hotel last night. It seems they stopped their car and three men tried to carjack them. The driver and his girlfriend refused to open the doors and were shot several times (I think I heard between 7 and 10 shots). The hotel security guard apparently hid under his desk (not my hotel- the next hotel along.)
I'm in Guatemala City. It's bloody rough. Can't wait to get back to the peace and quiet of Bogota.
UPDATE! Just went to talk to the police. When I finally got to see someone sensible I learnt that the driver, 32 years old, was shot four times in the stomach and is dead; the passenger, a 28 year old woman, was shot once in the stomach and is in hospital; the car, a Mazda sedan, had four bullet holes in it.
This happens between ten and fifteen times a night in the city. Someone gets injured more than half the time, according to the officer. Often you give them the car, but they murder you anyway. On my way out I saw a police recruitment poster: "We are seeking the cream of the cream." Applicants must be 18-25 years old, and at least 1m, 58 tall. The salary is £53 per month: if they didn't take bribes, they'd starve.
The taxi driver kept saying "Here it's horrible." He had been robbed at knife point twice, the traffic police keep extorting money off him, the police take bribes from the gangs to let them operate, his wife had to stop being a journalist because she felt threatened (journalists still get disappeared and murdered, he said.)
Tuscany for me next year.
KILLER FACT!
In 1847 Switzerland had a civil war. It left about 100 people dead: a lower death toll than many football matches.
MORE SWEARING
Or, if you enjoy obscenity for its own sake, stroll over to Yobbo's excellent site. They are Australians down there, so probably not overly fastidious.
Or try the After Grog Blog.
UPDATE! Thinking about it, neither of those two are particularly foul-mouthed. Try this guy, or this guy.
THE CAMPAIGN FOR REAL SWEARING
In the past few days the comments section has degenerated into a kind of low tavern, with everyone cursing like scullions. I don't want to ban swearing altogether because, done skillfully, it can be very funny; but you've got to swear right. To make people laugh it needs to contain some element of surprise, as when Albert Edward, the Prince Wales, was shot by an anarchist and said, "Fuck it, I've taken a bullet." If over-used you quickly run into diminishing marginal returns, and it just sounds coarse and depressing.
UPDATE! Reader "HA HA HA" makes a valid point:thats right its more afective if u wait real qiuet an then yell 'fuck' in someons ear by suprise than if u walk arond muterin 'fuck fuck fuck' all th time.
KILLER FACT!
England has had 31 wars with France.*
*Since the Norman conquest; counting the Hundred Years' War as four separate wars, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars as a single conflict.
(More Killer Facts and other things in the archives.)
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