Far-Eastenders!

"You begin reclassifying your life into "that will make a good blog entry" or "that won't make a good blog entry". Suddenly your life isn't your own anymore."

Writer Douglas Coupland, explaining why he doesn't blog.

Reading FMC's current post 'Bitch Fight!' suddenly jolted my memory back to an event sometime last week that took me so by surprise that I instantly said "That's going in my blog". Sorry Mr Coupland, I don't have your willpower. Now, this instance is not as big or as bad as FMC's but judging purely by the nature of my previous experiences in Sinless City it caught me a little off-guard...

Whilst walking along the riverside bars with a friend, checking out which dodgy overpriced nightspot we were going to weasel our way into, we decided to join a queue behind two attractive young women of Chinese origin. No, they were not our motivation - it's hardly an unusual sight here - it was the lure of cheap(er) drinks. We didn't hang around long, though, as 30 seconds later (and with no hint of a warning) the one girl turned around to the other and screamed at the top of her lungs (in a suspiciously cock-er-nee Eastenders fashion) "LET'S 'AVE IT!!". Girl two scarpered pretty sharpish, and we weren't far behind to be honest...

Now, okay - nothing out of the ordinary for many of you I suspect... but unlike my previous home in Yokelbury, UK, the atmosphere over here is generally not like that. And despite western TV and films constant portrayl of Oriental women as the screaming dominatrix type none of the Chinese women I have met have been anywhere near that aggressive. Angry, sure. Loud... almost always. But psycho-like? In retrospect (and sobriety) the occurrence was not actually half as amusing as I thought at the time, but the image of that pretty 5'2" Chinese girl, feet firmly planted, holding her hands out (palms up and gesturing in the 'bring it on' motion), mouth wide open as she bellowed a la football hooligan... that's going to stay with me for some time, believe me!

Cheers m'dears!

Incidentally - this is my actual, real, genuine 100th post. "Oh, huzzah" I hear you mutter. Don't worry about dropping by to congratulate me though, you've already missed the party... we had it a bit early!

My Kingdom for a Restraining Order....

Excuse me, cuntface... yes, that's right. I am talking to you. Look, I can live with the fact that even though I had to queue up for 15 minutes for my cinema ticket you deem it perfectly acceptable to cut in line because your friend just happened to be nearer the front. But little do I realise that you being in front of me is going to have farther-reaching implications...

So now I join the equally monotonous queue for snacks to discover that you are right in front of me again. I ignore your nasally whine as you chat to your companion about all kinds of shit you clearly know nothing about as I figure, "what the hell - she might be thick enough to fall for your smarm, and everyone deserves a chance at love". Yes, even a cynic like me can have a romantic side... More difficult to ignore, however, is the overpowering stench of your fucking awful cheap aftershave which hits the back of my throat so hard that the wait for a measly bottle of overpriced water is almost unbearable... But I keep quiet. After all, who am I to pick on you for your personal choices... and maybe the girl has a deeply impaired sense of smell that you are trying to penetrate as a display of your affection.

However, you shit-for-brains little fuckwit, 5 minutes queueing is ample time to work out what size popcorn and flavour drink you want. You, of course, have now reached the counter and turned around whining "oh, I don't even know" whilst your companion compliments this display with the obligatory "oh, you choose" and twenty people behind me start grinding their teeth. We are all acutely aware that the film (not the programme, the actual film) is due to start in 2 minutes and your dithering, you wankstain, is fucking monumentally unacceptable. So we wait, impatiently, as you eventually empty your wallet to pay for your own bodyweight in popcorn, sweets, drinks and nachos. Now, finally, it's my turn - watch and learn whilst I quickly order my "combo number 2, cola and salted please" and pay with the correct change that I had already taken from my wallet, even though it is now sweaty in my palm having waited so long for you. Thirty seconds later, I'm out...

...of the frying pan and right back into the fire. Because, as fate would have it, I am once more behind you heading into Screen 1. And of course the clever little man you are, armed with such foresight, you have decided to keep your tickets in your wallet, in a pocket that is damn near inaccesible to you because you are now so laden down with several years supply of snacks. This is getting all too much, I think as I hear the last of the adverts die away and notice that the lights inside are begining to dim. I offer to hold something for you... you look at me like I am some kind of serial child rapist. Well, fuck you, that's it, get out of my motherfucking way. No, I will not apologise for the six pieces of popcorn that fall to the ground as I brush past you, since they will be perfectly happy to join the dozens of other pieces that you had managed to drop whilst I was still several feet away.

At last, to my seat, getting comfy, studio logo slowly appearing on the screen... and your by now familiar head bobbing around as you also take your seat... right in front of me. If this had ever been even vaguely amusing it certainly isn't fucking funny anymore. STOP FUCKING TALKING! It's started, you twat! "What, no commercials? I like the commercials" you say to your friend. A desperate struggle erupts deep inside me as the beast within attempts to scream the words "GET HERE FUCKING EARLIER, THEN, AND SAVE US ALL THE HASSLE" into your ear. But this anger quickly gives way to sheer incredulity as out comes the mobile 'phone. I start to pray...

Okay, you are decent enough not to actually talk into it, and the ringtone is on silent... I will credit you with that level of intelligence. But when you text the light comes on - a light usually fairly unobtrusive in the sunshine or under fluorescent tubes but blindingly and distractingly obvious in a darkened cinema. Come on, for fucks sake! You're on a date watching a film that you've paid good money for... who is it that important to text? Or are you gleefully telling your friends that your date hasn't bolted yet!? And are they texting back telling you to stick your knob through the bottom of the popcorn box?

All told you have made this cinema experience one of the most miserable I have ever had. In fact, your one saving grace is that you aren't the woman five rows back who has decided to bring her crying two year old to see X-Men 3. And to her I have only one thing to say. GET A BABYSITTER, BITCH!

Cheers m'dears!

Back to life, Back to surreality...

It's 1am and I'm currently standing in a dodgy nightclub surrounded by transexual whores, pissing around on the free computer to avoid catching the eye of one of the bar-stewards who like to force you into buying a hideously overpriced piss-water drink in order to justify your stay in the 'venue', whilst waiting for my friend to call and tell me where the fuck we are actually going to be meeting...

...just thought you'd quite like to know!

Cheers m'dears!

XX or X-Why?

We are living in a time where more is understood and accepted about gender identity crisis than ever before (although, as in any so-called "minority rights" case we still have a journey ahead of us). Back in the UK I was good friends with a wonderful woman who had been born a man. To be frank, and despite my protestations of being 'right-on', I found it hard when I first met her as she was in a transitionary stage and some days she would arrive to work dressed as a man, others as a woman, but once she entered the final stages of her transformation and settled as a woman it was not even remotely difficult to accept her as such. And for her to have finally done this in her late '50's, having already fathered two now grown up children in a previous marriage, took tremendous courage.

That was not my first experience of meeting a trans-gender person (I know of two before that, but who knows - there may have been more) but it was the first time that I had taken the time to develop a friendship. And now, of course, living in South East Asia (where male-to-female ops are cheap and plentiful) , I regularly see women that used to be men... they can often be spotted as just being too damn perfect looking to have been born that way, although many of them, sadly, end up selling the body that they just bought in order to pay the loans that facilitated their surgery. Despite being able to accept that some people were not born the gender that they feel they are, however, I struggle - a lot - with this...

At seven years old your body is still in the very beginings of development, and so is your mind... not to metion your personality. I know it is a dirty word, but youngsters do go through "phases"... Heterosexuals sometimes have a "gay phase" where they experiment; likewise I know homosexuals who had a "straight phase" in their youth. Hell, I remember questioning my sexuality way back when I was around 12, and my gender frequently through my teens and even my early twenties. But how many of us knew who we were at seven? What if he changes his mind...?

I've been pondering over this story for the better part of a week and still I find I cannot actually articulate why I think that bringing this boy up in this way is any more wrong than bringing him up in the "conventional" way. But it still sits uneasy on me... as always, your input would be greatly appreciated!

Cheers m'dears!

Food, Glorious Food!

Having a lazy (read: hungover) day, cruisin' around the various blogs I link to and making sure I catch up on those further down the list... yes, I must confess that I do not always manage to read all of them every day, so once in a while I will come across something a few days old and wish I'd seen it sooner so I could join in with all the comments. And so, in lieu of actually having anything to say for myself, I have shamelessly raided a couple of other blogs for ideas... so sue me!

First things first, whilst visiting Hungbunny I came across a new food product which I can only describe as jaw-dropping in it's sheer stupidity. I mean, how much of a cunt do you really have to be to buy a pre-prepared ready meal of... beans on fucking toast! As HB himself points out, he is not averse to "white trash food" but if you want beans on toast how hard is it to open a tin of beans, heat them up and toast some bread. This just takes laziness to a whole new dimension...

The other food-related item brought to my attention was picked up over at Emerald Bile, a story about a tuna fish whose scale colourings form a verse from the Koran. With the level of religious fervour surrounding this incident one has to wonder how long it will be before US scientists attempt to genetically modify fish for propoganda purposes... Just imagine the possibilities!

Cheers m'dears!

BBC? Bemused By Cockup...

Over on Thumping The Tub our friend Michael runs regular polls on various topical events. His current open musings ask what we think of the BBC - something I briefly touch on in this ancient post. And the reason I mention that?

Well, it seems that in its efforts to reach out to the common man the BBC has adopted the unusual approach of asking ordinary folk for expert opinions. For example, in debating the pros and cons of the Apple .v. Apple case BBC 24 opted to seek out the views of... a cabbie. Well, I suppose anyone who has travelled in a London cab before will know that the drivers aren't short of an opinion or two...

In this case, however, it was an almighty cock up. The intended interviewee was an expert named Guy Kewney. The bloke brought out on international TV? The cabbie who had come to pick him up after the interview whose name just so happens to also be Guy. Taxi for Auntie Beeb...

But at least the BBC are having a sense of humour about it - you can read the story on their own site, which will also let you watch the baffled driver gamely attempt to answer the questions posed to him...

Cheers m'dears!

Update: It appears that early reports that the Guy (ahem) was a cabbie were incorrect. He was, in fact, at the BBC for a job interview and had assumed that this was all part of the interview process, not realising he was live on air!