Heeeeeeeeeeere’s Johnny!

I don’t know why I randomly thought of this but to this day it still makes me die laughing. 

REEEEEEEEEEED RRUUUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMM

The only thing that would actually would be if it was a kid from Yorkshire saying it.

LGW-DOH-DXB-DOH-LGW

I had the most amazing long weekend in Dubai this last weekend, I think it ranks as my favourite holiday of recent years.  Totally awesome.  Highlights included; a Chevvy Tahoe as a TAXI, Jumeirah beach Hilton ’nuff said, dune bashing, wandering around the city, cruising around the city at high speed, the food, the Polo club….  The list goes on forever and I’ve already filled 12 pages in my travel journal with a day and a bit still to write.  

Downsides: dress codes.

 

قطر

I thought Emirates was a nice airline but Qatar airways is so much nicer.  For one, the air stewardess are like Stepford wives…

Clearing things away….”Oh, thank you.” …… “It’s my pleasure.”

They don’t even slam the overhead lockers when they close them…  And the food…!   Sorry Emirates you’ve just been demoted to my second most favouritist airline EVAH.  Which in turn means that Singapore Airlines is now third and so on and so forth….  That’s the free market for you, have to compete.  Hence why British Airways are at the bottom of my list and digging ever further downwards.  

My airline rankings recognize CHAV airlines i.e. charters.  This includes (amongst others) EasyJet, Thompson, Thomas Cook, Flybe, RyanAir….  The list is longer and would have been even longer still had XL etc not gone bust.

I think I would rather get myself some Icarus wings than fly EasyJet.

So here I am sat in Doha with the URGE to SPLURGE on duty free, but so far I have managed to resist.  

Today is also one of those days when I’m grateful for being able to read Arabic.  Pretty much because the departures boards in the vicinity are only in Arabic…  I’m quite (sorry very much) enjoying watching the other (English) people from the flight stressing over this.

Note to self

Walking around Camden Taaaaaaaarn yesterday made me think of, well, me.  Or rather 14 year old me.  All the (on half term) emo kids walking around thinking that they are so original and all of the general tack that is sold around those parts.  That used to me and that tack was what I wanted/spent money.  But what got to me the most was the things I liked and wanted generally back then.  So 14 year old self this is some advice for you:

• Don’t wear baggy clothes it isn’t good on any level and makes you look bigger than what you actually are.
• Bongs.  They’re just really not that interesting, honestly they’re not.  You can make most things that involve liquid into a bong, get over it.
• The liquid based drug you once ingested, the majority of the effects were generated totally by your own mind and were in no way triggered by this faux “drug.”
• “I never thought I’d die alone, I laughed the loudest who’d have known.”  It rhymes.  It isn’t insightful and nor is it poetry.
• You don’t really want to die when your 27.  No you don’t.  When you hit 21 you’ll appreciate this more.
• Don’t kick against education just because everyone tells you that it’s the best route to a good life.
• Don’t try and find deep meaning in everything, a lot of the time it just isn’t there.
• Get used to the fact that friends come and they go.
• You will lose your virginity whilst your age still ends in “teen” so stop laying awake thinking that you will die a virgin.
• Karma will bite the people that hurt you in the arse, trust me.
• Hang in there and you will find a friend like a brother in a few years.
• You won’t rush out on your 18th birthday and get a tattoo, you will wait for a while like everyone told you to.
• You really don’t want to be a human pin cushion.  Sometimes moderation is key.
• Eventually you will find out that the people that matter actually think that you’re quite cool.
• Don’t be under any illusion that when you reach a certain magical age like 18 that you will stop caring what people think, especially caring what your Mum thinks.
• I’ll be honest with you, smoking can be cool, and can look very cool but it’s not for you.
• Lose weight now it really is easier.
• Stop paying attention to anything in NME, they are awfully pretentious and irritating. 
• One last thing to fully put your mind at ease; you will end up living in London.

Fashun is a pashun

Nothing is worse than traveling at half term and sadly today was unavoidable.  Children everywhere.  Not only this, some little darling had puked up and the seat reservation system wasn’t working AY-GAIN.  So when I get to my nice window/table seat with power outlet the dick sat there on his lap top doesn’t move but tells me essentially tough shit.  What do Virgin think, that a reserve a seat just for fun?!  I might even email them and bitch just to get it out of my system.

It seems from reading Vogue/Glamour that jeans with jean shirt/jacket is in this season.  NYOOOOOOOO.  Other than that there was a celebration of the “British look.”  Which apparently is superior.  Well yes, yes it is.  I have always said/thought that the British are so much more fashionable than Americans.  You don’t see the English wearing Salmon pink Ralph Lauren polo shirts and chinos.  Of course there was photographic evidence of this point.  But we all know it’s true.

I really should learn not to glance at things.  I did that today and thought that someone had grabbed a famine victim and put them in some uber high street fashion.  My bad.

I’m in the process at the moment of having a lecture about what Jews think about death and though I’m always tempted to LOL at anything remotely religious, it’s really interesting.  I never knew it there was such a thing as a female Rabbi.  My bad.  Also that a baby is only seen to be a fully fledged person after it is a month old.  Therefore abortion is permitted  and if a child is born but dies before one month they have a different death ritual.  

Interesting.

thunder only happens when it’s raining

This may be some well known piece of knowledge that has somehow passed me by watching a documentary tonight about dreams highlighted something so interesting.  In an experiment upon cats (that for the recored I disagree with) were scientists removed a part of the brain that causes paralysis whilst dreaming.  The result was that when the cats entered a state of R.E.M. sleep instead of dreaming whilst laying still they were able to act out there dreams as there was no sleep induced paralysis.  Thus it could be observed that cats dreamed involved them acting out things they enjoyed doing whilst awake such as mock hunting etc.

I disagree with animal experimentation and testing as I have already said but having seen this it half confirms my assumptions of the contents of my own dogs dream.  She always barks, growls in her sleep and her legs twitch as if running.  I’ve always assumed she was re-enacting her times everyday running around our garden and the fields around our house as it is (I believe) the highlight of her day and something she greatly enjoys.  Based on this study, all be it in my eye unethical, it would suggest my interpretation of her dreams to be accurate.  Maybe?  

There was also a section about the importance of nightmares in the survival of the human species.  That even from primal man nightmares of being chased by animals and other such situations have featured and that they are useful because they enable a quicker reaction if similar(ish) real life events occur as one has already acted them out in their dreams.  The Professor that had been conducting this research suggested that children have these similar dreams but that adults have adapted them to fit more with the modern world.  As in instead of for example some saber tooth tiger chasing you around there are dreams of house fires, losing wallets or such like.  Interesting stuff.

That’s what’s great about spending time at home, lots of intellectual stimulation!

Also I always end up listening to Radio 4.  There was this particularly interesting programme late the other night that put forward the point that people tend to over sympathize and empathize with victims of atrocities.  The reason for this was that within the purportrators of the ‘evil’ act we see aspects and characteristics of ourselves.  Therefore by overcompensating in terms of sympathy with the victim one is able to distance themselves from  the purportrator.  

To redress the balance of the world here is a camel toe:

Our scars have the power to remind us that the past was real.

365

I’ve started a separate blog for my project 365.  Please check it out as I’m not going to be posting many of these images to flickr, I just don’t think they fit there really.

I wouldn’t know about that anyway

I’ve decided to give in (also because I wanted to though) to the whole project 365 thing which is basically taking one picture each day which sums up that day. I don’t plan on boring flickr with it but I thought it would be quite cool to look back over it in a years time. All the usual reasoning of it making you take photos everyday yadda yadda yadda. Anyway it should be an interesting project.

In other news I really can’t believe how bad Modblog has become. To read it now, all it ever contains is really regular pictures of generic piercings, tattoos that are nothing special and endless almost nude pictures of women. Just to cap it all off the commentary is hideous. It’s a witless-not-even-sarcasm that offers nothing but cringe worthy “jokes” and jibes. So why did I come across this blog and even remember it….. Because if you go back to early 2007 and from there go through all of the earlier archives it’s a totally different story.

Before that Shannon Larratt (the creater and owner of BMEzine before it was stolen) was the main (99%) writer. The images were out of this world. Tattoos of quality that defied imagination, equal photographs of men and women to keep everyone happy, informed news on recent developments and boundary pushing in the body modification world. On top of all this the commentary was intelligent, informed, witty, political, always sensitive and immensely likable.

It’s so sad to see such a stunning creation/community as Modblog and BME go so far down the proverbial toilet with no end in sight.  Now there are adverts for BME shop plastered everywhere and pleading for images, videos and written submissions. Needless to say there never used to be a problem with lack of submission.

I suppose in some ways it goes to show how putting heart and soul into something can really make it work and be key to its success. How when this is taken away and the only driving force is money things just are no longer the same. I have gone from checking Modblog in excess of daily to only when I’m really bored, in the hope it might have improved whilst I had been away. It never has and I doubt never will unless it is returned to the true owner, creator and passionate driving force.

I can’t even remember the last time I surfed passed the main BMEzine site.

In other highly irrelevant news, I just watched Home Alone (the first) and it’s still awesome.

she just wanders around unaffected by the winter

I’ve owned this album for a millenia and never really listened to it much as I always listened to Inbetween Dreams.

These songs are awesome…

Sweet.

it started fast but it ends so slow

The most quirky news is blatantly that I’m no longer allowed to drink anything with caffine in it.  Nor am I allowed to eat cheese or chocolate.  Doctors orders innit.

The presentation in a tutorial yesterday was hilariously pro Israel to the point in my mind anyway that it became a bit funny.  However I do admit that it reflects badly on my sense of humor that I started sniggering when the question posed was “how do you know that someone is a Jew?”  

Sadly for me I got surrounded by the jam making – garden party attending – young people condemning – sensible clothes wearing Conservative brigade on the train home.  I understand that there are 4 seats around a table on a Pendolino and that I only bought and reserved one of them.  Ahem.  However this does not mean that I take kindly to people sitting with me, let alone waking me up crunching crisps while I’m sleeping sprawled across a table.

I suppose it was my fault, usually I sit and snarl like a sex pistol so that no one of this nature sits with me.