China ... anti political

This is a simulcast: on the duncanwil and oxbow blogs.

 

We all knew it was going to come but we weren’t sure how it would start. So Steven Spielberg started it by resigning from the post of artistic advisor to the Beijing Olympics. He’s entitled to his opinion of course and on the one hand we have to admire him for taking a stance in the way he has. However, I wonder if this was just a stunt: I wonder if he took the job knowing that he would later use it for political purposes. If this is the case, then shame on Spielberg.

 

I have no particular candle to burn for any country in this respect but I detested the anti Soviet boycott of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Then there was a stupid British politician on BBC Radio 4’s Any Questions programme this week who said that it is impossible to divorce politics from sport. It’s people like her who cause far more problems than they solve. By being unable to divorce sport and politics in her own mind, this woman is clearly saying that anything goes. Moreover, if anyone thinks of any link between China and anything they want to talk about, then the Olympics are fair game to be included in any potential action. This is the sort of mentality that ruined much of the Moscow Olympics and other Olympiads.

 

Everyone is entitled to their opinion and you may fundamentally disagree with what I have said. Consider the honest, jobbing athletes, though. What about the young person who has been training for the last 4, 6, 8 and more years to be at the peak of their condition as they try to win an Olympic medal. These people make personal sacrifices, family and career sacrifices, to get to the Olympics. Do you really think that some poxy politician has the right to get in the way of that? I don’t.

 

Here’s a test for you: where is the Republic of Georgia? Could you pinpoint Georgia on a map without studying the index of an atlas for five minutes. Now, can you find China easily? Whatever you answers, here’s the reason I ask. In 2001 I unearthed a story in Georgia relating to the theft of money from pensioners across many parts of the country: thousands and thousands of pensioners were potentially involved. What happened was the nominees of the then President Shevardnadze whose job it was to hand out monthly pension payments would keep 50%of the pensions for themselves. Imagine someone stealing 50%of your income, let alone your pension. Would that be a serious matter for you? Would you want to take action to stop such thefts? I genuinely believe I was the only Westerner to know about this situation and I told my MP about it: he managed to achieve nothing for the poor pensioners of Georgia. I wrote to the Prime Minister, John Major and didn’t even get a reply. I wrote to the Foreign Office ... nothing. I wrote to Mary Robinson at the United Nations, Oxfam, Amnesty International and many organisations whose details I have now forgotten. I chased this story for a year or more and in the end the extent of my achievement was a copy of a letter from an EU Commissioner who said what I had found was terrible but don’t worry, the EU was watching Georgia.

 

So I failed the pensioners of Georgia despite my best efforts. My point here, though, is this. Substitute China for Georgia in the above story and what difference might it make? I think you know the answer. China is large and growing and an important country economically ... and politically. Ay, there’s the rub: China is a threat to other world powers and so we turn full circle to see why China MUST become a victim in the minds of Spielberg and that stupid British politician on Radio 4. Mia Farrow, a second rate actress from years ago, is also anti China and is attracting a lot of attention for some reason with her ill thought out campaigns.

 

China may be doing something iffy in Sudan but consider the following:

 

What iffy things are the following countries doing and what is Mia Farrow, Steven Spielberg and that stupid British politician doing about it?

 

The UK

The USA

France

Germany

Italy

Australia

Canada

Singapore

Brazil

Russia

Kazakhstan

 

You name any country you like and ask the same question.

 

Of course, two wrongs don’t make a right; so my point is, why are these narrow minded people being so selective in what they choose to make a stand on? The answer is, like my Georgian story, where they can extract most publicity for THEMSELVES.

 

DW

Thailand II

Here are a few observations about my trip to Thailand.

I started out in Bangkok (BKK) then went to Pattaya, back to BKK, then down to Phuket and finally back to BKK.

The Sex Trade

On the plane over I sat next to Steve from Huddersfield who was on his way to Pattaya. He is retired and goes to Pattaya twice a year or so for three weeks a time for sex. He told me unashamedly that he will be spending the next three weeks sleeping with 20 year old girls by night and drinking with them or eating with them by day. He mentioned that he might have a different woman every night or stay with the same woman for two or three nights before moving on to another one. When I told him that I had never been to a Thai bar or a go go bar, he was stunned. I confirmed I had never done it and he asked me why. I told him that I never had the need and don’t anticipate having the need to make such visits.

Steve also told me that he has a girlfriend in Huddersfield who knows where he is going and she puts up with it. I asked him how many of the girls in Pattaya will escape by going to live abroad with a man they meet in a bar and then go back to a hotel room for sex. I was told that hundreds if not thousands of the girls escape in this way. He said he went to a bar one night and found a girl knitting scarves ... her British boyfriend was taking her away from it all and she had heard that it was cold in the UK.

Steve was quite proud of the fact that he can sleep with a 20 year old Thai girl with the figure of a model whereas in the UK he said he got messages from an online dating site from women who looked worse than his mother did when she was 92 years old. Cruel, methinks!

Pattaya

I did go to Pattaya and went into just one bar but since I was not alone I wasn’t assailed by any bar girls. I wouldn’t have engaged with any of them anyway: not my style at all. We were treated to the sight and sound of a Thai trumpet player singing What a Wonderful World in the style of Louis Armstrong: he did very well!

We went for a foot massage this afternoon: a very popular thing to do out here. Being ticklish, the massage got off to a silly start! Then it was OK.

I have to say I was perturbed by the sight of some big and fat and ugly foreign men wandering the streets in search of a girl. I realise that business is business but these men are coming from all over the world to inflict themselves on girls who are probably too desperate to refuse to do the business.

After another night in BKK we went down to Phuket: flying with Thai Air Asia.

Phuket

Phuket is a lovely area with glorious weather and beautiful beaches. We hired a car and that turned out to be a smart move for such a short and busy trip. We stayed at the Secret Cliff Resort that was very nice. Lovely rooms in a glorious setting. There were elephants nearby and I went to take a look at them.

This region is as I have described but then it has been turned into Blackpool on the Andaman Sea. Crowded beaches, kiss me quick hats and restaurants selling pizzas, burgers and other western food. Difficult to find Thai food restaurants and cafes here. Looks like we have done to Southern Thailand what we did to Blackpool and then Spain and the Balearics.

Went to a small temple, sat on a beach ... lovely!

Back to BKK

Was taken to a fantastic local restaurant where they serve food in a fascinating way. Good and wholesome food, too, that is far removed from burgers and pizzas.

A full Thai massage this time ... in spite of anything you might have heard to the contrary, a respectable Thai massage is sex free but no quarter is given! I am not sure I am a fan of a massage in general but I enjoyed the Thai massage and the hour during which I was being pummelled flew by.

Went to the north of BKK to a large and very busy Temple that is a bit like Knock in Ireland and Lourdes in France by the look of it.

Flight Home

Back to Manchester with Etihad Airways via Abu Dhabi. We took off on time and I managed to get myself bulkhead seats on both legs of the journey: loads of leg room!

On the first leg of the journey I sat next to a German couple and her television wouldn’t work. She tried, bless her, to get something to watch and after two hours was given a portable DVD player which was hooked up to the plane’s video system. The woman was aghast when she found that the films were only available in English although she spoke English pretty well. Her partner sat watching his own television with nary a care in the world while she was distressed. I should say he did try to help a bit by hitting his partner's television set with his hand at one point: just like we used to do when the "picture tube" on tellies of old went West! Made no difference of course!!

What do you want to watch I asked as I volunteered to let her plug her earphones into my socket ... I would watch her portable DVD player and she would watch my television ... fully synchronised?! I thought she might want to watch something sensible or slushy or even compromise given the huge favour I was doing her. However, I almost reeled in shock when she chose The Bee Movie: a cartoon type film.

I fell asleep to the Bee Movie and remained asleep for much of the rest of it ... how could she choose such a rubbish film? Didn't even say thank you either.

I got home at 9am on Friday having had a good week.

DW

Thailand

I have just spent a brilliant week and a bit in Thailand ... got to go to the shops now, though, so more later!!

 

How’s that for the world’s best blog entry?

 

DW

Manchester United and the Frances Spencer woman (again)

Now, I’ve made it plain enough over the years ... I am far from being a Manchester United fan. I am also as saddened as the next man over the Munich Air disaster of 1958. However, I’m tired of hearing about it. I’m afraid I am becoming disaster weary.  I have been watching the 1958 disaster tributes for many of those 50 years and appreciate how sad it was, how lucky Bobby Charlton and the other survivors were ... but as time passes, the greatness of the likes of Duncan Edwards seems to get more and more inflated. It was a sad event now let them rest in peace.

 

A bit like that Diana woman: at least everyone can see via that complete waste of an inquest that she died as a result of a car accident AND NOTHING ELSE. The salacious aspects of her life are being given a tawdry airing too and even I think that it’s sad that such a thing has befallen her memory. Don’t speak ill of the dead but she was a good time girl, let’s be honest.

 

DW

BSOD

Remember the acronym BSOD? I suppose a lot of younger people don’t know what the BSOD is: it’s the blue screen of death and that screen was often a multi daily event for many of us before Windows XP came along. Only in extreme conditions did I ever see a BSOD with XP: when I did, my laptop died a thousand deaths.

 

A BSOD was an error message from Windows that told us that a massive and usually unrecoverable error had occurred and that we should take notes and solve the problem being notified. Of course, the screen ALWAYS disappeared well before the shock had worn off and well before we had the chance to make a note of the error ... unless the error kept repeating when we did come to be able to make a note.

 

Why Blue Screen? Well, the background of the screen containing the error message was blue and the colour of the font was white ... it’s still the same with Vista!!!

 

Well, shock horror then when I saw the BSOD with Windows Vista yesterday. Via a memory stick in my printer I was looking at some pics when BSOD descended. I don’t really know why I generated the problem except to say that of course all of the pics on the memory stick were then utterly deleted from human view. And no, I didn’t get the chance to read and inwardly digest what the problem was!!!

 

DW

 

 

Hospital 3 ... some regrets

Let this be a warning to anyone who needs to heed it.

I don’t know the other men in the ward I was in in the hospital this week so forgive me if you think I am being judgemental; but there is a lesson to be learned.

One gentleman got cancer of the larynx and had to have it removed: a major operation and now he cannot speak, he breathes though a hole in the bottom of his throat ... and all because he was a smoker. He regrets being a smoker now that the quality of his life has collapsed so drastically.

The gentleman in the next bed is suffering from severe nose bleeds as a result, they think, of very high blood pressure. He is 40 years old and already his BP is 166/118. He said yesterday that he knows that his high BP has been caused by his excessive drinking. He regrets that now and wishes he didn’t have to have massive cotton wool plugs up his nose, bad sleepless nights and nose bleeds lasting days on end.

I will also mention that some of the nurses were quite young but obese: now, I am middle aged and a bit overweight ... when I was in my 30s I was nowhere near obese and couldn’t contemplate such a situation either. For a nurse to be obese is not a good thing and one day they will regret it if they don’t already.

I got talking to an old chap with very red eyes. He had had two cataract operations. The first one went well and he can see again out of that eye with no problems. On Thursday he had his other cataract removed but for some reason a blood vessel at the back of his eye burst and they sent him to Halifax the same day to be sorted out. They hadn’t put a new lens in the second eye so he needs more surgery. Overnight, from Thursday to Friday, his news improved and as I left him today, Friday, he was quite optimistic. He did tell me for some reason that when he was a lad he learned nothing at school and was always being caned for being the class clown. He said he regretted behaving in such away and given his time over again ...

 

DW

Hospital 2

Here’s one for all you Mystic Megs.

When I was 16 years old I went into hospital in Halifax, the Royal Infirmary it was then, to have a right myringoplasty. Sad to say I never had the thing done because when they got me to the operating theatre they found that the ear was infected and they couldn’t do it. So they would send for me again.

They never sent for me again.

Anyway, about a year ago I started seeing a consultant ENT chappie because the ear was flaring up again and that is why I ended up in The Halifax Royal Hospital this week ... the Halifax General as was.

Now this time, I was supposed to have a major rake out and clear up because of the bad infection I’d got in there: a cholesteatoma and possible mastoid infection ... well, would you believe it, they got me down to the theatre, wired me up, put me to sleep only to find that my infection was just about gone and I only spent around 10 minutes in theatre.

What do you call that!?

 

DW

Hospital Stay

I won’t carp on at the negative but I have to tell you this with the promise of better to come.

So, in the Royal Halifax Hospital, you have to pay to watch the television and listen to the radio: each bed has its own special set. The chap in the next bed didn’t know where to buy the card needed as someone had got his for him. So I set off. I got to a desk where there were three people: a nurse on the phone and two chaps, not on the phone. I stopped and asked the two men where I could find the Pay TV Card Machine and the seated man said,

“I’m a doctor, I don’t know.”

Those were his exact words. He got back to his work and when I looked at the other man, he turned his head away as if I’d asked to borrow his wife or something.

 I found the machine with the help of some helpful and much friendlier women thank you.

 

DW

Shouting on the Archers

I am listening to the omnibus edition of the Archers on BBC Radio 4 and have just heard Ruth shouting “Phil ... Jill ...” as she met them at the airport following their round the world trip.

 

Let me say that I am well into my third decade of globe trotting now and I have NEVER heard anyone shouting like that in the arrivals hall at any airport anywhere in the world!!!

 

DW

A Classic

You know that I am still in the middle of a bit of a dispute with Calderdale Council. Apart from that, though, I wanted to talk to them about setting up a direct debit with them. They had sent me a letter asking me to call them on 0800 245 8000 to do the deed.

 

I called that number the other day but they were busy and put me in a queue so I decided to call them back.

 

Today I called back but the number wouldn't work at all and after about four or five failed attempts I sent them an email saying: tried to call you on 0845 245 8000 but it wouldn't work so what would they suggest ... ?

 

Here's the classic part: they sent me an automated reply that said,

 

Thank you for your e-mail.  The matter will be dealt with and, if a reply is required, the Billing Section will endeavour to get back to you within 5 working days.

 

If you wish to discuss the matter in the interim, then please telephone the Billing Section on Direct line telephone number 0845 245 8000.

 

Can you see the number they have told me to call?

 

I wonder if someone will twig what they have done and I wonder if I really will receive a sensible reply from them.

 

DW

The New Scientist

Every now and again I pick up and read a copy of The New Scientist magazine: it’s filled with lots of fascinating things that even the average non scientist like me can appreciate. This week there are articles on the possible illusion of time: that’s universe time not GMT. I got the feeling that some of the work I do when analysing companies and industries is ahead of these boffs in terms of including or excluding time as a variable!

There’s a fascinating article on the world’s reserves of coal that I will be looking at in my sister blog ... you know where it is ... and an update on how they are using advances in technology to strap ever smaller and lighter cameras to deer and whales and things.

Anyway, an advert really caught my eye more than anything: now I know some boffin can write and tell me all about it, so please do; but is this a spoof?

Imperial College London: NHLI PhD Studentships 2008

Professor TM and Dr BL “The role of Hedgehog Acyltransferase (Hhat) in human Sonic Hedgehog (Shh) Signalling

Here is what I think Sonic the Hedgehog looks like!!!

Source: http://www.armchairempire.com/images/feature-articles/Weekly-Top-10/pub-crawl/sonic-hedgehog.jpg

No offence intended, you boffs!

DW

Down the Line

If your sense of humour is as finely tuned as mine then you must listen to the Radio 4 offering Down the Line. Down the Line is a spoof radio phone in programme that last night was just hilarious.

 

They’ve got Disgusted Tunbridge wells calling in, gay blades, dizzy blondes, perverts, military types, that cheeky chappie the London Cabbie ... the lot.

 

Last night they had a theme running through the programme: a purported professor of physics was in the studio and trying to explain String Theory! Well, String Theory is a serious business for serious physicists and engineers so you can imagine the short shrift it received!

 

Another theme they thrashed around a bit was how Dr Who was becoming more gay. Moreover, how Daleks must be gay ... you never see a girl Dalek do yoiu, after all?!!!

 

It was a riot.

 

DW

The love of music

Just listening to Desert Island Disks on BBC Radio 4 and I thought it was time I gave vent to a thought I have carried around for decades and that resides in the phrase, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Why do some people like some music that I think is not worthy? This week’s castaway was Sir Simon Rattle and whilst none of his choices were rubbish, some of them struck me as very ordinary pieces of music that I would never play twice. One piece was the sort where it seems to me that some of the instruments in the orchestra are a fraction of a second out of kilter with the rest of the orchestra!

Jazz, for example, is a complete mystery to me: the kind that they tend to play on the radio anyway and that old men bop along to. New Orleans Jazz, however, is a different story altogether.

Something that sparked this debate in my mind fairly recently was a programme on Radio 4 that invited people along to talk about a piece of music they couldn’t live without ... or something like that. One week that crumbly hippy Annie Nightingale was on and she chose a piece of music that I feel she cannot possibly like. She is a lot older than me, has never had much musical taste and now she claimed that this music that someone from the 60s or 70s who would wear a pin striped shirt and a waistcoat with jeans would listen to and pretend to like ... in his or her mid sixties.

Just a few thoughts

DW

Brown follows the Blogs ... this one

Well, well, well ... you heard it first here. I told you that I thought that Hain, Osborne and now Cameron (UK politicians) had been incompetent in the way they had reported gifts to their pots of gold and guess who read my blog and came out publicly and agreed with me?

 

None other than Gordon Brown, Prime Minister: he went on national television news yesterday and admitted Hain’s incompetence.

 

I’m waiting for a senior Conservative Party person to come out and agree with me over O & M now. They won’t because they are cowards but they should.

 

THIS is the blog to read, no doubt.

 

DW

What a how d'y'do

The news today has just astonished me

Here we are with our serially incompetent politicians and the hired hand claiming he was the hub of a Royal life.

Peter Hain, that former anti apartheid activist turned senior politician, has proven for the umpteenth time in a year how serially incompetent he is proving to be. He fell foul of the need to record the receipt of financial assistance from someone last year and blow me, he’s done it again. Now, I don’t support any witch hunt against the man for what he’s done because I am prepared to believe that what he did was just as a result of his incompetence and nothing more. So let the opposition clowns look after their own serial incompetent, George Osborne; and leave Hain alone.

Hain’s position is safe with Gordon Brown we are told but what about the rest of us? How many more of these self selecting do gooders can we suffer?

Then I had to guffaw when I saw that the hired hand, Mr Burrell, was a primary “witness” at the inquest into the death of Diana Frances Spencer. As former butler to the woman he shamelessly wrote a book on her and made himself a millionaire. He reports that the Queen used to confide in him and now he claims he was the hub of Diana’s life and that she would pour her heart out to him on little pieces of paper in the evening for him to find as he raked out the fireplace in the morning.

It’s all a chuffing great lark out in the big wide world isn’t it? One question that I am sure I know the answer to but daren’t ask the extent of is who is paying for that monstrous inquest? It will turn out to have been the single biggest waste of public money since goodness knows when. We all know the answer and we have known the answer for ten and a half years now. Diana died as a result of a car smashing into a large concrete pillar in a tunnel in Paris. There were suspicions that some odious people with cameras were chasing her car for their own ends and that they helped to hurry her demise. But these conspiracy theories that have been doing the rounds since August 1997 are just laughable. At least Burrell had the decency to say that these conspiracies should stay where they belong: unwritten and unsaid.

DW

Another word or phrase

I was trying to talk to young Master W on Friday evening but as he wasn’t answering his mobile, my strategy then was to call his girlfriend, the lovely Veronica. She answered and we chatted for a minute or so and then I used a phrase right out of the ark when I asked about her “gentleman caller”. I got that from Coronation Street or some such many years ago. I think it’s a quaint and archaic phrase but I have never been sure which inner messages it contains.

 

Of course, gentleman caller possibly suggests a lie or some intrigue; but I like it and I used it innocently in that context.

 

Haven’t used it before for a long time and Veronica never batted an eye lid when I used it and since she is only 19 years old, I doubt that she’s heard it before!!

 

DW

This is interesting ... well, I am fascinated anyway

My aunty Emma used to use the word walt in the context of turning an ankle: she would say that one had walted one’s ankle.

 

I have used that word ever since which basically makes me only the second person I know who uses this word.

 

Since I am working my way through the Oxford English Dictionary, I thought I’d take a look at whether walt exists in this very context. Lucky for me, it does!

 

Walt in this context was first recorded c1400 as meaning

intr To be thrown down, fall over, be upset or overturned; to totter; to lean to one side.

Where Intr means it’s an intransitive verb

 

DW

 

The longest word in English

Did I ever tell you that the longest word in the English language is

 

Floccinaucinihilipilification

 

There you are then, that’s it and it means The action or habit of estimating as worthless. According to the Oxford English Dictionary this word was first written down in 1741.

 

DW

Car theft ... probably final

My neighbour came round yesterday for a chat and he showed me an article in the Halifax Evening Courier that reveals that in addition to my car being stolen over the Christmas period, around 20 other cars were also stolen in my area of town.

 

The pattern was that older cars like mine were taken for joy riding ...

 

I have received a settlement from my insurance company that won’t offset the cost of replacing my car. To get back to where I really was, I would need to have received a lot more than that. That’s our insurance companies of course. I have now lost my no claims bonus as well as my car.

 

I won’t be replacing my car either since I like older BMWs and will not feed these thieves and their pathetic lifestyles. I will walk and get the bus now. I will hire a car when I need one. Until I am ready, that is, then I will set up a security system on my car that will include the equivalent of the medieval man trap.

 

I also worry about the other people who are suffering now as a result of these stupid and selfish people. Have they also really lost their cars because they can’t afford to replace them. Has any of these unfortunate people suffered mental anguish?

 

I imagine these joy riders are sniggering at the police and victims like me now. They won’t get caught will they, unless they crash their cars and are hurt and/or trapped. Another reason they won’t get caught is because it is illegal for anyone to set up their own CCTV system outside their house if the images would include the public highway... which is where my car was certainly parked.

 

DW

Calderdale Council

A few weeks ago I told you about the astonishing decision to take me to Court as a result of their own inadequacies. I paid my taxes in time but their systems are so woeful that they mislaid my cheque for three weeks. In the meantime, they justified their action to summons me because they couldn’t get my cheque to the bank in time so my account was in arrears.

 

That letter came out in the name of the chief finance officer so I replied and asked whether what he had written was Calderdale Council policy ... i opened his reply on my return home last night to find that ... he completely ignored my questions.

 

He is to hear from me further and so might the local newspaper if he’s not careful.

 

DW