Nixta Sinks

My colleague, the diminutive Mohammad Ghayouba (aka Mini Mo) has an odd selection of acquaintances. From his friend who sits on a couch and eats pizza surrounded by empty boxes and bits of food, and wipes the fat off his whole roast chickens on the wall behind his armchair, to his chum that will buy my nearly new phone to sell to third world countries, or this other geezer who can arrange to have my packages couriered around the world in exchange for soiled panties, he maintains a veritable asylum of close comerades. He also has some excellent stories, including the one from the north involving a town built around curious cheese and chicken greasy takeouts called Parmezans - I forget the name (much like that flooded netherland that I've found out is New Orleans) but they were a staple diet and resulted in an urban area of fat sweaty car thieves (oh, like New Orleans again, I suppose).

Today he turned to me and recounted a recent conversation he'd had with a friend of his who had discovered the wonders of World History. To him it was summarised as:

Cavemen, Romans, Pirates, The English.

Colonel Frosties was once famously set upon by some Denver bitch-hound (or was she Australian - as I mentioned it's a long and patchy memory that I'm blessed with) who took offense at the colonel's interest in World History by berating him in screeching tones for the next 30 minutes that there is no such studiable field as World History and he's a punk bitch of an arsehole for presuming to be interested in it. Of course, he's a historian by education and so probably there is such a thing, and she was a stupid scrawny cow, but it was one hell of a screaming-to she gave him. Probably accelerated his receding hairline and consequent decline into drugs and bleaching his hair. Better than TV though for a good half hour's entertainment. [The astute of you may notice that I've finally given up writing "an historian", I'm getting old and giving up]

So, you see, forgetting the names of towns that are utter disasters is a common theme with me. Also, I'm wondering whether I should relinquish Colonel F's storage rights on my thrashed hard-drives because the bastard has released Beta 2 of Frosties Mk 2 on some other host, without even the common decency to let me know. There are unspoken rules of hosting for friends, much like the unspoken rules of hiring friends, and this one has, I think, been breached. Now, the little pox CF has in the past often berated me for threatening to remove his storage on account of uploading 2.3Gb of pirated software for his friends to download from my server (itself a federal offense), but this latest escapade takes the pissed-upon biscuit. Such underhand skullduggery will not stand.

And neither would half the people in Asylum on Thursday evening had they not been supplied with poles and chairs to lean against. It was good drunken viewing on the way home from Egham, the nice enough townlet by the M25, where I met Farty Bowels at the Runnymede Hotel & Spa for a quick bite to eat, a beer, and 3 Bloody Marys. With great fortune and English service we purloined a table outside where I could smoke (it's a spa, remember), and I managed half a pack of fags before they even took my order, but the highlight of the night was without doubt the Tommy Cooper cabbie who began the journey with a falsetto operetta, followed by the invitation of a critique. In the 4 minutes it took to deliver me to my destination he congratulated me on my spontaneous humour, berated me for my racist dialogue (his dirty mind, not mine), picked my brain on the effects of out-sourcing software projects to India, and advised me of the fare from station to spa during rush-hour should I wish to fabricate an expense.

Now, back to New Orleans, which will by all accounts have to be rebuilt once more as New New Orleans. Perhaps Post-Modern Orleans, a cunningly woven reference to the posts it will have to be built on. National Guards complain that blocking the breach from the lake to the North of the city is like dropping sandbags into a black hole. I imagine they have little experience of that, but I'll let that go since they're under a lot of strain right now. Why don't they blow a drainage channel from the lake into the gulf? I mean, the city is trapped between a lake and a river, both of which must be above sea level. It seems obvious that the only way to drain water is to let it into the sea. It's a fucking stupid idea to build a city below the level of two major waterways in the first place, but since they have and they can't stem the flow, why not get rid of the water and just get on with it? What a shit place to be in. The place is flooded. People have died and more people are dying. Try to rescue them and you get shot at. That didn't even happen in Indonesia until they'd at least dumped the corpses into containers. It's small wonder those bastards feel they need to blow us up. But they needn't even bother; we can do it ourselves (I can say "we" - I have a green card).

The only good thing that might come out of all this is that the child-president Bush might get a talking to. Impeachment's frankly too good for that shit. A public gallery at Guantanamo with stocks and free rotting fruit for all visitors would be a start, particularly if the inmates could take turns buggering him whilst he got pelted from the gallery. I've heard the stories: you can't blame this one on Bush, there are more important things to deal with, blah blah blah. Of course: Get on with rescue and recovery and then cleanup, but let others get on with making sure that Bush gets his just desserts. Refusing to sign the Kyoto Treaty, reducing public allocations for modernisation and modification of the levies (guess why), doing nothing to reduce or even stabilise the poverty divide, raising funds for the republican party as Katrina was tearing a southern predominantly empoverished black state to pieces, not to mention steadily diminishing the US' financial standing in the world. Sly old Castro is sending medics (one up on the US). CNN's staunchest Bush supporters are finding their hands tied, and admitting as much. It's a wonderful day, but let's not pussy-foot around. Go for the jugular, boys, and keep going. Since I wrote that, Colin Powell has joined the criticism, and Bush has asked for post 9-11 unity. Ha! You mean post 9-11 back-patting for you? Piss off.

Watching the news on TV for the first time in a week, New Orleans is an anormous stagnangt oil-slick. Surely the place will all catch fire and blow up shortly, just like a Mel Gibson film. Maybe Hollywood can pour money into the relief effort in exchange for filling an "epic" there.

It's been proposed by Dr. R. that link blogs are on the down and out, and who am I to disagree. I've only got a Masters, itself cheated out of the system by dint of a spoon-feeding of education that sent me sailing (albeit in a roundabout manner) into a fine institution that felt it taxed its students so terribly during the course of a batchelor of arts honours degree that it ought to hand out a masters a couple of years later just for fun. Dr. R. on the other hand is, well, a doctor. So, I shan't link to things here, but rather just spout and rant in my usual manner.

And another thing, why are short curly-haired big-nosed people Jewish? But seriously, the estimable and yet inestimable Mr. Amoral recently considered the virtues of Wikipaedia, rational argument, and the concession of Israeli terrorism with such great ability that I felt it impossible to accept one single point of his argument without accepting them all, and equally impossible to refute at least a couple of his points. Consequently, I felt rather warm and comforted at a) the fine balance of the world and its tendency towards neutrality and b) the ability of Wikipaedia to succeed where Slashdot merely flounders. It is my intention to force through such neutrality and, if you like, cowardice of ultimate opinion a Wiki page on myself. It may take the rest of my natural life, and in all likelihood may have to be achieved by my offspring, but I hope to do so one day. It will, no doubt, involve a carefully honed plan based around my father, Tom Sharpe, Renos Loizou and possibly my brother once he realises how to really take advantage of ICC membership as a developing cricket nation when combined with his role as treasurer. And Metaxa, which brings me nicely onto my next point.

Who the fuck was Hunter S. Thompson? That's the question I put to myself embarassingly recently. I should point out in my defense that I have a terrible memory for names and an even worse memory for the names of the famous. I also have a ridiculous inability to recall even the most interesting moments of my own life, let alone those I read in Gawker, the broadsheets, Fleshbot and ESPN magazine. So it was that Dani slapped me about the head with a book whilst on holiday and said "You're reading too damned fast and you're going to run out of books before the holiday's over! What are you going to do then? Eh? You stupid shit. You'll be bored senseless." She left the room in a huff to smoke a pack of George Karelios cigarettes on our neighbour's roof and pull faces at Damien the baby that our other neighbours (who were sitting on our roof) had stationed overlooking and overscreaming us. I picked up the book and noticed on the front cover an elegant old man dressed in linen pants, a tuxedo shirt, smoking a cigarette in a holder and leaning against a red classic car with Colorado plates on which was perched a glass of what could only be scotch. Who is this dapper man, I asked myself, and realised I was looking at a portrait of Hunter S. Thompson. In the background stood a mysterious woman looking pissed off at being alive and at being forced to wear a dress the same colour as the car. So I started reading. These were sports journals for ESPN magazine remember, but they read more like the hallucinogenic ramblings of an overactive and great mind who looked down on the world as a plaything to do with as he pleased through a variable thickness haze of booze and fags. Politics, Gambling, Human Trade and Sean Penn seemed to be the fabric of his writing, and much finer fabric they make than you might think. I resolved at once to change my name to Stabbing P. Haddock and drink metaxa morning noon and night in front of the TV, trading monopoly money with myself in exchange for coloured socks. It's not gone too well, but it hasn't gone too badly. I'm certainly winning the trading war with myself, but I'm out any number of socks. I have however developed the ability to look at children in restaurants and scream "Get away from me, you freaks!".

Neatly this brings me onto a new game which I'm sure is old to everyone else. I'm going to publish phrases with missing punctuation. It'll be like a colouring book, but instead of crayons one has a cardboard box of commas, apostrophes, semi-colons, sphincters and full stops from which to select a single one for application. Not yet sure how the sphincters fit in, but I feel they need to be included. "I did you bitch!" is my first example. Without much thought and a single comma one can certainly invent two sentences. "I did you, bitch!" is also a brilliant way to shut up someone you once slept with much along the lines, I feel, of "Get away from me, you freaks!".

And what kind of freaks would build enormous cities below water-level and out of match-sticks? Well, Americans that build their cities below water-level, I would say. It saddens me to see the plight of whatever that sweaty party town is in Louisiana (I refer you to my earlier comment about my poor memory - I seriously can't remember - something about Mardi Gras and Jazz and all-night bars comes to mind, but I still, this far into this side-note, cannot remember the town's name), and the poor idiots that felt they should stay in town, but come on! You just can't do that in America where no-one will ever provide enough support because the whole country's in the middle-east ignoring Twin-Tower-fulls of people being stampeded to death and drowned at the merest whisper. I of course exclude the upper-east coast from the "whole country" collective because, frankly, they're rather not be part of it and they use rocks and solid things to make their houses. Still, they're only just above sea-level, so we'll see when New York and the whole of Long Island is consumed. The I-90 is ground to a halt by a sale at Bloomingdales so there's no chance of a mass exodus under emergency conditions.

I still can't remember the name of the town, and this from a man who's seen Angel Heart 20 times. Yes, it does get shitter each time you see it, but it's still not as shit as St. Louis.

Finally, Masa. Dr. R. booked us all in for a treatment at this upmarket sushi restaurant where the set menu is $350 last weekend. Fortunately he felt that he wouldn't have much companionship during dinner unless he booked us into Bar Masa where the average tab at our frugal table was $120. Unfortunately one can get better sushi and more drink for about a quarter of that. No, less. For about $24, being a fifth. Shit, it was, and not even any mackerel or saba (although it was on the menu, just out of season). As Miss Daisy pointed out, it's a fucking fish. It lives in the sea. It doesn't go out of season. I turned to the waiter and dismissed him moments before her outburst with "No mackerel? Get away from me, you freak! I've never known such terrible service!". I didn't say "Get away from me ,you freak!", but looking at Miss D. I knew there simply wouldn't be time to do so before she began her reasonable-but-likely-to-get-our-food-spat-on objection. Mind you, my comment on the service so early in the meal probably didn't help, though he didn't come back himself. He did start the meal with a marvellous put-down to country bumpkim (note, not blumpkin, but bumpkin) Dr. R with, when asked for some froo-froo drink AND a beer, the retort of "I'm sorry, you can't order both here". Also, the fucking restaurant was so far from the nearest outdoor area that there was no chance in hell of popping out for a fag. The cunts.

In other news, I'm negotiating an apartment. I will be likely sharing with Dr. R., but I'm concerned that I'm not yet ready for single parenthood: the bastard tries to set fire to things that are grossly flammable and valuable. Indoors. And that's before he's even sat down. As I declared to the Rinks at Perry Street (a much better restaurant, since it was chosen by Alice, who has a modicum of a clue) I'm amazed his GF KT has not yet killed him, or rather allowed him to die. I predict that within a week of my care, he will be in a cast and wheelchair and will have lost one of his major internal organs. His brain seems to be gone already, and I don't care if you think it's a muscle, it's an organ round these parts. My money's on his liver.

Barrett has an enormous spleen by the way. That's quite fine, but does rather attract doctors to the sonogram screen.

I'm out.

One of the things one notices in Greece, aside from the enormous nasal protrusions, is the vastly wild and insultingly simplistic conspiracy (or konspirose as it's known there) theories. We were at dinner presented with the offensive theory that (and I've changed names and descriptions to protect the innocent or stupid or pathetic) Bresident Push's administration arranged the destruction of the Double Towers of New Amsterdam to be able to find an excuse to invade Irack and avenge his short fat mother. The Greek opinion of Umerika is very definitely one of the least favourable of all European ones.

Now think about it. It's a fabulous idea, interweaving complex foreign sympathy policies with financial schemes and regeneration (read job-creation) on a scale far larger than any tax breaks or foreign trade embargos, but far too obvious for the subtle cunning mind of Bresident Push and his thrillingly intelligent staff.

No indeed. Had they thought about it at all the konspirose theorists would have realised that the real cunning plot is the Umerikan government's ploy to undermine the world's terrorists with their subsidies to Boeing and McDonnel Douglas to cause their aeroplanes to crash from time to time, outdoing the terrorists with a gentle cumulative effect always keeping them in the shade. The attacks on Umerkia's 51st state's capital, Lundin, just a few weeks ago have already been overshadowed by the careful destruction of a Boeing airliner (with marvellous cunning in Greece itself), killing over twice as many as Lundin's bombers did, and for good measure following it up with the sabotage of an MD-82 over Columbia and bringing the total of dead to many more than the terrorists have managed in the same timespan.

I feel for the so-called terrorists, I really do, because they just can't stay in the news and it must be so very frustrating for them, the poor dears. I mean, they're under so much stress that all they can think of is driving petrol tankers into petrol stations (nothing could be more cunning a ruse), and here we have airplane manufacturers being subsidised by the government to sabotage their own aircraft, thus crowbaring an opening for a few more sales and a few more bollars of income for the hard-working Umerikans, and at the same time encouraging people to fly Umerikan airlines and help keep them from bancruptcy and lack of sales - all fantastic for the Umerikan economy.

So, what's the next step in this long-term frustration tactic? Why, bigger planes of course, and as Umerika develops a growing interest in its acquisition of European states, Airbus - what a coincidence! - develops an even bigger aeroplane, one capable of killing so many more per crash than ever before. Why, the coup-de-grace must surely be blaming the Double Towers and Hectagon attacks on "terrorists". Gives the public the right sense of who the baddies are, and continues to improve the economy of Umerika drastically at the same time. It's so genius, it must surely be the Machiavellian schemes of Bresident Push that are driving it - none other. Now that's a konspirace that might open some Greek eyes.

Give me a break (and no, I don't want a Kit-Kat).

Thanks to all of you who left comments while I was away. I hope that I have now addressed them to your satisfaction, and I must point out that I am very honoured indeed to be a member of The FOEG.

No, I sadly never met the Big-E in person, but the chap pumping his fist in Chapter 2 is a great friend of mine, though sadly he's lost much of his hair now and shortly after the photo was taken they were able to pound the monitor into releasing his arm with only 4 stitches required just below the elbow - a lucky escape really. Many lessons were learnt in monitor manufacture as a result of the expensive subsequent legal case that split Hewlett and Packard so acrimoniously. For a while it seemed that "I" was going to be without it's "BM" too, but an out of court settlement ensured many more years of corrupt incompetence for the world of IT.

Do you have baggages? Leave it on us!

Back from two and a bit wonderful weeks in Oia, Anafi and Athens I find myself working Greek style. Barely, with a fag in my mouth, and covered in olive oil.

From blowing smoke at Michael Douglas to roughing it on 50 threadcount sheets, riding quadbikes to visit old hags in huts outside monasteries to sinking MX5s in volcanic ash, enjoying a fruit platter in Business Class to a 2 hour queue in Athens Airport for a 30 second piece of paper (Athens BA lounge, folks, has no champagne by the way, and BA staff are as Greek - read useless - as Olympic were last year), it was a hoot and a holler.

Our introduction to Athens was the accompanying wonderfully researched sign. Note the red-jacketed, traditionally dressed porter about to break out into a Hassapikos.

Thankfully Greece soared above that for the next 15 days until we got back to Athens when taxis ripped us off, BA tried to screw us over, and the heat and pollution tried to heat-wrap us in floating plastic.

One thing that struck me was this: Are the Greeks really good looking Scots in a tan? They drink uproariously, they dance interconnected and hurledly, they talk loudly, are a very proud people, wear skirts at official functions and play wind instruments made of animal bladders. And just as the Scots detest the English, so the Greeks detest the Turks. Well, most people actually, but particularly the Turks.