Farewell...

My occasional witterings are being transferred to my old blog site - www.rantingjane.blogspot.com . There is no sense of permanency to a blog title that incorporates a place name, considering my tendency to roam fairly freely about the globe. The title does not sit well with me, has not sat well with me for months, and I've decided that RantingJane is my true home.

Apologies for the long delay since my last post, but everything has been somewhat stressful and manic in my world. I fully intend updating tonight, which in reality means I'll update at some point in the near future...

Farewell, HongKongJane. You've served me well, but all good things must come to an end - hang on, WHY must they? Which idiot came up with that idea? All good things must be held onto, clutched firmly in our sweaty grasp, fought for tooth and nail. Ridiculous.

Ending on a somewhat dramatic quote, given that a blogspot site is merely being closed down,

'Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened.' (Dr Seuss)

Time for dreaming; time for reality

I seem to have passed an inordinate amount of time in recent weeks silently yelling at the world around me. This is obviously a fairly routine part of my existence, but of late I have felt an increasing need to hurl myself at speed toward Lamma's lukewarm sea and float seemingly calmly, the chaos of life blotted out by the reassuring silence of the ocean, throwing silent screams at the heavens above. I've finally concluded that my current need to vent is entirely due to the fact I feel trapped in this city. I've been here for five months, and have another four and a half before I leave (conveniently ignoring my brief foray to Thailand a few months ago) - leave to replace one island with another, as I bob across to Skye off the west coast of Scotland to hide away in an isolated cottage with the two people who, at times, seem to know me better than I know myself.

I don't feel like the person who said on a whim a few months ago that I'd amble across to the other side of the world and get a job. Climate conditions aside, I might as well be in the UK for all I feel I'm achieving here. I don't have the time to visit Asia - the new playground I was planning on frequently venturing to - and my one day off a week affords me the opportunity to do... not very much. I have tedious things like rental contracts and mobile phone contracts and broadband contracts; water bills and electric bills and gas bills. I spend my time thinking that one Ben and Jerry's less is one hour less of work in this cursed city; I turn off lights not to save the poor planet but to slightly lower costs for the month; I rely on the kindness of friends at the yacht club here to get any rowing done affordably. My goal of being in Hong Kong is to save money and I'm damn good at it - but it is unutterably draining working toward a goal that ultimately I disapprove of. I dislike the concept that money makes the world go round, and I'm perpetuating that belief by what I'm doing here, becoming part of the capitalist culture I abhor.

For the record, no, I don't feel as though I'm particularly denying myself anything by having one less ice-cream. I spend money on things that I want to spend money on: most of the time, I have two fresh bunches of flowers brightening my apartment, and if I see a book I want I will buy it without consideration for practicality or cost. Books are not, as someone recently suggested to me, 'dead trees'. They are dead trees brought back to life again; since I don't waste my time reading chick-lit rubbish or similar trash, each of the books I own has had some impact on my thinking, offered a new perspective, developed another philosophy. These books have made me the person I am today, and as such they have earned a place on my shelves. There are few things more comforting than running my eyes over a shelf of well-read and well-loved books; few things more exciting than surveying the endless pages yet to be turned and deciphered. Give me a shack within the sight and sound of the sea, filled with a plethora of books both read and unread, a few potplants arguing for space in corners, and a hammock strung idly through the centre, and I will be content for years.

With that final image in mind, I stay in Hong Kong. Knowing this is a temporary task that must be completed, a mission finished, before I am rewarded by a paradise on earth. I try and ignore that I am tutoring ungrateful students, making not a shadow of difference in their lives - maybe one day, in years to come, they'll look back and remember their slightly eccentric English tutor who told them that money would not buy them happiness and that they should find what makes them feel alive and pursue it with a single-minded devotion, unswayed by the outraged cries of parents' expectations. This whole job is a means to an end, and in two weeks' time I'll be half-way through my year long trial. The first six months have been used to settle into a niche out here, form friendships that I hope will never be broken, learn about myself in ways I hope will never be forgotten; now I need to launch myself at the next six months with a new determination to change the unsatisfactory aspects. I have so much free time I have idly planned trips that see me sailing about the world, cycling about the world, rowing about the world; I have imagined myself wandering from paradisical island to paradisical island, practised climbing palm trees and cracking coconuts a hundred times in my mind; climbed a thousand mountains and slept under a million stars. Now is the time to set those thoughts aside and focus my energies on something productive and somewhat more tangible in my free time. I'll let you know if any of my schemes take off.

'Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars.'

On shopping for a tshirt

Yesterday started out great. I splashed around in dragonboats in the morning - having my first sweet taste of victory (well, we came second to be totally accurate but after being annihilated in the first round it certainly felt like a victory not to come so decisively Last). I ambled toward work with the wonderful knowledge that this would be the last day for a while I'd have to discuss Miller's, 'A View from the Bridge' alongside Dai Sijie's, 'Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamtress' - the GCSE English Literature exam is today, and it didn't come a moment too soon for my sanity.

Anyhow, from the moment I stepped on the ferry to leave Lamma, an island I suddenly felt a great surge of affection for, things went downhill. I wont bore you with the specifics, principally because I can't be bothered to type all the background information to explain why I was quite so angry with the world as I came home, but I do have a rant relevant to the majority of readers...

Shopping. I have the good fortune to be the least materialistic person on the planet (okay, second least, I think my brother warrants the number one spot there) and subsequently Shopping is me entering into a personal hell. When one tshirt falls apart I generally grumble for a while and then set about replacing it with another, and this was on yesterday's agenda. Shopping in Hong Kong adds a further dimension to the nightmare of finding a product: there is so damn much here. If you ask three people where they recommend going for a cheap pair of shoes, the first will suggest Mong Kok and the Ladies' Market up there; the second will dispute this heavily and send you off toward the markets at Stanley, while the third will sigh dramatically and tell you that they're both wrong and the markets in Central will have everything you need. If you make a mistake of asking a fourth, they'll have you across the border into China where prices are as low as they get anywhere in the world.

Although 'good bargain' wasn't necessarily on my mind, I meandered past H&M and saw a particularly acceptable tshirt on display in the window. Not being one for wandering around an entire city and comparing product upon product for days on end, I made a snap decision and entered into the vast store on Queen's Road. A good half hour of marching around that blasted edifice resulted in no tshirt sighting, and this is where I started becoming incensed. I swear some stores put products they don't even offer in their windows in order to lure unsuspecting shoppers in: by not having the product in store, they ensure the potential purchaser has to wander around their entire shop in search of it, the theory presumably being that hopefully they'll get distracted en route by the other 'fantastic' products on offer.

In a thoroughly foul mood, I trudged along to Marks n Sparks and went to the cashier with the product I wished to purchase (okay, we're all friends here, it was a bra. Another one having finally disintegrated recently). Having finally found where I was supposed to queue - and how I hate it when that place isn't immediately obvious - I approached the unsmiling cashier who grabbed said bra from me and practically snatched my credit card from my hand. While punching in God knows what numbers onto her till, she randomly asked me if I'd like to buy some biscuits today. In the first place, how is there any connection between bras and biscuits, and in the second place, if I have the intelligence to choose from their vast array of bras and actually manage to make some degree of selection presumably I have the brain cells required to decide whether or not I want biscuits that day. I hate it when stores do this - WHSmith in the UK is a particularly bad culprit - and try to push some utterly random product onto you at the last moment. Unlike the majority of the population, apparently, I am buying something not for the sake of buying and spending but because i need it. I hate the underlying assumption that I'm an idiot who can be manipulated into forking out for any old thing.

I also hate those 'meeters and greeters' in stores who ask me cheerily if they can help me. Part of me wants to yell at them that I severely doubt it, and the other part to say they just need to give me ten seconds to look around their store first then I'll let them know. They magically dissipate the moment you do want one of them, obviously. The worst country by far is America, where there isn't a smile in sight to go along with the words: yes, I want to be accompanied on my shopping mission by the most miserable soul in the city, please join and help me decide what kind of clothes I like. Furthermore, they insist on wishing me a Nice Day, while I'm sure deep inside they are cursing every ounce of my being for having roused them from their semi dormant state in order to serve me.

I love catalogue stores, I really do. I know what I want, I go and get a whopping great book and find the exact product, I do a quick search on a nifty little computer and it tells me whether or not the item is in stock, and five minutes later with the minimal amount of human interaction and annoyance the product is in my hand. If it could be guaranteed that size 10 meant size 10 (UK, please, UK) and that 34" trouser leg meant the same thing in every shop, I would do this for clothes as well. If they could have photos of people of all shapes and sizes wearing the specific item and I could see that ah ha, on a 6ft soul the tshirt reveals a good two thirds of their midriff, it would save me the sweaty hell of messing about in miniaturised changing rooms with people occasionally bobbing their heads round the curtain saying, 'oh, sorry!' or, 'can I help you with that?' (I remember one particular occasion in Argentina when I was trying on a formal dress and the assistant just walked in on me in my underwear. Needless to say she felt the full Wrath of Jane that day).

I still need a new tshirt. To save myself going through the inevitable torture over again, I'm thinking it would be much less stressful and considerably easier to learn to make my own clothes. Bit of material, pair of scissors, needle and thread (ideally a sewing machine, even I know that much). Maybe one day I'll become a domestic Goddess, with rows of pickles and preserves in jars with twee little chequered cloth held tightly over their lids and the smells of cinnamon and nutmeg permanently mingled in my carefully embroidered dresses. Rest assured, you'll be the first to know if it ever happens.

“A woman who has no way of expressing herself and of realizing herself as a full human being has nothing else to turn to but the owning of material things.”

A poem for my female audience

There have - inevitably - been occasions over the years where I've had to be reminded that I'm executing a worthy sort of existence on this planet. My friend Steph has sent me the following poem at least twice, but I suspect it is considerably more than that, both when she is ricocheting about in the depths of despair and when I'm ranting about such things as make it relevant. I can't remember what we must have been talking about a few weeks ago for her to send me this, but I've been meaning to post it on here for the benefit of those who don't generally plunge headlong into anthologies of poems. It is written by Maya Angelou, the embodiment and indeed definition of a 'phenomenal woman'. Angelou was brought up in the Deep South in America, black at a time being black wasn't acceptable; raped at the age of nine by her mother's boyfriend, witness to KKK atrocities, living in a car for part of her youth and a single mother at 16, you'd think if anyone would have cause to fail in life she would have. She has worked as a prostitute, a pimp, a dancer and singer - evolving into one of the principle activists in the Civil Rights Movement, one of the most important and relevant contemporary writers, and someone who will forever be a significant inspiration to me. Anyone who can deal with all life has thrown at her and still come out on top is someone to be honoured (as she has been, with over thirty degrees being bestowed on her, and multiple literary prizes). I went through a phase a while ago of deciding that fiction was utterly pointless and burrowed my way through an extensive pile of autobiographies. Angelou's is by far the most accessible and fascinating life story that I've come across, her six book series starting with, 'I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings'. (She also has a cracking poem with that title that, contrary to the belief of the majority of English teachers in Hong Kong, is not just about birds...). For anyone who has ever felt a modicum of self pity about anything, I suggest they read these books: they will put your troubles into perspective.
Anyhow, thank you Steph for reminding me of this - yourself a pretty damn phenomenal woman. I miss your version of insanity, come cause some chaos in Hong Kong.


Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

The Gods will decide for us

(Picture: me in my stunning new Lamma Ladies dragon boat tshirt. I never thought I'd wear anything quite so... well... pink.)

In response to a PostSecret video on YouTube, an exceptionally large and generally physically unattractive man had recorded his 'secret' on film - saying that he wanted someone to love him, and didn't he deserve it, too? I bothered to read a few of the comments viewers had made, and they typically ran along the lines of, 'aww, dude, you'll find someone; just keep believing she is out there.' The overwhelming feeling was that the guy - whom presumably an exceptionally low percentage of his audience actually knew in person - deserved to be loved on the basis that he was a person.

I'm sorry, I have to take issue with this viewpoint. I could cite some obvious examples but then this thought would start wandering down a road I can't really be bothered to debate right now: I'm fairly certain that Hitler probably doesn't deserve to be 'loved', arguments being that he wasn't actually a 'person' at all, not someone with feelings, and on the other hand there is the thought that perhaps if he had been truly loved he'd have developed into a different person. Anyhow, if you want to argue about that, do so with your inner mind and not with me as I'm not particuarly interested.

Using myself as an example - appropriate given that I can at least claim to have some degree of knowledge of myself - I think it is fairly easy to demonstrate that nobody has a birthright as such to be loved. I personally think I have plenty to offer someone in a relationship, but I also know that I can be incredibly difficult to deal with on multiple occasions. My forthright manner and sometimes painful honesty to every emotion I have gets me into trouble regularly enough outside of a relationship; I can barely begin to imagine how unutterably frustrating I must be most of the time. Given that I can go from ecstasy to despair and back again in the space of thirty seconds, I guess I must be fairly exhausting to keep up with.

The only thing I think that I, and indeed anybody, deserves from this increasingly mad world of ours is the space and possibility of being who I want to be. Yes, I am frequently controversial and argumentative, stubborn and impatient, sullen and awkward, and I am the most judgemental person you are ever likely to come across, but I am also many other somewhat more positive things. Oh, and I have a low tolerance threshold for stupidity, I dislike people who incapable of being the individual they were born to be, and I am incapable of dealing with those who spend their time wallowing in the depths of self-pity.

Generally speaking, nine times out of ten people plunge headfirst into this self-pitying doomstruck mode when they focus on the idea that they deserve to be loved by someone. It is a ridiculous concept, like saying that someone deserves to be respected. It is fairly well accepted these days that respect is something which must be earned and is not an automatic right; saying that, I tend to respect everyone until they give me a reason not to. Why has love become something which everyone has a right to? I believe there is actually a fine balance to be achieved: I can't love someone who doesn't love themselves (borrowing a very corny philosophy from all American chat-show hosts there), and furthermore I can't love someone who loves themselves to the point of obsession and arrogance. For me, demonstrations that a person loves themselves are that they take some degree of effort over their physical appearance - they do their best to look like an acceptable specimen of humanity, without taking it to extremes. A guy who goes for a run a few times a week is viable; a guy who has ever even considered a manicure is not. Intelligence is a bonus; I don't think anyone is actually stupid as such, I think they just haven't learned how to make use of their brain effectively. No, everybody doesn't have the possibility of being an Einstein, but then not everybody has to be a George Bush either...

An unobservant reader may here conclude that I am saying attractive and intelligent people deserve to be loved. Not at all, I'm just saying that people who care about themselves are more likely to have the option of caring about someone else - they've had a bit of practise, after all. You are born alone and, as the expression goes, you damn sure die alone; there was never a promise made to us that the interim years would be passed with 'that special someone'. I used to be desperate to find someone to love me and to love in return, and this was especially true after I'd experienced that world. Now I am just thankful I was lucky enough to find those feelings, I will admit that there is barely anything comparable to knowing that just as someone is in your heart every minute of every hour of every day, you are held safely and tightly in theirs. I want everyone to know that same feeling, but I don't expect everyone to - I don't even think the majority of people in their so-called relationships even know or understand a quarter of what I ever felt. I was lucky, and that is all it was. It is not because I was a better person then than I am now, it is merely because the Gods decreed that I was to have a glimpse of the possible beauty of the world.

I owe it to myself to have the best life I can. I need to go to the places I want to visit, try out the lifestyles I want to, be every day the person I want to be. There are no certainties in this life beyond the fact that one day it will draw to its inevitable close, and I can't spend my brief years here yearning for something that may never happen for me. There is nothing I can do to improve my chances of having someone love me for who I am, and it is best to accept that philosophy and get on with the business of living.

Besides, as Shakespeare put it, 'Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.' (Twelfth Night)

A cluster of rants

My not updating my blog frequently doesn't equate to a rantless Jane. Rest assured, I have plenty of complaints stacked up over the past few weeks - here, have a few of 'em:

- I'm fed up with parents who expect me to mother their child. It is not my job to cajole and convince someone that GCSE English is a worthwhile qualification. To be honest, despite being a teacher, I frankly think it is one of the least worthwhile pieces of paper you can gain these days. I had a mother on the phone recently for 45 minutes, asking me for advice on how she can motivate her 16 year old son. I am an English tutor, not a relationship counsellor. I am operating on the theory that if they want to learn from me, they have the option to. If they choose to fritter away their youth that is not my business. I resent being required to teach in a manner that inevitably ends up with children loathing poetry and literature; I barely attended English lessons in school, and those I was present for I was essentially absent for with my mind wandering far, far away. How is it I managed to get A* at GCSE, A at A-level, 1st Class (Hons) for my BA, without ever using the following terms: assonance, consonance, enjambment, sibilance, and even, I suspect, personification? Oh I know, it is because I can read a poem and with barely a second thought understand what a writer is trying to say, and I imagine that innate ability comes across in my essay writing. I am preaching what I do not believe, and it is getting to me.

- People who say 'BudaPESHT'. Seriously, yes, we all know that is how the BudaPESHTians say it - but in my eyes, it makes you look like an idiot emulating them. We do not forgo the 's' in Paris, nor do we gently roll the R and end softly on an A when we pronounce the city name Rome. Stop being so damn pretentious.

- Speaking of words, I keep coming across Americans over here with the tendency to litter their conversations with two particular pet hates of mine: 'errands' and 'hike'. Fair enough, you're American, you can't help having what I regard as a ludicrous vocabulary. When English people start using the term 'errands' however, it makes me shudder inside. 'Hey, yeah, I'll see you later, I just have to run some errands.' No, you don't, you just have some Stuff To Do - stop trying to make it sound more interesting and important than it is. Grr.

- The fact that an airline company executive can wake up one morning and decide enough is enough, a billion dollars or so of debt is clearly an imposslbe situation to resolve and proceed to inform all the poor buggers who've booked with them that hey, their flight doesn't exist any more. Oh, and that they'll probably keep your money for some time into the future - if not forever.

- There are a few basic principles that I live my life around, one that is relevant to this posting being that money can't buy you happiness. Everyone reading this will probably nod wisely and say oh yes, wise words, they understand and agree. No, you don't. As I tried explaining to a student yesterday, there is a cut-off point where more money doesn't equate to more happiness. As long as you have food in your mouth and you aren't freezing to death at night and you have the basic necessities of life, money has done its job in terms of having any positive influence over your state of mind.

- I live in a small village on top of a hill, everyone pretty much knows everyone - by sight, if not necessarily to share a bottle of wine with of a warm evening. Given the proximity of one building to the next, and the fact that the majority of people who live on this island do so because they want some degree of peace and quiet, why can't everyone make an effort to not disturb their neighbours unless absolutely necessary? Alarm clocks left unchecked; stilletoed feet banging and echoing their way up the stairwell; kids being allowed to play that games that seem to involve an inordinate amount of screaming; dogs being left to bark at plants for hours at a time; drunken conversations being cackled away on a roof terrace well into the early hours of the morning. I need to live alone somewhere, far indeed from the ever more madding crowd, and until that time appreciate that I need to have some degree of tolerance and understanding for my neighbours. I just wish they'd be more generous with their understanding of others.

- One final rant: I am seriously 'off' the majority of Men. Men who idle away their lives with the deluded belief that as long as they are not getting in anybody's way they are not being offensive to others; men who make harsh and indeed wrong judgements on their indescribably beautiful girlfriend in order to dent her self confidence and ensure she stays around him; men who think muscles maketh a man; men who think I want to hear jokes even remotely related to two year old toilet humour; the endless line of deluded men who are labouring under the misguided belief that because I played Facebook Scramble in a virtual room that I will want to receive messages and 'pokes' from them. Men who slam doors in my face, men who fail to give up their seat on trains for me, men who tell me what I need is a 'good man', men who become offended when I ignore their wolf-whistles. There are more, of course. But these particular brands of man have been overly annoying in recent days, thus they are worthy of a mention on my blog - if nothing else.

Making this an epic post, I am going to post a formidable and relevant (to that final ranted point) poem by D H Lawrence. Read, don't even think about looking for assonance and enjambment and alliteration and all that absolute rot that people are required to find in poetry: feel the words roll or jar from your tongue and listen to them, understand them, learn from them.

How Beastly The Bourgeois Is

How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--

Presentable, eminently presentable--
shall I make you a present of him?

Isn't he handsome? Isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen?
Doesn't he look the fresh clean Englishman, outside?
Isn't it God's own image? tramping his thirty miles a day
after partridges, or a little rubber ball?
wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the
thing

Oh, but wait!
Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another
man's need,
let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life
face him with a new demand on his understanding
and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue.
Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully.
Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new
demand on his intelligence,
a new life-demand.

How beastly the bourgeois is
especially the male of the species--

Nicely groomed, like a mushroom
standing there so sleek and erect and eyeable--
and like a fungus, living on the remains of a bygone life
sucking his life out of the dead leaves of greater life
than his own.

And even so, he's stale, he's been there too long.
Touch him, and you'll find he's all gone inside
just like an old mushroom, all wormy inside, and hollow
under a smooth skin and an upright appearance.

Full of seething, wormy, hollow feelings
rather nasty--
How beastly the bourgeois is!

Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp
England
what a pity they can't all be kicked over
like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly
into the soil of England.

How do politicians sleep at night?

This evening, I have a splitting headache and a stomach that definitely feels as though it wants to dramatically expel any food within. I suppose the usual factors could be at play here: I'm in Hong Kong where even on relatively clear days such as this the pollution still seeps into your very bones (photographic evidence of said clear day); I passed a very idle five hours this afternoon in bright sunshine, hammocking with a book; I didn't get enough sleep last night as the cursed bird that shrieks at sunrise decided to carry on shrieking for a good three hours or so (if I can figure out a way to record this noise and place it on here, trust me I will. Even through earplugs the sound is piercingly painful).
After drinking a few gallons of water and taking a couple of Panadol, I concluded that the headache was due to a lack of sugar in the system and decided to meander down the hill to the supermarket (a generous term for a shop the size of a large garden shed, that is nevertheless the largest on Lamma and pretty well equipped for such a restricted space). En route I glanced up at the night sky and was pleasantly surprised to be able to see more than a handful of stars - in a city such as HK, this is something of a rarity. While idling around in my mind, pondering the imponderables of the world, I realised how many articles I'd read today on the BBC news site had made me seeth with barely suppressed rage.
There is the one about JK Rowling and the fact she used to 'feel suicidal'. Is it callous of me to say that, quite honestly, I really don't care? What, she hasn't written a godawful book recently and needs to find some way of staying in the news, and this is the best that she can think of? Marvellous. Keeping in the Entertainment page, there was a report informing me two bods were getting divorced - I'd never heard of either of them. (Turns out they once appeared in a soap). Again, is it callous to say that I don't care? Fair enough, I'm looking at the Entertainment page; what can possibly have been so frustrating to read on other parts? Well, there is the article reporting how 18 Ukrainians have - although not yet confirmed, this is almost inevitable - died as a result of their boat colliding with a Chinese cargo ship in HK. Frankly, it amazes me that this doesn't happen more often. Chances are that on at least one of my two daily ferry trips the boat will be apparently playing chicken with another vessel, one of which will have to suddenly divert course or cut the engines to avoid a direct collision. There are scores of cargo ships bobbing around just outside the harbour, each being nuzzled by three or four boats taking the large loads into the docks; Macau 'turbo jets' scurry across the waves; ferries ply their routes; the occasional junk, sporting a bunch of bikini clad expats occasionally joins the melee - and finally, there are the tiny fishing boats, often with no motor at all, bobbing in and out of the chaos. If I get to the end of the year without involuntarily going swimming in this murky water, it'll be nothing short of a miracle.
I was made even angrier when I read some of the comments on 'Have Your Say', clearly indicating that the majority of readers believe cyclists should be forced to pay road tax as they are road users. Nice bit of logic, but the only reason they use the blasted road is because there aren't viable alternatives. Is nobody to be encouraged to save the poor environment? I partially agree with the argument that cyclists should have some degree of 'cycling proficiency test' before being allowed to operate one of the two wheeled beasts in the vicinity of other people, because during my time at Oxford particularly I met some blithering idiots who may have had the intelligence to get a place at the university but clearly didn't have a clue when it came to looking around themselves while on a moving vehicle. But still. Road tax? Oh, sod off.
The final nails in the coffin came from the news articles relating the concept that perhaps poor parenting is to blame for unruly children in the classroom (if only I had a penny for every pointless piece of research carried out...), and the one talking about how Scarlett's mother now feels afraid for her life. Despite having just lost a child under ghastly circumstances, that blasted woman should be hauled before a court for neglect. And while I'm making outrageous statements of the sort, I will say the same of the McCanns. Who in their right mind leaves such young children on their own, so that they can go have dinner with friends? Moreover, why is this opinion not shared by everyone? We've all been on vacation, we all know how easy it is to find a childminder for the evening (every holiday home or hotel has endless contacts listed in the 'Useful Information' packet), why the hell didn't they? I anticipate your responses: yes, I'm sure they've thought this every day since their child went missing. The key to not screwing up is to do everything you darn well can to ensure such events have the remotest chance of occurring, and if they do there is no way you can blame yourself.
It incenses me that people are so busy pointing the finger of blame at everybody but themselves, in pretty much all situations - and thus the Blame and Claim culture has been born. Burn yourself with your coffee? Obviously not your fault. Miss your flight because you arrived at the airport late? Come on, that can't possibly be your fault. Putting on weight? Nothing to do with your diet, I'm sure.
Perhaps if everyone started thinking about what they can do to help others, rather than how they can blame everybody else for their pathetic excuses for lives, then the world would be a safer, more amenable place to inhabit. Perhaps if we stepped back from our haphazard pursuits of what we believe will improve everything - more money, a new career, a new partner ('partner', how I loathe that term) - and set about focussing on anyone but ourselves, we'd be happier and healthier.
And now, take a moment to think of the 4000 American soldiers who have died in Iraq. If it helps to focus those thoughts, follow the link here and watch the video 'Twenty' by Robert Cray. I heard today that Gordon Brown originally opposed the war in Iraq, but when Blair pointed out to him that his job was somewhat at stake if he spoke openly about this opposition, Brown decided to shut up. What an example to set our country.

'May I live simply that others may simply live.' (Gandhi)

On laziness and loneliness

(Photo: taken on my phone, at the Hong Kong Flower Show, with a distinct 'we have the equestrian events for the 2008 Olympics!' theme going on).
I appear to have done it again: left it so long since I last wittered away on here, that I'm left with the choice of either summing up multiple thoughts as brief snippets, or having one good long rant and depriving you of the enviable beauty of some other complaints. Ah, which to do... let's see what happens. Maybe it'll be another epic, who knows. Fingers: take it away.

If there is one aspect of myself I could change - oh, if only I could be bothered! - it would be my unparalleled laziness. Within the first few days of arriving in my apartment on Lamma, I established that if planning on sleeping with the window open a mosquito net was clearly a necessity. After the briefest of forays around a bunch of Hong Kong's shopping malls, I didn't have any success and concluded that, well, the weather was getting colder and therefore I could get away with leaving the purchase for a while. The mozzie that nipped me sharply on the eyelid a few weeks ago should have been warning enough that the blighters had returned with the warmer weather and yet I was still unwilling to make a concerted effort to track down the vital netting... to my peril. I recently had the unnerving experience of having my lip take over half my face as it swelled to gigantic proportions courtesy of a bite from one of the cursed creatures; my gruesome face and I could be seen hurtling across Lamma Island at 0500 towards a friend's place and Childrens' Benadryl. Acquiring uber-strong antihistamine later in the day, along with cream that I was to 'use sparingly twice a day' (er, sod that, I lathered the stuff on as liberally as the swelling would allow), my lip finally retreated to normal proportions - after a brief period of time forcing me to wander round looking as though I'd had a disastrous event involving vanity and Botox.

Needless to say I refused to sleep the next night until I had a mozzie net hanging awkwardly above my bed.

The hellish yet mildly humorous experience - after I'd decided my lip wasn't actually going to explode - led me to thinking about this and that. One such thought being that despite being known for my somewhat haphazard approach to my appearance, I have, hidden somewhere beneath layers of ego and laziness, a vain side. I shuffled into Central, holding my head down and barely acknowledging the existence of the rest of the world, frequently covering up my lip with a tissue and the pretence of blowing my nose. I am under no illusions that I am a 'stunning beauty' - I know full-well that many other women, if cursed to spend a day with either my teeth or my nose, would act in the same manner I had when my lip went temporarily insane - but it hit home pretty hard that, actually, I do care. In the loosest possible way, that is. Despite the multiple errors I could point out (the creeping presence of 'orange peel thighs', a stomach that is not the springboard it once was, the veins that seem to have appeared only in the last few years - where were they before?), I'm fairly content inhabiting my body. It is by no means the figure I had even five years ago, when half the people I met would ask me if I was a model - and the other half had already asked me on a previous occasion. But it'll do. I wish I wasn't so lazy that I can cheerfully spend entire days hammocking and idling, and instead I was motivated to go running up hills and spend hours crunching my stomach into shape, but I am that lazy and I'll deal with it.

I know myself well enough to know where laziness stops and character steps in to take control. The majority of people in my intellectual position (that is, a brain competent enough to get a 1st class degree with absolutely no work whatsoever over the course of three years, and a Masters from Oxford with a total of approximately four weeks of work, and that time incorporating a good deal of sun-tanning in University Parks) are busy charging around being lawyers and accountants, consultants and researchers. It sometimes frustrates me that I'm misunderstood by some people to the extent that they think it is my inherent laziness that stops me from approaching any of these careers (now there is a word that stops my heart cold for a beat). I've spoken to some recently about the possibility of my starting a PhD - or DPhil as Oxford would have them known - but am aware in my heart that come September 2009, I wont be ready to make that commitment. Four years spent peering into archives and the darker corners of my brain, in order to get an honour and a piece of paper that proves to the world I have the capability of staying in one place for a lengthy duration and the stubborness to pursue Knowledge to the ends of the earth. Just as I don't feel the need to spend hours scouring shops for the perfect figure-hugging dress and the shoes that will match and show off my legs to their best advantage, because I am aware in myself that I'm happy with what I look like whether the rest of the world knows it or not, I don't feel the need to prove my intellectual abilities to anybody.

I watched one of my favourite movies again the other day, 'Good Will Hunting'. There is the thought in there that Will should use his genius in order to do some good in the world, because it is an insult to all his friends who have brains with the intellectual content of a Dan Brown book, and he almost falls for their convictions. Ultimately, however, we see him heading in pursuit of life and love - the movie, I note, is dedicated to the memory of Allan Ginsberg and William S Burrough. The Beat Generation: they knew what they were on about. Life is there for living, not for observing from an elevated penthouse while clad solely in Gucci and sipping delicately on a flute of champagne.

Trust me, it isn't so easy constantly uprooting yourself and forcing a new experience down your own throat. It isn't so easy stepping away from yet another relationship because it would require some sort of commitment to being in a certain place for a certain time - even if it is just yet another relationship that I know will never work because there is the requirement for me to even be thinking about staying or leaving. It isn't so easy turning down possibilities to go study for a PhD or get what the world classifies as a 'good job', and there will always be people out there who subsequently think they are Better Than Me. It isn't laziness that sees me avoiding that version of reality. Laziness is the reason I'm still in my pyjamas at 11am, it is the reason I probably wont leave Lamma Island today, and it is probably due to laziness entirely that I wont head out for that run today that I've been promising myself to do all week.

There are so few good looking men in Hong Kong that I've been labouring under the belief for months now that I've actually become utterly immune to masculine charms. When a girl has to resort to eyeing up the plastic models in shop windows to see a decent figure on a guy, you know life has thrown you a pretty mocking hand... Yesterday, however, I was relieved to discover that I haven't become something of a frigid robot: ah, guy in the UCLA t-shirt, do you live in this Godforsaken city?! Why is it so hard to find a delectable guy who shares my philosophy on life? Hell, forget the word 'delectable', any guy will do the trick. I'm tired of finding myself lonely at times.

“The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.” (Nietzsche)

'Oh my dear, that is just TOO shy-making!'

Over the last few days, I've re-read Evelyn Waugh's brilliantly witty work, 'Vile Bodies' - in some ways, it is hard to believe that he is also responsible for penning, 'Brideshead Revisited' (almost as hard as believing that yes, 'Evelyn' is apparently also a name for a guy. Who married, what are the chances?, a woman called Evelyn). A particularly idiotic student the other day engaged me in a discussion about the merits of books, her on the side of 'books being boring, pointless and ultimately redundant'. Well, those last two words have been added by me to elevate her miniature intellectual capacity. Books can be wonderful creations, and it is a sin that examining bodies generally choose some of the most tedious specimens from centuries past to represent Literature to tele-addict teens worldwide. Not that I'm advocating books being written with today's particularly ghastly younger generation in mind: we see quite enough of their brand of awfulness without them needing the further encouragement of reading about their antics. (Which is where, by the by, Jacqueline Wilson has gotten it wrong: she recently complained that children grow up too fast and it is a crime, and yet as she openly acknowledges the young characters in her book have navel piercings, talk back to their parents, and generally flount all rules of respectable society).

I just feel genuinely sorry for people who don't have the capability of enjoying a damn good book. Books provide an admirable escape from worries and concerns, introducing you to a world of other characters who can make you laugh and cry along with them; I feel sorry for anyone who hasn't spent a night reading through a particularly nail-biting Agatha Christie, unable to turn off the light until Poirot has rounded up the suspects and finally pointed out to the befuddled community, and of course reader, just Who Dunnit. And I feel sorry for anyone who is so stupid as to make the comment that everything in books is 'common sense' - oh, and who said in the same sweeping statement that Nietzsche was clearly an 'idiot'. Curses, if only she'd popped along a few decades ago she'd have saved some academics a lot of reading and thinking.

Books can make you question yourself, reassess a long-held view, understand others. They will almost inevitably improve your vocabulary and ability to communicate effectively with eloquence and expression. They can also allow you to not make a fool of yourself, for example by teaching you that 'wherefore' does not - for God's sake - mean 'where', but rather 'why'. Juliet's calling of, 'Oh Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?' was not Shakespeare's idea of pantomime, with the audience expected to shout and point, 'over there! yes! just below your left foot, you dimwit!' It is not enough merely to vaguely acknowledge the plot of a work of literature: if you could understand the language, it adds a whole new dimension. Really. And could stop you using a word incorrectly and thus minimalise your muppetous status in the world.

I've concluded over the years that I cannot possibly take a guy seriously - in relationship terms, especially - unless he's acquired a good grounding in literary essentials, and indeed intends always adding to that good grounding. This was brought home to me in a supermarket once, when the total came to £19.84. 'Oh', I said, 'look at that', and had a little chuckle. The confused guy looked around desperately for inspiration, and eventually smiled and said, 'ha! oh yes!' Walking away, I asked him what was notable about the price, and he said well, it was the year he was born. Yes, and the year you were born is clearly far more important than one of the books that rocked the last century. I should have turned on my heel there and then. The writing is always there on the wall, it is just whether or not you choose to read it...

While I'm on the subject of what is and isn't acceptable for men who have any intention of being in something approximating a relationship with me, I've had another few thoughts on that recently. Any guy who uses a bath/wash bag to carry their bathroom paraphenelia around the world will never be welcomed into my life, indeed a guy who spends longer preparing himself for an evening out than I do is off the cards. (I take three minutes, for the record). I don't want a guy who refuses to argue with me, indeed who backs away from confrontation. I've no intention of screaming myself hoarse for the rest of my life, but I do like to be challenged occasionally. If their music collection incorporates Celine Dion, Madonna, Chris de Burgh or Marvin Gaye, then they can forget about it. Anyone who refers to a holiday they spent ten years ago with their parents as 'travelling'; anyone who thinks I'll be entertained in the slightest by anything remotely related to toilet humour; anyone who keeps anything that an ex gave them and expects me to be 'fine' with that; anyone who states that they hate dogs and never want one, and who comes up with the ridiculous claim that they want to 'be married with children' (when not referring to a specific person with whom to carry out these activities) - they're all Out.

And, men of the world, while you're brushing up on your Shakespeare, can I suggest you also throw out your pink shirts? Honestly, they don't show you are 'comfortable with your sexuality'. You look like an idiot. Really. Unless you want a blonde limpet who smiles at you adoringly, I suggest removing them from your wardrobe post haste.

“There are easier things in life than trying to find a nice guy... like nailing jelly to a tree for example”.

All about the hook

I recently attended a 'schoolgirl theme junk party' (technically, it wasn't a junk and somewhat worryingly even the guys adopted the idea of 'schoolgirl'), and having scoured most of HK finally found the perfect skirt in a market two minutes from work. Perfect equating to tartan and tarty. The problem is essentially that when one is wearing fancy dress and one is with a large group of people also wearing fancy dress, one blends in seamlessly; when one leaves the group to, for example, get one's ferry home, difficulties can be encountered. The short skirt resulted in my having a conversation on the ferry with some random married guy who asked me to go to his best friend's birthday party the next night, informed me while rubbing my arm that it wasn't possible to help who a person fell for, and hey, have his business card... I gained the distinct impression that, despite my explanations for my attire, he thought I was a hooker. (Oy, no shouts of, 'well, in fairness...' from anyone there).

Just to clarify to myself here, and to any men bothering to read this, I am not now, and nor will I ever be, a hooker - not in even the loosest possible sense of the word. Much as I may joke occasionally about dropping my pursuit of a mad passionate romance in favour of someone with more money than sense (not difficult given that I'm after a guy), I will never in any way give away a part of me because a person puts me under an obligation to them. And while I'm on the topic of men, a word I'm saying with an increasing feeling of disgust, pray would someone tell me why the heck I would want one anyway? I know men who cheat on their girlfriends and wives; I know men who travel to a different city and remove their wedding ring for a night out; I know men who date five women at a time and at the last minute will say to any teary eyed girl that hang on, they never said they were EXCLUSIVE, right? And I know of men who go onto internet dating websites and locate vulnerable women (I mean, come on, anyone on a dating website is vulnerable to at least some degree), making use of them mercilessly by convincing them for a few short weeks that they are madly and passionately in love and how on earth didn't they know the other existed before, then proceed to be increasingly less available while inventing ludicrously impossible stories that the woman believes - because, let's face it, she wants to. Men want someone to cook and clean and be available in the bedroom when they choose, just most of them don't have the guts to admit it these days. They want someone intelligent enough to bring up their children for them, but stupid enough that they won't notice the later hours at the office, the business trips away, and who - by the time they notice the proverbial lipstick on the collar - are so trapped they dare not say anything. Oh, they may not consciously want all this, but that is what they're after.

A recent BBC report found that 1 in 10 men in the UK between the ages of 25 and 34 sleeps with prostitutes. That is, roughly speaking, 10% of the guys I know. (At a fair guess, they are the ones who aren't so good looking and therefore not quite as capable of sauntering into a bar and picking off some fair game for the night). Three men were interviewed who were apparently 'unashamed' of their exploits with prostitutes, although notably the two married ones hadn't told their wives. The men appear to be under the very much misguided impression that they are friends with the women, they are helping them out financially in a country with an under-par welfare system (don't even get me started on that), that the women enjoy the meetings. Apparently, it is possible to make yourself believe and justify anything you want to.

I don't know what the solution is, but I'm sure there is one. I'm sure there is an alternative for the Filipinos who sleep with the ugliest and oldest of English men just so that they can afford a cell phone - men in whose faces I want to spit every time they dare to speak to me. I'm sure there is an alternative for the Romanian women being trafficked to Japan to work as 'waitresses' - I sometimes wonder what became of the woman I met years ago who was in just that situation. Did anyone else read about the Brazilian girl who was kidnapped years ago and recently escaped, with one of the two children she'd given birth to as a result of repeated rapings by her captor? (The other child had died). Did anyone else hear of the British lady who went to Amsterdam, who had drugs forced upon her and, as a result, the life of a prostitute, because she then needed the money to fuel her addiction? Did anyone else hear these endless tales and not think there is something very, very wrong in the world today? No insult to my male readers intended, but I would guarantee that women are more affected by these stories than men - because men will always continue to justify their actions. Prostitution is, after all, the oldest profession in the world, isn't it... And any woman who believes that prostitution is the ultimate empowerment a woman can have - making men pay for what they can have free elsewhere - is a deluded fool.

Briefly continuing the theme of 'hook', I am sick to death of my students informing me that an introduction to an essay must apparently start with a 'hook sentence' and that each paragraph must comprise the PEA structure: point, evidence, analysis. I know one has to be taught to write essays but my word, how to make a child hate essay-writing...

Ending with the final stanza of William Blake's poem, 'London' -

But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse.

And Angela Carter, 'Nights at the Circus':
'What is marriage but prostitution to one man instead of many?'

Be back soon -

Your ranting blogger is temporarily occupied with the business of Living, but will be returning wrathfully in the near future. Keep your eager eyes peeled.

And as Valentine's Day approaches...

You can hardly expect me to pass up the opportunity to rant about February 14th. I have, after all, a fair amount to rant about - principally, of course, the fact that I have never, not once, received a Valentine. Even when, and here is the crusher, I've been dating somebody over that time. What is it about me that screams, 'I don't want flowers or chocolates! Take them away!'? Half my diet is chocolate-based, which I think should be a fair indicator that I'm up for receiving fine specimens on any occasion, and since I've given up on the possibility of a guy ever buying me flowers then I do so for myself. As much as I want to be disparaging about the occasion, and I really could go on about the padded velvet hearts and the 'cute' teddy bears that accompany them, part of me is still screaming inside Oh Sod it, I Want it Too! (Not, for the sake of clarification, the tacky presents - a mere 36 red roses, champagne truffles, and someone to whisk me away to a beautiful place would do the trick).

There was an article on the BBC website yesterday, saying that after two years the sex drive between couples dissipates. Frankly, I wouldn't know as I've never dated anyone for two years, but I do think this is a rather depressing prospect to be facing. No wonder people have affairs. You find a fantastic bunch of extremely funky emotions - and suddenly, they're snatched away from you. Harsh indeed. In other words, all you guys out there considering charging off and buying your considerably better half some miniature lacy morsel of underwear, if you've known her more than two years I'd save your cash and get her something far more suitable. A vat of Mango Body Butter, for example.

After a spot of googling to investigate the origins of Valentine's Day, I've found a pretty wonderful festival that used to go on in Ancient Rome. Juno Februata, the Roman Goddess of fever of love, of women, and marriage - hell, what a Goddess to be. Apparently, on February 14th, all the young women of the city would put their names on paper into a large urn, and all the young men would take a piece at random. The subsequent couples would then spend the night indulging in what appears to be en masse eroticism, and then spend the next year together as partners. There are obviously multiple flaws in the whole set-up, but quite a few advantages that should not be sniffed at.

Further googling suggests total confusion as to where the celebrations are derived from. I personally propose the idea that, what with the effort of celebrating Christmas and New Year, everyone was somewhat exhausted for a while after that - then winter gets into your bones, you start to think the season will drag on forever, and some men (obviously men) came up with the idea of having a particular day where they could be guaranteed a spot of between-the-sheets action, thus breaking up the tedious long months and having something to look forward to. It is as viable as the other options out there. (They created the Valentine's Day story amongst themselves, so it would wash with their womenfolk).

Only another few days to go, then it is over for another year. No more of that pre-Valentines 'will he, wont he' hell, no more feeling an utter failure as a female, no more secretly hoping while informing the world at large that really, honestly, you couldn't give a damn. Then I just have my birthday to face, which in reference to guys has somehow been even even more disastrous than Valentine's Day, if only because 14th February is to some minor degree optional and a birthday is most certainly not. A few fine examples (and I hope the perpetrators of such crimes are reading and cringeing as I remind them of their sins) -

- a birthday spent waiting for the other half to come back from the cinema in the evening, where he'd been with friends, and bear in mind I hadn't seen him all day either
- a gift received more than a fortnight late, and the birthday card was one that was left over from a Christmas card set
- someone who forgot my birthday (despite constant gentle reminders) and who tried to pretend he hadn't forgotten, eventually presenting me with a book I already had, a box of Marks n Sparks chocolates (despite there being two Thorntons in Oxford and the wonderful Chocology in the Covered Market), and a ludicrous metallic travel game (for someone notorious for Travelling Light, this was definitely among the most Useless Gifts ever received)
- oh yes, and the one who decided it was possible to completely ignore my birthday, on the basis I wasn't in the country at the time

Yes, those are four separate men managing to get it wrong on four separate occasions. Evidently, I have a genius for selecting partners who don't give a damn about me. It isn't that I want expensive presents and lavish dinners in restaurants - one of the best presents I ever received, because it made me laugh and laugh every time I looked at it, was a package containing a balloon, a marker pen, and a set of pins. I was instructed to blow up the balloon, draw the face of someone I disliked, and delight in sticking pins in them. Genius. And so Me.

My plans for Valentine's Day evening? I'm going to trawl through the travel guides and relevant websites and start scheming for my next vacation, probably some time in late June/early July. Somewhere that will be beautiful and tropical and doubtless filled with annoyingly cutesy loving couples - but it's okay. I've had a fair amount of practice now at smiling serenely and saying, 'I'm fine. Really. Just grand. Absolutely, completely, and totally fine.'

I've even started convincing myself.

On Brits Abroad

I am perpetually embarrassed not only by the behaviour but also the physical appearance of other Brits abroad. Australians are well known for their bronzed, lean bodies, curves perfect by years of charging about in waves and muscles honed by manly things such as wrestling crocodiles. The Americans (ignoring those that come from pretty much anywhere but coastal cities) are loud and confident, and so they should be with their fine-tuned figures and dazzling line of straight white teeth. The Scandinavian women are renowned for being blonde beauties, the men for their Nordic God-like status; South Africans are about as hip as they come, the majority of Europeans small, neat and compressed packages of Mediterranean bliss. (Setting aside, obviously, the Germans with their total inability to wield a razor). The Dutch are tall and armed with broad, confident grins.

The Brits? Oh dear God. Men come with the pre-requisite features of a beer belly, excessive quantities of hair gel creating an impossibly ridiculous hairstyle that they are under the much misguided belief makes them look 'cool', pecs that sag dangerously, puny white shoulders covered with an array of zits - caused by a long confinement under warm and humid jumpers necessary to see them through the dark, gloomy and damp winters. The women invariably have miniature paunches hanging over their stomachs, thighs that roll around entirely independently of their owner, are either - for some reason - completely flat-chested or have breasts the size of water-melons swinging merrily around their knees, and expansive backsides that are barely contained by that cute little bikni from TopShop. Both men and women have horrific teeth, and a firm belief that being drunk is Sexy.

This is actually a genuine problem - not me just ranting away here. The British Ambassador in Majorca (or some similarly unfortunate island, invaded on a regular basis by hordes of scantily clad couch potatoes) actually resigned from his post due to the embarrassment he felt at the behaviour of the Brits visiting there. I am privately quietly confident that he also couldn't stand being associated with them physically, but that would hardly do to present such a reason to your superiors...

I have a solution. Radical, perhaps, but a definite solution. By a system of voting, we establish the very worst cities in the UK and, likewise, the very best. At a rough guess I'm placing Bradford, Newcastle (if only for the accent) and most of the Midlands into the former category, and the likes of London, Oxford and Manchester into the latter. The most ghastly specimens of British flesh will be forced to live and work in places such as Bradford (I alone will ascertain their rating on the Ghast Scale, as it shall be known - possibly with a few carefully selected assistants), and only allowed into the delights of superior cities when they reach an appearance verging on the acceptable. Once a girl can sport a size 10 bikini without having flesh bulging over the edges (or if they are a well-rounded size 14, as Ms Monroe was, and again as Ms Monroe lacking the orange-peel thighs so often associated with these greater portions of flesh), and a guy has defined muscles and at the very least a two-pack (preferably higher) and an understanding that hair gel is a hideous concoction, they will be allowed to represent us abroad. In order not to appear unfair, I will allow the large masses from Bradford etc. to holiday annually in the regions of Africa where obesity is considered a positive. I am confident that despite receiving praise from the men and women there, they will be so perpetually hot and uncomfortable they will resign themselves to slimming down and being allowed further afield. (Furthermore, with the disturbing tendency of African countries to descend into civil war at a moment's notice, a good portion of the more blubbery element who are unable to run away could well be disposed of in this fashion, with limited inconvenience to the rest of the UK's population).

Yes, it is possible that foreign men will seek out British women - not because they are notorious for getting drunk beyond belief and thus are wearing an invisible 'I'm easy' sign around their necks, but because they will be known for being sleek and smooth. Foreign women will throw themselves at British men, not in pursuit of a visa or a passport, but because British men have Shoulders, and thighs that could crack a coconut open.

I am also working on the theory that only Brits of a certain IQ should be allowed abroad. This has the advantage that an extremely minimal number of Brits would be allowed out of the country: I feel the prospect of a confinement within the boundaries of the UK for an entire lifetime would be enough to raise suicide rates to a level that would cull the lardy idiots with which we all daily have to contend, and leave a supreme race of acceptable-looking, intelligent people. I for one am sick to death of being placed in the same category as people who have enough spare tyres to sort out a fleet of multi-axle lorries, as people who have a reputation for drinking like a fish and behaving in all other manners like rabbits; as people who proudly pat their beer bellies and who regularly cause damage to innocent sun-loungers and plastic garden furniture.

Call these measures radical if you will - I think they are necessary and justified for the return of Britain as a country of which we can be proud to belong. I propose, until we are sorted out and properly whittled down, a new version of the National Anthem, to be sung daily in schools (as in America) to engage the populace at large:

God save my bloated spleen,
God make me nice and lean,
Make my lungs clean...
Dum dum dum dum -
Make me look glorious,
Once more victorious,
No more fat blubber-ness,
God, make me lean.
(Written in approximately the time taken to type that. I'll work on it and tweak it)

'For he on honeydew hath fed...

...and drunk the milk of Paradise.' ('Kubla Khan', Coleridge)

Thailand - what an unexpected surprise. I've avoided the country until now because it is totally overrun with tourists, and I generally like to edge into places where I have a chance of seeing something a little unusual and off the much beaten path. In fact, I only plumped for Thailand because the flight prices were viable over Chinese New Year, and because there was a high probability of that wonderful humid style of heat that I am designed to live in. Quite honestly, there isn't a thing I would change about the whole nine days away - it would be nice if there hadn't been a veritable plethora of dramatic snorers in pretty much all the overnight trains I took, but in hot countries I can deal with a mere five hours of sleep at night.



I wont bore you with all the details, I'll just think back to the few snippets I thought at the time were blog-worthy. Having been to the elephant sanctuary, however, I feel obligated to tell you all about the treatment of elephants in Thailand. This is applicable to all working elephants - those used for logging, the babies you'll see on the streets of Bangkok at night, the elephant you can sit on and be taken trekking for that 'once in a lifetime' experience. At three months of age, or thereabouts, the baby is taken away from their mother and forced to undergo an ordeal that I forget the name of but translates to A Ceremony to Destroy the Soul. Elephants are trapped in a cage for a minimum of three days, in which they are unable to move in any direction, and denied food and water for the duration of the Ceremony; while caged, they are subjected to torture with beatings, attacked with sticks embedded with nails, their eyes and delicate inner ears jabbed mercilessly. When the elephant emerges, they will do pretty much anything their owner asks - including allow a platform to be strapped to their back so unwitting tourists can enjoy a gentle stroll through a forest. The elephant sanctuary works to rescue these beautiful, gentle creatures from the hellish lives they've been experiencing, some injured by landmines, others blinded by their owners for refusing to work. Some of the animals are still so destroyed by their past that, even after five years of loving care, they are too afraid to allow other elephants near them - never mind people. The sanctuary is the kind of place you go and feel your heart in your throat the whole time, seeing the happiness of the elephants lucky enough to be there and developing an urgent need to rush to the nearest forest and buy all the poor beasts still lugging logs around.



So that was the eye-opening part of the vacation. I also plunged into bustling Bangkok, added to my Buddha experiences by seeing a rather large reclining one and, for good measure, one made of jade (known as the Emerald Buddha - sounds a tad more flash that way, I suppose), and numerous temples nestled alongside the endless put-putting tuktuks and lurid pink taxis. I'm fairly certain I was in a taxi with the driver sniffing coke as we went... Either that, or he suffers from the severest case of ADHD on earth. I meandered down to the beautiful island of Koh Tao where I went snorkelling and diving, discovering the Christmas Tree Worms: perfectly formed inch long creatures in the shape of Christmas trees, multi-coloured, that shrink to nothingness if you snap your fingers close to them. At one point, I was swimming around in Shark Bay (named after the black tip reef sharks that live there) searching for some of the sharks in the depths below. I have to admit to being slightly relieved not to bump into any after all.



Overall, I think the experience was so perfect because it was so easy to travel there. Everything is designed for tourists - and the reason I met so many nice people is because there are endless tourists beating the same path as yourself and, chances are, some of them you choose to speak to will be acceptable specimens. The unspoiled beauty of the Philippines is ultimately in a different league, but nevertheless Thailand afforded me all that a vacation should in the truest definition of the word: an effortless change of scene, good company, adventure and new experiences, a plentiful supply of bargainous alcohol, and a bounty of photos on returning home. The trip also firmly reminded me of who I am and what I want to get out of my brief time on this world, and has served as a useful pointer for why I'm in Hong Kong. For those of you slightly in doubt on that point, and to reaffirm for myself, I'm here in order to save enough money that I can avoid the 9 - 5 rat race for the rest of my life. I want to be able to move around the world, staying as I choose in a place, finding work that will pay enough to fund a basic lifestyle as long as I want to be there. The time away also confirmed to me what I already know: that I certainly don't need a 'significant other' to be happy. Travelling with a guy would have been useful for two reasons: I wouldn't have had to contort myself to put sunscreen on my back, and... yes, I can't think of a second reason.



I plan in future to put the energy required for my wrathful rants toward something useful - fear not, dear reader, this is a future prospect and in the interim period I will complain away on here. I've a friend in the Peruvian Amazon who wants to create a nature reserve to rescue monkeys: I'm really rather fond of elephants, but I absolutely adore monkeys. Don't be surprised if after my time in Hong Kong I announce a move to Iquitos in order to help with the creation of this reserve, that's all I'm saying for now.



Happy new year (Chinese, obviously) to you all - may you all be safe and secure, find and pursue your purpose for being, live and love and feel alive every minute of every hour of every passing day. Our time here is too transient to be caught up in the world of consumerism, of competition with our neighbours, of destruction and annihilation of our souls. I had a conversation with someone on Koh Tao a few days ago, who argued that we are merely the sum of atoms and should accept this reality, that he claims not to find depressing. I respond with the thought that everyone has the possibility of a soul - something beyond neurons and protons and whatever else is kicking around inside the humble atom - but some are too afraid to acknowledge it. After lying on a deck with the sea lapping gently below me, watching stars shoot across a clear night sky, how can anyone doubt there is something greater than ourselves? Something which makes us go weak at the knees, places an urgent lump in our throat, and causes tears to gather at the corners of our wondering eyes. An overwhelming array of emotions are waiting to be felt, if you just let go and give yourself the chance.

"Come to the edge, he said. They said: we are afraid. Come to the edge, he said. They came, he pushed, and they flew."
(Guillaume Apollinaire)

Heath Ledger, RIP

I've just spent a few moments going through the comments on the BBC website, voicing the reactions of readers to the death of Heath Ledger. Some people manage to reach levels of insensitivity I hadn't thought possible - the loose quips about him pretty much getting what he deserved for daring to be in the spotlight, the endless mentions of, 'another soldier dies in Afghanistan and will barely get paid lip service'. Others saying how shocked they are, and the responses to those asking how can you be shocked and distressed by the death of someone you don't even know - save those 'false emotions' for relatives and friends.

In the first case, I think it is acceptable to be distressed to a certain degree by the death of someone who brought you nothing but pleasure. Additionally, I am guessing that the majority of people who have been affected by Ledger's death are so not because they had any particular connection to him but rather because of the wholly unexpected nature of the event. We have a gorgeous, talented young man who - apparently - chose to take his own life. This is the aspect that people are unable to understand, that someone in his situation can be anything but happy and positive. It is naive to assume that peace comes with riches and fame, even with ambitions achieved and a glittering array of awards to prove this. Furthermore, it is naive to assume that being a father would bring him boundless joy and reasons to live. Suicide can, in such cases as this, be viewed as inherently selfish; some say it is a brave act, others that it is the gesture of cowards. The death of a solider in Afghanistan is a tragedy, but death and war go inevitably hand in hand. The shock factor cannot be the same.

My thoughts are with the little girl who will never know her father, the mother who has lost her son. With Ledger, in his last months; the final hours I imagine would be more calm and peaceful, because by then he would have made a decision and it is often that which brings peace of mind. And they are with all the other people currently in the situation he surely was - trying to grasp a hold of reality but unable to understand the evermore confusing and manic state of the world today. It is a harsh irony of the 21st century that while many of the citizens of the world are clinging desperately onto life, struggling to survive, others are apparently willingly forfeiting their right to a future. It is relevant not to look at the individuals, but at the society in which they lived. I remember writing in my dissertation to get my BA that suicide was the way some people ultimately chose to feel alive, the final slash of their wrists an assertive motion against the insanity and chaos of the world which surrounded them. We live in an increasingly violent world, knife attacks and high school shootings become a staple part of the daily news report: when are we going to stop putting all the blame on the criminal and start accepting some responsibility as being members of the same destructive society?

What is important today - getting ahead of everyone else, at whatever cost to them and, more notably, to yourself - has essentially dehumanised us. If someone heads out on a shooting spree of random strangers, it is surely because life has come to mean so little and they are desperately seeking some sort of affirmation that life is out there, that they can find a meaning after all.

I would say that Heath Ledger's death has affected me to a greater extent than Princess Diana's. Hers was a tragic life, but one for which she practically set herself up: she played with fire, and got burnt. Nobody deserves to die under dubious circumstances in a car crash, but it was an ending almost appropriate to her increasingly fantastical life. Ledger, dying alone in a New York apartment in the depths of winter, is going to leave a more indelible impression on me. I hope, with a certain degree of futility, that the world learns something from his passing.

A few odds and ends

A couple of bits and bobs that have been relevant to my world recently...

- why is it that if you don't concentrate on the words and ignore any possibility of a vague comprehension, French, Italian and Spanish people sound as if they're forever discussing the wonder of leaping into bed with somebody, yet German, Russian and Chinese people always sound as if they're conversing about the best method to clean a drain? I like being on buses in Argentina, surrounded by voices I can't understand and I can pretend they're contemplating the finer points of philosophy and love and life; I hate being on buses in Hong Kong, surrounded by voices I can't understand but are almost certainly - I'm sure of it - arguing about, well, the best method of cleaning drains... This, along with the fact the majority of HK people seem incapable of closing their mouths when eating, is something that seriously gets on my nerves over here.

- I really want to know what was so funny in the apartment below two nights ago. I was awake most of the night, inelegantly dispensing the contents of my stomach over the entire bathroom, and all I could hear (apart from my retching) was the cackles of the chick who lives downstairs from me. Now, I know I did have to leave a bedroom once because the guy was just so impossibly serious about himself and what he was doing and with so little result, the situation struck me as hilarious and I sprinted out on some bathroom-related pretext to have a damn good snigger to myself. Even I have the grace not to laugh outrageously for hours on end. The mind, in this instance, boggles.

- as I cast my eyes around the ferry this morning, doing a spot of people-watching, I observed a middle-aged western male using a teaspoon to a) stir his coffee, b) give his ear a thorughly good cleaning-out and c) relieve an itch on his back. Am I alone in finding this repulsive, or does everyone else view this as a resourceful use of a teaspoon??

- a student of mine had to write an essay that included an analysis of a poem by Chinua Achebe, 'Refugee Mother and Child'. The opening line of this incorporates the image of the Madonna and Child. While reviewing the essay for this student, who had notably ignored every single word of advice I'd given her and clearly either lost or abandoned the essay plan we'd created, I realised why I couldn't understand what on earth she was on about at one point: she'd been referring to the Madonna as the pop singer as oppose to... well, if you don't know who then please go shoot yourself. You'll be doing yourself and the rest of the world a favour. If a sixteen year old doesn't understand the most basic of Biblical references, how am I to be expected to teach them how to analyse even a Blake poem? Until now, I'd thought Blake was open and easy to interpret. Now, I'm terrified to think what she'll do with lines such as, 'the mind-forg'd manacles I hear' ('London'). I anticipate her analysis suggesting that 'mind' has forever been misspelled and it actually should be 'mine' which makes much more sense because they were mining for tin or whatever to make manacles. Mock not, I believe this is a distinct possibility she'll come up with.

- for nine days at the beginning of February, I'm hopping over to Thailand. Yes, I know I've always cackled at those who have been there, it being tourist-trap central. Hopefully, for the second part at least, I'll manage to find a place that even Lonely Planet writers haven't stumbled across yet; for the first few days, though, I get to be an uber-tourist and go play around with elephants. I can't wait. I get to wash baby elephants in a river - for me, this is something approximating a dream coming true. Even I need to employ the word 'cute' when talking about baby elephants, and that means they really must be cute, what with their hairiness and enormous eyes... everyone together now: awwwww! (I got so excited I even used an exclamation mark, you see).

- not much has been going on in my world, as is fairly evident by this post. When something happens, be assured you'll be the first to know. I've been feeling distinctly Grr of late about certain things - hence my last soewhat downbeat epic - and have spent far too much time in contemplative mode. I need to get back in touch with the world before it rushes past and forgets all about me; for some reason, it seems like a bad thing that it is Friday evening and I'm sat at home, alone, blogging about nothing. Back in the UK, I wouldn't have batted an eyelid if this were the case. What has happened to me since coming out here?? Oh dear. 'The L-Shaped Room' (Lynne Reid Banks), a slab of mozzarella, and Yann Tiersen it is. And - just to see out of curiosity if somebody in particular reads this witterage - this is VS009, over and out.

An epic post

I fear this is going to be an uncomfortably long post: may I suggest you either break it down into a series of readings, or go get yourself a mug of cocoa, choose a decent track on the stereo, and settle down for a while. Chances are you're reading this from somewhere unreasonably cold right now so I'm doing you a favour here - giving you a reason to snuggle down in bed that little bit longer. Honestly, the things I do for you. (The things I do, however, don't extend to breaking down this marathon witter into separate postings. I just can't be bothered).

I was coming back on the ferry to Lamma the other day (actually, it was just the other day, as oppose to my usual definition of 'the other day' which can mean anything up to about fifteen years ago), pondering to myself the 'greater things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your [Horatio's] philosophy'. One of these ponderings stemmed from a New Year's blog post I put up here then took down two hours later, deciding that the world didn't need quite such ready access to my more sentimental side. I'd written something about Hope and how Hope is the great salvation of humanity: the hope that things will improve, the concept we hang onto when all about is going depressingly haywire. (To be exact, I wrote that 'it is hope that keeps us alive, the ability to dream wonderful dreams, the eternal possibility of 'perhaps'.') I disagree. Yes, I'm that argumentative I even get into debates with myself. Others who have endured arguments with me, consider that you've gotten off lightly. I've just been defending one position; when I'm arguing with myself I've got two sides to argue for. The debates can last for hours. Anyhow, I disagree because I think that hope merely prolongs the agony in many circumstances. I think the best example I can give is to present the situation when you've been in a relationship with someone and for whatever reason it has come to an end. Despite the fact they've hurt you more than you ever thought possible, if you loved them enough you cling to the hope that maybe they'll change their mind, maybe they'll come back to you some day. How on earth is Hope remotely positive in this situation? Precisely. It isn't. Hope merely prevents us from dealing; hope delays what can best be referred to as the bereavement process. There are families out there who have had sons and daughters die in Iraq and yet for various ghastly reasons a body has not been returned, the death is merely reported and expected to be believed; how can a mother mourn the loss of a son when she has no definite evidence of his death? Always there will be a faint glimmer of hope shining somewhere in her heart, that maybe the authorities 'got it wrong', perhaps it wasn't her son who died at all. She thereafter faces a lifetime of accentuated agony.

For those of you who know your philosophy, you'll know this is not an original thought. I didn't realise that at the time, to be honest, but I did a few hours later after a spot of googling on the subject. It seems that Nietzsche beat me to the concept when he wrote that 'hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torments of man'. Does this invalidate the thought processes I went through to reach my conclusions? That someone else Got There First? Another internal debate raged for a few days, before I came to the firm decision that No, it doesn't. If anything, it serves to strengthen it that someone as respected as Nietzsche agrees with me.

Which leads me on to another argument I had with somebody else the other day - not one of my other personalities, a separate person entirely. He pointed out that in my post about Dating I made the comment toward the end that 'life is... a banquet in a room of chandeliers and elegance when this is beyond your means', which is essentially me re-phrasing Oscar Wilde's, 'anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination.' For one, this was not a particularly pertinent observation since firstly this is one of Wilde's more well-known sayings, and for two, I clearly have a lot of interest in what Wilde had to say because I have a bunch of his quotations listed on my blog. (Furthermore, as I pointed out in the argument, if you're going to accuse me of stealing an idea from someone, at least accuse me of stealing it from the Ancient Greeks who almost certainly had thoughts along these lines, borrowed throughout the centuries by multiple others including our friend Mr Wilde). Philosophers and idealists have always used another's ideas to present their own: it adds to a defence, it strengthens an argument. Take the ideas of the first English feminists (on which I should be something of an expert, so if anyone is going to dispute any of this post please don't bother to focus on this particular segment): Mary Astell borrowed - intentionally - from Descartes and his, 'I think, therefore I am' to promote the philosophy that men and women are more than the sum of their bodily parts. It is such thinking, used under slightly different conditions, that has led to my female readers occupying the positions they currently are in society. In other words: be damn grateful that people mercilessly steal 'intellectual property' from others.

Bringing me oh so neatly onto another point (do you begin to believe me now that I really can rattle off a fairly viable essay in three hours flat?), specifically, that I'm fed up with the way women complain about their current position in society. They want it All - whatever the heck All is meant to represent. And for those looking to comment on this post, I don't want to read a single response that says they disagree with this viewpoint; I am so bored of hearing all the thoughts along the lines of, 'but women still earn less than men do in such and such a job'. Who the hell cares, you're earning a damn fortune so shut your trap and be glad of it. As Fromm tells us, women and men are fundamentally different and we should celebrate the differences rather than spend our lives trying to convince the world we are one and the same. For God's sake, we live in a world where a single female can make a choice to move from the UK to Hong Kong and within three months she is there, living in her own apartment, paying her own bills, making her own way in the world. I know, I've just done it. The world is one giant oyster there for the taking, it is whether you choose to or not that makes the difference.

In another recent conversation, it was pointed out to be me that I can't possibly be Happy: I'm living on my own on the other side of the world (for the record, it is now YOU living on the other side of the world actually...), distinctly lacking in anything approximating a relationship with a guy. Just because one person's definition of Happy incorporates the bizarre need to be permanently partnered up with another doesn't mean that applies to everyone. I wont deny that I've been in relationships that have made me overwhelmingly happy, but all of them bar none have also resulted in me reaching depths of unhappiness you never think is quite possible until you're there. Whether I've ended it or the other has, it always, always, hurts like hell. And the worst thing is, that hurt never goes away, it just gets loosely placed into another section of your mind, always there and waiting to be woken up by a piece of music, a work of art, a scent of aftershave - something that transports you back to all those other emotions. Thus the happiness of relationships has always, for me, been irrevocably linked with an unhappiness that makes me feel, at times, as though I'm living a life where I'm just waiting for the pain to start again.

I finally read Plath's, 'The Bell Jar'. This should be enforced reading for every adolescent girl; I wish I'd read the book ten years ago because it would have made some of the hellish times seem a little more manageable. The bell jar, the claustrophobic cover that Plath creates to describe her feelings as a woman endeavouring to make just one decision, any decision, a decision that satisfies herself rather than just her college professors or her mother or some guy. 'How did I know that some day - at college, in Europe, somewhere, anywhere - the bell jar, with its stifling distortions, wouldn't descend again?' The thing is, I know that the bell jar is merely hovering above me, following my every move, waiting to be lowered into place once more. I know it is there, I feel its presence, its possibility.

'What are you running from?' It is a question pretty much everyone has asked me at some point. I'm running from my past, I'm trying to out-run my memories and all the triggers that go along with them. And I know that this is impossible, I've figured that much, but in general I do a pretty good job. So much so that on occasion I will do something like allow a guy into my heart once more, set myself up for what is supposed to be a lifetime of happiness only to have it result in that bell jar being lowered mockingly once again. And this is why Hope is such a killer: Hope is responsible for the height at which my bell jar hovers, for allowing it to be lifted temporarily and then crashed back into place.

None of these ideas are original, but together they make up my philosophy. If you don't like it, I seriously don't want to hear about it. My version of happiness is not yours; my concept of what is real and what is false is at odds with yours. I know most of you come here to read something that makes you chuckle as you wade through an endless sea of paperwork, something to lighten a dull day: my aim is merely to make you think. If I can write something that triggers any emotion - be it happiness and laughter or contemplation and sighs - then my work here is done.

Yeats: 'Tread softly, for you tread on my dreams.'