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”.