Strap-on religious souvenirs available here

Electric prayer candles, St Peter's, Clerkenwell. Put 20p in the slot and one lights up. Put another 20p in and it starts to move up and down ...

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The Great Annual Christmas Slack-Off has begun.
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The volume of emails I'm receiving from friends currently in work (I use that term very loosely) has begun to increase. Here, in the middle levels of the Northern Hemisphere anyway, it gets dark early in the afternoon, people are thinking about the Christmas break and the already high background level of drunk people in the UK is rising significantly.
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I tried to order a new lens for my SLR a couple of days ago. Mindful of the growth of Internet based fraud I telephoned my order direct to the usually very reliable Bristol Cameras. Two minutes into the order process I realised the guy at the other end was off his face, pissed drunk. Him quoting me back a scrambled debit card number, laughing randomly at several points in the conversation, then totalling the order at £200 less than it should have been gave the game away. Delivery due probably 17th July 2026 - at which point I can look forward to a) nothing, b) completely the wrong thing , or c) some combination of a) and b) costing me £14,000.
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Shortly after ending the call, I had a guilty thought that maybe he wasn't drunk. Maybe there was a faulty heater in his office and at that very moment a group of hard-pressed telesales executives were gradually succumbing to the effects of carbon monoxide poisoning. After some reflection I decided that, no, he probably was drunk. Anyway, even if I was wrong and he was now dead from gas inhalation, carbon monoxide suppresses the onset of rigour mortis and somebody would be able to extract my order from his cold dread hand without too much effort, provided he'd got it down right in the first place.
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That's Christmas for you. All over the World people are either drunk, sneaking out of the office to the shops or sitting in front of PCs twiddling idly.
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So, here I am, receiving a steady and growing flow of 'how are you doing emails?' and vaguely Christmassy humorous file attachments and Internet links from bored office-bound chums around the World.
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Favourites of the day so far include the Cheesy Jesus site …
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http://cheesyjesus.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=11
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… packed full of the tackiest Catholic memorabilia that money can buy.
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Then there's the story that UK shop Santas are being monitored by dedicated CCTV installations to ensure that they're not paedophiles. The first question that struck my mind was how can we be sure that they're not Islamic fundamentalists? After all there's plenty of room for a headscarf under Santa's hat and anthrax in the Christmas presents? What about the risk of an Islamic Santa packing his sleigh with Semtex and slamming his reindeer slap bang into the front of Buckingham Palace? Our Government should be doing a lot more to protect us.
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Christmastime is also a golden opportunity to catch up on office chores. It's normally quiet and there's not much work going on. What better time is there to meticulously clean your mouse ball and turn your keyboard upside down and grab a free lunch based on the remains of your previous 300 lunches? I was particularly well-blessed in that regard as I spent many years in a travel based job. This meant that I had a lot more in the way of exotic goodies to nibble on than my London-based colleagues when I turned my laptop upside down. Bread crumbs from Italy, desiccated ham fragments from Mexico City, specks of fried chicken coating from Manila, all bound together in a mass of cigarette ash and tobacco particles. The whole World would look back up at me from my desk in buffet form.
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Ooh, I feel peckish now …

Stop it! Stop it! You're killing me!

Chinatown, London

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Following swiftly on from the stories that purchasing pirate DVDs funds the drugs trade AND terrorism AND sometimes they have poor sound quality, our government has announced today that buying smuggled cigarettes is bad for you. I quote ...

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Britain is being flooded by smuggled cigarettes which cost the exchequer about 2 billion pounds a year and pose deadly health risks as most are fake, a new government report says ...
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"Staggeringly, 85 percent of cheap cigarettes sold illegally on the capital's streets and more than half of all smuggled cigarettes seized nationally are counterfeit" ...
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"According to research, counterfeit cigarettes being sold on Britain's streets contain five times as much cadmium -- which can severely damage the lungs and is linked with kidney disease; and nearly six times as much lead and even high levels of arsenic - which increases the risks of lung, liver and other cancers." ...
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"Customs will continue to crack down on this illicit market and the organised criminals who run it."

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The message is clear. Smuggled cigarettes are much MORE lethal than duty paid cigarettes. And I thought the Government was only concerned with screwing as much money as possible out of an inelastic, addiction-driven market. I feel all warm and fluffy now.

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This announcement follows on from a recent European ruling against British Customs who have been merrily seizing and destroying private citizens' cars as they return from mainland Europe loaded up with cigarettes.

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The rise of cigarette smuggling is colossal. Once upon a time, before Tony Blair, the sight of dodgy chaps selling cigarettes out of suitcases on street corners was very much a non British thing. You'd see such people plying their wares in Rome or Paris but not in London. We British were in the habit of paying our taxes. Then those taxes went up. And up. Apparently, taxes were being raised for health reasons which doesn't quite square with the sound of government officials whining like bitches at the thought of all that lost tax revenue due to smuggling. Researchers have quantified how much foreign tobacco is getting into the country by the simple method of analysing discarded packets collected after football matches. They collect an awful lot of foreign ciggie packets. Depending on who is playing, there are sometimes more foreign packets than domestic ones.

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Back in 1974, when we were conned into signing up for the European Common Market, the vote was swung by the promise that we would pay lower, European prices for our ciggies and drink. In the 30 years since that vote the only harmonization with European taxes has been upwards. For example, sales tax went up from 5% to an altogether more continental 17.5%, yet the price of beer and tabs has remained solidly higher than anywhere else across the Channel. A packet of 20 costs just under £5 in the UK and nearer £2.20 in France and Italy.

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So, naturally, whenever possible, British citizens have been loading up on cigarettes and alcohol whenever abroad. British Customs have grudgingly admitted that, yes, you can buy as much alcohol and tobacco in Europe as you like but only strictly for personal consumption. This raises the amusing prospect of holding a party on return from a visit to France and forbidding your guests to drink any of your booze or scrounging any of your cigarettes on the basis that you could have your house seized and destroyed ...

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And do the same restrictions apply to consumption of other products, like full fat cheese and cast iron Le Creuset cookware, that are also much cheaper in France? I'm not too sure really but it's amusing to think that they might.

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Jesus is in trouble! This is a job for Delta Force

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The best Democracy money can buy

French estate agent by Izzie, aged 6

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I think it was Lenin who blew off the whole concept of democracy as being nothing more than dictatorship, punctuated every five years by an illusion of freedom that lasted for five minutes inside a polling booth.
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Yesterday, the leader of the opposition conservative party, Michael Howard, indicated that his party would support imposition of compulsory identity cards in the UK. This raises the rather interesting question as to who to vote for in the next general election. The UK is faced with a whole mass of important constitutional issues and popular opinion concerning most of these issues is well known. For example:

• Most us don’t like the idea of compulsory ID cards
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• Most of do not want to adopt the Euro or sign up to the European Constitution
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• Most of us believe the Iraq war to be wrong

Of the three major political parties in the UK not one of them supports the majority view on all three questions. This is strange because all three issues touch on inter-related questions of personal freedom and the nature of government. If you are a true libertarian your opinions will match those of the majority in these three examples. If you favour the growth of more powerful, unaccountable government you will be against the majority on all three.
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So, what are we to do? Voting for any one of the three main parties will be taken as a mandate for their position on all three questions. So, if I vote Liberal because of their principled anti-war stance I am also supporting the deeply flawed European project. If I vote for the Conservatives and their Euro sceptical approach I am simultaneously endorsing the war and the dangerous ID card scheme. Whichever party we vote for we lose, they win. Not good. Not good at all.
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My friend's toilet does NOT look like an iMac

Cappuccino-powered mod leaving Bar Italia, Soho

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So, within forty five minutes of me pasting up a blog entry with the word 'iMac' in the title I get 10 new visitors to my blog. They didn't stay very long though.
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God, that's so depressing. Is that really all it takes? Is the price of fame a willingness to write two line blog postings that include the words 'iPod', 'iMac', 'megajugs', 'free celebrity porn', or 'download pirate computer games here' in the title?
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What is it with Apple anyway? Why are there so many people out there with such a fierce brand loyalty? Is it something to do with the collapse of organised religion?
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Apple opened its new European store on Regents Street a few weeks ago and hordes of people slept outside overnight just to be amongst the first ones in. They were rewarded with the opportunity to buy one of a limited quantity of Apple goodie bags for £250 with a guarantee that each bag would contain £700-800 worth of Apple stuff. Rumour had it than one in ten bags contained an iPod. Out of the people I saw interviewed, none had found an iPod but all had found a load of useless old tat that Apple couldn't sell at full retail price in several months' of Sundays. The store manager was grinning from ear to ear.
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... and still those mugs were enthusing about the Apple brand. As far as i can tell it's all about Apples being well designed, easy to use and the fact that they're not PCs. My toaster has identical qualities but I'm not about to join a cult based on owning one.
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Alcohol-fuelled thirtysomething shag fest? Sadly not

'Mum' by Izzie aged 6 (I shall be exhibiting a portfolio of Izzie's work under my own name in the very near future)

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So, there I was at a party at a friend's house on Saturday. Most of the people there were in their early thirties and had young kids.
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Coupled-up thirtysomething parties are usually a lot less fun than uncoupled twentysomething parties. Admittedly the standard of food and drink on offer is better but this is more than outweighed by the drawbacks. Coupled-up thirtysomethings are not looking for sexual partners and so the single strongest imperative for drink-sodden interaction is absent. As a demographic we generally don’t drink to excess, as we like to sleep in our own beds and frequently have small children waiting for us at home. So, we talk. Just talk. The problem with talking is that only a very limited range of topics is permissible. You can't drift onto any subject that causes the thirtysomething to contemplate the life they have made for themselves or the realities of the world around them. The safest topics are child care, home improvements and holidays. Not coincidentally, a similar agenda now dominates British television.
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Even though I rarely find the women at such events attractive, and they certainly don’t find me attractive, I often long for someone to gather up everyone's house keys as a prelude to some deranged orgiastic, partner-swapping shag-fest, just to add some spice to the occasion. Fat chance. Everyone's far too tired after a day spent indulging their kids' every whim.
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These kind of social occasions are particularly difficult for Tracy and me. As a couple, and as individuals, we have always spent less than we earn. We don’t drive a car. We don’t have spawn, yet. We don’t kid ourselves that our jobs, when we have them, are important. We are intensely resistant to marketing, commercialisation, exploitation and unfairness, yet believe most left-wingers are dicks. Coming from modest backgrounds, we have no middle class guilt. We go on holiday to places like Louisiana.
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We simply can’t connect with many other UK couples in our demographic. Or many other demographics come to think of it. We usually chat amongst ourselves. Occasionally, someone will approach us out of politeness' sake. Within a few seconds, as a result of some unstoppable primeval compulsion, I will turn the topic of conversation to something I find interesting; normally phrased as a question. Questions posed by my goodself last Saturday included:
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'Don't you think it's funny that we used to laugh about how sick the Japanese were for making game shows that degraded and injured their contestants and now, twenty years later, our television is filled with shows that are much worse. Do you think the Japanese are taking the piss out of us right now?'
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'Aren't all reality TV shows based on the premise that people want to watch other people try to make something of their lives and fail? Isn’t the message that it's better to sit on the sofa and be a mindless consumer rather than try a new life overseas, start a new business or improve their home? How would the British public feel about watching a show where someone successfully moved to another country with a better quality of life, decent schools and safe streets and that ended with the person cheerfully sticking two fingers up at the media-controlled morons back in the UK? Would people want to watch that? Would YOU want to watch that? What does that say about you and your life?'
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'So you think the UK should have an open door immigration policy for all people living under oppressive regimes? China is an oppressive regime with a population of two billion. Would you mind putting up a couple of hundred Chinese in your spare room? Where's the logic in your opinion?'
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Material like this doesn’t usually go down very well and is usually met with a glazed look and a casting about for some plausible excuse to edge away somewhere else. When I was younger I fell prey to self-doubts that I was intrinsically boring. With a few more years and a little more self-confidence, I know now that boredom isn't the issue. Far from it. Occasionally, people will respond cogently to something I say. I don’t really mind if they agree or disagree. Either way, it doesn’t really matter. I'm not 100% sure why I was set on this Earth but I'm pretty sure the answer in some way involves making sense of the World around me. I am keen to meet people who can help me with my, our, task. Talking about the merits of pine furniture doesn't make the cut.
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I'm not being fair really. The English middle classes are the easiest target in the World and there are many people who make a tidy living out of exploiting their hang-ups. English middle class twenty and thirtysomethings had an easy upbringing. They earn inflated salaries. They feel guilty. They should do. They compensate for that guilt by buying Fair-trade coffee, handing money over to street beggars, supporting bullshit recycling schemes and giving a few pounds a month to charities managed by other white boys on a guilt trip. Yet, at the same time, they drive everywhere, employ immigrant nannies and cleaners on a pittance, send their kids to private schools and spend enough on toddlers' birthday parties to keep half of the Sudan in millet for a year.
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This particular party wound up with a group of people discussing how many radiators each of them had in each room back at home. Tracy and myself had broken off and were engaged in our own conversation about the plague of ceramic hair straighteners that is currently infesting the UK. Later, Francis, our host, drove us home a 3.30 in the morning. He had barely consumed any alcohol and neither had we.
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My friend's toilet looks like an iMac

Apple's latest 'skinnable' object of designer desire - The iCrap

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So there I was watching a TV show about the necessity to invent 'Dark Matter' and 'Dark Energy' so that the Big Bang Theory adds up. After that there was a crass show, done in the style of a 'scientific' toothpaste commercial, where an Egyptian tomb was opened for the first time in 2,100 years live on TV, punctuated by ads for ring tones and indigestion creams. The next day a car bomb exploded in Baghdad's 'Green Zone' killing at least seven people exactly one year after Saddam Hussein was captured and weeks after the insurgent-busting assault on Fallujah. The Israelis have spent much of today pounding large chunks of the Occupied Territories with gunships. Pilot schemes are being introduced in London to scan bus passengers for knives even though we are told crime in the city is falling. The charity 'Shelter' announced today that the number of UK families without permanent homes has doubled in the last seven years to over 500,000 without drawing any connection with the massive increase in migration into this country, which now has a population density ten times that of America and three times that of France. This evening I watched, in despair, a 'general knowledge' quiz show with questions based largely on recognising the theme music from a series of soap operas and sitcoms.
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And I'm going to comment on none of it. Not today. Based on an extensive statistical analysis of successful blogs, I have realised that this is not what people want.
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This is what people want from a blog …
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I've just downloaded Firefox. Ain't it cool. I don’t use Internet Explorer. I'm a rebel. Ain't I kool.
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My iPod is kool. I've just downloaded the latest U2 Album. They're so cool.
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My local coffee shop doesn't have a WiFi point. Bummer.
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My friend's toilet seat looks like an iMac. I took a picture of it with my camera phone. Ain't it cool.
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No. No it's not.
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There was a Steve McQueen movie on TV last night. Steve was cool. Unlike an iPod he didn't need an optional, mass produced clip-on facia to demonstrate his individuality. You could tell he was cool because, even though he was an American, he could handle a motor vehicle with a manual gearbox. He was 100% cool, even in a turtle neck. Elvis was cool, particularly the cheeseburger years. The Sex Pistols were cool. Riding motorbikes without helmets was cool. Lead painted toys with sharp edges were cool. The period 1955-1985 was littered with iconic and romantic people, places and things.

I look around me in the UK in 2004 and there is no cause worth fighting for, no dreams on offer that are worth dreaming, no public figures you can believe in and nothing on sale that will make people happy for anything longer than a few minutes; which is just as well because nothing is designed to last that long any more.

When my generation was nineteen our music was better, much better. We could read more than three lines of prose without being stricken by ADS. Our comedians were funny. We weren't the rubber ball chomping gimps of companies like Nokia, Sony, Apple or the major record labels. And we knew very clearly what we were angry about. If there's any doubt about what I am saying, just pause for a moment and consider the very obvious difference in auras surrounding the original Band Aid record and this year's ghastly resurrection.
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Over the last 20 years I have seen McCulture triumph. The generation that followed mine is lost, manipulated, commercialised, achingly unoriginal and completely without any hope or vision of a better future. And, worst of all, the soundtrack is fricking terrible. We now live in a World where 30 year olds spend their lives playing Grand Theft Auto every night because there's nothing better to do, where ever bigger lies are told with ever greater ease, and where lunatics like Bush and Blair can blow the poo out of any 3rd World country they fancy without any real opposition. It's all there. It's in the Blogs …
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Tomorrow I will take my medication and focus hard on being happier.
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Hey Cheeky Man!

Not much of a Fantasy. Not much in the way of Lovely Girls.
Some people like to play golf on Sunday afternoons. Me, I prefer to argue with Slavic 'hostesses' outside places like this …

I once had a lot of time for Soho. From my early teens through to my late twenties I spent much time in that part of London. For many years I worked in nearby theatres and loved the whole atmosphere. A mix of seedy sex clubs, Italian coffee shops, bars, music venues and assorted Chinese business interests, it was a marvellous place to spend time. Soho was what London was all about.

Soho's changed. My opinion of Soho as plummeted in line will my overall disenchantment with London in general. Soho is still sleazy but it's harder-edged sleaziness that features much seediness but none of the romance that once came as part of the package. It’s a real shame.

I can’t quite put my finger on exactly why I think Soho has become rubbish. All the components are still there; the bars, the sex clubs, the eating places, but it's more bad tempered, less of a laugh. I can’t believe I'm even writing this but I think the problem is Soho has become too commercialised.

No. I still can’t believe I just wrote that.

When still at school a few of us would occasionally skip Wednesday sports afternoons and get the bus into Soho. We would stroll around in the company of a few cans of lager without ties but still wearing our black sixth form blazers and check out the goings on. Occasionally, a midget-sized Maltese or Cypriot proprietor of one of the many bijou girlie bars would come out onto the street and beckon us with an outstretched finger, saying something along the lines of …

'Yes, yes'

or

'Please my friends. Come in'

or my favourite

'Enter yes. Special rates for young men in full time education'

It's not like that now. I think most of the old generation of titty bar tycoons have passed on or been passed on.

The vibe isn’t the same any more, as an experience I had earlier on today confirmed quite emphatically. Ian and myself had been strolling around Chinatown / Soho for a couple of hours taking pictures, as we do. We signed a petition calling for a halt to the demolition of a chunk of Chinatown (boo!). We admired a group of ageing mods and their Vespas having a coffee in Bar Italia; as they have done since 1958. All good stuff and in keeping with the Soho of old.

We strolled past the rebuilt Admiral Duncan pub. Soho has several gay pubs, including the Admiral Duncan. They're good pubs and, to the uninitiated, they look very traditional and inviting to passing tourists looking for some local colour and a tankard of fine British ale. One of the great joys of Soho is watching uncomfortable American tourists huddled nervously together like worried cattle, finishing their drinks as quickly as possible after having realised what kind of place they've walked into about five seconds after buying their round.

The Admiral Duncan was blown up by a particularly nasty nail bomb in 1999 and three people were killed. The man responsible was a lunatic gay hater. I still think about that atrocity. Largely because I am mindful of the fact that anti-gay terrorism has claimed precisely three more victims than Islamic terrorism in the UK. Strangely, in the wake of the Admiral Duncan murders there were no calls for ID cards or a government crackdown on militant heterosexuality.

We were strolling down a side street when I noticed a shop called 'Spankarama'. That was definitely going into my personal album. As I made a bee-line towards Spankarama I half turned and grabbed a quick, poorly executed shot of another emporium called Fantasy Club. I kept on walking. A few seconds later a hard-faced, blonde woman came running out of Fantasy Club screeching in an East European accent. I think it was Polish. Her face was plastered with a heavy foundation cream that had been mixed with glitter. Her eyes and mouth were garishly painted. The overall effect wasn't doing much for me. She called out 'Hey! Cheeky Man!'. She was yelling at me. I thought about walking on but decided, no, bollocks I'd take her on. Our conversation went roughly along the lines of …

'You must PAY!'

'Pay for what?'

'In this country you must pay for everything'

'This is my country. Don’t tell me what I must do'

'You take picture you must PAY'

'No. I am walking on a street. This is a free country. Don’t tell me what I must do in my own country'

'We pay council tax so you must pay. It is law. I call a policeman.'

'OK. Fine. You call a policeman. I will wait and we will see. I am in no hurry'

'You must PAY'

'Don’t tell me what to do in my country. If you don’t like our laws why don’t you F*CK OFF HOME!

Even if I say so myself, I do abusive shouting in a strong London accent to a pretty high standard. At this point we had gathered an audience of about ten people; including a bag lady, several tourists and a West Indian in overalls. The West Indian laughed loudly and in an approving way at the 'F' Off Home' line. I really was quite pleased that he didn't take the comment personally. Anyway, Lovely Lady chose to ignore my considered advice and came back with a riposte worthy of the great Oscar Wilde himself …

'You take picture of me. You must pay'

'No. No I didn’t. I took a picture of the shop. Stop being such a daft trout' (She didn’t understand the last bit at all and looked confused. She realised I wasn't being complimentary)

'What did you say?'

'I said stop being such a d-a-f-t t-r-o-u-t'

'No. You take picture of me. You not take picture of shop'

'Yes. I did. Look' (I showed her the picture on the back of my camera. She went quiet for a moment. It really was just a picture of a shopfront)

'You can see me in picture!'

'No. No you can’t. Are you going to call that policeman?'

'You must PAY'

'If you’re not calling the policeman I am going to continue with my business.'

At which point I started walking away. I was mindful of the fact that Fantasy Club, even though it clearly didn’t offer the 'Lovely Girls' it claimed to, probably did employ at least one ex-Spetsnaz bouncer who had learned the finer points of customer management during a couple of tours in Chechnya. One thing I learned from my limited time in Eastern Europe is don’t piss off people involved in any form of vice or criminality. The only thing in Russia cheaper than home-made vodka is human life. They're serious.

God Bless the English and the open door policy. Any past deficiency of abusive East European whores on the streets of London has clearly now been rectified. Do I sound harsh? I wonder how long I would survive wherever that particular creature came from if I chose to demand money from people and lecture them on the laws of their country whilst displaying a useless command of their language and a dodgy English accent?

Lovely Lady wasn't bothered by the fact that she thought I had taken a picture of her. She was just narked that I hadn't paid her for services rendered. It was fairly clear from her manner that she was pretty much open to anything, provided I paid my way.

I actually have had the good fortune to meet very many sound Eastern Europeans throughout my life and would never pretend that Lovely Lady is at all representative. I really would rather that her and her particular kind stayed at home though. We already have more than enough of our own, home-grown, domestic product.

So, there I was, in Soho, arguing on the pavement outside a brightly lit Fantasy Island with an overly made up hostess cum prostitute. For metres around, a crowd of people had gathered and was guffawing loudly. Ian was standing nearby equipped with an extremely expensive Leica rangefinder and fast Summicron lens. Just prior he had been complaining that there hadn’t been much worth taking pictures of.

The camera stayed in the case.

Nice one Ian

London is becoming an increasingly hard place to take pictures in. As a point of principle I don't practice intrusive photography. I earn no money from my hobby and it's not worth the hassle. If I take pictures of people I either ask them first or restrict myself to situations where people expect to have their picture taken. Nevertheless, in the last few months I have been moved on by armed police, hassled by immigrant security staff in public places in violation of the law, threatened by Irish marchers and accosted by whores. These scenes have normally taken place in full view of the very large number of CCTV cameras that now line the streets of London. No-one seems bothered by those. On reflection, the Irish marchers were the scariest, it was obvious they had much experience in providing the service they were offering me. The whore was a close second though ...

PS Ian, I just checked and www.cheekyman.com is still available as a domain

Don't feel like writing much today ...

Words that sound like they might be related but actually have nothing to do with each other at all No.46 - MERENGUE and FERENGI

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Just read today that New Zealand has banned smoking in bars and restaurants and recognized gay couples, all in the same week.
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Not much in that particular package of legislation for heterosexual smokers planning to move over there one day then ...
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Vodaphone Christmas Ad

Festive fun from vodaphone

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Just in case anyone I know missed it when it came out last week ...
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