One monkey with a typewriter

Limitless patience isn't always a good thing

2012-02-16T10:16:00.000+03:00

If there was an Olympic discipline for waiting patiently, I am absolutely sure a Kenyan would win it, given the amount of training the average citizen has to go through every day.

I am in the process of trying to procure a birth certificate for our son Kristian, who was born on 13 December. On Tuesday, I went down to the city registry to begin the process, which I now realise will take a very, very long time.

The office itself looks like a paper bomb exploded. It is a tiny room in Nairobi City Hall, where every shelf is stuffed with old books piled high on one another. On every table are bundles of certificates, literally thousands of them, in no order whatsoever. The staff members have what can charitably be described as a leisurely approach, which involves drinking tea and eating chapatis while staring balefully at the scrum of people waving notification slips in an attempt to get their attention.

On the first day, I was sent away because the computers were down. On Wednesday, it took them an hour to establish they couldn’t find the certificate. This initial process involved a guy staring at the computer, typing in the notification number, staring at it again, typing the number, etc, until he wandered off to look for it. After leafing aimlessly through some bundles, he sent me off to Nairobi hospital so I could get the delivery note and help them find out who received the certificate.

An hour later, I return. They discover the guy who received the certificates isn’t there, and his phone is turned off (this is after another hour of waiting, and they only called him because I suggested). Off I go for lunch, with the promise they will look. An hour later I am back, only to find they are on a late lunch. They return 40 minutes late. Another woman then leafs through some papers, clearly unhappy at having to do her job.

She then tells me to come back tomorrow, when the guy should be there, and they will look again. At no point did anybody apologize for the loss, and the assumption was it was my issue to sort it out even though it was their mistake. When I explained they were making me run all over town to fix their mistake, I got a blank stare of the “why is this irritating mzungu annoying me” variety.

Throughout this all, there were at least 50 Kenyans going through similar grief. They all stood about, shaking their heads and telling me how bad it was. But not one of them was prepared to complain to the staff about the terrible system and their bad attitude.

Kenyans tell me all the time how pissed off they are that nothing works, but here’s the thing: the reason it doesn’t work is because you let it not work. If everybody in that office kicked up a stink, at the very least the employees would make an effort, if just for a quiet life. Yet it is the foreigners (including a London Somali lady who was having the same problem as me) that are left to complain. We can easily be dismissed as impatient interlopers who don’t understand Kenya, when all we are are people prepared to vocalize what everybody else is feeling.

So, Kenyans: if you want things to change, complain when it matters, instead of telling mzungus how terrible it is than looking faintly embarrassed when we do your complaining for you. If you guys had a bit less patience, the country would run better, and you wouldn’t build up five years of frustration that then suddenly explodes the way it did after the 2007 elections.

Feeling grateful for modern medicine

2012-01-11T13:19:00.002+03:00

It’s easy to take modern medicine for granted. We pop a pill or go under the knife, and just accept this is the way it should be.

I’ve had cause to think about it since Kristian, our four-week-old, was diagnosed with Pyloric Stenosis after three days of vomiting. It’s a condition that stops food passing through to the intestines, so he was becoming increasingly dehydrated and losing weight. Quite simply, without the operation, he would have died.

I am so grateful to the doctors and nurses at Nairobi hospital, although since his insurance hadn’t started yet, it will be my turn to feel ill tomorrow when the bill comes. It got me thinking, though, about how many of my friends and family would be dead if we hadn’t had the medical advances we all now embrace as part of daily life.

Last year, Charlotte, our daughter, contracted pneumonia, and was in hospital for three days getting antibiotics through a drip. Without that, there was a good chance she would have died. Without an inhaler, my wife's asthma may have done for her. I’m also thinking about all the other people I know who’ve had medical complications – the friends who would have died in childbirth, or from malaria, or meningitis, or any other number of common conditions. I’m sure everybody has a big list of people they know who may have died without medical intervention.

Hell, I’m even thinking of other simple advances, such as spectacles. I’m blind as a bat, and back in prehistoric times no doubt I would have been gobbled up by that sabre-toothed tiger I didn’t notice until it was too late.

We are so fortunate we have managed to bypass the physical elements of natural selection through application of our large brains, allowing the weaklings such as myself to thrive. Here’s to the medical profession!

When a child is born, a bit too quickly

2011-12-16T11:48:00.001+03:00

My wife Nats gave birth to our second child, a son, in the early hours of Tuesday, which was hardly unexpected given all the signs were there that the wee fella was going to come earlier than the date of December 23 we had been given. What we didn’t anticipate was quite how eager he was to come out.

My wife woke up at 1.30am when her water broke. With our first child, Charlotte Elizabeth, we had four hours from this point until birth, plenty of time to drive down to Nairobi hospital, keeping a wary eye for carjackers, who I suspect tend not to moonlight as midwives, so we were a bit casual at first. After 30 minutes, the contractions were coming thick and fast, but we still felt we had time, so I headed round the corner to pick up our friend Zara, who we had woken with a phone call and asked her to come keep an eye on Charlotte.

So far, so good, right? I was gone for exactly 20 minutes, but when I drove into our compound, I heard hoarse, guttural roars from halfway down the car park. Either our noisy neighbour were having another one of their prayer meetings that sound rather more like possession/exorcism than worship, or the labour was progressing rather faster than anticipated. I sprinted up the stairs, and got into the house to find Nats in the guest toilet, announcing rather stridently that “This baby is coming!”

It turns out that while I was gone, Nats had very quickly entered the final phase of labour, and had only Charlotte, who had woken up and was helping her mum, for company. I got to the business end to find out that the baby’s whole head was out, and he was coming whether we liked it or not. There wasn’t even time for hot water and towels, which was probably just as well since I was never sure what they were for.

While Zara sat with Charlotte in her room, Nats gave a final few pushes and I caught the little fella – which was uncharacteristic for me given the one time I played in goals I shipped ten goals. It was 2.40am. He immediately began to cry and was clearly healthy, so I popped him onto Nats’ chest and headed off for blankets and towels. We had to cut the cord, so a pair of kitchen scissors and two clothes pegs were popped in a bucket of boiling water. Charlotte came in for a wee look at her brother before we clamped the cord and cut it. By that point, the placenta had been delivered as well, and was wobbling on the bathroom floor like an evil jellyfish. Nats tells me she poked it a few times out of curiosity before I scooped it up in a plastic bag (which we forgot to clean up before heading the hospital, meaning it sat there stinking out the toilet for a good five hours before I got back to sort it out.)

Zara and Charlotte watched their little brother while Nats showered and got changed, then we headed to the hospital. From then on, it should have been straightforward, but one of Nairobi’s drunk drivers managed to almost hit us when he flew out of a minor road and shot across our path. Then, at the hospital, it took 20 minutes before the midwife managed to get her head around the fact we had arrived with a baby (it was her first home birth) and listen to my requests to perhaps have a look at mother and child to see if they were ok. All was indeed well, and we headed off to our room for everyone to recover, before I went home and began the clean-up operation.

After 36 hours, they were both discharged and are now at home recovering.

Interestingly, we had to put Nairobi Hospital as the place of birth, because if we hadn't we would have needed to find the chief of the area we live in to certify the birth took place. That was hassle we didn't need!

Big thanks to Zara for responding to our emergency and being so calm and supportive, to Charlotte for helping her mum and taking it in her stride, and of course to Nats for being absolutely incredible throughout it all.

A lot of friends have talked about how dramatic it all was, and how they didn’t know how we coped, but to be honest it happened so quickly we didn’t have any choice but to deal. Retrospectively, it worked out rather well, as giving birth in this way avoided the arguments we would have had with the nurses about not wanting an episiotomy and wanting them to wait for the cord to stop pulsing before cutting it. The midwives here tend to stick rather slavishly to their routine.

So, all’s well that ends well.

We called our son Kristian Alexander, after our good friend Kristian Kramer, who died in an avalanche in Switzerland almost two years ago. I hope our little fella grows up to be as good, brave and adventurous a man as his namesake was.

I'd like to die please

2011-12-07T12:12:00.000+03:00

I really need to take more pictures around Nairobi.

Yesterday morning I saw a man who apparently wished to give himself a menu of horrible ways to die.

He was at the top of a rickety structure comprised of two metal ladders lashed together to give double height. I would say with twine, but that would be dignifying what looked suspiciously like the string you would use to wrap a Christmas present. This ladder he was wobbling atop, about 20 feet off the ground, was leaning on a very tall, but threadbare hedge. He was on a hill, so the ladder was listing to about 25 degrees. He was using a sharp pair of shears to prune the hedge, which sat right on the edge of very busy road. Three feet away from his head was a transformer, attached to a pole leaning at a similar angle with electrical wires sagging.

So, I figure he could have fallen from the ladder, been electrocuted on the way down while stabbing himself in the neck with the shears, cracked his skull on the ground and then been run over by a lorry. I suspect that would have done the job.

Workmen don't do health and safety in Nairobi.

Moo, ya bass!

2011-11-28T16:02:00.001+03:00

Just a short one to announce two things:

1. The cover art for Apocalypse Cow is now out, as you may have noticed from the picture above. I absolutely love it! You may wish to compare and contrast with these 2006 efforts from pissed-up members of the Budapest writers group when the book was first dreamt up.

2. The rewrite was this morning completed and sent back to the publisher, so things are moving along.

That's it!

The “Fanta Pants” Award for Ginger Fiction

2011-11-10T13:44:00.000+03:00

A desperate ginger tries to cover his hair with a baby crocodile to avoid mockery

It has come to my attention that despite the litany of literary awards available for specific groups – women, Asian women, African Americans, Christians, LGBT, Christian LGBT Asian African Americans, etc. – there is no prize for one of the world’s most-persecuted minority group: gingers.

So, it is with great pride that I announce the creation of the first “Fanta Pants Award for Ginger Literary Excellence in Face of Societal Persecution of Gingers, Strawberry Blondes and Redheads of All Hues”.

The goals of this award are two-fold: to open up a new world of opportunity for red-headed authors everywhere who have been unable to break into the publishing world and to create an entirely new genre – Ginger Fiction – which will eventually eclipse every other genre out there like a mighty, flaming shock of red hair in a room full of mousy browns.

The reasons for such an award are obvious, but so rarely spoken about given the way gingerism is accepted in every walk of life. Every ginger author must battle the low self-esteem engendered by brutal bullying and marginalization, with society telling us we cannot succeed, we are less than human, just because our hair has a high concentration of the pigment pheomelanin and low levels of the dark pigment eumelanin. It’s just a pigment, people.

Then, those who manage to find the inner strength to shake off the laughs, the taunts, the whispers, the casual violence, the shame of separate toilets (brought in to prevent cross-pubic contamination by the ignorant blondes and blackheads who dominate governments) must face the institutionalized gingerism of the publishing industry. Sure, a few small-time redheads have made it – Mark Twain, George Bernard Shaw – but that was a long time ago, and before the advent of the internet and modern forensic techniques that make it possible for “ginger vetting” at publishing houses.

You don’t believe me? Well, one of the Fanta Pants team, with the aid of several tubs of Manic Panic semi-permanent hair colour and sheer bravado, infiltrated top publishing houses in London and New York. What he found was barbaric gingerism at its most rampant. In every publishing house and literary agency visited under the cunning disguise of a chirpy window cleaner, the Fanta Pants investigator witnessed “search and destroy” teams whose only task is to weed out any “ginger” manuscripts.

For hard copies, a sniffer dog - which was trained to savage red-haired orphan children by one hater before being redeployed - is used to vet each manuscript. If he begins to ferociously attack the package, it is picked up by a runner using rubber gloves and long tweezers, and then burned in the publishing house’s special furnace. The second layer involves passing manuscripts through a scanner specially designed to “light up” any stray hairs. Even a hint of ginger triggers an automatic diversion, which puts the ginger manuscript onto a conveyor belt leading directly to the furnace.

The digital team’s task is to scan emails for any signs that the electronic submission is from a ginger, paying particular attention to people with Irish or Scottish names. They google the author, looking for pictures, and have even been known to send a detective to the homes of prospective authors if there are no images available, or if they are in black-and-white. This team even told our undercover agent they were upset they couldn’t send an email from a ginger to the furnace, and sometimes, to compensate, they would put lots of ginger submissions on a flash drive, urinate on it and then send it to the furnace.

Bearing in mind the above, we invite all ginger authors, from all walks of life and all countries, to throw off the shackles of such mindless hate and enter this competition (rules below). The prize on offer is quite stunning. Not only will you get publicity, kudos and the respect of your ginger peers, you will receive a free copy of my novel, Apocalypse Cow (to be published next year by Transworld, who in ground-breaking fashion have introduced an anti-gingerism policy). The book will be signed and accompanied by a lock of my hair taped to the cover (note: you can choose from head/chest/other).

It is with great anticipation that I await your entries.

Regards,
Michael Logan
Founder (and only) Member of the Fanta Pants Award for Ginger Literary Excellence in Face of Societal Persecution of Gingers, Strawberry Blondes and Redheads of All Hues Foundation

Rules and regulations:

1. You must be a gingernut. Dye jobs don’t count.

2. Any redhead found to have ever dyed his or her hair another colour are traitors and will thus be disqualified (with the exception of any misguided attempts at dying your hair blonde at 15, and ending up looking like your head is covered in yellow snow. Not that I did that or anything).

3. To enter, email a 500-word synopsis of your novel, along with a brief bio, to freelancelogan@fastmail.co.uk. Your novel must focus on issues facing the ginger community, such as the abusive terms that have been used to describe you, failed attempts at copping off with members of the opposite sex and a detailed description of the worst bullying incident you suffered, for example having your head flushed down the lav.

4. On the slight chance anybody is actually tempted to enter this competition, the best entries will be posted on this blog, each receiving a warm round of virtual applause but absolutely no compensation whatsoever.

5. The winner will receive the aforementioned hirsute novel by post when it is published, in May of 2012 (please note: the prize is actually real).

The Kenyan Shining

2011-10-17T10:55:00.001+03:00

If ever anybody wanted to make a Kenyan version of The Shining, the Panari Sky Centre would be an ideal choice for the setting.

Looks very shiny and modern, right? In many ways, it is, but step inside past the glass and steel, take the elevator to the second-floor entertainment complex that includes an ice rink, children's center and a closed-down cinema, and you will see what I mean.

We went skating on Saturday to find a handful of people describing forlorn and awkward circles on the melting ice in a barn-like room decorated by sad loops of tinsel that gave the vibe of Christmas in an old folks' home, where the pensioners nod off over their pudding and dream of better days. Outside the rink are two empty glass counters where once you could buy tickets for the two cinema screens, whose entrances look more like the doorways to confessional booths.

In the deserted kids' area you will find: an unbounced-on bouncy castle; a bucking bronco whose flaking plastic skin makes it look like it is suffering from foot-and-mouth disease; a huge plastic fountain, sporting a spooky eagle, where spotlights without bulbs hang limply over an empty basin full of dead flies; one of those machines where you try to pick up a cuddly toy with a crane - except the threadbare toys stare hopelessly out at you with dead eyes, pleading for release from their years of captivity; and a candyfloss salesman who looks like he has to live on his wares, so rare are customers.

Admittedly, the Panari doesn't have the long history of the Overlook Hotel, and most of the ghosts would be of the customers who never came rather than those who indulged in sex, drugs, murder and the occult, but it is a wonderfully creepy location.

I think I feel a short story coming on.

Cyclist's Tricep 1, Nob End Motorist 0

2011-10-06T12:54:00.000+03:00

I’ve often been cautioned against cycling in Nairobi, usually taking the form of the question “Are you a complete mentalist?” when I say I use my bike to get around. Despite these concerns, I’ve never found it to be as dangerous as people say and never had a collision – until today.

I was merrily cycling along a quiet back road in Kilimani when a nutbag in a 4x4 zipped past and slapped his wing mirror into my tricep. I heard the sound of his wing mirror smash as I veered into the gutter and fell off.

He clearly knew he had hit me, and accelerated off. Once I’d checked my arm wasn’t broken (it’s fine), I vowed revenge in a manly fashion to a startled gaggle of young white girls nearby and chased him with the intention of remonstrating vigorously (i.e. punching him in the coupon). Over the brow of the hill, I saw his car at the next junction, where it had collided with another vehicle. In his attempt to flee, he had gone onto the wrong side of the road then tried to force his way back in when confronted by an oncoming vehicle.

In true Kenyan fashion, a mob of outraged bystanders had formed, and were giving the guy pelters for hitting me then the other car. He brazenly tried to say he hadn’t seen me, despite all the evidence to the contrary, and then offered to pay for the damage. Considering the damage to my arm was zero, and the damage to his car was a broken wing mirror and a dented front right fender, I felt justice had been done, and cycled off leaving him to the growing crowd of wananchi wanting to have their say.

The offence wasn’t serious enough for a lynching, so I think he is probably ok. He’ll know never to mess with a Scotsman’s tricep again, though.

Shag a ginger and save the world

2011-09-22T19:24:00.000+03:00

At the risk of sounding a bit like the Gingers Do Have Soulsguy, who took South Park just a little too seriously, I have to scratch my flame-haired noggin in puzzlement at the news Cryos International is notaccepting any more ginger sperm (no, that does not mean each individual sperm swimming around in the average ginger scrotum has a little tuft of red hair).

Just think of all the handsome redheaded men out there, the likes of which we will never see again if the ginger gene – already shamefaced and recessive thanks to centuries of repression – dies off:

Jimmy Somerville
Mick Hucknall
Chris Evans
Shaggy from Scooby Doo
That creepy guy from Twelve Monkeys
Philipp Seymour Hoffman
Me

Ah. Do you know what? You are spot on. Tape over the cock slot on the ginger sperm container (that is how it works, right?) and release all of the stored ginger sperm to forlornly crawl the streets to become crack whores or end it all at the bottom of a bottle.

In all seriousness, though, while there aren’t that many handsome ginger men, there are plenty of smart ginger men, as well as shed loads of hot, smart, talented and funny ginger women.

Here is a real (brief) list of what the world will be missing if the Fanta-pants contingent is frozen out by the cryogenics criminals (courtesy of this list). I’m not going to rehash all of the good-looking female film stars, as all the newspapers have done in their ‘quirky’ news pieces.

1. Margaret Sanger (1879 – 1966) – Ironically, given the situation, Sanger was one of the key early figures in mobilizing American women to push for birth control.

2. Winston Churchill (1874 – 1965) – Yes, that’s right. Churchill, the man who helped to halt old Adolf Hitler in his tracks. Once again, a touch ironic if you consider Hitler’s attempts to create a perfect race. You would all be sporting a toothbrush moustache if it weren’t for this particular redhead. If Winston were still alive, he would ride a tank into the sperm bank, swigging from a bottle of brandy and smoking a cigar, and have a wank into the director’s eye.

3. Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826) – Would you like your child to grow up to be like the man who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence? YES PLEASE! You know he was a red head, don’t you? WHAT? NO FUCKING WAY. GIVE ME SOME OF THAT REDNECK SPERM INSTEAD, ANY COLOUR BUT GINGER.

4. Antonio Vivaldi (1678 – 1741) – Why have Four Seasons when you can have just one?

5. Napoleon Bonaparte (1761 – 1829) – Admittedly, he may have killed a lot of people, but Europe would have been a lot more boring were it not for the ginger midget rampaging around.

There are many more great examples out there (and some bad ones, including members of Charles Manson’s gang and Oliver Cromwell), but the fundamental point is that the ladies should be queuing up for the fiery little ginger swimmers, not dismissing them. Do the World a favour, ladies, empty the fridges of the ginger sperm or – even better – get out there and bang a ginger. The course of human history depends upon it.

And if you need other reasons to ride a reddie, here are ten that are absolutely 100% true:

1. Fire-hoses are red because their length and girth was modelled on a ginger man's trouser hose;

2. Ginger pubes taste like Fanta, meaning you actually want to get them stuck in your teeth;

3. Ginger hair gives off a satisfying warm glow and lights up the room on a cold night, creating an instant atmosphere of romance (and on one occasion keeping 25 survivors of a plane crash alive in The Andes until help arrived);

4. Silk doesn't come from worm's bottoms, but in fact is woven from strands of pure-breed ginger mustache hair. Find a pure-breed ginger, offer him sex in return for access to his mustache, and you will have a profitable scarf business up-and-running within weeks;

5. Ginger men never pee on the toilet floor in the middle of the night, because their pubic bunch acts as a guide light for aiming;

6. When in public, you can pretend your ginger boyfriend is actually a Care in the Community project, thus making yourself look like a humanitarian and precluding the need to do any real work for your community;

7. In all seriousness, shagging a ginger nut actually is an act of human kindness, so you will get all kinds of kudos in the next life;

8. You boyfriend will likely have very good taste in hats;

9. As gingers go grey, they actually begin to turn blonde, so end up looking like Robert Redford in his golden years;

10. If you cop off with a ginger, you need never worry about infidelity, as nobody else will have him unless they have read this blog and learned the secret reasons for turning to the ginger side. Since three people (counting my mum) read this blog, you are safe as houses.

My Daughter, The Tealeaf

2011-09-14T10:05:00.002+03:00

All you parents in the UK either feeling proud/shamefaced/confused after their little kiddiewinks went off on a looting and burning spree, I now know how you feel.

This morning, Charlotte (who is two and a small bit), was very excited about going to kindergarten, to the point of jumping into her buggy early and demanding to go. I thought it was just to do with her crush on Mr. Tony, but she then began babbling about eating cake and crips (yes, that’s how she says it).

I realised she was so keen to go so she could steal snacks from the other kids. I knew she had been doing it (banana and cereal bar doesn’t stand up to sugary and salty snacks), but to have thievery as her whole reason to go to school is a bit much.

The other day, in the sandpit in our apartment block, she was even more devious. She wanted a biscuit from one of the other little girls, who was saying no. So, Charlotte invites her to go up the slide with her so they can go down together. She lets the girl go up the ladder first. Once the unsuspecting mug is far enough up, Charlotte runs over to the biscuits, nicks one, and jams it in her mouth. Cue lots of crying from the little girl.

We are trying to tell her stealing is bad, but she is too young to get it and it is also hard to be firm when you are trying not to laugh. In the meantime, I’m going to see if she can lift me a new iPhone.

The many faces of Apocalypse Cow

2011-09-13T10:29:00.003+03:00

In the vein of looking up random people who share my name (from pro-wrestlers to TV preachers), I thought it would be fun to see how many other people are using the same pun as my first novel, Apocalypse Cow.

Below are the people and companies I will be tussling with in google searches. Luckily, there don’t seem to be any that feature zombie cows. It does, however, show just how hard it is to find a truly original title.

I had the same problem with the novel I'm working on now. I came up with what I thought was a smart, funny and original title, only to find out Ben Elton had already used it for a book on a different subject (Dead Famous). The new title I came up with is probably better, but I was a bit miffed at the time. At least I won't have to change the title of Apocalypse Cow, as there are no novels with the same name and nobody is flogging the same idea!

A Beer

Apocalypse Cow, by Three Floyds, appears to be a rather tasty brew, according to the reviews it has garnered and the number of people on twitter talking about how much they enjoying supping it of an evening.

A Recording Studio

Chicago-based Apocalypse Cow studios record “everything from industrial rock bands to solo acoustic artists”, and apparently have a “calf-sized studio, cow-sized sound”.

Grindcore Band

Apocalypse Cow are a somewhat terrifying Netherlands-based Grindcore band, whose songs include screaming, frenetic versions of Love Will Tear Us Apart (Love Will Grind Us Apart) and Smells Like Teen Spirit. If there is ever a movie made of the book, they could scare the hell out of viewers with a demonic soundtrack.

Japanese Anime Festival in The Netherlands

Apocalypse Cow is the theme for a May 2012 Japanese anime festival in Almelo, The Netherlands. They have a rather natty logo, of a giant evil-eyed cow battling a funky robot. I’m actually in discussions with them about doing a signing, although nothing is confirmed since a zombie cow novel doesn’t necessarily fit in with anime. It is a funny coincidence, though, since the book is published a week before the festival begins.

Episode of The Simpsons

If anybody was going to use the same bad pun as me, it was probably always going to be The Simpsons. There is an episode called Apocalypse Cow in which Bart tries to save a cow from the slaughterhouse and accidentally ends up engaged as a result.

A Joke on The Daily Show

Talking of cheesy puns, Jon Stewart also made the wisecrack about Apocalypse Cow earlier this year

A Slot Machine

You can win up to 50 grand playing Ladbrokes’ Apocalypse Cow slot machine.

Weekly Apocalypses

Apocalypse Cow is also the home page of an artist who does rather groovy Weekly Apocalypses.

When the Dead Walked the Earth - Without Kevin

2011-09-07T21:09:00.004+03:00

This post has been removed for reasons I will not reveal in a pathetic attempt to make myself seem enigmatic.

Kenya cops and their guns

2011-09-07T12:48:00.001+03:00

You know, I do rather wish that Kenyan police officers would keep their automatic weapons pointed at the ground a bit more often.

I'm sure you've seen the scene in Pulp Fiction, when Samuel L. Jackson is a bit too casual with his handgun and ends up spraying gore out of the back of the kid in the backseat's head. Well, on more than one occasion, a cop has sat down next to me on a bus with his gun clutched across his chest. It is very disconcerting to have a gun barrel waggling around inches from your temple as the rickety old bus jiggles over potholes. I have this strange desire to keep my brain inside my skull, rather than splattered all over the grubby windows of a KBS banger. Call me picky if you like, but that's just the way I feel.

Equally, having two officers sauntering in front of you in a busy shopping center with their guns slung over their shoulders, the barrels swinging around jauntily at head height, makes me feel a touch uneasy. Such moments are the only point in my life I wish I were at least a head shorter. It isn't like the guns are exactly modern either, and who knows whether the safety is on.

Every day you read that the police have bravely shot dead "suspected" criminals in a variety of situations. I do wonder how many of those deaths were of the "my gun went off when I was picking my nose too vigorously and blew a hole in the forehead of a 79-year-old blind cripple, who has just become a notorious criminal" variety.

Campaigner Challenge

2011-09-06T09:42:00.000+03:00

I chanced up on this fun competition, where you have to write a 200-word story starting with "The door swung open", and ending with "the door swung shut". I had half an hour to spare, so here's my daft take (alas, I can't win any prizes, as I'm not a member, but hey ho):

This Door Swings Both Ways

The door swung open, as it would only do in the dead of night. It had a reputation for staying stubbornly closed, no matter who came knocking. In truth it just couldn’t trust itself to open: it didn’t want anybody to know it swung both ways.

No.5 was born this way, its double-acting hinges already fully formed. To swing in and out was as natural as could be for it, but society could not accept that. Everyone liked to pretend they were so modern and that each door was free to choose which way it swung. Yet No. 5 knew what lay beneath the tolerant veneer of the other doors ranged alone the leafy street, their letterboxes ready to chatter the instant they spied behaviour that did not belong in such a distinguished neighbourhood.

So it waited until night’s velvety blackness blinded even the beady peephole of the ever-vigilant No. 14, and the only sound was the soft creaking of sleeping wood. It swung (in, then out, in, then out), its wood flushed rose with pleasure, its hinges trembling with delicious friction, until the first blush of dawn tinged the sky.

Then, with a satisfied sigh, the door swung shut.

Getting real

2011-09-03T13:29:00.002+03:00

I was rather surprised last week to see Apocalypse Cow (avert your eyes now if shameless name dropping makes you feel queasy), which won Terry Pratchett's first novel prize, available for pre-order on Amazon.co.uk, and also listed on amazon.com and amazon.ca. The publication date for the trade paperback and eBook is May 10 next year, so it is still a long way away, and I can only imagine the most hardcore of forward-planners (step forward my wife Nats, who keeps asking me about my five-year plan when I don’t even have a five-minute plan) will place orders now.

Having said that, I have crept up the sales charts to a stupendous 297,699, which means that at least a few pre-orders have been place, although I don’t think David Nicholls, Dr Pierre Dukan and Kathryn Stockett need worry unduly about being knocked off their perch at the top just yet.

Not that I'm complaining. Seeing it up there for sale brings home the reality, which I have been struggling to accept. I don’t know if this is a first-author thing, or if it is because I am a miserable Scot who usually expects the worst possible outcome from every scenario, but I keep expecting the rug to be pulled out from under my feet, upending me onto my bony behind.

I’ve been like this the whole way through. When I submitted the novel to the Pratchett Prize, I did so at Nats’ insistence, as I was convinced it would never win. On the day the shortlist was to be announced, I wasn’t even thinking about it. When the initial elation of getting the email saying I had made the six-author shortlist faded, I then began waiting for another mail saying a mistake had been made. When that didn’t come, I convinced myself it would never win. When it did win, along with David Logan’s Half Sick of Shadows, I once again waited for the inevitable admission an error had been made. Then I kept expecting Transworld to change their minds, and pull the novel. And so on.

I think I have now just about accepted I am going to be a published author, but that isn’t going to stop me worrying. I can now turn my fruitless fretting to the fear of bad reviews and people not liking the book.

It just goes to show you can take the boy out of Glasgow, but you can’t take Glasgow out of the boy.

Who need enemies...

2011-06-27T10:18:00.000+03:00

...when you have friends like my former boss at The Budapest Times, Allan Boyko. Allan seemed to very much enjoy taking the piss out of me for the Pratchett Prize win in the article below. I would like to point out I actually didn't see the child, and was only smiling because I was about to run into the underground and escape the horse charge, not because I was having an insane amount of fun rioting.

Pratchett Prize day out

2011-06-07T16:35:00.002+03:00

One week after Apocalypse Cow won the Terry Pratchett Anywhere But Here, Anywhen But Now 1^st Novel Prize along with Half Sick of Shadows, by David Logan, I have finally got it into my thick skull that I am going to be a published author.

Now, a measured, intelligent individual would think more carefully about what goes on his blog, as some people other than his wife may eventually start reading it. Not me! I am going to continue to spout utter tosh.

I wasn’t going to bore everybody with the details of last Tuesday, but I’ve had a few requests for more information, so I suppose I must.

First, though, I’d like to categorically deny the many accusations that the ginger Logan mafia stitched up the competition by kidnapping the judges’ family members and holding them at gunpoint in the children’s section of Waterstones Piccadilly. We used knives, and locked them in the basement.

The day of the award was very long, stretched out by the fact I spent the kind of restless night a child has waiting for Santa to squeeze down the chimney. In my case, it felt like Santa had gorged his beardy face on one too many mince pies and caught his flabby gut on the brickwork, so long did the night last. Finally, however, dawn broke and we jumped on an Easy Jet flight (hey, we’re still poor) down to London.

Much of the day was spent in nervous anticipation, partly in our friends’ Perry and Matthew’s flat, partly in Paula’s Café in Hoxton, where I alternated between stuffing fish and chips into my mouth and practicing my author face in case I won:

I clearly have some work to do, as my attempts to look authorial fell well short and landed in the area of “squinting into the sun/ready for a nap”. Rest assured, I will be studying other author portraits to search for just the right air of gravitas, although maybe I would be better off sticking with my usual gormless expression since my book is perhaps not the most serious work of fiction you will ever read.

Happily, P&M’s flat turned out to be located in a neighbourhood ideal for a location in my next novel (in progress), so I managed to get some research in, which involved sitting on their balcony, smoking and drinking tea, while I took lots of pictures. Half-arsed research over, and unable to sit still for longer than a millisecond, I hauled Nats down to Waterstones Piccadilly early. It turns out this was a good move, because it gave me the opportunity to chat with the lovely Dave Beynon, whose novel The Platinum Ticket was also shortlisted (Dave would have been an equally worthy winner, and I am sure he will have no problem finding a publisher for his work).

It turns out we had both been desperately searching for clues as to our chances, stopping just short of consulting the tea leaves, and continued to analyse every eyebrow twitch and glance in our direction from the Transworld people.

Sir Terry obviously doesn’t watch the X-Factor or Britain’s Got Talent, and thankfully did not insert a screamingly tense 30-second pause before announcing the names of the winners – although I must admit, I did feel a lot like a talent show contestant, as the following picture taken by Nats just before the announcement shows:

David Logan was announced as the first of the joint winners, leaving one place for the remaining five shortlisted candidates. When Sir Terry said the second novel had won “despite the awful pun”, I knew it was me. To be honest, I can’t remember too much about what came next. I know I made a short speech. I can only hope I didn’t say anything too stupid, although the chances of such an occurrence are quite slim. I know I posed for some pictures. You may notice that my cheesy grin somewhat ruins the moody vibe of the black clothes sported by the two winners and Sir Terry, so I at least know I was happy.

I then had a brief chat with Sir Terry, a longer chat with his right-hand man Rob (henceforth to be known as ‘The Enforcer’), and Marianne and Lynsey from Transworld, and was introduced to Simon, the editor who will face the unenviable task of knocking my manuscript into shape. David and I, along with our family and friends, were the last to leave the bar, which I can assure you had absolutely nothing to do with the free booze and canapés being handed out.

P&M took us to the Vista Bar at Trafalgar Hotel, a rooftop joint boasting amazing views of London’s skyline, where we were joined by our old pal Carol and drank quite a few cocktails before staggering out onto the streets in search of a taxi.

All-in-all, one of the best days of my life – behind my marriage to Natalie and the birth of our daughter Charlotte.

Award-winning documentary

2011-05-26T16:35:00.000+03:00

David McKenzie, the CNN correspondent based here in Nairobi, has won an award for his heartbreaking documentary on the appalling treatment of people with mental disabilities in Kenya

http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/africa/05/24/uk.cnn.wins.amnesty.award/index.html

I am generally a bit hard-hearted, but this had me getting a bit emotional.

Congratulations David.

Attention Ugandans: Notorious Bum Driller at Large

2011-05-09T09:50:00.000+03:00

Yes, this is a real article, from Uganda's ultra-homophobic Red Pepper. Sinister and funny in equal measure. Considering Mutumba appears to have more than one bum, it is perhaps no surprise he is being targeted by the bum-drilling gang.

Apocalypse Cow shortlisted

2011-04-01T08:28:00.000+03:00

Apocalypse Cow is on the shortlist of six authors for the Terry Pratchett First Novel Prize:

http://www.terrypratchett.co.uk/index.html

First prize is a cheeky wee advance and publishing contract. Winner to be announced on May 31. Guess I have a tense wait on my hands!

The many faces of Michael Logan

2011-02-08T12:35:00.000+03:00

There are many Michael Logans out there, as a quick trawl through Google Images in an idle moment revealed, and so many magnificent alternate lives that could have been mine, had I been just a shade more fortunate.

Of the many Michaels out there, I have selected the finest specimens - Michaels I myself would be proud to be - and present them here to you, one by one in order not to dissipate their glory.

Wrestler Michael

Behold my splendour! Gape at my awesome muscles! Marvel at my two-tone dye job! Gasp as I crush a walnut with MY BARE HANDS! Tremble as you imagine toweling down my sweaty body! Admire what might be a beard or just some lint clinging to the underside of my lip! Marvel at my fake pearls, purchased at the WalMart conveniently located a five-minute pick-up-truck ride from my trailer park! Do not confuse my fearsome stare with Strabismus, which I was diagnosed with as a child but have managed to completely disguise by being COMPLETELY FUCKING HARD!

Ejaculate as you imagine me and my live-in partners and wrestle buddies, Hamshank Hank and Devon Casey, writhing naked together beneath the cowhide blanket that covers our grubby bed! Nod in sympathy as you imagine all the hair that clogs the drains in our shower, which I have to pick out because Hank and Devon are filthy! Cluck in disgust as you picture Hank stealing my spare pair of pink shorts because he soiled his (again) after drinking 20 Pabst Blue Ribbon and passing out on the floor, weeping and dreaming of what could have been if only he had the talent, in front of WWE SmackDown!

Do not be taken in by the cheesy glamour of this other wrestling Michael Logan (aka The Canadian Gigolo, or the Sexual Intellectual) who is totally nowhere near as sexy as me! Laugh at his attempt to boost his sex appeal by getting his granny to lather on the lipstick and kiss his nasty speedos! Mock the fact his wristbands are way too tight, making his hands a completely different colour from the rest of his permatan body!

And, finally: send me some money, as my wrestling career hasn't taken off the way it should have, I'm three months behind on my alimony payments and my Doberman needs a new kidney!

Favourite World Cup moments so far

2010-06-13T16:19:00.002+03:00

My two favourite moments from Cape Town so far came not at the France v Uruguay game, which was a turgid affair with little atmosphere – due in no small part to the vuvuzelas drowning out singing and the lack of foreign fans. They came out on the streets.

Cape Town's Fan Fest was full from early in the morning on Friday, so come kick-off thousands of fans were milling around outside. They surrounded the fence, many of them climbing up onto trees to catch a glimpse of South Africa on the big screen, which was framed by the imposing table mountain. One enterprising fan climbed up onto the concrete roof of the neighbouring bus station, egged on by the rowdy crowd below, who were honking their infernal horns furiously. Three policemen clambered atop a fire engine to talk him down. Their efforts quickly became half-hearted, then non-existent, when they realised they could watch the game from their vantage point.

On Saturday evening, I went down to the V&A Waterfront to watch the England v USA game in the Dubliner bar, where I met a lovely American couple, Jamie Marie and Stephen Turner, who were watching the game with their 16-month-old son.

As we chatted at half-time, a pissed-up, fat, sweaty female English fan, wearing a nasty muffin top, heaved herself up onto one of the round tables. She was part of a group of equally fat and drunk men, whose face paint was running – together they looked like a group of paedophile clowns. They had earlier been lambasting a bunch of US kids draped in flags, who seemed bewildered by the wide repertoire of songs at the command of the English fans. The kids could only respond with chants of “U-S-A”, to which the English replied: “You've only got one chant.”

Upon seeing the drunken English fan gyrating seedily and wobbling perilously close to the edge of the table, a clean-cut young American girl – they were all clean-cut, with nice teeth and good skin – took to her table. While she was far prettier and slimmer, she was clearly far more uncomfortable – and sober – than her competitor. She shuffled around awkwardly as the steamer peeled off her jersey and did the bump-and-grind. The English fan probably would have taken more clothes off as the whole bar cheered, but the show ended before it could escalate to pale, flabby nudity. The US girl leapt off, fully-clothed and clearly relieved.

The game may have ended 1-1, but is was clearly 1-0 to the English fans.

Things I love about Kenya 4 – racist dance troupes

2010-05-25T09:56:00.001+03:00

They are Kenya's answer to the Black and White Minstrel Show, an act so incredibly racist that white people probably should take offense. But they are also very, very funny.

I'm talking about certain dancers who dress up as old colonials. They wear khaki safari shorts, shirts and hats. White socks sprout out from tackety boots and climb up to knobbly knees. Huge fake bellies swell their shirts to the verge of button-popping. Their faces are painted with big white beards. Their dance is all slapstick: they blow whistles, twirl canes, fall over, kick each other in the ass, stamp around with a bandy-legged gait.

The first time I saw the act was in Visa Place, as we were waiting for the incredibly vulgar guitarist Mike Rua to come on and play what was essentially the same song for the rest of the evening (nothing wrong with that, of course – Galaxie 500 made a career out of playing one song in 30 different ways). We were the only white folks in the packed, sweaty bar, which stank of the grilled chicken, goat and beer just consumed.

When the dancers started their routine, people went crazy: pissing themselves laughing, slapping their thighs, the whole bit. It was highly entertaining, but I couldn't help but wonder what would have happened had we been in Western Europe and the dancers had been white men blacked-up and dressed in the Western idea of traditional African garb. They would have been booed off the stage. In Visa Place, people just kept glancing at us and laughing even more. Such behaviour is so un-PC in the UK that in a recent theatrical production about Al Jolson's life, they did not show him blacked-up to avoid causing offence.

That's one of the funny things about Kenya. It is perfectly acceptable to work on a whole set of assumptions about all white people – essentially, to be racist.

I've had many conversations with Kenyans, during which I told them some things about my own culture that were surprising to them. In the interests of promoting cultural understanding, I'd like to clear up a few myths:

1. There are poor white people and white criminals, although we have essentially moved all of them to one city, Glasgow, where hopefully they will fall on each other like the rabid dogs they are and perish (although we tried this a long time ago, and the end result was Australia).

2. We can dance. Shuffling from side-to-side, out of time to the music, arms flopping around: this counts as dancing, doesn't it?

3. White people can actually wash a dish, pick up their dirty clothes, carry a shopping bag - although admittedly you don't see much evidence of that in Nairobi.

4. Not every white person is a complete mug who will gaily splash money around. Some of us are Scottish.

5. Yes, we do have enormous penises (this may be a rumour I am trying to spread myself).

I could go on. And I usually do. But on this occasion I won't. So there.

Things I love about Kenya 3 – nobody understands me

2010-05-21T09:56:00.001+03:00

On the face of it, being completely incomprehensible to the people of the country you live in is a bad thing. But it can also be useful, and fun.

If I want to be understood, I can easily speak slowly and clearly. But if I revert to my normal speed and pronunciation, which is understandable only to anyone who lives within a 40-mile radius of Glasgow, I can say whatever I like. This is handy if you are having a frustrating encounter. You can call the person you are talking to all the names under the sun, while smiling sweetly, and they are none the wiser.

Kenyan guards in particular have a habit of nodding their heads and responding “yah” to anything I say.

When I roll up to a gate, I often shake the guard's hand, smile and say: “I'm going to see x and y to steal everything from their apartment. Is that ok?”

Or: “I'm planning on beating everyone in the compound to death, and then burning down the apartment block. Are you fine with that?”

The guards invariably nod and wave me in.

Part of the reason for this is that security guards, upon seeing a white face, will let you into virtually any compound in town. This seems to stem from an assumption that white people won't steal anything.

WRONG!

I am from Glasgow. Everywhere else in the world, they assume I will steal everything.

I honestly believe a gang of white criminals could clean up in Nairobi before anybody actually realised that wazungu were blagging things. You could drive up to an ATM with a JCB and dig it out of the wall, make up some bullshit story about taking it for repairs, and then drive off unmolested. When the witnesses said the gang was white, the cops would shake their heads in disbelief and assume it was the Mungiki in disguise. Even when white folk are caught killing people, like a certain landed gent descended from British aristocracy was (twice), they get off with it.

Okay, I am now very off topic. But that's okay. Just imagine I've said all the above in a Glaswegian accent, and you can hear whatever you want to hear anyway.

Things I love about Kenya 2 - the slow-motion run

2010-05-20T14:17:00.002+03:00

You're driving (again), weaving through traffic, looking for a gap to squeeze through to undertake the doddery old mhindi guy clutching the wheel of a shit-brown, black-fume-belching Peugeot 306. At last a space opens up and you accelerate toward it as fast as possible, since you've been holding your breath for the last two minutes and are about to pass out.

Then you notice a pedestrian sauntering across, checking his mobile phone or just staring into space. You honk your horn, and he sees you. But instead of hurrying to avoid being splattered all over your bonnet, he launches into the slow-motion run.

There are two versions of the run: in the first, the pedestrian lifts his knees high into the air like a footballer warming up and simultaneously throws his fists up toward the sky, giving you an intense look that says: “See, I'm moving fast.” The second, and rarer, version of the run is even more bizarre: the pedestrian leans forward, holds arms and legs rigidly straight, and scissors both sets of limbs, like a vaudeville performer exiting stage left.

To the uninitiated, it is unclear what is happening. Is he doing a dance? Having a fit? Being attacked by wasps? Ah, no. He's running. Very. Very. Slowly.

Both versions of the run are slower than the stroll, so you slam on your brakes and screech to a halt. Unfazed by the fact he nearly did a somersault over your bumper and ended up with his face embedded in your windshield, the pedestrian continues his slow-motion run to the pavement/gutter/dirt verge.

There, he accelerates to walking pace.

I think this is why there are no successful Kenyan sprinters. The fastest time clocked for the 100 metres would be 5 minutes 33 seconds.

Things I love about Kenya 1 – Everyone is a traffic cop

2010-05-18T14:44:00.000+03:00

You are stuck at a junction in Nairobi – an all too-common occurrence in a city where everybody drives as though they have metal spikes bristling from their wheel rims and a turbo-boost button hidden under the dashboard.

Maybe it has been raining, and a matatu (commuter minibus) that tried to undertake on the muddy verge has overturned and is blocking half the road. Perhaps there has been a prang and the car owners are leaning on their bonnets, patiently waiting for the police to arrive. More likely, eight drivers have simultaneously decided they have right of way and are now snuggled up tightly in the middle of the junction, all staring at each other.

There isn't a cop in sight, you have a meeting in 15 minutes and you're wondering if it would be quicker to abandon your car and walk to your destination, all the while cursing the city.

Then, out of nowhere, a citizen traffic cop appears. The self-appointed traffic director beckons and waves, prods and slaps at bonnets, brandishes a newspaper, has a screaming match with a driver, stops to pick his or her nose (unless that too is a signal). Slowly, the traffic begins to move, and you are free. At least until the next junction.

Behind you, the traffic cop blends back into the crowd, seeking no reward. Nobody really knows who this person is: a matatu tout, a security guard, a garage attendant, a cleaner, a teacher. But it is irrelevant.

All that matters is that they are out there. And they are ready.

Ghost writing an ethical folk-pop-rock biography

2010-04-14T14:41:00.000+03:00

I have agreed to take on a rather peculiar job ghost-writing the biography for what I think is the only ethical folk-pop-rock duo in the world, Quentin and Crisp.

Rather than tell you about it, since it is my job to step into the shadows, I will allow Tobias Crisp, one half of the badly dressed act, tell you about it in his own words:

Dear friends in ethical folk-pop-rock,

Has it really been almost three years since we last spoke? It seems it has. I can only issue sincere apologies from Quentin and myself, and simultaneously provide you with wonderful news.

So much has happened, that I cannot tell you it all at once. Suffice to say that Quentin and I are tragically torn apart for the moment, stuck in separate continents due to a quirk of fate. I am living in Nairobi, where I am trying to get my ethical SANSOCK factory off the ground in the slums of Kibera, and also looking for funding for my new product, REFUCHEESE (It's cheese. Made by refugees.)

If you are a donor, please send me your email address and I will give you my bank details. Minimum donation of 50 thousand euros please. Alternatively, you may send an attractive movie star or pop singer down for a fund-raising jamboree. If at all possible, send Kylie Minogue. She is welcome to stay in my humble abode. I do only have one bed, but I am sure we can make do somehow. I am open to other beautiful young ladies, but please don't send that Lady GaGa. She would snap me in two like a twig. I'm not even sure she is a lady and, despite the rumours, I emphatically state here and now that I do not worship in the Church of Man Love.

Anyway, I digress.

Poor old Quentin is still in the commune, where he has been in a full body cast ever since he tried to use his conflict resolution skills to prevent a few dozen young Hungarian men, who despite their lovely embroidered waistcoats were quite appallingly right wing, from attacking a Roma village in the east of Hungary in January. I will spare you the details, other than to say the hospital staff had to fish his left testicle out of a Magpie's nest before they could re-attach it.

But enough grumping. To the good news.

As you know, Q&C have led action-packed lives, full of highs and lows, peaks and troughs, ducks and dives. Now, at long last, our lives are to be chronicled in book format. In a few weeks time, I will sit down with Michael Logan, a journalist of my acquaintance and ghost writer of the renowned biographies Small Legs, Big Heart (the story of Peter Watwicky, who gave up his stable job as a circus midget to pursue his dream of winning Olympic Gold in the high jump) and Kiddy Fiddler (the tale of Jack McBart, who overcame a horrendous background of child abuse to become the youngest ever lead violin in the Dunstable Symphony Orchestra). With such illustrious titles to his name, I just know he can do our life story justice.

Keep your eyes open for updates on how we are progressing and please help keep the ethical folk-pop-rock alive until Quentin is recovered by encouraging your friends to download our hit singles, Socks and Sandals and What Ails You World? from our MySpace page.

Yours in ethical folk-pop-rock,
Tobias Crisp.

If you want to follow the updates to the writing process, you can follow Crisp's blog at:

http://quentinandcrisp.livejournal.com/

Hear their songs at:

http://www.myspace.com/quentinandcrisp

And watch videos of them in action at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/quentinandcrisp

Cheers,
Michael.

PS I do know that Crisp bears a remarkable resemblance to me, but let me assure you that since I am also told I look like Paul Scholes, Simon Pegg, Jimmy Somerville and just about any other gingernut out there, this similarity is down to my chameleon-like appearance. We are not the same person.

Apologies

2010-03-29T17:17:00.000+03:00

I'd like to apologise for my last post. I was having a strange day. I don't really hanker after large hats.

Thank you.

How to end piracy off Somalia

2010-03-26T11:03:00.005+03:00

I have just simultaneously solved the problems of piracy off Somalia and carjacking in Nairobi. I give you Protection Rackets!

Back in the day, criminals would at least have the decency to allow you the chance to pay them off before trashing your deli with a baseball bat and garotting you with a strand of undercooked spaghetti. I think it is time to return to such old-fashioned values.

Starting Monday, because I didn't sleep well last night and am a bit tired, I am going to marshall all the Somali pirates under my command.

The deal is simple: I will be chief pirate, with a hat that's way too large and elaborate for my head (a bit like this one, only bigger), a dog called Raffles that I have trained to smell out treachery among my minions and a cutlass I sharpen on knife block clamped between the teeth of the severed head of the lead singer from Coldplay.

Shipping companies will pay me protection money and I will share it with my gang, obviously minus a big slice for myself, which I will use to fund even more elaborate hats until the day I get too adventurous and my neck snaps like a twig under the weight of my most-daring creation yet.

The annual fee will be less than the cost of hiring private armed guards and the increased cost of insurance. Ships will be unmolested, so the companies will be happy. My gang and I won't even have to get out of bed in the morning to collect our wages, never mind go out onto the ocean in a tiny boat, running the risk of being shot, arrested, knocked over by a big wave or accidentally sailing off the edge of the world. So we'll be happy.

Any freelance pirates who try to hijack ships will be pulled to the bottom of the sea by an enraged giant octopus, one of an army I will train to roam the sea enforcing my will. Ships whose owners do not pay the annual fee will be dealt with similarly.

Even the journalists will be happy, because they won't have to write the same bloody pirate story almost every single day of their lives for all eternity, as they do now.

Once this is running smoothly, I will branch out to Nairobi, where pale expats scuttle from mall to mall, windows tightly wound up, in deadly fear of any black man that approaches their car. ("Is that a carjacker, Astrid?" "No, I think it's just a hawker, but call the diplomatic police to come and shoot him anyway!")

All carjackers will be invited to join my gang. Any motorist who pays the protection fee will get a scale model of my giant and elaborate pirate hat to perch atop their bonnet. This will render them immune to carjacking. Everybody else is still fair game. Any cop that shoots one of my carjackers will be dragged to the bottom of the ocean by an enraged...hang on, that doesn't work on land. I'll just bribe them not to shoot my employees.

Once I've had a nap, I plan to also come up with innovative solutions for other long-term problems, such as the Israel-Palestine conflict, international terrorism and Amy Winehouse's smack habit.

Angry mobs in Kenya

2010-03-24T13:43:00.001+03:00

Sometimes I love Kenya, a country where an angry mob can form at any second for no other reason than it is fun to wave a ripped-off tree branch at the cops or form a roadblock from stones and burning tyres.

I was heading back from a city centre press conference this morning to catch a bus at the big stop near the GPO when I heard the unmistakable rumble of a mob voice. I couldn't really see what the commotion was about, as the usual massive crowd of wananchi had formed to stare, laugh and slap their thighs merrily. I was thinking maybe a thief, anti-government protest, possible some internally displaced demanding their rights.

Then a tow truck emerged from the crowd, pulling your typical Kenyan taxi driver white saloon car behind it. Pursuing the truck, armed with big sticks, were about 30 blokes, some of them in suits, screaming and shouting and trying to stop the towing. The cops were waving their big sticks back - fortunately none of the coppers had a gun, or there would have been shots fired. Off they went up the road, the angry mob chasing the car, the cops backing off in front of them, and the wananchi, literally hundreds of them, all pissing themselves laughing.

I don't know if they got the car back, but I was thinking it is exactly thist kind of thing I will miss when I eventually leave Kenya. I would love to see a mob of motorists chasing a traffic warden or tow truck up the street in the UK, but I don't see it happening.

Coldplay and Kenyan "rock" bands

2010-03-18T11:32:00.000+03:00

We were at a battle of the bands in Qatika t'other week, and I heard at least four Coldplay cover versions. There may have been more, but after the fourth song I stuck knitting needles through my ear drums and was bleeding in blissful silence in the corner.

Kenyan rock bands: Coldplay are fucking turgid. Stop doing cover versions of their dull, whiny songs. There are many other great bands out there you can cover. If you want to do whiny, at least cover some Radiohead songs - they do it with style and musical excellence.

Kenyan rock fans: Coldplay don't even qualify as rock, so stop giving it the sign of the horns when bands are playing their meandering, tuneless dirges. You may as well headbang to Celine Dion. You have permission to give the horns only when you hear bands such as Led Zep, Black Sabbath, AC/DC.

Coldplay: Just stop. Please. You're setting a bad example to impressionable Kenyan youngsters.

How to be earnest

2010-03-09T08:59:00.000+03:00

I may seem a little out of the loop here, but I just saw the video for We are the World 25 for Haiti for the first time, and there is one word to describe it: hysterical.

And I don't just mean it's funny, which it is in a cringing, am-I-really-watching-this manner. It also aptly describes the singing, as each star tries to outdo the others to show how much they care by launching into vocal histrionics.

Michael Jackson must be turning in his grave, and saying “ow!”.

But that isn't the funniest part. Apparently, the best way to demonstrate you care for Haiti's orphans is to earnestly pucker your face while clenching your fist poignantly. Some of the stars are puckering so hard I was worried they might create a black hole, sucking themselves into oblivion through their own nostrils and taking Lionel Richie with them (Hurray! I hear you shout).

Next time, just give money people. You can afford it. We'll just assume you care. A lot.

It's clobbering time

2010-02-25T13:12:00.000+03:00

This Taiwanese news report brings to life those Bullygate moments when mild-mannered Gordon Brown, irked by his employees, transforms into a raging monster:

http://whitehall1212.blogspot.com/2010/02/bullygate-taiwan-style.html

Old Gordon must have been pumping iron, judging by the way he pulls the typist off her desk and flings her across the room.

At least we now know who will play him in any forthcoming biopic: Jean Claude Van Damme anyone?

Ugandan death penalty petition

2010-02-25T09:51:00.000+03:00

I received a well-intentioned request from the campaigners at http://www.avaaz.org/ to donate money to a rights' group that wishes to run an opinion poll about proposed tougher anti-gay legislation in Uganda. They believe the opinion poll will show Ugandans do not back the bill, which calls for the death penalty in cases of "aggravated homosexuality" - having gay sex while HIV positive, with a minor or a disabled person. Belief in human rights will overpower homophobia, they reason.

Sorry Avaaz, but I think you are underestimating the virulence of homophobia in not only Uganda, but the rest of East Africa. I have spoken to pleasant, reasonable, ordinary Ugandans who believe gays are an abomination and think the law is fine. When the president of The Gambia threatened to behead gays a while back, it was a Ugandan who said he was quite right. In neighbouring Kenya, a mob in Mtwapa recently had to be stopped from setting fire to a man they believed to be gay. The mob was rampaging around after a gay wedding was stopped. There are countless examples of such widespread hatred.

These people are not extremists, in the sense that they are a small minority with views different from the rest of their society. They are ordinary citizens with attitudes that have been drummed into them by religion. So I am struggling to understand where this idea that Ugandans do not support the bill is coming from.

I personally believe the bill will not be passed in its current form, simply because of the amount of international pressure being applied. President Museveni has already tried to distance himself from the bill and called it a "foreign policy issue" after having his ear bent by Gordon Brown and Hillary Rodham Clinton, amongst other world leaders.

Museveni doesn't care what Avaaz or a handful of Ugandan human rights' activists think. But with the threat of cuts to international aid hanging over Uganda's head - Sweden has said it will cut off aid if the bill becomes law - the nation can't afford to pass this legislation.

The real fight shouldn't be against the bill. It should be against Uganda's exisiting legislation, which is already draconian. Even if the bill is stopped, Ugandan gays still find themselves living in a country where their sexual preference is criminalised and they face discrimination and violence. That is something that isn't going to change any time soon.

Journalism and body counts

2010-01-14T09:26:00.000+03:00

I found out on Saturday that a very close friend of mine, Kristian Kramer, died last week, aged 37. He was genuinely an amazing guy who was trying to save other skiers following an avalanche in Switzerland, only to be swept away by a second avalanche.

His ex-girlfriend told me, and gave me links to some stories on the BBC about the avalanche. As I read the stories, I was struck by the gap between how devastated I felt and the cold relating of the facts. Then I realised how many stories I have written about people dying in their dozens and the emotional disconnect in those stories. I have done it so many time I am no longer upset by these stories and do not consider the human cost.

Now, after having the human cost brought home to me, I'm not sure if I want to be a journalist any longer, or at least not the kind of journalist that writes these impersonal stories.

Meet my new guitar

2010-01-13T22:37:00.000+03:00

Meet my new guitar. Come, let us worship.

25 years after Ethiopian famine, donors still reliant on reactive food aid

2009-10-23T14:57:00.002+03:00

Twenty-five years ago today, BBC correspondent Michael Buerk filed this report on Ethiopia's now infamous famine. I watched it again today, and I had forgotten how harrowing it was. For me the worst image wasn't the skeletal corpses of young children. It was hundreds of desperate people tottering across the plain on stick-thin legs, using up what little energy they had left in a shaky sprint prompted by the rumour of a food delivery.

Buerk's dispatch prompted Band Aid's "Do They Know Its Christmas?" single and the subsequent Live Aid concerts, raising millions of pounds. But over a million people still died.

So, 25 years later, have we learned anything from the Ethiopian famine? Not according to Oxfam. Its report, Band Aids and Beyond, says donors are still focusing on "knee-jerk" emergency food deliveries rather than trying to prepare communities for drought and developing local capacity.

Ethiopia proved Oxfam's point on Thursday, appealing for emergency food aid to feed 6.2 million people. Across the East and Horn of Africa 23 million people are facing hunger and need assistance. Should we be surprised by this? Drought has long been a problem in the region, and is just going to get worse as climate change hits home. Yet hardly any money is flowing into programmes designed to help communities cope by doing simple things like collecting rain water.

Late last year, I travelled around the border region of Kenya and Ethiopia, visiting communities hit by the long-term drought. Not one of the village I visited were doing anything to help themselves, other than to buy guns to steal cattle and pasture from other tribes.

So why are these communities so passive? Because they are used to receiving massive dumps of food aid or having water trucked in by Western donors. They are happy to sit and wait for aid workers to come and do for them simple things they could do themselves - like putting up guttering and storage tanks to collect water when it does rain. Even that task has been farmed out to donors, who are doing too little of that kind of work.

The guy I was travelling with - who worked for a donor agency doing some small-scale work in drought preparedness - has worked in the region for over two decades and witnessed the growing dependency on aid. At a village meeting under an acacia tree, he went as far as telling the community they had "turned into a bunch of beggars".

He was right, except it isn't really their fault. We have turned them into a bunch of beggars.

Commercial and political interests lie behind the focus on food aid, and the US is simultaneously the biggest donor and culprit as Nicholas Martlew, the author of the Oxfam report, told me.

"There have been attempts to de-link aid from narrow commercial interests, but the US farm lobby has blocked progress," he said. "There are also political reasons (for food aid): it looks good to have sacks of food sent by the US people arriving in disasters-hit regions."

You only have to look at the makeshift shelters thrown up by refugees to see how much food the US dumps on communities - empty cans, boxes and sacks bearing prominent US logos are a popular and readily available building material, as evidence in the photograph, taken at Dadaab refugee camp.

Sending food aid is expensive for the US taxpayer, according to Oxfam costing up to 2 dollars to pack and ship each dollar of food. But the powerful farm lobby is not keen to see US dollars being given directly to people in developing countries to buy food locally, as many economists and charities are now recommending as a way of developing local markets.

The new US administration says it wants to change its focus to help local farmers produce more. This year, the US committed 3.5 billion over three years to help increase global food security. By contrast, in 2008, Food for Peace – the US’s main food aid programme – spent 2.6 billion dollars delivering food produced in the US to 49 countries. So there is still some way to go. But at least it appears to be a move in the right direction.

It is clear that food aid cannot be just cut off. But until donors start shifting funding toward pre-emptive measures, they and the countries they are trying to help will be caught in a reactive and expensive cycle of aid dependency. And that is not good for anyone.

When not to cheat in your exams

2009-10-22T10:21:00.001+03:00

I know that the cops in Kenya are trigger happy, but this image from today's Standard shows things might have gotten a bit out of hand.

Teacher: "Johnson, is that writing on your arm? Cheating, eh? Officer!"

BLAM! BLAM!

(Johnson sprawls dead to the ground, blood mixing with ink on his scrawny 15-year-old arm).

Teacher: "Let that be a lesson to the rest of you."

(Silence and the sound of scribbling. Whispering at the back of class)

Teacher: "Njoroge, are you passing a note? Officer!"

BLAM! BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!

Njoroge turns into a bloody rag.

(More silence. Then the sound of scraping)

Teacher: "Hey Odinga. Are you writing answers on the floor with Njoroge's blood? Officer!"

BLUDGEON! SMACK! BLAM! BLAM!

And so on.

Could this be a solution to the breakdown in discipline in UK and US schools? I find teenagers really annoying, so I'm all for it.

In fact, maybe we can send some Kenyan police to Geneva to wipe out all those tectonic kids with their spazzy dancing and daft haircuts (please note kids: the mullet looked appalling the first time around, inserting euro- or fashion- before the phrase does not actually affect the sheer awfulness of this style)*

Officer: "Hey, are you dancing like you have a family of large and energetic spiders living in your pants, spraying teenage hormones over passers by and generally just blocking the street with your desperate, pathetic attempts to find someone who is actually foolish enough to shag you?"

BLAM! BLAM! BLAM BLAM BLAM-BLAMBLAMBLAM! (Brief pause for reloading) BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAAAAAAAAAMMMMMMM!

We have to be sure they are dead.

*Disclaimer: I am not really advocating the mindless and brutal slaughter of teenagers who are simply finding ways of expressing themselves, as I too have had many stupid haircuts and wore things like leopardskin fringe jackets. If a psychotic killer armed with grenades, knives and automatic weapons should head down to Lake Geneva, just down from the Jet d'Eau, near the bridge and just across from the Old Town on any Saturday afternoon and let fly, I am not responsible.

KPLC, you are my Mr. Miyagi

2009-10-20T13:11:00.002+03:00

Dear Kenya Power and Lighting Company,

I am writing to express my gratitude to you for teaching me a valuable life lesson. As Mister Miyagi mentored the Karate Kid, so have you mentored me. Only one year ago I was an uptight Mzungu, full of trivial earthly desires, such as having lights to stop me falling down the stairs at night and power for mere trifles like hot water and cooking.

Today, thanks to your regularly administered power outages and trance-inducing delays in fixing said outages, I am a humbled, patient man.

Only one year ago, I believed that power companies would try to plan for contingencies. I thought, for example, that you would have considered that Kenya is prone to periods of drought, that it has several rainy seasons each year and that rapid urban expansion is demanding more power.

Can you believe I actually thought that you, KPLC - and your masters the Kenyan government – would be grappling with these issues and trying to find ways to solve them?

Yes, I was that fool. But you, KPLC, wisest of all power companies, have taught me the error of my ways.

You understand that to attempt to battle Mother Nature is like trying to grasp mist. It is better to simply allow the hydroelectric dams to run dry, then raise your hands to the sky and cry : “Mother Nature has decreed there will be no power!” Then double the price of electricity.

When the rains come, when the power lines across Nairobi spit out blue fire in praise of the Electricity Gods and homes are plunged into darkness, it is best for the lady in your call centre to tell your customer, who is calling you for the fifth time in two days: “It is the rain.” Then hang up.

But your repairmen, truly they are masters of zen.

A few months ago, I would hop with anger and yell, my face going bright red like so many of those others silly white people who are always complaining about something or other. I would wonder why on earth these repairmen had to keep coming back – more than a dozen times in six weeks - to “fix” the same problem

Then today I met your team, who turned up a mere 48 hours after I first reported my power was down. These men, five perfect proponents of Zen, were parked outside my neighbour's gate in a tiny van, waiting for the guard to let them in. After waiting for ten minutes, during which period not one of them got out of the van to find out what was going on – what patience! - I came back from the office and led them to the right compound.

These men are astonishing. They live in the moment like no other human being. They proudly announced to me that the problem was solved because they had “changed a fuse.” Lo, was my electricity restored!

What mastery of the time/space continuum! What a complete lack of memory of previous visits! Even my attempts to explain to them how electrical systems actually work and that a blown fuse is usually a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself - particularly when it blows repeatedly - could not penetrate their Zen armor. These men will return tomorrow to change the same fuse, completely unaware of what went before. Amazing!

It was at this point I finally realized the error of my ways. As I watched them climb back into their van and drive away, content at a job well done, I knew I must follow your example.

From now on, no problem in my life will go resolved. If anything goes wrong, I will simply blame a series of entirely predictable and preventable factors instead of facing up to the problem. I will refuse to learn from any experience. I will forget what went before and concentrate on maintaining a perfect state of reactive vacancy.

And, most importantly, the next time the power fails, I will not call you. I will simply wait patiently, my hands folded, and contemplate the majesty of life while the milk goes off in the fridge and my infant child cries in the dark for its mother, who has fallen done the stairs and broken her neck in the darkness.

This gift you have given me.

Regards,
Michael Logan.

Aggravated Homosexuality punishable by death

2009-10-16T08:53:00.000+03:00

"Aggravated homosexuality" may sound like what happens when a gay man comes home grumpy following a shitty day at work and decides that a quick worship at the Church of Man Love will calm him down, only to find that his bad temper lingers and he is too spanky for his partner's taste.

But alas it is far more sinister than that.

"Aggravated homosexuality" is in fact a proposed offence in Uganda's new Anti-Homosexuality bill and covers people who have gay sex with under 18s or disabled people, or who have gay sex while HIV positive. If the bill is passed, this offence will be punishable by death. That's right. Death. I don't know if they would kill somebody three times for having sex with a disabled person under 18 while HIV positive, but given Uganda's tough on gays, tough on the causes of gays policy, it wouldn't surprise me.

The Gambia's insane President Yahya Jammeh periodically threatens to cut the heads of gay people, but he never does it. However, Uganda may actually be hanging gay men in the next few years. Now, being gay and Ugandan has never been a happy combination - is is already illegal and gay and lesbian people are subject to arbitrary arrest and assualt - particularly given the virulent Christianity popular there, but this takes the biscuit.

Even if this particular paragraph is not passed or is never put into practice, the rest of the bill is just as harsh. Seven years imprisonment is the punishment for "promoting homosexuality", which rights groups say will hamper their work and also threaten the battle against HIV/AIDS. Straight people can be prosecuted for failing to report suspected homosexuals.

Unfortunately, anyone who lives in East Africa will not be surprised that a bill like this could be passed. I have asked many people here about their attitudes to gay and lesbian people and unfortunately there is a strong belief that they deserved to be punished for their crimes against God.

If I were gay and Ugandan, I would be packing up right now and heading for Mombasa to hitch a lift on a gay cruise ship, where I could happily play shuffleboard and have massive amounts of consenual gay sex with whoever I want, even if they do have a limp (please note only one of these pursuits is perverted).

Lazy writer

2009-10-15T11:52:00.000+03:00

After a massive spurt (Carry On fans, feel free to titter), I have not written a single word on the book for the last week. This is partly because we were down at Steve and Sue's villa on the Indian Ocean, oh posh us, and I went on a reading frenzy while lying on the terrace listening to the waves slapping against the coral cliffs below us.

On the way down we had a tyre blow out at 100kph, which probably should have been more terrifying than it was. The car did not flip over and roll, or skid into the path of an oncoming truck. It just wobbled a bit, like my bowels, and was harder to control as I braked to a halt.

Anyhoo, tonight I am going to get back onto the horse and continue with the 2nd draft. I hope to have a decent version finished by mid-December, so if anybody wants to volunteer as a reader (other than those who have already been nominated/nominated themselves), please let me know.

Be warned, however: just because I have a big baldy forehead this does not mean the book is highbrow. It isn't, as the title - Apocalypse Cow - will probably hint at. Normally I attempt to write serious, thoughtful stories, but this piece of nonsense is just splurging out of me and needs dealt with before I can move on to ghost-writing the biography of my good friends and ethical folk-pop-rockers Quentin and Crisp, a project I am very excited about.

I am looking for people who are happy to give an honest opinion that is more in-depth than: it's shit/I fell asleep after three pages/I guess it's alright if you like that sort of thing. I am likely to be sick of the sight of the thing by then, so will need fresh eyes to point out the huge plot holes an overweight hippo could meander through without touching the sides.

If Monty Python had known any aid workers...

2009-10-07T09:13:00.001+03:00

Four recently retired aid workers sitting together in Gypsy bar in Nairobi. "Do me" by P-Square being played in the background while they drink Tusker beer.

MSF worker (Francoise): Ahh. Very passable, this, very passable.

UNHCR worker (Lesley): Nothing like a good glass of Tusker, eh Jeff?

Oxfam worker (Jeff): You're right there, Lesley.

WFP worker (Maria): Who'd of thought we'd one day all be sitting here drinking Tusker?

Francoise: Yeah. Back in Somalia, we were grateful just to have a cup of water.

Lesley: A cup of dirty water.

Maria: Scooped out of a toilet.

Francoise: In a filthy, cracked cup.

Jeff: Full of cholera.

Maria: We never used to have a cup. We used to have to drink out of old socks.

Francoise: The best WE could manage was to jam a straw made out of goat bones into a camel’s hump and suck really hard.

Jeff: But you know, we were happy, even though life was so hard.

Francoise: Aye. Because we were saving lives. My old Dad used to say to me: "Saving lives is more important than having a sit-down toilet.”

Maria: He’s right. I was happier in Darfur even though we used to live in tiny little concrete house with holes in the roof.

Lesley: House? You were lucky to have a HOUSE! In Goma, we used to live in one room, all hundred and twenty-six of us, no furniture. Half the floor was missing; we were all huddled together in one corner for fear of FALLING!

Jeff: You were lucky to have a ROOM! In Liberia, we used to have to live in a corridor!

Francoise: Ohhhh we used to DREAM of living in a corridor! It would’ve been a palace to us. We used to live in an old water tank in Mogadishu. We got woken up every morning by having goat innards thrown over us! House!? Hmph.

Maria: Well, when I say "house" it was only a hole in the ground covered by a piece of tarpaulin, but it was a house to US.

Lesley: The rebels evicted us from our hole in the ground; we had to go and live in Lake Kivu!

Jeff: You were lucky to have a LAKE! There were a hundred and sixty of us living in a small shoebox in the middle of the road.

Francoise: Cardboard box?

Jeff: Yes

Francoise: You were lucky. We lived for three months in a brown paper bag in a septic tank. We used to have to get up at six o'clock in the morning, clean the bag, eat some stale rice, go work in the hospital saving lives for fourteen hours a day week in-week out. When we got home, al-Shabaab would give us forty lashes and makes us say thank you!

Lesley: Luxury. We used to have to get out of the lake at three o'clock in the morning, eat a handful of cold beans, go to work at the refugee camp every day for only 5,000 euros a month tax free, come home, and the CNDP would beat us around the head and neck with broken bottles and then rape us.

Jeff: Well we had it tough. We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at twelve o'clock at night, and LICK the wounded clean with our tongues. We had half a handful of uncooked maize, worked twenty-four hours a day at the food distribution point for only 4,000 euros a month tax free. When we got home, the rebels would kidnap us, tie us blindfolded to radiators then cut our hands off.

Maria: Right. I had to get up in the morning at ten o'clock at night, half an hour before I went to bed, eat a lump of cold sand soaked in camel piss, work twenty-nine hours a day in the camp, and when we got home, the Janjaweed would kill us and dance about on our graves singing. And we only got paid 3,000 euros a month tax free.

Francoise: Only 3,000 euros a month? Now that is hardship.

ALL: Yup, yup

Shamelessly stolen from Monty Python and then monkeyed with. Click here for the original sketch

Kenyans and the art of rubbernecking

2009-09-08T10:01:00.001+03:00

If rubbernecking were an Olympic sport, a Kenyan would be a shoo-in for the gold every time.

I was on the bus heading into town the other day, and as usual I had my head down reading my book. Suddenly there was a big commotion. Everybody on my side of the bus pressed their faces to the window. Everybody on the other side stood up and tried to cram into the aisle to see what the others were looking at. Excited voices buzzed back and forth: “What’s happening?” “Can you see it?”

They were looking at a huge circle of people gathered around something unseen on the ground – possibly someone who had died of a heart attack or been hit by a car. The rubberneckers on the bus were rubbernecking at another group of rubberneckers. The funny thing was that the bus – which if you have ever ridden public transport in Nairobi you will know was not very stable to begin with – tilted crazily to the side. Had it fallen over the rubberneckers would have become the rubberneckees (I know that’s not a real word, but I like it).

This incident encapsulated the culture of rubbernecking in Kenya. I find the sheer exuberance and lack of embarrassment with which Kenyans go about rubbernecking very endearing, although I’m sure if I were lying in a pool of my own blood I would not be so keen on it.

If you open the Daily Nation on any given day, you are sure to find a few photographs showing Wananchi (citizens) rubbernecking. The picture may show a truck overturned in a shallow river watched by a line of people gathered on the hill above, curious onlookers peeking through the curtains of a home where a rape and murder victim has been found or hundreds of people watching the clean-up of a supermarket gutted by fire in the hope of seeing some bodies being brought out (all real examples).

The phenomenon cuts across all strata of society: you are just as likely to see a businessman in a pin-striped suit jostling for a good view as you are a security guard or gardener.

So why do I like it? Well, because it is an honest expression of human nature that is considered unacceptable in my own country. As much as we don’t like to admit it, humans have a fascination with death, preferably other people’s. I remember as a boy of about 12 coming across the body of a man who had dropped dead of a heart attack near my school in Glasgow. My friend and I stopped to gawk as all the adults walked past. You could tell they wanted gather round, but in our culture it wasn’t appropriate. All they could do was slow down and look out of the corner of their eyes for as long as possible. As an adult, I am now bound by my culture, so when I pass an accident or dead body now, I do little more than steal a furtive glance, even though I want to see more.

There is nothing inherently bad about wanting to look at car wrecks. Death is coming to us all, yet it is a huge mystery. We only get to experience it once barring medical intervention and we so rarely get to observe it close up. Why would we not want to look it in the eyes and try to understand it, glean some hints as to its nature, at every opportunity?

Of course, this is just my opinion on why the wananchi gather. It is possible some people just find intestines pretty. Maybe one day I will join the crowd of onlookers to ask them why they are there. I am not sure they will have an answer for me, as I do believe the urge to watch is instinctive. But at least it will give me an excuse to get close to the body and have a right good stare.

Van Morrison changed my life

2009-08-31T08:57:00.006+03:00

Nats was telling me last night how lucky she was to have met me and have her life transformed from a dull grind full of greyness and gloom into a Technicolor cartoon full of shiny happy bunnies dancing the fandango with cute little monkeys in waistcoasts while petals rain down from the sky. Hurray!

Actually, what she really said that she was glad she started fencing and met me because I had helped in the creation of Charlotte. I guess it is just common courtesy to thank the sperm donor, but I’ll take any kind of compliment I can get.

Anyway, this led to a discussion of life-changing moments. All our lives are full of little crossroads that would send us down different paths: John eats a bad curry and gets a dodgy stomach, so doesn’t go out to the concert were he would have met his perfect woman/man/hermaphrodite; Cindy’s alarm clock fails to go off and she misses the job interview that would have seen her become the most powerful woman in Auchtermuchty, holding dominion over 2,000 souls and the wee shop that sells tartan tea towels; Alfie sees a swallow, decides it is spring, takes a more scenic route to work and is promptly squashed by a number 54 bus, which at least has the benefit of providing a talking point for the bored commuters being ferried to their dull office jobs.

Most of the time we don’t notice these moments as they slip by or we don’t appreciate quite how much they would change or lives – well, except for Alfie, assuming he had enough time to think more than “Shiiiiiitttttteeeeeeee!!!!” before the driver was trying to clean his brains off the windscreen with the window wipers. I actually do have a moment from which I can clearly trace a path to where I am now.

It is 1992. I am 21 and sitting upstairs in the Horseshoe bar in Glasgow with my relatively new work colleagues from Linn Products – the high end music system company. I have taken a job stuffing components into circuit boards after dropping out of university due to a combination of factors, including laziness, poverty and a lack of self-esteem. The job is boring, but the people are great and my immediate boss is the exact double of Zelda from the Terrahawks, which somehow makes it more bearable. I have no clear idea of what I am going to do next. I am just content to be making some money to spend on records, booze and chemicals.

I am a terrible singer, but have glugged down just the right number of beers to be cajoled into singing on the Karaoke machine. I elect to sing ‘Gloria’ by Van Morrison, partly because I love Van the Man, but also because it is a shouty song and therefore suits my singing voice. My performance is what you would expect. Even above my amplified screams I can hear giggles and abuse. I content myself by spraying the ungrateful buggers with spittle every time I shout ‘G-L-O-R-I-A’.

Finally it is over, and I return to the table. Callum, who runs the test department - which comprises three or four guys whose diplomas from Cardonald College give them a faint air of superiority over the plebs – comes over and demands to buy me a drink. He is a huge Van Morrison fan, and wants to congratulate me on my performance (he is very, very drunk). We get even more drunk and talk about Van Morrison for an hour, then move onto other things, such as the fact I had finished 2.5 years of Physics at Strathclyde University. Callum and I become work buddies, and within three weeks he asks if I would want to go back to university to study electronics, with the fees paid by Linn (I had lost my right to fee payment in 2nd and 3rd year by dropping out). Of course I say yes. I go to Glasgow University, get my degree and promptly show my gratitude to Linn and Callum by going off to work for OKI in Cumbernauld.

So, here’s the chain of events leading to now:

I sing a Van Morrison song in a bar, and as a result get friendly with Callum. Consequently, I go back to University and get a degree. My degree gets me a job at OKI, where I meet Andy McVeigh. I rent a room in his flat. In a casual discussion one day, I tell Andy I used to fence. He gets all keen and says he wants to start it (Andy is a major womaniser, despite being bald since 19 and looking kind of like a turtle, and is sure he can get some action at fencing). I am not so keen, remembering how angry/upset I used to get when I lost at competitions, but he persuades me to come along with him. We join Glasgow West End Fencing Club, where I drink a lot, make some great friends and kind of fence. This goes on for six years, until I am just about to quit fencing because it has lost its appeal. Then Nats joins Glasgow West. After some ups and downs, we get together. She is going to Bosnia for a year, and after a few months decide we are in love, are going to get married and that I am coming to Banja Luka, the capital of Bosnia's Serb Republic. I sell my house and car and go to Bosnia, where I trade in my soldering iron for a notebook and pen. We move to Hungary after a year, and I start to work for the German Press Agency. Four years later, I apply to get transferred to Nairobi, and we move. Nats gets pregnant, and along comes Charlotte.

So, there you go. If it weren’t for a drunken decision to sing a certain song in a certain bar, I would not have gone back to fencing and met the only perfect match for me out there, I would not have the gorgeous little Charlotte, I would not be a journalist, and would not be living in Kenya. All pretty big consequences for one little song, which I am now very glad I sang.

I would love to know if anybody else has a moment like that they can pin down. If so, leave a comment or send me a private message with your story.

Open letter to God on baby design

2009-08-16T18:16:00.015+03:00

Dear God,

RE: Baby design improvements

As I am sure you are aware - being omnipotent, omniscient and fluorescent (well, I am guessing the last one, since the first thing I would do as God would be to make sure that I glow in the dark) – I was an engineer before I became a journalist.

You are also no doubt aware that I am now a father. You probably regret letting that happen, having watched me play Black Sabbath to my five-week-old daughter and teach her how to give the finger to the evangelicals next door - even though I am sure they annoy you too with their tuneless singing and gibbering in tongues. Maybe you were perched on the celestial bog looking at the centre spread of Hot Angels Monthly at the moment of conception. It does seem like you dropped the ball.

I, however, prefer to think that since you have a master plan, you must have let it happen for a reason. Is it possible you wanted me to bring my engineering skills (admittedly now a bit rusty after seven years of not being used) to bear on improving your original baby design? I think so. I don’t want to second guess you, but I figured it wouldn’t do any harm to suggest a few tweaks, which you can take or leave, you being God and all.

Please bear in mind that the following are merely initial observations. I have not costed the project or figured out the technicalities, although I have carried out one or two small experiments. They didn’t make Charlotte cry for too long, so I think I am on the right track.

1. Replace crying with programmable alarm tones

I don’t want to be too critical here, but I think your premise that parents have to be irritated into helping their children through ear-splitting and insistent wailing is flawed. Crying babies are a pain in the arse, as I think the above picture illustrates even without sound. I think it is fair to assume that parents love their kids and want the best for them. Therefore, I would like to suggest a more sedate system for alerting parents that there may be a problem.

Swap crying for an alarm, preferably with a snooze function. As with mobile phones, parents should be able to download MP3s for the tone. What parent wouldn’t go rushing to their baby’s aid when they heard their favourite song wafting through the door? One note though: the system should reject any song written by Lionel Richie, Michael Bolton or anyone else whose hair is too big to fit through a door frame without turning sideways. Pan pipes are also out. We are trying to make the world a better place after all.

2. Introduce an LED system

Now, I know what you’re thinking about doing away with crying: Different cries mean different things.

For example -

“Wah, wah, wah, waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!” means: “Me hungry, where’s that big squishy thing that gives me milk?”

Whereas “Wah, wah wah, waaaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!” means: “Tell those bloody evangelicals to stop singing, I am trying to get an afternoon nap in.”

If we cut out crying, we will lose those subtle differences, you say. I disagree. Respectfully, of course.

May I suggest that, since most parents don’t speak annoying cry, we install a network of LEDs to indicate the child’s current mode. This would be low cost, as infants only have a few states: Hungry, Tired, Sleepy, Ouch, Sick, Bored, Grumpy and I’ve shat myself and it is sticking to my arse.

Most parents attempt to resolve crying by random application of boob, blankets and booze. Well, the third one we try in Scotland at least. A few cans of Super Lager work wonders when your baby is crying - you just stop noticing. I suggest we employ a more efficient system: install a bank of LEDs in the baby’s forehead to indicate these primary states. Then we can deploy a secondary network about the body to indicate where the pain is, should it be necessary.

3. Alternative power systems

As you know, an increasing focus is being placed on non-traditional energy sources. Solar power, wind power, biomass, etc are being developed and scientists and engineers are looking at ways to recycle and cut waste. I would suggest that we apply the same principle to babies instead of allowing them to consume so much milk.

Now, I admit I have a vested interest here. I recall a time in the vague, distant past when I was allowed access to my wife’s Fun Bags, as we playfully referred to them. Well, at least as I referred to them. When she wasn’t listening. Now there is an infant constantly clamped on them. This is bad for me and also bad for my wife, who finds it quite difficult to go about her normal business with a little nipper swinging from her tank starter buttons.

I propose a system using multiple green energy sources that should dramatically cut down time on the boob or bottle. The system would incorporate the following elements:

a) Solar – Let’s be honest, babies don’t really care what they look like. We can easily slap a few solar panels on top of their heads,

b) Wind – Babies fart. A lot. It would be simple to attach a small turbine to the upper thigh and place the blades directly over the anus.

c) Biomass – Babies go doo doo. A lot. A biomass unit would go a long way to increasing efficiency.

d) Kinetic – Babies spaz out randomly. A lot. Why not use the energy from the spastic limb flailing or head wobbling kids seem so fond off. I am sure a few dynamos can be subtly attached to arms and legs.

4. Improve olfactory experience for parents

Baby shit stinks. Sorry to be so blunt about it, but it does. Why not take a fresh, scented leaf out of the book of Ambipur? If some geeky scientist with hairy palms and an addiction to World of Warcraft can invent a device that you plug into the wall to make the room smell of the autumn breeze, I am sure you can invent a plug-in that directly pumps sweet smells into a baby’s intestines. Imagine, every time your baby lets one go the room could smell of Forest Fruits rather than curdled milk toots. You could even use your child to freshen the room before having a dinner party, rather than desperately burning ten incense sticks and searching for that rogue nappy that got away five minutes before your guests arrive.

5. Hibernate button

Computers have them, so why not babies? They are generally pretty crap at getting themselves off to sleep, so why not do us all a favour and provide a wee button that knocks them out (preferably with a variable time setting for how long they are out). We could also have automatic hibernation, so if the child is left unattended for say 15 minutes, it will automatically enter hibernate mode, enabling parents to nip out to the pub and not worry if they left the baby turned on.

6. Paedolarm TM

All parents know that paedophiles are lurking behind every corner, rubbing themselves through their filthy cords and waiting to pounce with sweaty hands on any unguarded baby. I suggest installing a Paedolarm TM (my invention). If a paedophile comes within 30 metres of the child, a pre-recorded message of “LYNCH THE PAEDO” will blast out from the attached unit, and an accusing finger will spring out and point in the direction of the offender. I suggest employing Gary Glitter in the factory’s test department, as nobody will buy his records or go see him on tour ever again anyway and he probably needs the money for his next ticket to Thailand.

7. Locator

We’ve all done it. Put the baby down somewhere and then forgotten exactly where. Let’s cut out all the frantic searching and attach a locator device. One press on the parent’s key fob, and the baby emits a shrill tone. This could easily be integrated with the Paedolarm TM.

8. Baby microwave

Small babies are boring. Fact. They don’t do very much, and their lack of self-reliance is quite tedious. My fellow engineer David Docherty long ago began work on the microwave bed (a full night’s sleep in ten minutes). He still hasn’t perfected it, and may not, since he is in hospital suffering from internal third-degree burns, but I am sure you, who created the universe, can easily knock together a microwave device that will add months to your child's life within minutes, thus cutting out all the boring bits.

Well, that’s it so far. I do hope you don’t take offence at my suggestions and strike me down with a bolt of lightning or anything. I have been hit by lightning once before (that’s actually true) and didn’t much enjoy the experience.

I'm a big fan of all your work, and appreciate that when designing such a complex system as Earth you are going to get a few teething problems. But it has been a few million years, so I'm thinking it might be time for a review.

I hope this finds you in good health and fine smiting form (just not me, please).

Yours Faithfully,
Michael Logan.

You must show me your boobs, I'm a journalist

2009-08-11T18:17:00.006+03:00

I took part in two very different press events this week. On Thursday, I listened to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed discuss the unholy mess in Somalia (We feel sorry for you and don’t want those nasty Islamists taking over, even though they brought peace for six months in 2006, because they are all terrorists and might try to blow up some Americans in Kenya again. But then we don’t want another Black Hawk Down, so we will just give you some money to shut you up and pretend the African Union peacekeepers are doing a good job – to paraphrase Clinton’s message to Sheikh Sharif).

Then, on Saturday, I hung about the Mombasa docks with a bunch of German TV journalists to cover the arrival of the Hansa Stavanger, a German-owned container ship freshly released by pirates that had five Germans onboard (And a bunch of other foreigners from random countries like Tuvalu, wherever that is, who could all have a big orgy and then commit ritual suicide right on the dock in front of us and we won't notice, but wait a minute, I’ve heard the German captain has a splinter in his little finger. Call Gunther and tell him to cancel that documentary on human rights abuses in the Congo, we’re going live!!! - to paraphrase the German media’s angle on the ship’s arrival).

Both events highlighted for me that journalists are a funny bunch.

The Kenyan press pack was up in arms on Thursday when they found out that Clinton would only be answering four questions after making a short statement. I guess it has been a while since a top US official has visited Kenya, but this is the way it always works. You have to book your question in advance and hope you are high enough in the pecking order. Fat chance of that.

Usually the first few questions go to the pet media, the travelling contingent that follow Clinton/Bush/whoever around the world and faithfully report every word in return for a comfy seat at the front of the press conference instead of a rickety fold-down chair at the back and the chance to share a chummy joke with the top official in front of the other journalists to show how important they are. This will also most likely be an American agency or paper - step forward AP and the NY Times in Clinton’s case. Then a few questions will be tossed to the local media, in Clinton’s case to the Somali journalists.

So, I wasn’t surprised when Clinton’s aide indicated that the next question would be the last. But the Kenyans were. Howls of outrage came from around the room as they demanded that Clinton stay and answer more questions, because they hadn’t had their turn yet. Eyes rolled, fists shook and well-fed jowls wobbled in righteous indignation. Clinton laughed them off and left the room. Cue lots of muttering and the scraping of chairs as half the room left – rather shamefully I thought, since Sheikh Sharif was still speaking.

Something similar happened on Saturday, when the local shipping agent tried to close off the berth where the Hansa Stavanger would arrive. Forklift trucks piled up empty containers, blocking the view of the dockside and spewing tasty exhaust fumes down everyone’s throats. The TV journalists who had come all the way from Germany to get pictures of the ship arriving went ballistic and loudly remonstrated with everyone in sight, including a bemused port official who seemed to just be passing on his way to the toilet.

I have to admit, I was considering the sneaky option, which would have been to climb across a large chain at the other side of the dock, despite the fact there was a ten metre drop to the sea and one of the KK security guard would probably have conked me on the head with his baton had I got in anyway.

In the end, the direct, rowdy approach proved successful as the mob forced its way in and refused to move. The shipping agent had no choice but to let us stay behind a hastily erected piece of red tape. So this time it was a partial victory for the journalists: the German TV crews got their pictures of a big ship sitting at the docks doing nothing for hours. I got to hang about for 12 hours watching them turn increasingly alarming shades of red under the equatorial sun (I suspect the carpets of German newsrooms will be covered in flakes of journalist skin later this week). There was a lot of complaining about the lack of access to the crew, however. Apparently the ungrateful buggers didn’t understand that we needed comments for our stories.

The common link between the two events was the genuine sense of outrage the journalists felt when they found out they were not going to get their way. Most of us feel it is our absolute right to ask anybody any question we want at any time of day or night. Never mind that somebody may have something trivial to do like, oh I don’t know, represent the world’s most powerful nation in seven African countries in under two weeks. Or recover from a four-month kidnapping ordeal at the hands of Somali pirates, in which you had to sleep on the floor, had automatic weapons pointed at your head and were not allowed to brush your teeth.

This attitude is, of course, what helps keep politicians on their toes in most countries and helps ensure that democracies actually function, so it is generally a good thing. And witnessing a dozen miffed adults stomping their feet in a petulant rage is priceless.

But the same attitude also fuels the worse type of intrusive gutter press journalism, and there have been times I have found myself teetering on the edge of doing things I am not comfortable with because of the “I have a right to know” attitude.

Like anything in life, it is all about finding the right balance.

So I’m now off to peer in through Scarlett Johansson’s curtains. The public has a right to know what she looks like naked.

Mzungu, your baby is cold!

2009-08-07T20:59:00.006+03:00

We are currently holed up in a hotel in Mombasa, fugitives from an angry mob of machete-wielding villagers who chased us out of their hamlet for child abuse.

OK, I am exaggerating. But just a little.

It is the cold season in Kenya, which means that temperatures are dropping as low as 14 degrees centigrade. Now, Nats and I are Scottish and that is the threshold that heralds summer in Scotland. When the thermometers hit such heady heights in Glasgow, pasty white, hairy legs are unfurled from beneath shorts that have lain, forlorn and unused, in a drawer for eleven months. Everybody begins licking an icecream. Exposed beer bellies drink up the sun like wobbly solar panels.

So, while we have acclimatised to Kenya and are finding it a little chilly, it is far from cold. Charlotte, being Scottish and all, is dressed much the same as we are - top, trousers and maybe a light jumper or cardigan.

But Kenyans like to keep their babies warm. In fact, they like to keep their babies roasting hot. There are kids roaming around Nairobi right now in balaclavas and snowsuits. Yes, snowsuits. One kid we saw was clearly also wearing about five jumpers under his suit. He couldn't bring his arms into his body and was walking with his legs wide apart. I couldn't decide if he looked more like a mini Michelin Man or the Gingerbread Man.

It makes me wonder what Kenyans would do if they ever went to Europe during the winter. After all, where do you go after you've gone nuclear? A survival pod?

But anyway, each to his own. The only problem is, Kenyans can't seem to understand that other people might not want their child to sweat like Gary Glitter in a room full of 12-year-old boys. In the last five weeks, we've had plenty of comments about Charlotte being cold. But today's incident took the biscuit, the packet, and an entire sachet of those little triangular jelly things that go on top of empire biscuits.

I have been sent to Mombasa on an assignment involving pirates and relieved, released German hostages, so I decided I may as well drive down and bring Nats and Charlotte. Along the way we stopped in a small village - pretty much just your typical collection of ramshackle buildings that serve as hotels, bars or brothels for passing truckers.

All was fine, until the villagers spotted that we had a baby. With its head exposed to the FREEZING COLD BREEZE. Of around 21 degrees C, since we were close to the coast.

Soon we were surrounded by a gaggle of locals trying to explain we should cover our baby's head or she will die horrendously of pneumonia. I explained that she was Scottish and they should all fuck right off (ok, I didn't say that).

The ladies finally got the idea and backed off, deciding that if the stupid Mzungu wanted to let his child suffer a long and painful death punctuated by hacking coughs, it was his lookout. But one bloke persisted, trying to pull the blanket over her head. He even attempted to take her off me. The funniest thing was that he had the longest, filthiest talons I have seen on a man in quite some time, no doubt jammed up with the detritus of regular nose picking (I don't see any other reason for a man to have nails that long). I suspect the health hazard to Charlotte came from those nails, rather than a breeze that would pass as the Sirocco in Glasgow.

We managed to politely but firmly extricate ourselves and drive away, although I half-expected to glance back and see a pickup truck full of villagers waving blankets and shouting: "Your baby is cold, Mzungu. Cover her!"

Even now, sitting in the hotel room, I have made sure the door is locked and a chair is wedged up against the handle. I'm worried we might all wake up wearing snowsuits.

Patronising fathers squeezes them out

2009-07-27T11:45:00.008+03:00

It’s only a box of reusable nappies, but inside is something that, for me, paints a damning picture about society’s attitude toward fatherhood.

The nappies themselves are fairly straightforward, an outer layer and a cloth inner, which can be folded into an attractive fan shape, much like a display towel in a fancy hotel. Except the hotel towel isn’t expected to “trap liquid poo”. Unless Keith Richards is staying there.

Nonetheless, the instruction booklet is extensive and details just about everything mothers need to know about this particular product. Yes, what mothers need to know. No mention of fathers, or even the gender neutral “parents”. And here lies the problem.

I have been a father for three weeks now, but even before Charlotte came along, I had noticed how every book we read on pregnancy laid out the minimal role the father was supposed to play. Each pregnancy book contains a small section full of patronising advice for fathers. Let me summarise the key points in these books, to save any fathers from reading them:

1. Rein in your animalistic nature and don’t demand sex from your wife until at least six weeks after birth (although nobody advises frequent masturbation as a coping mechanism). Don’t sulk about it.

2. Boobs are now used at mealtime, not playtime. Deal with it.

3. Don’t go in a huff if your wife pays more attention to the baby than you.

4. If your wife is crying due to exhaustion/post-natal depression, don’t just turn up the TV to drown her out. Talk to her or something. Don’t tell her to “dry her eyes” and then go in a huff.

5. If you do make the mistake of trying to change a nappy and screw it up – which you will, because you are a man – don’t go in a huff when your wife shouts at you.

And there you have it. Apparently men are little more than big babies who have to realise they are now being supplanted by a small baby.

Then, as we started to buy baby products, it became clear that everything was geared toward how the mother was going to use the item. After all, a man couldn’t possibly tear himself away from his football/beer/porn mag habit to figure out how to use a steriliser, could he?

Now that Charlotte is here, the same attitudes have come into play from pretty much everyone we know. The assumption is that the father did little more than fire off some sperm nine months ago, probably in a drunken stupor after returning from the pub. Now he is sleeping happily through the night while the harassed mother, ravaged by the trauma of birth, struggles bleary-eyed with a screaming infant and considers throwing herself out the window.

Now, I’m sorry, but I am not that kind of father, and – given half a chance – I expect most men would not be either. I know other men who are as involved as I am: getting up in the night to bring the baby in for breastfeeds (sorry girls, but I can’t produce milk from my hairy ginger nipples, much as I would like to), changing nappies, rocking her when she’s upset, feeding expressed milk, making sure the mother is sleeping, and so on.

The message from friends comes both directly and indirectly: pretty much every single commiseration, gift and word of encouragement is directed exclusively toward the mother. Any kind of comment from the father about the stress or difficulties of the first weeks is treated like a man-flu whine (this is something I have been playing up on by joking about the scab on my hand from Natalie pinching me during labour). I am absolutely sure there are people who will treat this blog entry in much the same way. For these people, let me make it clear: I am in no way attempting to compare the experience of the father to the mother, who is recovering from serious physical and emotional trauma. But fathers are part of the equation all the same.

My point is pretty simple. How can we expect men to be more involved if every single message and cue from society is telling them that their early role is entirely peripheral? If we want fathers to do their bit for their infants, then we have to stop patronising them. As hard as it may be to believe, men can be responsible, emotional, loving and empathetic creatures. Treat them like adults, and you may just be surprised by the response you get.

The Old Man and the Shoes

2009-07-24T09:45:00.002+03:00

In a change from my recent carping about corruption, I want to recount a lovely exchange I had in an optician’s in Hurlingham yesterday while I was being fitted for contact lenses and having my glasses bent back into shape.

I was explaining to the owner of the shop that wearing glasses while playing football was not a great idea considering the number of elbows flying about, when an elderly Indian Kenyan waiting at the counter piped up: “Ah, you play football sir?”

I could immediately tell from his demeanour, his well-kept bushy white handlebar moustache and the gold chain attaching his spectacles to his face that he was something of a character. I indicated that yes, I did play football, if you can count petulantly clipping people’s ankles as they whizz past me as such.

“Let me tell you about my one time playing football,” he said. “I was at school in India when my father sent me from Kenya a fine pair of training shoes. I put them on and proudly walked about. Then somebody noticed that they were football shoes. In fact, they were the only proper football shoes for tens of kilometres around. Everyone decided I must be a footballer of some repute and invited me to play in a match.”

Now, normally when an old buffer starts banging on about the past, everyone around scarpers for cover, save for the poor person, in this case me, caught in the headlights. However, this old gent had such a fine storytelling voice and a mischievous glint in his eye that the two other staff members were drawn toward the counter and stood smiling as he talked.

“I turned up for the game, and people had come from villages around, drawn by the allure of these splendid football shoes they had heard so much about. I had never played football before, not even for one second, but I saw all of these players jumping around.”

He stopped to mime a warm-up session, picking his elbows up into the chicken-dance pose and kicking his legs out to the sides. If he had been wearing braces I am sure he would have hooked his thumbs into them.

“So, of course, I started to do the same thing. They put me in goal to start with, and for the first few minutes nothing happened. Then somebody can running toward the goal and thundered in a fierce shot. I didn't know what to do and was more interested in showing off my great shoes than saving the ball, so I just put my foot up so everyone could see them.”

He lifted his leg high and slightly to the side, waggling his foot to demonstrate how he presented the best possible view of his footwear to the ogling crowd.

“The ball hit me right in the midriff and knocked me over. My shoes and I were carried off the pitch. I never played football again.”

He laughed when I pointed out to him that he could say he had a 100% record as a goalkeeper – one shot, one save – then went on his way. It was only when I got home that I realised I should have asked him what happened to the shoes.

Corruption, poverty and society in Kenya

2009-07-23T18:56:00.004+03:00

After being so smug and detailing how I avoided paying a bribe to a policeman, I am ashamed to admit I bribed a parking official in Nairobi’s Central Business District on Wednesday. I paid because my wife and newborn daughter were with me: to go through the dance to avoid paying or to go to City Hall to pay the fine would have taken a lot of time, and would have forced Natalie to take two-week-old Charlotte (and my mother-in-law) home in a taxi with no car-seat or on a bus or matatu. I didn’t want that.

My offence was for a parking violation, committed because I foolishly trusted one of the many self-appointed parking attendants that roam the CBD to keep an eye on the car while we ran a quick errand. When I returned, a few minutes ahead of Natalie and Charlotte, two council employees came gleefully sprinting across to clamp the car.

Regardless of the fact that one of the officials was wearing a bright yellow overall emblazoned with the legend “Corruption is Evil”, the non-uniformed gentleman made it clear that a bribe was required. We negotiated and I paid him, shuttling notes into his eager hands under the cover of the dashboard. He shooed away his assistant beforehand, presumably so he would not have to cut him in for very much. We then pretended to drive off toward City Hall. Before he jumped out the car round the corner, the official shook and kissed my hand and told me he often “helped” motorists in this way.

I felt pretty soiled for paying the bribe. I should have insisted we go through the official procedure and pay the fine. I should have done what little I could to fight the problem that is hamstringing Kenya. But I took the easy way out.

It is no secret that Kenya is mired in corruption. A recent study by Transparency International ranked Kenya as East Africa’s most corrupt nation. Corruption – which undermines virtually every system of governance put in place in Kenya - is the major symptom of the every-man-for-themselves attitude, much of it prompted by poverty. For the majority of Kenya's residents, much of everyday life is about the scrabble for money .

The scores of people who died near Molo earlier this year, when the overturned tanker they were collecting fuel from exploded, would not have been there had they been better off. Those people risked their lives for literally a few dollars. One high-ranking political buffoon blamed “greed” for the incident and several that have followed. He clearly doesn’t know what it is to be poor. For those scraping by in the slums of Kibera, Huruma or Kawangware, a few dollars can mean the difference between feeding your whole family that evening or just the select few. It can mean you have enough to pay the rent for another month or pay the school fees.

The struggle for survival is not good for Kenyan society, however, and the romantic notion of solidarity amongst the poor often doesn’t translate into reality. I have seen two security guards almost come to blows over a tip that was less than 50 cents.

Even the idea of doing a simple favour for somebody out of human kindness has been compromised. If you drop your hat and somebody returns it, chances are they aren’t doing it out of goodwill. They are doing it in the hope that you will give them something. The first time this happened to me, a man chased me to say I had left a bottle of wine on the ground. I went back for it and thanked him, thinking how nice it was to meet somebody honest. He then asked me for money for doing something that should be a basic courtesy. Again I can understand this, although it leaves a sour taste in the mouth. The people involved in such incidents have invariably been clearly in need of the money, and there have also been moments where people have done me genuine favours.

So the poor have an excuse. But what about those who are better off? What about the middle classes? What about the politicians who have a seemingly insatiable appetite for more money and no concern for how they accumulate it, even if it means diverting subsidised maize intended to feed people suffering from a famine? What about middle-ranking public servants, judges or police chiefs, all of whom can be bought for the right price?

Most Kenyans will tell you corruption is evil, but – like me – they will pay that bribe to dodge a ticket, avoid that large tax bill or get that job. They will vote for the guy they think can scoop the most money for their community or tribe, even if that guy is clearly bent. And they will take that bribe themselves given a chance. What many Kenyans mean is that corruption which doesn’t benefit them is evil.

I can’t explain all the factors that have created the “take what you can get” culture. But I do know that society suffers as a result. When the majority is doing little else than chase the dollar, people don’t have time to look out for each other. You just need to look at the chaos on Nairobi’s roads to see this in action: the majority of drivers won’t even pull over for an ambulance, something I have witnessed on many occasions. Why should they when they could just bribe a cop a few hundred shillings if they were pulled over for not giving way? Equally, few people will stop to help a stranded motorist or person in distress late at night, as it could well be a trap laid by carjackers.

I don't want to live this way.

Unfortunately, by paying the bribe to that parking official I am accepting a system that values doing what is right for yourself rather than what is right. Living in Nairobi, amid a culture thoroughly saturated with corruption and a relentless thirst for money, changes you. And that worries me deeply.

The hunt for a vaccine

2009-07-15T11:10:00.004+03:00

As a journalist working in the developing world, I often find myself writing about creaking healthcare systems, but I have never been personally affected. Until now.

My wife Natalie last week gave birth to our first child, Charlotte Elizabeth. We are lucky enough to be able to afford to got to a private hospital for the delivery, but this did not help us when it came to getting a BCG vaccine, for there were no doses available.

Kenya has the 13th-highest prevalence of Tubercolosis in the world. The WHO reported 140,000 new cases in 2008. Yet it has now been suffering a shortgage of the BCG vaccine for around three months, putting tens of thousands of infants, including my daughter, at risk.

The vaccine is now the holy grail for parents, who are scouring Nairobi looking for it. Favours are being called in and rumours exchanged via text message. Gangs of furtive parents are lurking in doorways outside hospitals and offering wads of cash to passing doctors.

I was told that a private clinic was selling it for 20 euros - shameless profiteering since the vaccine is supposed to be free in Kenya. Nonetheless, I went there ready to pay. When I asked, the receptionist appeared to glance furtively around the room and announced loudly that she had no vaccine. However, she then had me write down my name and number and said she would call if any came in. I couldn't help but wonder if she was being clandestine since they are probably selling vaccine obtained through government channels in a corrupt manner. She hasn't called yet.

I now have another lead, which I am chasing up on. I can only hope that I get there before the other parents who would no doubt elbow me over a high railing or drop kick Charlotte over a fence to make sure they got the vaccine for their child. And who can blame them?

The question has to be asked why there is no vaccine in the country when donors have been pouring money into anti-TB programmes. The answer could lie in incompetence - which would not be a great surprise to anyone who has dealt with Kenyan government officials - or the old problem of corruption. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria has in the past suspended funding to Kenya for disappearing millions of dollars intended to buy ARVs through fraudulent NGOs, and that wasn't even considered a big corruption scandal.

I have been too busy changing nappies and trying to get the vaccine for Charlotte to look into it properly yet, but it wouldn't surprise me to find that somebody is putting children at risk in order to fill their pockets.

How not to pay bribes to cops in Kenya

2009-06-30T12:17:00.004+03:00

A few months ago, somebody told me the best way to avoid paying bribes to cops in Kenya is to be polite and waste their time, which they would rather be using to collect bribes from more cooperative people. I got the chance to try it out last week, when a cop pulled me over in Kilimani at lunchtime. The following is the abbreviated exchance, leaving out the call he took from his girfriend and attempts to gain sympathy for having a cold:

Cop: "You are displaying a duplicate insurance certificate. That is an offence in Kenya."

Me: "Oh, I'm very sorry. I just bought this car and didn't know."

Cop: "I understand, but we will have to go the police station. There will be big fine, and it will take a long time."

Me: "OK officer, no problem."

Cop: "Do you know where the Kilimani station is?"

Me: "Yes, it's just round the corner. I'll meet you there."

Cop: "Ah, no. I can't let you drive off. I will have to impound the car and we walk."

Me: "Well, jump in and I'll give you a lift. You can impound the car there."

COP CASTS FORLORN GLANCE AT OTHER, JUICY POSSIBLE BRIBES GOING PAST, BUT DECIDES TO PLAY IT OUT

Cop (IN CAR, LOOKING AT MY LICENCE, GRINS): "Ah, you have not signed your licence. That is also an offence in Kenya."

Me: "Oh, I'm sorry officer. I didn't know. We can sort it out at the station."

Cop: "That will be another fine."

(SIGNIFICANT PAUSE).

Me: "No problem."

Cop: "It will be very expensive."

Me: "Fair enough."

(CONFUSED PAUSE)

Cop: "You are a very cooperative person."

Me: "Well, I need to have respect for the laws of Kenya and the officers who uphold them."

Cop: "The fine will be at least 5,000 shillings for each offence."

(SIGNIFICANT PAUSE, ACCOMPANIED BY EVEN-MORE SIGNIFICANT LOOK)

Me: "If that is the penalty, then I will have to pay it."

(CAR IS APPROACHING POLICE STATION, COP IS LOOKING THOROUGHLY STUMPED)

Cop: "Are you sure you want to go through all the trouble?"

Me: "The law's the law."

(SILENCE, CAR ONLY 50 METRES FROM STATION)

Cop: "I tell you what, why don't I just give you a warning this time? We can just pull this off."

(COP PULLS OFF INSURANCE STICKER, WHICH IS THE EXPIRED ONE SO COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT. THE CURRENT STICKER IS PERFECTLY LEGAL)

Me: "Thank you very much officer, I appreciate your kindness."

Cop: "It is no problem. You will know next time. So, where are you going now?"

Me: "I am going to the office. Do you want me to drop you back at the junction?"

Cop: "Yes, please."

(I DROP COP OFF AT JUNCTION. HE LOOKS AT THE ONCOMING TRAFFIC, READY TO POUNCE).

Kenya birth and hospital hostages

2009-06-30T09:01:00.004+03:00

Given that my wife, Natalie, is about to pop out (well, she hopes it will be that easy) our first kid in a Nairobi hospital, I found this article from Edmund Sanders at the LA Times particularly pertinent.

Sanders talks to several woman who were held captive in Kenyan hospitals when they failed to pay their bills for giving birth. Horrible, yes, but not surprising given that public services, and not just healthcare, are dire in Kenya while ministers and MPs live the high life.

If ever a town demonstrated the worst elements of rampant capitalism and its every-man-for-themselves attitude, it is Nairobi.

We are fortunate not to be in the same position as those poor women, although I may find myself lowering Nats out of a toilet window and smuggling the baby out in a plastic bag if any of the additional items on the hospital's a-la-carte birth menu (c-section, episiotomy, vacuum removal, drugs to revive fainted husband) need to be purchased.

US anti-pirate action doesn't stand up to scrutiny

2009-04-14T10:30:00.004+03:00

At last, the drama is over. The “scurrilous” and “ruthless” pirates are dead and the “heroic” US captain has been released.

Undoubtedly Captain Richard Phillips, who spent five days on a lifeboat being held hostage by Somali pirates, acted bravely. He gave himself up to safeguard the crew of the Maersk Alabama and even plunged into the ocean in an attempt to swim to a nearby US Navy destroyer.

What is more interesting is the media coverage portraying the pirates as ruthless – a complete misrepresentation if ever there was one. In the many years of frenetic pirate activity, there have been very few hostage deaths.

The last hostage to have been killed by pirates was a Taiwanese seaman, who died in unclear circumstances two years ago shortly after his ship was seized. Piracy experts say this was an isloated incident. Then last year, a Russian seaman died of a heart attack while he was being held hostage. Last week, the owner of French yacht was shot along with two pirates during an operation to free his boat. France has admitted he may have been killed by his rescuers. At no point has a single hostage been executed.

On the other hand, the pirates are not simple fishermen defending their coastline, as some of their defenders like to make out. After dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was ousted in 1991, many countries took advantage of the chaos to fish illegally and and dump toxic waste in Somalia waters. Piracy began as a movement among fishermen aimed at curbing these practices. Now, however, it is an industry all of its own. Young men, most of whom have few other options, join up to make easy money and the pirates are certainly not restricting themselves to fishing vessels in Somali waters.

The pirates are criminals; nothing more, nothing less.

However, portraying the pirates as dastardly murderers makes it easier to justify the US action. Supposedly President Barack Obama had given a standing order to take out the captors if Phillips' life was in danger. The on-scene commander then made a “split-second decision” that Phillips was indeed in danger, something that most newspapers have happily swallowed.

Of course, it is never possible to really know what happened from a distance, but the decision to kill does not seem to stand up to scrutiny.

Firstly, given that the pirates have never before executed a hostage, there was no precedent to suggest that this group would be prepared to kill Phillips. All previous evidence points to hostages only being in danger when rescue attempts are made. Secondly, Phillips was the pirates only hostage. Were they really going to shoot him, thus blowing their only bargaining chip and sealing their fates?

The justification is that the pirates had an AK-47 pointed at Phillips' head. Frankly, I would have been surprised if the pirates had not been pointing a gun at him, particularly given the state of play at the time. One of the pirates was on the USS Bainbridge, trying to negotiate safe passage in exchange for Phillips. If I were a pirate on the lifeboat, I would have been pointing the gun at Phillips. Generally, it is what hostage takers do. I am quite sure that was not the first time they had pointed a gun at the captain during the five-day standoff.

What seems far more likely is that, with a clear shot at all three pirates on the boat, the on-scene commander took the decision to finish the standoff rather than drag it out and possibly end up with the embarrassing scenario of three US destroyers having to allow four pirates to slink away unpunished in exchange for Phillips' freedom.

Whether this was the real order that came from the top is anybody's guess. Regardless, the attack – coupled with France's freeing of the yacht – is not good news for the 230 or so other hostages currently being held and for those that may be taken in the future.

Vice Admiral Bill Gortney, commander of U.S. Naval Forces Central Command, warned that the American operation “could escalate violence in this part of the world.” Pirate groups are already threatening to kill US and French hostages in retaliation for the two actions. This could be bluster. But the next time pirates are surrounded by warships, they may well be that little bit more nervous and far more likely to pull the trigger.

The use of force is an important tool in ending piracy off Somalia. But it should be used only when hostages' lives really are in danger. It should certainly not be used in isolation without thought for the consequences.

Tackle insecurity and poverty in Somalia, give commercial ships more defensive capability, encourage shipping companies to stop paying ransoms, and storm ships as a last resort. Only then will piracy begin to fall.

Two things

2009-04-06T13:37:00.002+03:00

Two things:

Firstly, after a long gap due to laziness, I have had another short story published. It is called Decompression, and is on Underground Voices.

You can read it here.

Secondly, I slid a Balaton szelet into my pants on Saturday after a mid-air incident. Our plane coming back to Nairobi from Juba went out of control for a good 10 seconds - literally flying from side to side, banging around, and flying at a crazy angle. Suffice to say we all thought we were dead.

When it recovered, the pilot said we had hit the wake turbulence of another plane that crossed our path. Going by the violence of the shaking, I would say we did not miss it by much.

Still alive, though.

The five steps to becoming a Kenyan Tour Guide

2008-11-18T18:43:00.002+03:00

Karibu! So, you want to be a tour guide? Well, the good news is that there are plenty of opportunities out there and most of the time you don’t even need to be employed at the attraction you are showing people around. You just need turn up randomly. The even better news, though, is that there is a simple Five-Step Method you can learn in only ten minutes, allowing you to start raking in those tourist dollars after lunch! This method is simple and proven, having been culled from the experience of guides out there in the workplace RIGHT NOW!

1. The first step is easy. Simply find yourself a tourist attraction - be it a stunning natural wonder, a Hindu temple or a pristine beach – and hover outside it. Don’t worry about getting a uniform, or a badge or any of that nonsense. Simply say to tourists: “I’m a tour guide. Yah.” This functions as ID. And besides, you don’t actually work there anyway.

2. Many tour guides mistakenly believe that the most important skill you need is knowledge about your chosen attraction. Wrong! We in Kenya know the most important skill is sharp elbows, which you use to thrust yourself to the front of the horde of other guides haranguing a startled looking tourist who has turned up hoping for a relaxing half hour strolling through peaceful surroundings. Also ensure you have an iron grip to clamp onto the tourist’s elbow. This will enable you to win any ensuing tug of war.

3. Don’t worry about knowing much about your attraction. Usually one fact, the more obvious the better, will suffice. For example, if you are showing guests around Fourteen Falls, the only thing you should tell them is that it is called Fourteen Falls because there are fourteen waterfalls. Then you should count them out loud, very slowly, pointing to each waterfall in turn. Other facts, such as what kind of animals live in the water, how long ago this attraction was formed and what that stinking five-foot-high mound of yellow foam collecting at the bottom of the falls is are irrelevant.

4. Remember that tourists are really, really stupid. Therefore you need to repeat everything you say many times before the idiots absorb your marvellous factoid. If there is a silence lasting any longer than three seconds, you may be tempted to think that the tourists are quietly marvelling at whatever you are showing them. This is incorrect. It is more likely that their miniscule brains are so busy trying to process the information you just imparted that they have lost the power of speech. Help them by repeating your fact. Again. And again.

For example, as we in the industry know, the most important thing people need to know about the Crocodile Farm in Mombasa is not how long crocodiles live, what chameleons eat or if that rather large and bristly insect crawling up the child’s leg is poisonous. It is whether or not each and every creature in the place is edible or inedible. So, at each stop along the tour of the aquarium and the insectarium, spideriaum or whatever it is called (just invent something), repeatedly proclaim the edibleness of the beast in question.

For example: “Lobster. Edible. Lobster. Edible. Lobster. Edible.” “Spider. Inedible. Spider. Spider. Inedible. Spider. Inedible” “Sea Urchin. Inedible. Yah. Inedible. Sea Urchin. Inedible. Sea Urchin.”

5. If somebody asks you a question about something you don’t know the answer to (and let’s be honest, this will happen a lot) it is perfectly acceptable to do any of the following:

- Pretend you don’t understand their squeaky foreign voices

- Mumble something unintelligible in response and hurry to the next attraction

- Say something, no matter how stupid. For example Q: “What kind of monkey is that?” A: “It’s a monkey monkey.” Or, alternatively, use your one fact to create a credibly answer: Q: “What kind of snake it that?” A: “Edible snake”

-Make sweeping statements: Q: “Why does that lizard have holes in its neck.” A: “It is its nature”

-Read out any signs or information cards that may be in the vicinity, even if they have nothing to do with the question asked

And that, newly graduated tour guide, is it. Now get out there and do Kenya proud!

CNN puts its foot in it

2008-08-04T14:13:00.002+03:00

Oh dear. CNN, in an effort to spice up its report on right-wingers protesting in Belgrade against the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, cut in footage of earlier riots. In Budapest. It is so blatant, with Hungarian flags and the Budapest metro (Belgrade has no metro) on full display. CNN yanked the video from their website, but it has cropped up on youtube (watch below).

It does make you wonder how often CNN, and some of its supposedly lower-rent peers, do this kind of thing and get away with it.

Nairobi slam poetry

2008-07-13T19:07:00.003+03:00

I went to my first slam poetry night in Nairobi on Friday. It was in one regard not too different from such nights in other countries. The poets were a mixed bag, ranging from the awful to the inspired.

What the poets all shared, though, was an energy and fire to get their political message across. The themes concentrated on many of Africa's problems, from Kenya's post-election violence to the colonial legacy.

The only spoiler on the night was created by an American teenager, who seemed like an escapee from every teen movie every made. My friend shushed her after she decided to screech about spilling her drink on her precious blouse while one of the poets performed. Cue catty remarks, much tossing of teased blonde hair and a cascade of dirty looks. She even forced her poor uncomfortable boyfriend to come over and ask for an apology. He clearly knew she was being a buffoon.

Some people should be locked up in the malls they clearly belong in.

Kwani Litfest 2008

2008-07-04T10:09:00.004+03:00

I just found out that I am going to miss much of the Kwani Litfest 2008, which has workshops run by such luminaries as Chimamanda Adichie, whose novel, Half of a Yellow Sun, won the Orange Prize in 2007.

Suffice to say I am very disappointed at missing out on the opportunity to meet and learn from authors of this calibre.

I get back on the last day of the festival in Nairobi before it moves on to Lamu, which means I will miss the long workshops.

Ever the optimist, though, I am going to contact the organisers and see if I can blag my way into the tail-end of one of the workshops.

The emissary

2008-07-02T19:36:00.003+03:00

I have been very fortunate to have the wonderful Vanessa Gebbie agree to read out my story at the Fish anthology launch in West Cork next week since I cannot make it.

I am convinced she will do a far better job than I would have done. I have never read in public before and I am not so sure my Glaswegian accent and ability to machine gun out a sentence in about 0.2 milliseconds would have worked terribly well.

Thanks Vanessa.

Blowing your own trumpet

2008-06-24T08:18:00.003+03:00

I am not normally one for blowing my own trumpet, but on this occasion - toot toot! (I am not sure I can accurately spell the noise a trumpet makes when I play it - something like thhhhhhhhhhsssseeeeeffffffffffffftthhhhhhhhttt-PARP!)

Anyway, I recently managed to win the Fish Publishing 2008 One-Page Fiction contest, with We Will Go On Ahead And Wait For You. I won't tell you what it is about, because it will spoil it. You will just have to buy Fish's 2008 anthology, which you will be able to get from their website and amazon from July-ish. Autographs can be added for the price of a tuna sandwich and a cup of tea when I next come to visit.

Unfortunately I can't go to the awards ceremony at the start of July, since I have recently moved to Nairobi and West Cork is a bit of a trek. It is a shame, as I was hoping to meet Vanessa Gebbie - she who judged the competition and has since kindly accepted me into her crit group - in person.

Oh, and I know this is my first post in about a year. I will update this more regularly now I am in Kenya, as there are many things that don't fit neatly enough into the press agency boxes to put out on the wire.

Top US general in Iraq to create ‘Army of Smeaton’

2007-07-03T11:50:00.000+03:00

By Michael Logan

The US General in charge of the multinational force in Iraq on Tuesday announced that he planned to curtail the bloody conflict by creating an army cloned from John Smeaton, the baggage handler who foiled a weekend terror raid on Glasgow Airport.

“Factoring in just how hard Mr. Smeaton is, we figure we only need about 200 of him to kick f**k out of the whole country,” General David Petraeus told journalists in Baghdad’s Green Zone. “We believe that by creating an ‘Army of Smeaton’, we will be able to completely wipe out the insurgents within a month.”
Mr. Smeaton attained global attention when he was interviewed on CNN after foiling attempts by suspected terrorists to drive a burning car into the terminal building at Glasgow Airport. Early reports stated that the car missed the revolving door, but it is now apparent that the fact the car missed its target was entirely down to Mr. Smeaton.
“It was amazing,” said eyewitness Tam McPherson. “The car was coming right at him but he just booted it and it flew to the right, missing the door.”
“Then he pulled the two guys out – one in each hand – threw them forty yards into a police van without looking and them blew out the car fire with one might puff of his giant lungs,” Mr. McPherson continued.
Fan websites, including http://www.johnsmeaton.com/, have cropped up everywhere since Mr. Smeaton single-handedly saved Glasgow from certain doom and General Petraeus admitted that Internet acclaim helped make his decision.
“We were considering cloning Chuck Norris until John Smeaton came along,” he said. “For example, we had heard that were was no theory of evolution, just a list of animals Chuck Norris allows to live. Turns out we were wrong and it was John Smeaton all the time.”
Mr. Smeaton himself played down his upcoming role in ending the world’s most high-profile conflict, but pledged to put his superhuman genetic coding at the disposal of the army.
“Look, mate. Ah’m just daien wit anybudy wid dae in ma place, know wit ah mean,” Mr. Smeaton told the New York Times. “If ah can bring aboot wurld peece by letting ma clones put the boot in tae some o they terrorists, nae f**kin’ bother.”
General Petraeus denied that the plan smacked of desperation and warned that if they did not clone Mr. Smeaton then the insurgents would attempt to do it. However, Mr. Smeaton said that any attempts by insurgents to remove his DNA would be met with extreme force.
“Tell thum tae come ahead,” he said. “Ah’ll show the basturds wit happens when they mess wi Glasgow.”

ends

New blog to check out

2007-07-02T11:32:00.000+03:00

Hello folks,

If anybody ever bothers to actually still look at this rarely updated journal, I recommend you turn your attention here instead.

This is a much better journal than I could ever write.

Cheers,
Michael.

Quentin and Crisp - surely a joke

2007-06-28T16:31:00.000+03:00

These guys absolutely must be joking. Otherwise there is something seriously wrong with them.

Gingers rise up

2007-06-04T12:30:00.000+03:00

As a gingernut, ginge minge, etc, this following story about a family being persecuted for their hair colour outraged me.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/6714735.stm

Protection is given to all kinds of minority groups, but gingers are left to fend for themselves. If I knew enough ginger people in Hungary I would probably set up some kind of group and go out and burn non-ginger people.

The goat was horny and so was he

2007-04-16T21:41:00.000+03:00

You have goat to read this (you'll understand the pun when you look at the story)

Hungarian rapper brings world peace

2007-03-02T22:06:00.000+03:00

World peace erupted across the globe last Wednesday after a song by an unsigned Hungarian rapper calling for an end to war forced global leaders, terrorists and warlords to realise the error of their ways.

“I didn’t know what a fool I had been until Speak so eloquently made me see the folly of armed conflict,” US President George W. Bush said in a press conference announcing the withdrawal of all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. “As Speak said: ‘I don’t want a war. I want a peace.’”
President Bush also acknowledged Speak’s charge that the war in Iraq was all about “bizniz”, and pledged to “force corporations who profited from the war to give all of the accumulated profits to a charity of Speak’s choosing”.
Events snowballed quickly last week after Speak’s song suddenly came to the attention of the world on YouTube (www.youtube.com/watch?v=--Vaz9jW054). From an initial 250,000 views last Wednesday, the video reached five billion hits within hours, ensuring that almost every man, woman and child on the planet was touched by the rapper’s message.
Just ten minutes after President Bush called off the war, Osama Bin Laden emerged from hiding to announce that he was thoroughly ashamed of himself.
“Speak is right: I am a bad man. Furthermore, as he requested, I will stop my plan,” Bin Laden told journalists in Blackpool, Britain, where he has successfully evaded capture for years by working as an Osama Bin Laden impersonator in a cabaret club. “I hereby announce that America is not, in fact, the Great Satan, call off all terrorist actions worldwide and invite McDonalds to contact me with a view to creating a Bin Laden Burger for sale in franchises across the Middle East.”
The Israeli government and Hamas also declared an end to all hostilities and announced a plan that would see Israel controlling disputed territories on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays while Palestine would have Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. Monday was designated a common day where both nations would come together to sunbathe, eat ice cream and perhaps kick a ball about in the park.
Across Africa, warlords and rebel armies in many war-torn nations all laid down their AK-47s and machetes as Speak’s message swept across the world. “Speak has made us see that the hundreds of years of ethnic rivalry - exacerbated by the European colonisation of our continent - that has sustained the violence and led to millions of deaths was just silly,” the commander of the Sudanese Janjiweed militia, responsible for bloody massacres in Darfur, announced. “Speak has surely saved mankind from extinction. We salute him.”
Speak himself downplayed his role in creating a new world order that will see thousands of years of unbroken peace. “At best I had hoped to sell a few records so I could afford a nice house in Buda, so to have solved all of the world’s conflicts in one fell swoop is a nice bonus,” he said. “I now plan to cure cancer, conquer space and find out what really happened to Lord Lucan and Shergar.”

Buying into terror

2007-02-01T19:46:00.000+03:00

This article (http://news.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=166682007#new) - regarding the men arrested in connection with the alleged beheading terror plot - really bugged me.

I'm not in a position to know the ins-and-outs of the arrest and whether or not the plot was real, etc, but what I found a little disturbing about this article was the fact that the journalist has accepted that the case against these men is already proven.

Surely the headline should be "A new kind of terror allegedly comes to these shores"?

The article is sensationalist from start to finish. There is no proof, as of yet, that these men are guilty as charged. Once that comes, by all means treat it as a new form of terror. Until then, stop treating the accusations as fact. The police have got it wrong before. These men could be fanatics that are prepared to murder. Then again, they could just as easily have never been going to do it. The point is, we don't know yet.

It seems that, in the UK, when it comes to anybody accused of plotting terrorism, as opposed to being arrested for carrying out an ordinary crime, all question of innocent until proven guilty goes out of the window.

Equally worrying are all of the comments after the article, many are along the lines of "stop immigration, all Muslims should adopt our culture, we won't be invaded from within". The last thing we need is more prejudice.

People should be just as worried about the erosion of tolerance and the way that the media are increasingly buying what the government and police tell them. What extremists on all sides want is for people to hate each other more. We're giving them what they want.

Songs Burns should have written

2007-02-01T18:23:00.000+03:00

We went to a Burns' Night earlier this week, and I was struck by two things. One, by how absolutely smashed the piper they had flown in from Scotland was. He forgot the words to Address to a Haggis after only the first verse, and then in his nervousness pronounced the haggis "fucking rich". This was in front of a crowd of church-going folk (myself and Nats obviously excluded). He was also spotted lying prone outside and speaking in an extremely slurred voice. Top marks for showcasing Scottish culture to Hungarians.

The other thing that struck me was all the eulogising about Burns' love poetry and what a sweet man he was. Let's be honest. He was a shagger. The man liked to dip his wick, often, and he wasn't too fussy about where. So, in honour of the real Burns, I'd like to suggest the titles of some poems he should have written:

Don't let the door hit yer arse on the way oot
Ma boabie is like a red, red scab
Have ah no' shagged you already?
Stop greeting ya daft cow, it was only a shag
Ah don't care if ah shagged yer ma, yer no' ma wayne

Maybe I'll write some of these if I can find the time. Who knows, maybe they'll be celebrating my life in 300 years.

Hungarian waiters to launch “Scowlathon”

2007-02-01T18:22:00.000+03:00

The Association of Hungarian Waiting Staff last week launched a yearlong “Scowlathon” to raise money for waiting staff forced to retire early after years of bad service.

“We plan to tap into what is clearly a natural talent amongst our members,” said Attila Szomorú. “Hungarian waiters and waitresses are renowned worldwide for their surliness; we hope to use this to rake in millions of forints.”
Szomorú said that money would be used to help support waiting staff forced to retire early with facial spasms brought on by constant frowning, scowling and glaring at customers who had the temerity to interrupt a discussion about how bad tips are these days to ask for a coffee.
“This is a major problem for our members,” Szomorú said. “People don’t realise the strain that appearing miserable 40 hours a week can put on the facial muscles. Many waiters end up with faces only a mother could love.”
Buckets will be placed in every bar, café and restaurant across Budapest, and Szomorú urged customers to reward surliness with an absolute minimum of 10% on top of the usual tip.
“We’re only asking for fair payment,” he said. “After all, we have to tend to customers’ every need, sometimes having to stop flirting with the cute barmaid or texting our friends to take orders, bring food and other such menial tasks.”
Waiting staff will have their existing skills - such as avoiding eye contact with customers, sighing when receiving a large order and starting derisorily at a tip less than 10% - maximised at special training courses.
Szomorú said that the campaign had a dual purpose, and that it aimed to raise not just money but awareness of what a pain in the arse it is to wait on people. “Let’s be honest: we’re doing you a favour serving you at all,” he said. “Don’t you people have coffee machines and ovens at home? Slavery was abolished in the 19th century. Make your own damn coffee.”
Waiters at many cafés on Liszt Ferenc tér enthusiastically joined in the campaign last week. Erszébet Tóth, speaking on a break, said that she was relishing the chance to be as rude as possible. “This morning alone I made two tourists cry and spilled soup all over somebody’s Calvin Klein jacket. When they asked me to clean it up, I threw a napkin the size of a postage stamp at them and stalked off,” she said. “I’m feeling pretty good already.”
However, many customers seemed unaware of the campaign. “I’ve been trying to get the waiter to bring me a menu for twenty minutes, but he seems more interested in the contents of his nose,” said John Timmons, a businessman who regularly dines out. “To be honest, that’s about average.”
Nonetheless, Szomorú said he was hopeful of raising “more cash than you can shake a stick at”.
“We’re expecting to bring in at least HUF 500 million,” he said. “Failing that, we aim to drive away as many customers as possible so we can sit about and watch TV all day.”

Squeezing out a big one

2007-01-25T13:45:00.000+03:00

Now, I don't care how big rhinos are, but that has to hurt. Here's the full story:

Budapest - The world's first baby rhino conceived through artificial insemination has been born in Budapest Zoo, weighing in at a whopping 58 kilogrammes.

'The youngster is a little girl and very healthy,' Zoltan Hanga, spokesman for Budapest Zoo, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa Wednesday.

According to Hanga, the birth was the culmination of years of work by an international team of Hungarians, Germans and Austrians.

The new mother, Lulu, was one of many rhinos involved in artificial insemination attempts, and she first fell pregnant in 2004. However, the 26-year-old white rhino miscarried in August 2005 just hours before giving birth. This time around there were no complications, but Hanga said the newborn would not be on display to the general public for 'several months' until it gained more strength.

Budapest Zoo's other rhino, Easyboy, became the sperm donor after romantic sparks failed to ignite between the couple. Hanga said that Lulu and Easyboy came to the zoo in 1983 as children, but since then no sexual frisson had developed.

'Because they were very young when they came and grew up together, they thought they were brother and sisters,' he said. 'They weren't sexually interested in each other, so we had to inseminate.'

The success of the procedure could be significant for endangered rhino species across the world, as breeding rhinos in captivity has proven to be a difficult task.

Daft stories

2007-01-19T22:25:00.000+03:00

By way of explanation, I've been writing these spoof stories for one of the media outlets I work for. I'm too lazy to update my blog, so cutting and pasting them in here makes it look like I actually care about this blog with minimum effort.

Fidesz criticises "left-leaning" storm

2007-01-19T22:23:00.000+03:00

Fidesz criticises "left-leaning" storm

Hungary’s main opposition party Fidesz last Friday accused the major storm that killed dozens across Europe of favouring the ruling Hungarian Socialist Party after it failed to devastate Hungary.
“We were expecting widespread destruction and the opportunity to blame the government for being unprepared,” Fidesz spokesman Taksz Bollóksz said at a press conference. “Instead this so-called storm proved it is a Socialist lackey by not exposing the government’s shocking complacency in the run-up to the projected catastrophe. Quite frankly, knocking over a few chimneys just isn’t good enough.”
The storm, which was widely expected to at the very least knock a few trees over onto parked cars and blow off a roof or two, limped into Hungary in the early hours of last Friday and caused almost no problems.
Bollóksz held the press conference in front of precarious scaffolding in the centre of Budapest to drive his message home. “Just look at this. Any self-respecting, politically-independent storm would have blown this away like matchsticks,” he said. “It would have driven steel rods through the windscreens of passing cars, reduced shop windows to shards of deadly glass and generally showed the government up for the lazy charlatans that they are.”
He also attempted to prove the storm’s bias by pointing to charts of its progress across Europe. “You can clearly see the storm took a sharp turn to the left before it entered Hungary,” he said, although he quickly put the chart away when it was pointed out he was holding it upside down.
The spokesman further claimed that the storm specifically targeted government opponents when it entered the country. “Almost all of the pathetically-small amount of damage was done to the houses of those who voted against the government at last year’s local elections,” he said. “Not only that, but it blew off the wig of a high ranking Fidesz official in a blatant attempt to embarrass the party.”
A government spokeswoman, while admitting that the cabinet had entered into “high-level” talks with the storm before it came to Hungary, refuted the charges.
“It is ridiculous to claim that a storm has any political bias,” she said. “Destructive forces of nature are renowned for their objectivity, and Kyrill was no different. Once we explained that Hungarians already have more than enough to worry about with us in charge of the country, it agreed to move along quietly.”
A prominent left-leaning daily newspaper hailed the lack of any damage as “a glorious victory for the government; proof that the Socialist Party can not only perform miracles with the economy, but can also convince major weather systems to change course through rational discourse”.
A popular right-leaning daily, however, said that the storm had its tongue so far up the government’s backside it could taste kidney and also had direct links to the former Communist regime. “We have proof that Kyrill’s wife’s grandfather’s next-door-neighbour’s dog once attempted to mount a poodle that János Kádár [Hungary’s former dictator] fed a biscuit to in a park,” it wrote. “What more evidence do you need?”

What are you doing Mozza?

2007-01-09T18:30:00.001+03:00

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Morrissey inspired a generation of whiny teenagers who felt they didn't have a place in the world (myself included) to become whiny teenagers who realised that their place in the world was actually to be whiny teenagers. He made us realise there was nothing wrong with considering suicide a viable response to an outbreak of spots. He was responsible for making it possible to wear national health specs and still cop off with a bird. He made it seem perfectly normal to appear on Top of the Pops with a hearing aid and a small shrub protruding from your arse cleavage.

After these great achievements, what is Morrissey doing? Considering representing the UK in the Eurovision song contest (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6244153.stm). Should he actually go ahead and do it, he will go down in the history books alongside musical luminaries such as Cliff Richard, Black Lace, Sonia, Gina G and Buck's Fizz.

Remember you always used to sing and talk about committing suicide, Morrissey? I know where you can buy a gun.

Leviticus lays down the law

2007-01-09T10:44:00.000+03:00

I was browsing through a debate on the Guardian website this morning (the usual left-wing liberal vs. conservative debate where nobody listens to what anybody else says, instead just posting their own opinion REALLY STRIDENTLY). Anyway, this one post at least gave me a laugh. I haven't checked the passages and do not vouch for its veracity:

When someone tries to defend homosexual equality, Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice, however, regarding some of the other specific laws in the Bible and how to follow them.

1). When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Leviticus 1:9). The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
2). I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
3). I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual cleanliness (Leviticus 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.
4). I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states that he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
5). A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is a abomination of Leviticus 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
6). Leviticus 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
7). Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Leviticus 19:27. How should they die?
8). I know from Leviticus 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
9). My uncle has a farm. He violates Leviticus 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? (Leviticus 24:10-16). Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Leviticus 20:14).

The Hungarian Dichotomy

2007-01-08T22:45:00.000+03:00

At the risk of sounding like a moaning-faced git, which I suppose I am, I am becoming increasingly vexed with the dichotomy that I see in Hungary.

The nation seems to be split into two groups: the first is comprised of lovely, friendly and generally magnificent Hungarians, who would bend over backwards to help you out. Unfortunately they are in the minority.

Many Hungarians are, alas, miserable sods with faces akin to a bulldog chewing a wasp. And not a particularly tasty wasp at that. The fencing club Nats and I have been going to is largely populated with these po-faced twats (excluding Virginie, Csaba, Frozsi, Bianca and one or two others), and I am thoroughly sick of it. Tonight was the final straw, with some miserable teenage git seemingly unable to open her gob to politely ask me to move my fencing bag, with was encroaching on her piste by, oh, half a millimetre. If even that. Anyhoo, she virtually kicked it out of the way with a snarl.

Considering it was only in her general vicinity because she was glued to the back of the piste, hanging on by a frigging toenail, I couldn't help but feel she was being a touch unreasonable, and told her so. Yes, I do speak Hungarian you silly cow.

Cheer up, for fuck's sake.

DISCLAIMER: I am in a bit of grump, since I do love fencing and have lost my desire to do it because of the general attitude in that club. To all those Hungarians, of which there are a lot, who actually understand that facial muscles can also be used to create a smile instead of frown, and that the Hungarian language is complex enough to say a lot more than "Jaj!" repeatedly, I extend my heartfelt apologies.

Save the men

2007-01-05T18:49:00.000+03:00

Charity calls for ethical treatment of men during January sales

Michael Logan

Men For Ethical Shopping, a recently-formed charity, on Friday called for urgent action as the January sales saw hundreds of forlorn men abandoned outside shops across Budapest while their partners searched for the perfect bargain.

“This year has been one of the worst so far,” István Orbán, the director of MFES, said at a press conference in the West End shopping centre, one of the major hotspots for abandonment. “Bargain-hunting women have gone into a frenzy and this means that there has been a significant increase in men left to fend for themselves.”

Orbán took journalists on a tour through the shopping centre, pointing to the many clusters of dishevelled, confused and often shivering men squatting outside stores or walking in aimless circles with no apparent goal. “These men have been completely forgotten,” he said. “Once their wives get an eye on that sexy off-the-shoulder number that has been slashed by 80%, their husbands no longer exist for them.”

One man said that his wife had disappeared into Mango two hours previously and had yet to emerge. “I have no idea what she’s doing in there. I’m tired, I’m hungry and I’m gasping for a cigarette, but I’m too afraid to go in and find her,” he said, tears welling up in his eyes. “It’s a jungle in there.”

Orbán said that fear of entering the shop in pursuit of the wife or girlfriend was a common complaint amongst men suffering from Post Traumatic Abandonment Disorder. “Men quite simply don’t have the skills to survive in such an environment,” he said. “One victim was torn apart when he got caught up in a skirmish over the last Gucci handbag left on the sale rack. He was as helpless as a newborn.”

According to Orbán, a tragedy is waiting to happen, and he pointed to the many men leaning over railings on the upper floors of the centre. “It may look like these men are just trying to look down the tops of women passing underneath, which they probably are, but they are also considering throwing themselves off. I know. I’ve been there.”

Orbán started the charity after his wife left him outside Zara for four hours on Boxing Day while she scoured the bargain bins for designer jeans cut to at least 50% of their retail value. When she finally emerged, he was forced to carry all of the bags to the car even though severely weakened by missing out on lunch. Even now it is clearly painful for him to talk about it.

“It was horrible, like being in solitary confinement,” he said. “I had nothing to do apart from pick my nose and scratch my arse. You wouldn’t treat a dog that way. Well, you would, but at least it would get its tummy rubbed by sexy women passing by.”

Orbán is convinced that shopping centres must act now in order to prevent mass suicides, and called for the institution of a “Man Crèche”, where women can drop off their husbands and boyfriends and pick them up when they leave.

“It’s quite simple, really,” he said. “All they need is a room with two elements: a wide screen TV, preferably showing a football match or pornography, and beer. Obviously some gadgets, such as iPods and PS3s would be desirable, and a lap dancer would also help keep the men occupied. Perhaps upmarket malls could add these extra features as a selling point.”

Orbán pointed out that a Man Crèche would make financial sense for shopping centres, as it would maximise the amount of time a woman could spend shopping. “While most women are hard to distract once focused on a bargain, their partner deciding to end it all by taking a dive from the top floor and splattering his brains out in the food court can sometimes do the job,” he said. “If centre managers can prevent this from happening, it means more cash in the till.”

New Year off with a barf

2007-01-01T20:02:00.000+03:00

There is no better way to start the New Year than having to clean up a five-storey vomit cascade will struggling with a hangover. No, wait a minute, yes there is.

Thanks to intoxicated young lady who took a huey over our balcony during the party last night, leaving a rather healthy deposit on each floor beneath us, including some in an old ladies' plant pots. I particularly enjoyed discovering what she ate before excessive punch consumption led to it being dripped down the side of the building.

Anyhoo, that aside the party went very well. Congratulations to Eric, who somehow managed to mop up all the single women without trying or necessarily even being aware of it. All he had to do was stand there and look manly, if a little pissed, and they all came to him.

Hellblock 13

2006-12-18T01:08:00.000+03:00

Amsterdam. City of beautiful canals. Replete with wonderful museums. Chock-a-block with top nightspots and cafes where one can procure the finest hallucinogenics and undergo an uplifting, life-changing experience.

But why bother indulging in any of these pleasures when you can stay in your friends' house all night and watch Hellblock 13 on the horror channel? This film has it all. Zombies that giggle like little children will brutally stabbing innocent teenagers whose only crime is to wear bobby sox after 10pm. Gratuitious nude scenes. Men with large walrus moustaches who drink witches' poisons and swell up into giant pus balls. Acting that is worthy of a special school's christmas theatre production. Women who trip over carelessly discarded pizza boxes will running away from giant beer-drinking mutant scotsmen capable of knocking heads off with one swipe of their hairy neanderthal paws.

I've often harboured ambitions of writing a screenplay that defines the human condition and opens up everyone's mind to the prospect of a future together, living in peace as a race united, not divided. I no longer feel this is necessary. The creators of Hellblock 13 beat me to it.

I hail their visionary genius.

A sight to behold

2006-08-02T20:54:00.000+03:00

You often see more than you want to when you go to the baths in Budapest: old men that look naked because their beer bellies are hanging over their speedos and old ladies who find it difficult to keep their sagging assets penned into the swimsuits are pretty normal sights.

However, today not only took the biscuit, it took the entire biscuit tin, dipped all the biscuits in everyone's tea and then lifted twenty quid from granny's purse on the way out the door for good measure.

Natalie's mum, Valerie, is visiting and we took her to Széchenyi. We had just got changed and were walking out when I noticed a rogue testicle. I just assumed that the fragile old fella it belonged to was being a little casual. Then I got closer and realised several things simultaneously.

1. His briefs were two sizes too big for him.
2. They were see-through.
3. There was a huge rip in back, rather like the flap on a pair of wild west longjohns that had been left unhinged.

All this conspired to give a perfect view of his meat and two veg from behind as he strolled to the changing rooms.

Welcome to Hungary, Valerie.

The Hungarian Sea

2006-07-19T00:06:00.000+03:00

This may seem like blasphemy to many Hungarians, but I went to Lake Balaton for the first time at the weekend after almost two years in Hungary.

In my defence, I didn't go because people kept telling me it wasn't worth it. I heard stories of muscle-bound buffoons in the world's tightest speedos parading their overwhelming muscles and underwhelming chipolatas up and down the strand, noisy kids running about and contributing their nasty toxic wee to the already mucky water, and lots of geriatric Germans putting their towels out on the waterfront (oooh, stereoptyping) in order to book a place to indulge in their penchant for public scatalogical sex - you know, drinking each other's wee and pressing their faces eagerly against the underside of a glass coffee table as their partner squeezes out a big log.

OK, so I made the last one up.

Anyway, I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised by Balaton. It wasn't too busy, the water was lovely - I even enjoyed Zsolt kicking my arse at water polo - and I had a lovely greasy Lángos for lunch. It wasn't at all like Butlins or the caravan parks in Arbroath where my mum took me on holiday as a kid and made me swim in the freezing cold outdoor swimming pool and pick whelks until my fingers bled.

The worst thing about my childhood holidays wasn't picking the whelks, though, it was having to eat the slimy mess all boiled up at the end of the day.

So, Balaton in summary: no whelks, no sexually-perverted German pensioners and no nasty muscle boys with willies no bigger than whelks.

I think that should be Balaton's slogan for the next tourism campaign.

Ignore this

2006-06-28T23:10:00.000+03:00

The new face of P-Mate unveiled

2006-06-27T20:28:00.000+03:00

NO MORE SQUATTING!

Michelle, my lovely sister-in-law will be selling the P-Mate(http://www.pmate.co.uk/) at this year's T in the Park in Glasgow.

Please support her by buying as many as possible. Even if you are a bloke it could be useful, for example if you only have a chippolata and wish to preserve your modesty in public places.

Perhaps she can also bring some of them over to Sziget and make a few bob.

Anyway, here she is (pictured left) demonstrating both the new product and attempting to make a standing-up-like-a-man-and-having-a-piss face. It needs a bit of work, but I think she's almost there.

Genetically gay

2006-06-27T17:14:00.000+03:00

Interesting article on the BBC:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/5120004.stm?ls

This scientist is claiming that male homosexuality is genetic, and this caught my attention because of a picture I saw of the Gay Pride march in Budapest at the weekend: two men holding up a placard proclaiming "We were born this way".

To me, that seemed almost like an apology to the straight community for being gay - "I'm sorry, but I was born like this and there is nothing I can do to change it". It shouldn't matter whether somebody came out the womb gay, became gay due to upbringing or simply made a lifestyle choice. Straight people should just accept that people can do what they want with their own sexual organs, and I don't think that gay people should have to justify their choices or existence by proving they were genetically set up that way.

Bush and his dodgy comparisons

2006-06-23T18:17:00.000+03:00

Normally I try to keep this blog as peurile as possible as I suspect the few people who read it don't really care about my opinions on politics, etc, but I went along to cover Dubya's speech in Budapest yesterday and a few things struck me.

The first was that his comparison of the 1956 revolution and Hungary's eventual transition to democracy with the situation in Iraq didn't stand up. The US left Hungary to its own devices in 1956, allowing the Soviets to roll in and crush the revolution without lifting a finger. Bush held Hungary up as an example for Iraq, but Iraq's "revolution" came about after the US invaded. If Bush really wanted Iraq to follow Hungary's example, shouldn't he just have left them alone and allowed them to get rid of the dictator themselves? The whole event smacked of an excuse to justify Iraq and the soundbite speech was liberally peppered with the usual references to liberty, freedom and God.

Secondly, I can't help but feel Bush is as much a victim of the climate of fear the US stokes up around terrorism as the ordinary punter. The security around the event was as tight as a gnat's chuff - although I have to admit the US secret service guys were very friendly and professional, unlike some of the jobsworth Hungarian police. I missed the first event after a local copper refused to let me cross the chain bridge - even with all my valid accreditation - and forced me to take a 40-minute detour. It was no surprise that the secret service (I'll refrain from shortening it to SS, as that would be unfair) wouldn't let me in because I was late. Bush probably can't take a dump without someone having to shine a torch up his cavity to check for suicide bombers. I don't think I would want to live that way. And even with all the security, there were glitches: most noteably two old drunks swigging from a bottle in an area of the Gellert Hill that was allegedly secured.

It was interesting how jumpy the crowd was, though. At one point, as Bush was speaking at the top of the hill, a plane flew overhead through the clouds. The engines were very loud, and a lot of Hungarian dignitaries (and journalists such as myself) glanced up, half-expecting to see a plane dive-bombing straight at the podium.

Some of the bowing and scraping from Hungarian politicians was pretty impressive as well. One prominent MSZP figure grabbed Bush's hand with two of his own and almost bent double as he greeted him. He looked like a leper thanking Jesus for curing him.

All in all, Bush had a bit of an easy ride the whole day. The next time he wants a nice PR opportunity with no grief, I'm sure he will know where to come.

Got to admire their balls

2006-06-12T13:12:00.000+03:00

You have to admire the ambition of these two guys and their make a million plan, although I'm a little unconvinced about their chances of selling:

http://www.budapesttimes.hu/index.php?head=7&issue=93

However, I hope they do sell it, if just to remove 1 million dollars from some large corporation's sweaty paws.

Death metal band

2006-06-02T18:13:00.000+03:00

As I type there is a death metal band playing in the car park outside my office. I shit you not. They have cleared the cars and set up a stage, and there are many bearded, spotty and black-clad youths moshing in the rain. And that's just the girls (boom-boom). One of the blokes was wearing a t-shirt with the slogan "Smoke crack and worship satan", which might give you an idea of where the bands are coming from.

So far they have played two songs. As far as I can tell, the first one was called "Blllooooaarrrghhh, blaaaaaaaghhhhh, Saaaaaataaaannnn!" and the second one was called "Grooooooowwwwl, Blooooooarrrgggh, Bloargh!!!"

The windows are vibrating. I can only hope for an electrical fault and a mass-electrocution brought on by the rain , which could well be taken as divine intervention against the satanists.

Actually, the third song has begun. It's called "Bo-wahhh, bo-wahhhh, bo-waaaaaaaaaarrrrggGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!". I quite like this one.

Plant plucking neighbour from hell

2006-05-31T17:28:00.000+03:00

Loathe as I am to seem as though I am obsessed with nénis (the second largest plague and threat to civilisation as we know it next to zombies) I still can't believe what the old woman next door has done.

We came back from Paris to find that several of our plants had been plucked out and callously left to die, withered and unloved, beside the pot on the balcony. At first I thought that somebody just didn't like us, but then as I was leaving for work yesterday morning, I bumped into my next door neighbour.

She started off by saying how well my plants were doing, but then pointed out that some of them were weeds. She then plunged her gnarled old fingers into one of the plantpots and whipped out a plant in front of my eyes, proclaiming it be a weed. Now, I have to admit that I'm no plant expert, and maybe it was a weed, but the point is it was my weed. For all she knows, I'm trying to grow weeds. As I started trying to fend her busy hands off the other plants, the other nosy neighbour joined in and pointed out that around half of the other plants were surplus to requirements.

Personally, I'd rather wait and see how they turn out, as some of them look like they could be nice weeds. Am I going to have to carry out my threat of building an electric fence around the plant pots? Find something to do apart from playing cheesy songs on the organ at full volume and killing my plants, you old BAG!

OK, I didn't say that to her, as she is generally nice and has been bringing over pálinka, wine and food. Still, that doesn't give her the right to murder my plants.

I am a big shitbag

2006-05-30T16:16:00.000+03:00

I realise that what I'm about to say makes me sound like a big shitbag - which I guess is OK because that's what I am - but I really don't like flying. I could claim that it's the crying babies, the elbow wrestling for that single skinny armrest between the two seats or the horrible artificial atmosphere, but in reality I'm afraid of plunging screaming to my death in a huge fireball.

We had some fairly nasty turbulence on the way from Paris to Budapest on Sunday, and I have to admit I shat not just a brick, but an entire building site replete with hairy-arsed builders shouting sexual abuse at women, illegal immigrants working on dodgy scaffolding and many a wheelbarrow.

Frankly, I can do without being reminded that I am in metal bullet tearing through the sky and very much pinning my hopes on the mechanics not having forgotten to tighten that all-important bolt. I am considering starting a petition to ban turbulence, or at least to have heavy-duty sedatives available at the airplane entrance instead of newspapers.

Considering this background, imagine how I feel about having to fly Tajik airlines in September this year. I'm very much looking forward to the Habitat for Humanity house build in Tajikistan, but I suspect the building site I plopped out may well be dwarfed by the pants-kakking I will be doing on an ancient Soviet aircraft.

Not as evil as I thought

2006-05-30T16:02:00.000+03:00

Believe it or not, I went to church on Sunday (not by personal choice and not as a means of worship), and I wasn't repelled at the front door by a large flash of lightning. I'm rather disappointed, as this means I'm not being evil enough. I'll need to start hatching plans to up my evil quotient. Maybe I should get an upside-down cross tattooed on my forehead. Mind you, the only problem with that is if I stand on my head it won't be satanic any more. I wonder if this is a probable for satanic gymnasts, or for Christian gymnasts for that matter? Tumbles could be very confusing: evil, good, evil, good, evil, good.

Farewell to Arthur Daley

2006-05-20T19:37:00.000+03:00

And so, farewell to Stephen (name changed to protect the identity in case the coppers are in tow), Budapest's answer to Arthur Daley. He is finally, for the last time, honest governor, leaving town to go back to London, where he will probably be exchanging large dollops of filthy lucre with shady-looking characters up back alleys for a living.

Stephen is the man whose various enterprises have included flying to Switzerland to fill his suitcase up with duty-free fags to sell on in the UK, driving a Rolls Royce across Europe to flog it in Budapest (still looking for a buyer) and various other slightly-dubious-but-probably-not-worth-a-year-in-jail-locked-up-with-a-serial-killer type transactions.

If Budapest wasn't so hot, he would have been wearing a sheepskin jacket.

Thanks for the farewell barbecue, Stefan, I mean Stephen, and I look forward to seeing you in handcuffs on TV being taking to jail after defrauding some rich middle-class old lady out of her nest egg.

Prepare...before they strike

2006-05-16T12:49:00.000+03:00

I received possibly the greatest present known to humankind at the weekend. I'm not talking about the gift of love, or friendship, or any of that namby-pamby nonsense. I'm talking about a practical book that could one day save my life: The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks.

I would urge everyone who cares about ensuring the future safety of themselves and their family to rush out and buy this book now. It is eye-opening. Zombies are OUT THERE! And they are ready to STRIKE AT ANY MINUTE! I can't believe there has been so much media hysteria over Bird Flu, Iran and Bin Laden when the largest threat to the world as we know it is being overlooked. Don't delay. Invest in your future and buy this book today (even though it doesn't have a section on Zombie Cows).

Nats is now possibly in for Wife of the Year award, as long as my other three don't do anything outstanding before the ceremony.

Grin and bear it

2006-05-13T14:42:00.000+03:00

They have found a really rare type of bear up in Canada; it's the first grizzly polar crossbreed to have occcurred in the wild. How did they find it? Because somebody shot it dead. For fun. Way to go, redneck!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4766217.stm

Attention all Hungarians!!!

2006-05-11T17:43:00.000+03:00

Concrete is not a plant. If you water the pavement outside of your shop, it will not grow. The same goes for the stairs at metro stations. The only effect this has is to wet the shoes of passers-by, which do not grow either. Please stop before I take the hosepipe off you, shove it up your bum and let it run until you swell up to the size of Jo Brand.

Thank you.

Bird flu scandal rocks 8th district

2006-05-08T17:52:00.000+03:00

Bird flu is here amongst us, right in the middle of the city, and the government are doing nothing. I just walked past a dead pigeon, lying right in the middle of the street, with no obvious signs of death by car or mauling by cats. Therefore, it must be BIRD FLU. AAAHHHHHHHH!!! FUCKING HELL! SOMEBODY SAVE US!

There is not one man in a white suit with a large stick to collect it, or a space-age like tent cordoning off the dead bird. I'm not waiting: I'm going to start culling, from my window, with a large blunderbuss that I found in the cellar (which will make a satisfyingly colourful splat of the pigeons, kind of like a firework, only with entrails). I'm also considering culling the dog-owners that let their pooches push out plentiful poop onto the streets.

I never used to kill anything. I used to take ants and cockroaches outside on pieces of paper, but ever since having a moth and cockroach infestation I've gone a bit P-S-Y-C-H-O. I conservatively estimate that I've killed about 200 moths in the last month, and maybe a few less cockroaches.

The moths go into the hoover, which seems to be the best way to get them. Actually, the same principle would probably apply to the pigeons, if I could get a big enough hoover. Not sure about the dog-owners, though.

Anyway, how do we assign value to a life (he says, stroking his beard thoughtfully, before taking off his sandals, lighting an incense stick and settling down to some erotic eastern massage)?

Obviously, MY life is worth more than everyone else's, because I am ginger and therefore genetically superior to everyone, but why should people be able to kill a moth without guilt or consequence, but go to jail for choking someone to death with a particularly large and slippery dog turd. Is that fair? Is it about size? If that's the case, is it OK to shoot someone when they're really far away, because they look small?

I'm now off to my weekly Sociopaths' currant bun social evening.

How I broke my glasses

2006-04-28T13:18:00.000+03:00

Kat wants to know how I broke my glasses, so here is the absolutely 100%-true version of how it happened:

Bobbing for lobsters is a popular hobby in Hungary and since the arrival of democracy in 1990 exuberant Hungarians have used it to celebrate a successful election. This year a huge lobster-bobbing pot - containing around 1000 lobsters - was set up in Heroes' Square after the Socialists came to power and bobbers had to launch themselves into the pot from the top of a bungee crane. The person who pulled out the most lobsters after 10 attempts won a threesome with top celebrity couple Viktória Swinger (Hungary's top porn actress) and reality TV-show star and love rat Győzike.

The contest was tense and I was one lobster off victory, with eight out of nine. However, there was only one left: a vicious specimen called "Big Red". I poised at the edge of the precipice and fixed my sights on the lobster. The crowd fell silent and flashbulbs popped as I leapt from the crane. As soon as I left the platform I knew my aim was perfect. Unfortunately, Big Red saw me coming. As soon as my head entered the water, he lashed out with his massive claws, snicking off my specs with one and Bobbiting me with the other.

As I was fished out of the bloody pool to be rushed to hospital to have my love truncheon sewn back on, I saw Viktor Orbán - Hungary's long time lobster-bobbing champion and leader of the right-of-centre Fidesz party - dance up and down in triumph. He scooped a very commendable nine lobsters. To be honest, I didn't feel too bad, as he had to win something this week, and at least we avoided having to go through the whole charade of Orbán claiming bobbing-fraud and demanding a recount.

Luckily, I only got a local anaesthetic as they re-attached the little chap, and I got to watch the threesome being beamed out live on M1. Viktor put in a lot of energy, but I couldn't help but feel he was a bit of spare prick as the other two seemed more interested in the camera than him.

Big Red still has my glasses and has got a job as a political commentator as now looks far more intelligent; I received a larger nob by mistake; Viktor's popularity soared and he is now certain to win the next elections in 4 years; Győzike realised that going out with a porn star wasn't necessarily a good idea if it meant having to cross swords with middle-aged politicians and went back to his family; and Swinger...well, she just keeps on swinging. Plus, I've ordered a rather funky-looking new pair of specs.

So, I guess it all worked out OK in the end.

Ignore this post...for mysterious reasons

2006-04-26T14:50:00.000+03:00

They're lying to us!

2006-04-25T19:53:00.000+03:00

Specs in under an hour. My fucking arse.

I must have gone into at least five opticians that advertised new glasses in under an hour, but not one of them could deliver. Apparently I have a strange prescription, which means it will take take them TEN DAYS to make the lenses. It's not as if I have Marty Feldman eyes or an extra one growing out of the middle of my forehead.

I suspect the "glasses in under one hour" promise only applies to the non-prescription sunglasses section, and even then - given the average level of service in Hungary - they would probably struggle to meet this deadline.

"I'd like to buy that pair of sunglasses, please."

"Certainly. Please wait around for 30 mins while I smoke a fag, talk to my boyfriend on the phone, idly pick my nose, randomly move some empty boxes around for while and then inspect my plucked eyebrows in the mirror. Maybe then I'll serve you, but only if I can be bothered. Even then I'll probably sigh as if you've just asked me to make the glasses myself, thus endangering my precariously long - not to mention vicious - nails."

"That would be fine, thank you. I'll just stand in the corner and bang my head to a bloody pulp on the wall."

The upshot of this is that I am having to walk around the city, blindly groping in front of me. Actually, that last bit isn't really necessary. I'm just trying to cop a feel.

Top tip for skint drug-addled teenagers

2006-04-25T11:30:00.000+03:00

Kids! Do you want to feel like you've been on a five-day crack and heavy-duty liquor binge but find yourself lacking the necessary funds? Simply break your glasses just before you're due to go out and then wear someone else's contact lenses. I did it last night, and it worked a treat.

So, apologies to anyone I didn't say hello to in the Bardroom. I was having enough trouble finding my seat, never mind spotting familiar faces.

It actually worked out OK, though, as it added a much-needed new dimension to seeing Benjamin Zeppaniah. Although he was still funny, his material - including all of the build up anecdotes to his poems - was almost identical to the last time I saw him two years ago in Banja Luka. The fact that I saw him with two heads - one out of focus and the other in - made all the difference. I think the blurry head was marginally more amusing.

Bizarrely, I met someone who quite clearly had been taking crack: a very nice Scottish man, who seemed incapable of putting two coherent thoughts together. Within two minutes of meeting we were talking about the possiblity of trading in egg futures and putting wheels on the nut-dispensing machine so that we could stand on it, roll across the room at high speed, and dispense salted and unsalted nuts to everyone. Top marks for randomness, although I think he does perhaps have to cut down on the herbal cigarettes.

Kalman also deserves respect for possibly the best introduction for a poet that I've ever heard. It was a just a shame that Zeppaniah had decided to go on earlier.

Slogan required

2006-04-19T21:35:00.000+03:00

I just had my professional website redesigned, and I'm not entirely happy with the slogan that Tony came up with (sorry, Tony).

He had "One finger on the pulse of Europe" but this raises the question of what I'm doing with the other nine.

So, suggestions welcome.

Brainstorming so far has produced:

Ten fingers and some toes on the pulse of Europe
All of my appendages on the pulse of Europe
To Central Europe...and Beyond!
News, Reviews and stuff for all youse (for Glaswegians only)
From Istanbul to ma hoose, I write stuff
Give me some work or I'll starve
Crap articles from the areshole of Europe (Graham's suggestion)
Who gives a fuck about Hungary anyway?
"Hungary? No, I've already eaten." - plus a 100 other things people think they're the 1st to say (Graham again)
Monitoring the pulse of Europe (sounds too much like I think I'm George Clooney)
Have fingers, will type
It's coming out of both ends (Graham again)
Quality Journalism from Central Europe (this is a fairly serious suggestion - don't laugh)
Objective Journalism from Central Europe
I am a cock monkey - spank me!

I think that's enough.