| With apologies to D.C .Thompson. |
[Jul. 22nd, 2008|01:51 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| |  creative | ] |
You all remember Bananaman don't you? Well if you don't Bananaman was a British superhero who appeared in children's comic The Dandy and also had his own spin-off Cartoon Series in the 80's voiced by The Goodies. The whole thing was silly, like a cartoon version of camp 60's Batman.
But when you look at Camp 60's Batman it seems a million miles away from the dark and brooding The Dark Knight movie. Could the same dark and brooding treatment be done with Bananaman? Well, I think so and to prove it here is my experimental script for a movie trailer for live-action Bananaman movie.
( The Blue and Yellow Knight )
Next Week:
A terrifying psychological thriller adapted from The Shoe People. |
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| If you are of a squeamish disposition don't read this. It has several euphemisms for poo in it. |
[Jul. 19th, 2008|01:30 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| |  dirty | ] |
I'm not a religious person. I'm an atheist and just don't understand why anyone would reasonably believe there is some big dude up in heaven wagging his finger and issuing infallible oaths like "Foot-Baths Good, Gay-Love Bad!". Even more absurd is the notion that if you really really really want something you can pray to God, the almighty creator of all that is, and he'll do it! Like a supernatural omnipotent best friend! However this is, of course, incredibly insulting to anyone who is genuinely religious as my description above is to true religious belief as waving your hands over your head and enthusiastically blowing raspberries while repeatedly shouting "BUMHEAD" is to the Arab-Israeli Conflict.
Yet I still get into the occasional situation where I find myself praying. Praying to a God I didn't believe in until I discovered for myself the power of prayer. Don't worry, I've not suddenly gone all evangelical and start dribbling on about God's Love. No, I've began praying to my own private Toilet-Deity. You see, my bowels are a bit unfriendly. Actually, no, my bowels are downright sociopathic. I'm going to elaborate on this just so you understand exactly how I'm a martyr to my spiteful angry digestive system. It hates me and is as changeable and unpredictable as the weather: it can be happy regular movements in the morning followed by explosive geysers of fizzy gravy come mid-afternoon and a 20-turd constipated pile up on the colonic highway by the evening. I must admit the latter is the absolute worst. There are few horrors in this world as belligerent as a bunged-up bumhole, and what makes it worse - for me at least - is that there are no laxatives marketed for men.
I mean, I can't be the only male in the world seeking effective relief from the pain and discomfort of constipation, so why are all the laxatives marketed at women? "Regain Your Natural Digestive Rhythm" the slogan coos in flowery writing while a woman in a sundress stands in a sunny green pasture smiling up at me. Fuck that. I want "SIR SHITS-A-LOT!" written on the box in big chunky letters next to a cartoon man in a suit of armour shitting a turd the size of a horse and the slogan "MAXATIVE: A Masculine Laxative!". It might as well be the same product inside as the flowery stuff, but that's what capitalism is all about, isn't it? Coke Zero is just Diet Coke for men who're scared people will think they're gay.
But now I've digressed into the dark waters of Too-Much-Information so I'll return to the point of the Road-To-Damascus moment I had on the bog. (Incidentally, I do apologise to anyone who has recently added me and wasn't aware what a disgusting little filth-monger I am, writing and pooping, indeed. It's not big and its not clever. I should be ashamed of myself)
Anyway, When I visit the lavatory to empty my back, sometimes my arsehole doesn't know the meaning of the word 'temperance'. Consequently after laying a few miles of cable and and upon flushing: the most terrifying thing that could happen is for the water in the bowl to start coming 'upwards' as opposed to the standard 'downwards' movement one associates with toilets. OH GOD, OH GREAT AND MIGHTY GOD OF TOILETS I EVOKE THEE! I SUMMON THEE TO THIS PLACE! SHOW YOURSELF! Suddenly just before spilling it's grotesque payload over the side of the rim the water stops and pauses as if expectant. OH MASTER OF THE LAVATORY, OH KING OF THE KHAZI, LORD OF ALL LATRINES, I BEQUEST THAT YOU COMMAND THY TIDE DOWN. The water quivers. IN RETURN I OFFER MY LOYALTY TO THY POWER, O GREAT ONE and stoop in front of the watery mess. There is a capitulating gurgle from the plumbing and suddenly the entire mess is sooked under the U-bend leaving the bowl - and the floor - clean and unspoilt. THANK YOU, MY LORD, YOU HAVE MY GRATITUDE. Fuck knows what my neighbours think I'm shouting at.
So Toilet-Deity is real and you should all worship it. |
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| Gorbachov or Gorbachev? |
[Jul. 11th, 2008|10:30 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| |  impressed | ] |
This is an amazing video. Russian heavy metal band ANJ's tribute to the barbarian warrior-king Mikhail Gorbachov who slices his way through the oppressing armies of Zombie Joseph Stalins. He brings the large-breasted Russian people out of the sharp-edged world of El Lissitzky Soviet Agitprop and into the brightly-coloured day-glo decadence of western capitalism and thinly-veiled sexual imagery. Watch it. The drummer even wears a gasmask, for fuck's sake!
( Embedded video under cut ) |
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| Iran Lernz 2 shoop |
[Jul. 11th, 2008|06:46 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| |  silly | ] |
According to BBC News Iran have Photoshopped their missile test. Of course I've known all about this for AGES because I'm on first-name-terms with President Ahmadinejad who initially asked me to photoshop the missile test for them, but they turned my effort down. Below is the original pic, the shooped pic and the pic I made for them that the Iranian Military rejected...
If I were Israel right now I'd be bricking it. |
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| Apologies for the radio-silence recently |
[Jul. 6th, 2008|05:36 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| |  blah | ] |
Today is the 20th Anniversary of the Piper Alpha Explosion and apparently a the service was "led by the Rev Andrew Jolly, chaplain to the UK oil and gas industry". Now really, is getting Rev Jolly to deliver a memorial the best idea? Does he have a colleague who takes weddings and christenings called Rev Miserable? Part of me hopes Rev Jolly walks around everywhere dressed as a clown, taking funerals wearing an oversized pair of colourful patchwork trousers and long squeaky shoes which slap the ground in a slapstick fashion. He follows the dour-faced pallbearers into the graveyard before reading the eulogy of the dead to the quietly mourning assembled friends and family of the deceased, scattering dirt into the open grave as rain from the slate grey clouds overhead causes his whiteface make-up to run down his cheeks and drip off his red nose.
And if you think this joke is in bad taste just be glad I didn't make one regarding a literal meaning of the phrase 'North Sea Oil Boom'.
Anyway, in other news, I thought my hoover had been stolen by a Frenchman last night. Just as I was settling down to watch season finale of Doctor Who (which was AWFUL, by the way, and I don't want to talk about it) there was a knock at the door. Oh, bloody Christ, I go to rush to answer it and find one of the French guys who lives downstairs was standing at the door. "I am so sorree to bozzer you" he says with the effortless grace the French seem to possess "But might eet be possible if I could borrow your 'oover?" Yes, yes, certainly, I scuttle into the living room and return with the battered grubby vacuum cleaner trundling behind me "Zank you, I only need it for five or ten minutes" he says as he takes it from me and I leg it back to the telly to continue watching. It was only after the entire 65 minutes of bloated self-important arse had finished (seriously, I don't want to talk about it, it was unspeakably painful.) the French guy still hasn't returned my hoover and I was supposed to be going off out that night and - oh cocks - In my haste to get back to the tv show I love but hate (Which, by the way, I noticed they'd Stolen MY idea! (alright maybe not, but still)) I'd forgotten to ask which flat downstairs he lives in: I live in the last flat on the top floor so that leaves an entire building it could possibly be in. I know there is a flat filled with French people somewhere in the building because I can sometimes hear snatches of rapid conversations in French floating up though the courtyard when I'm in the toilet with the window open. I sometimes try and eavesdrop but my French is very poor (Aujourd'hui il y a beaucoup animaux dans ma jambon!) so I've really no idea what they're talking about.
Also I begin thinking to myself that the flats come with hoovers why would he need to borrow a hoov- and then I remembered the inventory. The Landlady had posted the inventory of everything the flat came with though the door last week which has to be cleaned and ready for inspection when I get unceremoniously booted out in august and have to go live somewhere else for a month (Although they've kindly provided us with a storage shed in the car park to put our stuff in, so that's, y'know, fine) which stated that each item had to be in good working order or a cost would be incurred, if the item is not working then you could replace it with "One of equal or or greater value". FUCKING WANKER NICKED ME HOOVER! BASTARD! Clever bastard, too, I imagined him sitting there plotting "Eef I call just as ze Docteur Oo program ees beginning, zen zey weel be too preoccupied weeth zat to ask me oo I am! Mwuahahaha! Ze British are zo fooleesh!" Anyway, I decide to pin a note to the front door saying "If nobody is in (I have gone out) please leave hoover here. Thanks" in the hope that I'd not had it nicked by the Foreign Legion.
But the good news is as I arrived home I found it in my living room with a note from one of my flatmates in the kitchen asking "Why was the hoover outside?". Happy endings all round, then. |
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| Mise en Abyme |
[Jun. 29th, 2008|09:10 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| | cheerful | ] |
Last night I was in a tiny club filled with Goths cheering along to a guy on stage playing Thriller on the ukulele. If you've never been in a similar situation then I can tell you it's an absolutely marvellous experience.
The other acts were superb, but that one was the most profoundly unexpected. It was advertised as Dark Cabaret but if anything it was more like Dark Light Entertainment. Everyone loves a good knees-up! |
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| "Hello Hello, I'm in a place called Birmingham" |
[Jun. 23rd, 2008|04:15 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| | amused | ] |
I had a poke round the junk shop on George Street which is always full to the rafters with utter crap of every description. I always find weird things that I have no use for whatsoever but still want to buy. Today, however, I found something which not only I have no use for, but nobody could ever have any real use for. It is, quite simply, the most useless object in the world. I took one look into its messianic stare and decided, sod it, it's was only £4. I bought it.
I am now the proud owner of a gigantic canvas picture of Bono!
What should I do with it?
Bearing in mind I'm not actually a fan of U2 and think Bono is a bit of a prick: I'm considering using Tippex to draw a collage of willies flying around in the background or something. |
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| The Hip-Happening, the new Hip-Hoppera from R 'Not Guilty' Kelly |
[Jun. 21st, 2008|11:42 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| | blah | ] |
I went to see M. Night Shalamalayamalamamanaman's latest movie The Happening this evening and my God - COMEDY OF THE CENTURY! I have not laughed that hard in a long time.
From the hilarious It's Raining Men! opening sequence featuring dozens of construction workers throwing themselves off scaffolding to the rip-roaring scene shown entirely on - I shit you not - an Apple iPhone reminiscent of the Orange ads spoofing product placement they have before the movie starts except this one is actually in it. It's subtly shoehorned into the plot with a bit of dialogue "Hey! Check out this Video Message I just received on my new Apple iPhone! With the Apple iPhone you and send and receive video messages easily so you can now share all your experiences with friends and family. Now check it out, here's a guy getting eaten by lions!"
After that the laughs come thick and fast with a whole host of amusingly original suicides to keep even those without a morbid sense of humour happy. Unfortunately this movie is let down by the boring serious bits, but for every long eye-watering scene where the two lead protagonists talk about their relationship issues while running away from the fucking wind, there is a scene where someone runs themselves over with a lawnmower later on to make up for it.
An excellent piece-of-shit movie and a possible promising genre change for M. Night: comedies with a twist at the end! His next work is going to be a romantic comedy set in Philadelphia which features a young couple meeting, parting and finding each other again in hilarious circumstances with the 'unexpected twist' at the end being that she's actually a labrador. Or a fire truck. Or a shapeshifting scorpion assassin from the future. Whatever. |
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| Experiments in gonzo |
[Jun. 17th, 2008|04:08 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| |  quixotic | ] |
A brief history of my relationship with the Conservative Party.
1986:
I am born. Margaret Thatcher approaches the end of her second term as Prime Minister.
1990:
I am 4 years old. Mrs Thatcher enters her twilight months in office. My father takes me on marches with his workmate Dougie who works for the Trades Union Congress to protest against Thatcher's policies on local government taxation. I have no idea what this means, but I get to join in chanting "Maggie Maggie Maggie! Out Out Out!" with lots of people. It's fun! I go to school every day with a great big yellow 'Coal Not Dole' sticker on my coat. My dad tells me about the world, he tells me everything that is wrong with the world is because of Mrs Thatcher. It is because of Mrs Thatcher that lots of people don't have jobs, it is because of Mrs Thatcher that I don't get free milk at school, it is because of Mrs Thatcher that people are unhappy. In my mind she becomes a semi mythical evil stepmother figure, like a hydra with a perm, destroying all that is good. Filling the world with smoke and darkness.
Growing up in the post-industrial nightmare of Middlesbrough, against a decaying industrial skyline, the crumbling abandoned shipyards and the rising artificial cumulonimbi from the ICI chemical plants and cooling towers, it was relatively easy to believe that the world was rotting. Even when the sweet smell of almonds wafts across the River Tees from the enormous vats of industrial cyanide.
(Its probably worth noting, if only to lighten the mood a bit, that because there was a lot of stuff in my father's study stamped with the Trades Union Congress logo I always assumed the brand of biscuits also called TUC were linked. I thought the TUC's main job was to produce these biscuits; it only fought against the forces of darkness because it had to. The TUC were the Good Guys! To a boy high on Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory there is no higher moral virtue than biscuits.)
1997:
I am 10. Labour win a landslide election victory as John Major's government collapses away like wet cake. Hooray!
2005:
I am 18 and can now vote. Consequently having grown up in a world where I believed that Mrs Thatcher was like The White Witch casting the endless winter of a Conservative Government over Narnia, I'm programmed to hate Tories. There is just something wrong with them, they're not normal people, they're blank eyed auto-zombies reanimated by dark forces. My prejudice is practically stamped over my DNA. I can't help it. In the 2005 General Election (my first!) I voted against Labour in a fit of Post-Iraq resentment, but obviously I voted for the Liberal Democrats. Charles Kennedy was running the show back then in the days before he would be caught getting ratarsed on cheap booze in train toilets and then arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct while defecating into the sink. He'd have made a fucking great leader, just imagine the fun Prime Minister's Questions would have been after Kennedy had necked a couple of cans of Special Brew and half a bottle of Bells and started shouting. I forget who is LibDem leader now... he's the one so boring you might as well let your mouth hang open and drool a bit instead of saying his name.
In my first year of Uni when I took a politics class and discovered that in a tutorial group of 15 people, only three of them including myself viewed the new conservative leader David Cameron as 'A Twat' rather than 'The Messiah' and began to see tutorials less as a chance to have potentially interesting discussions and more as a weekly hour long lock-in with clockwork demons, clicking and clanking away amongst themselves about leaving the EU and legalising fox-hunting.
2008:
I am 21 and have inherited the Earth (Although what the fuck I'm supposed to do with the damn thing I have no idea. To be honest, nan, I'd have preferred a book token). Until this point the whole 'The Tories Are Evil And Must Be Stopped' paradigm has done me well enough, but things appear to be shifting. As the Labour Party lurches ever rightwards and the Conservatives lean leftwards to meet them forehead to forehead in the middle, leaning against each other like fighting animals, I don't know where I stand. Well I do - anywhere that isn't the Conservatives - but it's increasingly hard to work out what that is. Like a child playing don't-step-on-the-lava on black and white tiles, what happens when the tiles suddenly start fading into a uniform grey colour? Where do I jump next? Most reciently is the issue of The Resignation of David Davis, after the Labour government won the vote on increasing the time terror suspects can be detained to 42 days, the shadow home secretary resigned as a matter of principal in protest at the erosion of civil liberties and invited someone pro-locking-people-up-and-throwing-away-the-key to stand against him for his seat in parliament. This is the first inspiring thing any politician has done in a long time and - fucking hell - it came from a Tory?! D:
Don't get me wrong, now, David Davis is still a cunt. He's Pro Death-Penalty and his voting record on gay rights is deplorable, having voted against the repeal of Section 28. He also voted strongly for the Iraq War. So, yes, he's still a soulless rasping husk with alien software churning away in his skull, but he's an admirable one. But he's a Tory! You can see my dilemma.
The old idea that you become more right-wing as you get older no doubt is true since when I was 15 I thought Communism was a great idea. I would stick my fingers in my ears and go "lalalala" in History lessons when they talked about how many millions died in the Gulags of Siberia and instead concentrated on my Che Guevara teeshirts. As sixteen became seventeen and I began to loose my cocoon of acne and ignorance I decided that 'Socialism' was the best thing to point at, citing Trotsky and Castro (and, obviously, my Che Guevara teeshirt) rather than Bolshevism or Stalinism. A brief flirt with Maoism ended badly when I couldn't even understand what the crap was going on in a watered down Maoism for Dummies book. In fact reading about socialism was probably the death-knell for it and where blind idealism went wrong. The realist in me seemed to point out that the idea would never bloody work in the real world and eventually I staggered from under the bed, had a wash, kissed my Che Guevara teeshirts goodbye and assumed the stance of the Guardian-reading Eco-Worrying leftist-moderate I am today.
Problem is I'm only 21 so I'm worried that I'm going to continue sliding to the right. Gordon Brown's leadership of the Labour Government with all the personality and charisma of a haunted grandfather clock isn't helping. What I'm worried about is that the next Prime Minister is going to be David Cameron. And its not as if I'm afraid he's going to do a shit job of it and wreck everything - in fact that would be preferable because then at least I'd know I was right - what I'm terrified of is that if and when the Tories get elected they'll be good! They'll actually run the country well! I'm scared that the worldview stamped onto my DNA that the Tories are everything the movies Brassed Off and Billy Elliot make them out to be is wrong! I'm scared that our future might be something to look forward to! Swept up in a wave of happiness that'll no doubt ensnare us all I'll look back on my youth - when I was 21 and voted Labour - and laugh at my youthful folly. We'll enter a new age of prosperity and open-necked shirts and pure unashamed smugness.
Oh fuck, no! |
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| Doctor Who: Midnight |
[Jun. 16th, 2008|01:22 am] |
| [ | Mood: |
| | good | ] |
( Spoilers ) |
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| Replaces Lost Energy |
[Jun. 12th, 2008|02:35 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| |  aks;fdsk | ] |
The Spar shop didn't have any Lucozade left so I bought a can of Relentless Energy Drink instead and holy balls! This must be what its like when you put petrol in a car than runs on diesel. It's almost the same, but not quite, and my body is all 'WTF is this? Aaagh! Too much Taurine, not enough Glucose! Abort! Abort!'
I think I might actually be chemically addicted.
Edit: Unrelated, but have a YouTube of some idiot vandals breaking down a wall which made me laugh like a bastard.
The Triumph of the Wall! |
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| Doctor Who: Silence in the Library/ The Forest of the Dead |
[Jun. 9th, 2008|01:24 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| | good | ] |
Apologies for the tardiness
( Spoilers ) |
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| Flash Gordon |
[Jun. 5th, 2008|10:37 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| | amused | ] |
Gordon Brown featured in Marvel Comics.
This is absolutley superb, Brown is the dullest bastard in history with a face like a rained-out frown festival, and in today's world where image is more important than capability he ought not to exist yet here is he having a cameo and helping save the world. There is also a quite silly discussion on this from The Daily Politics (Warning: Michael Howard starts flirting with the presenter at 4.05, I nearly threw up) |
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| Houston we have a problem |
[Jun. 5th, 2008|11:34 am] |
| [ | Mood: |
| | quixotic | ] |
Space Toilet Fixed
After suffering technical problems astronauts can get back to boldly going where no man has gone before (or will again for at least ten minutes if I were you, mate. I had a mixed grill for breakfast). I'm glad they got their khazi working, I don't like being stuck somewhere with inadequate toilet facilities let alone stuck IN ORBIT with a backed up bog, doesn't bear thinking about. Although, brings an enjoyably horrifying new meaning to the term 'floaters'.
I wonder what toilet paper they use in space. Do you think NASA buys Andrex or one of the more upmarket soft toilet papers for their astronauts? Do the Russians get stuck with scratchy IZAL tracing paper stuff that you used to get in primary school. I'd think this would be a source of conflict if the Americans get the good bumwad and are floating about with comfortable backsides while the Russians have to make do with using the unpleasant cardboard tube.
On a side note if you ever find yourself in a situation where there is insufficient paper left and your only option is to painstakingly gum an entire packet of Rizlas together and pray for the best, avoid the blue ones. |
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| junk mail |
[Jun. 4th, 2008|10:52 am] |
| [ | Mood: |
| | amused | ] |
An advert for Network Veka Conservatories came in the post today despite the obvious fact that...
a) This is rented student accommodation.
b) This is the third floor.
Ten out of ten for effort but minus several million for good thinking. |
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| I'm not the messiah, I'm a very naughty boy. |
[Jun. 3rd, 2008|07:08 am] |
| [ | Mood: |
| | cheerful | ] |
Taken from my userinfo:
Day Before Yesterday:
Yesterday:
Today:
HELLO INTERNET!
Holy fuck I didn't expect this. I'll be running out of teabags for everyone at this rate. |
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| Reccomended Reading |
[May. 31st, 2008|10:57 am] |
| [ | Mood: |
| | pleased | ] |
I'm reading this book at the moment, Cold Granite by Stuart MacBride and if it's not immediately obvious by title or the tag-line its set in Aberdeen. I have to say the descriptions of the city are absolutley spot on, captures the atmosphere of the place excellently, although piles the local landmarks on a bit thick. They all read the Press & Journal, listen to Northsound, eat Butteries and get pissed at The Archibald Simpson pub. I'm just waiting for a scene set inside The Prince of Wales pub with Dogman in the background*, Marischal College is described as a "Fat grey granite Wedding Cake" which is pretty much what it is. The story in itself is a bit macabre as it deal with a spate of mutilated children's bodies turning up all over the city. The main protagonist is a fairly cliché Taggart-style detective DC Logan McRae and a set of cookie-cutter characters including his partner WPC Watson (an obvious nod to Holmes & Watson) the overweight Chief Inspector who is always eating sweets, the sexy ice-queen pathologist and a dodgy journalist character. I'm having a bit of trouble putting a date on the events as although terms like 'WPC' are a bit dated and confined to episodes of Life On Mars these days, there is a distinct sense of modern forensics and pathology being used. There is also smoking in pubs so at the very least its set before March 2006.
I'm quite enjoying it, if only because every few pages I'm going "I know where that is!" and "I've been there!" and "Shit, that's just around the corner". But like I said, the atmosphere and feel of the city are excellently reproduced, the general feeling of Gothic Dreariness. Although the severity of the weather is over exaggerated a bit.
* 'Dogman' as he's known to groups of students who drink in the Prince of Wales is an old man who's unusually abundant hair given his age gives him the appearance that he's a close relation to a springer spaniel. He is an omnipresent presence in there, either sitting at his usual spot looking out across his pint of best or pushing coins into the fruit machines. I have literally never seen him abandon his post. |
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| Brazil Brazil Brazil, There's a giant Jesus on top of a hill! |
[May. 30th, 2008|08:29 am] |
| [ | Mood: |
| |  awake | ] |
Isolated tribe spotted in Brazil and the BBC have Pictures!. I think it's fascinating, after all these years there are still humans untouched by the modern world. I can only wonder what kind of demon they thought the helicopter or plane taking the photographs was, and I imagine it'll be a story retold for generations. Makes you think that despite the internet and the moon landing and plastic and Ikea furniture and under-arm deodorant and espresso machines we're still just tribal hunter-gatherers at heart. I really hope they don't get wiped out by an epidemic of the common cold spread by illegal loggers or something.
( More insipidly dull stuff about my life under here, skip this bit )
On a more upbeat note I'll leave you with the Eurovision entry (Yes, shut up!) from Bosnia & Herzegovina which I've been listening to. I've no idea what they're singing about but it's so upbeat and bonkers I love it. |
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| C. Durham & Nigeria |
[May. 25th, 2008|04:13 pm] |
| [ | Mood: |
| |  okay | ] |
Oh good lord my mother's computer is a nightmare. Turning it on is like waking up an alcoholic: it makes a wheezing noise for a few moments, goes into a bit of a trance, thinks about something for a bit, makes a beeping noise and then throws up on your shoes. I wish I'd brought my laptop now like I usually do but I'm going back tomorrow so its hardly worth it.
My journey down was interesting: the train caught fire. Somewhere in between Stonehaven and Montrose smoke started billowing out from under one of the carriages and the train grids to a sickening halt of sparks and the stench of something like rubber burning fills the air. Nobody panicked except the National Express staff who ran about looking frantic imploring everyone not to panic. Some engineer did his thing and within half an hour we were off again and the amateur dramatics were over.
As it turned out my grandmother's birthday wasn't as stressful as it could have been. I successfully managed to keep a low profile and spent much of the time talking to one of my cousins who I get on quite well with just about nothing really or talking to my mother's friends husband about the time he was kidnapped in Nigeria. Apparently this is quite common for ex-pat workers in Lagos, he works for a small company which manufactures gas and oil hardware (Things like pressure gauges and whatnot) and is frequently employed by large companies like ExxonMobil but doesn't actually work for them. As it was he was working on a site and a bunch of Nigerian workers who'd decided that the possible ransom money for the foreign workers would be more than the money they'd be paid for labouring decided to hold the non-Nigerians hostage in hope of getting money. Apparently they were treated excellently with food, water, access to toilet facilities etc and would apparently spend most of their day watching television, drinking beer and having a laugh with their captors. Eventually after a week or so when the company had bribed the local police enough they descended on the site to which the kidnappers high-tailed it out of there, guns abandoned and apparently the next week were re-employed to do the same job. This sounds like utter madness, but apparently is completely normal in Nigeria.
He also told me far more harrowing stories about how little value a human life has over there. Apparently on one of the pipelines his company maintains there was a dead body found slumped over it and company policy is not to touch it because if you do it becomes your responsibility so it was pushed off the pipe with a JVC in the middle of the night and just left there until the vultures and the flies had had their way with it.
He told me another story where one of the site cooks was unwell - really unwell, vomiting blood and all sorts, not the type of person you want cooking - so they put him in a taxi and told the driver to take him to the hospital, but at some point on the journey the poor guy died, and so the hospital staff didn't want to touch him because he was dead so the taxi driver goes back to the site with the corpse in the back and explains the hospital staff won't accept the corpse, to which they try and explain that the body has to be taken to the Morgue now. The taxi driver is reluctant to do this as if the police pull him over with a corpse in the back they'll assume he's a murderer and so kill him! But money talks in Nigeria and after a bribe the driver is convinced to take the body to the morgue only to find the Morgue workers are on strike today and so the body of the departed cook is dumped unceremoniously on the already substantial bodies outside. To add insult to an even more ridiculous death he was given a burial paid for by the company but the hole dug for the coffin was wide enough, but about a foot too short. Rather than dig the hole they just get a saw and take a foot off the coffin and make it fit, hacking the poor bastard's feet off in the process. This was such an astounding story to me I just had to put it on LJ.
More terrifying is the fact that heroin in Nigeria is cheaper than a needle to inject it and so heroin addicts unable to shoot up have to slice open their flesh and rub the heroin into the wound to get their fix.
Corruption is absolutely the norm and on a contract which is worth 4 or 5 Million Pounds as much as a quarter of a million will be set aside for what is put on tax forms as 'PR' but in actual fact is used in bribes for the officials, otherwise goods would never be unloaded, nothing would get delivered, the police would impound your car and make some trumped up charge. The bribery just oils the wheels and gets things done. To be honest a lot of these anecdotes have made me realise my system of personal morality would fall short in a place like Nigeria. I'll have to do some thinking because some of the stories of life there are just insane.
There are no traffic lights in Lagos so driving essentially becomes a free-for-all and most of the drivers get drunk or high or both before they set off just to make navigating the insanity of the roads less stressful. Incidentally they drive on the right in Nigeria but before it was granted independence it was part of the British Empire so drove on the left, when they changed over which side to drive on they did trucks and lorries the first day and cars and bikes the next. Driving on that day must have been an exciting experience.
Belief in JuJu is near-universal in poor West Africans so every site which employs Nigerian labourers also employs a JuJu-Man to keep them in line. There was one time an expensive piece of equipment went missing so JuJu-Man lines everyone up and starts incanting. The belief in JuJu is so strong that all the JuJu-Man has to do is accuse the most terrified looking man and he'll confess immediately. As it turned out the expensive equipment had been sold in the market so they had to go and buy it back.
So yeah, I spent most of my time listening to stories of life in Nigeria and so looked like I was already deep in conversation with someone so didn't have to suffer small talk from endless legions of old ladies who're friends of my grandmother. So in some ways a small victory on my part.
Russia won the Eurovision and I didn't get to watch it so I'll just watch it on BBC iPlayer when I get back. The advantage to this, I suppose, is that I can watch only the silly entries and skip the godawful ballads.
Right, back up tomorrow. |
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