Adventure Stories

Posted on July 23, 2008

I have developed a strategy for dealing with the stresses of the prospective move to Taiwan. This consists of spending my time reading adventure stories, preferably featuring such elements as starvation, murder, chaos, war, etc… The net effect is to put my own life into perspective as the largely risk-free enterprise it continues to be, regardless of where it unfolds, and to thereby reduce my anxieties to a more sensible level.

To kick off, I spent the last three days reading J G Ballard’s Empire of the Sun, a book I had tried reading previously, never making it beyond the first few chapters.

This time it gripped me, soothing my stomach as it catalogued the range of horrors endured by a young Mr Ballard in war-time Shanghai.

Marvellous. Next is Papillon…

Elephant Death

Posted on July 21, 2008

There were some incidents nearby yesterday, breaking the Sunday calm. Firstly, there was an empty pickup and three lanes of a major road taped up, a crowd gathered on the balcony of a Centro Comercial and a lot of police around.

Looked like a murder.

Two minutes away, an army of police, with the Big Guns, three empty vehicles, doors open, being videotaped.

Looked like a bust.

Anyway, reason enough to tune in and see if it featured on the night news, not that murder or busts are news here, just sometimes, when it happens in an unlikely part of the city and/or the victims are respectable.

There was nothing. But what there was was something else - Elephant Death.

Elepant Death because La Mocosita, an elephant in its fifties, and long-time resident of Guatemala City Zoo, had sadly, finally, passed away. This sad news was tempered by the dignity-free manner of its presentation, that featured:

Teaser footage of Mocosita being pulled by her dead legs by a JCB

and then, when the news returned, a number of zoo staff lamenting Mocosita intertwined with:

Mocosita being lifted up by a crane

Mocosita being rolled into an enormous hole by a gang of a hundred men

Truly, a sad and undignified televisual end to a Guatemalan institution… Rest in peace, Mocosita… rest in peace…

Travel companions

Posted on July 18, 2008

Just these two works of literature will be accompanying me to Taiwan.

Here they are, together, canoodling on the kitchen table.

Luis (poor Luis!)

Posted on July 15, 2008

As an addendum to the Tapachula story, Luis, my friend from Peru, fell victim twice, firstly to his own ineptitude (failing to secure proper documentation to enter Mexico), and secondly to the vagabonds, money-changers, dissemblers and plain thieves who congregate at all the crossing points along the Guatemala-Mexico border.

After losing all his money trying to excavate himself from the mess, Luis was forced to sleep the night in the passport office! God, I wonder if he used his shoes as a pillow…

The next day he went back to Guatemala City, lamenting his lot.

***

Totally underwhelmed with the response to my last post, people! Having spent hours on it, it mustered one solitary comment. I know what I did wrong, I forgot to mention movies, that’s what gets people talking - movies…

Okay, here, Brad Pitt, the dead guy who was oh so great, the Barebacker man, and, um, whoever else is popular…

Journey to Tapachula #2 - Part Two

Posted on July 13, 2008

Thanks for all the comments so far on the previous post.

To kick off part two of the report, here is a combined audio clip of five separate moments in Tapachula, a six minute MP3.

Info:

1 - Marimba Buzz - wooden boxes under the marimba gave it an uncharacteristic buzzing quality
2 - A man with smashed up legs plays a song of love
3 - Rhyme of street vendor of sodas and snacks
4 - Marimba Combo
5 - Ceiling fan - over-powered fan that threatened to fly off the ceiling and made fuck-fuck mattress noises after cut-off

Enjoy!

***

Okay, to resume. I found a "***" hotel and checked in, The Mitchell Hotel. Intriguingly, from the standpoint of basic common sense, the light switch was inside the shower. Pictorial evidence below.

In a ** Mexican hotel, there is only a cold water faucet, and in a * Mexican hotel, there is no light switch (I think this is how it works).

It was hot, so I turned on the ceiling fan. This had 5 speeds, and so I selected the least powerful setting. And a good job, too, (listen to the audio for an idea of the full horror), as the entire unit, as it gathered pace, threatened to tear itself from the ceiling, bearing down on me in the bed below - I had a terrible vision of my being found there, decapitated.

I switched off the unit, turning my attention to the air-con, presently switched off. The unit was located high up in a corner over the sink, and very stupidly, I began standing up on the bed, before the very dangerous ceiling fan had stopped spinning.

I had my second decapitation vision within a minute.

I took a chair and tried climbing up to the air-con unit, but it seemed to have no controls. After a look around the room, I homed in on a sinister looking black switch above the pillows. Not knowing what would happen, (and being fully prepared to switch off the entire power supply to Tapachula), I flicked it. The air-con rumbled into life, immediately belching out some cooler air and setting up a two skeletons shagging in a biscuit tin barrage of sound.

Ok, I can be cool or sleep, not both. Only, of course, it was too hot without air-con to sleep…

So, I slept in hour long patches, drifting out of heat induced nightmares, flicking on the air-con, thrashing around, and then, in a once again cool room, flicking off the air-con and drifting back into dream. Mix in the appearance of a few mosquitos (and imagine me, half-asleep, chasing them around the room, clapping my hands…) Repeat 6 times and it’s Thursday, time to wake up!

***

I took the voice recorder and the camera and headed out. The first picture I took, a view of the park in Tapachula, was notable for the presence in the shot of a Mexican man carrying an advanced anti-photographic device (see below).

I believe a smaller version of this device will hit the European market in August ‘09.

***

I bought some small bananas and a woman in a wheelchair saw me with the bag. She shouted, "Give me some small bananas!" and so I did. After wandering through the heat (very hot, extremely humid, and right now is the ‘cold’ time of year, the rainy season) and recording a marimba player, I came back and saw a man with deformed legs, down on the ground, playing music, while his assistant looked on (he is on the audio, pictured below).

After a song in one spot, and a sashay past the onlookers with the hat, the man and his assistant moved away, the assistant walking in front (with the hat in one hand, the guitar in the other) and the performer pulling himself along behind. Another spot was then selected, and a new performance began.

I checked out the newsagents I remembered from last time, where I purchased a copy of the (in)famous Memin comic (infamous outside Mexico, simply famous within), and this time I picked up one of the compilation issues, 10 comics held within a hard(ish) cover. For whatever reason, despite not being that into comics, the size and the feel of this style of publication hits me as perfectly evolved.

The other find was a super-violent Mexican magazine, La Nueva Alarma! (its strapline - ONLY THE TRUTH!) that distils the country’s fascination for violence into tabloid form, and presents graphic shots of murder victims, suicides, auto wreck fatalities (ha, two years in the US and now I can’t stop writing like an American) and so forth, shorn of the context of news, rerun strictly as entertainment. As such, I had to have it. Just because it takes the exploitation of violence and death to a level not seen by me before. The cover was simply the smashed in head of an old man, the pickaxe handle responsible laying in sombe fashion at his side.

They have a website here - it’s absolutely not for the squeamish, but if you do take a look, prepare to be amazed at the gore factor of what is a mainstream Mexican publication.

I also picked up a copy of La Jornada a Mexican broadsheet. By coincidence, they had a feature article on Memin, and the decision by Wal*Mart to pull Memin from the shelves of its US stores [article in English]

***

The afternoon was spent watching CSI re-runs, sweating, and wondering what had befell Luis (poor Luis! still no news!)

***

Restless, I went out on the balcony, thinking of the character of the city, and took this picture. It reflects the similarities of feel that arise in many cities in Central America, the type of buildings constructed, the colours chosen, the ageing process, and the ever-present tin roofs (I could write rooves here, but I find the look of that word appalling somehow, too much like hooves maybe…) Anyway, the sense that each building was designed and constructed with a total blindness to its surroundings, to me it, produces an effect of alienation - I find it beautiful in its own way…

On my final evening in Tapachula, I sat in one of the cafes and ate burritos. The TV news reprised the violence and the death of El Nuevo Alarma, the main story being a report on an air crash, accompanied by at least twenty replayings of footage of the plane exploding as it attempted to land. A phrase came to mind, watching this, and looking at the faces of those at nearby tables…

"Loving images of death…"

Death appears to be a source of mystery and fascination here in Mexico, in a way far stronger than in the culture I am from (the UK), a thing to be watched over slowly, and studied, even savoured.

***

A man and a woman came and sat down nearby. The man was very dark and looking at him, he reminded me of King Kong (despite any PC efforts my brain may have made to avoid such an association). I watched him order and then, out came the drinks. And it was a cappucino!

A capuccino for King Kong

Such a good-sounding phrase, and only made manifest, to me, by this odd turn of events. And while King Kong enjoyed his capuccino, I enjoyed the phrase, equally, A capuccino for King Kong, a capuccino for King Kong…

***

The next day, I left before it was light, and, at the Mexican-Guatemalan frontier, after paying my 10Q, I was slapped on the back and greeted by a familiar figure. Not Luis, but the money-changer who had cheated me the day before. He asked me how things were going, and I said good, thanks. I asked his name and it was a corker:

Humberto (pronounced without the "h" for any non-Spanish speakers)

We shook hands and went our separate ways.

***

Later, I got into a conversation with the man sat behind me, a Christian missionary (from Canada), and I commented on the houses in Guatemala, noting:

"If you ever wondered what a house might look like, built without any skill and without any money, then Guatemala can supply a million examples to answer this basic question…"

***

And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes the account of my visa run to Tapachula, Mexico. Thanks for reading. The next post will explain, in a few words, the fate that befell Luis (poor Luis!).

Journey to Tapachula #2

Posted on July 9, 2008

Twenty-three months ago, BookArmor reported on a trip to Tapachula, made in the company of a Canadian, Gary (who I later fell out with over the matter of him literally running for his video camera to record The Gallo Girls). It was a trip that featured a six hour ride over bumpy roads with a shotgun on a fellow passenger´s lap aimed at us, a bodybuilding couple on a beach being oiled up by a teenage gimp, and the ensuing photoshoot being overshadowed by the arrival of a detachment of the Mexican navy (real Benny Hill stuff, all we needed was a busload of nuns…)

***

Today, I am returning to Tapachula. This time, I will be in the company of Luis, a friend from Peru, from Cuzco. Luis has a keen interest in inexplicable phenomena and ancient cultures and regularly asks me for my thoughts on The Loch Ness Monster and what the energy was like at Stonehenge ("A flowing warm green energy, Luis, that began in the left cheek, like the onset of an attack of neuralgia…")

Perhaps in anticipation of meeting Luis today, this morning I woke from a powerful dream of an OVNI (Objeto Volador No Identificado) or UFO. I was in an unknown house, with an unknown friend, when, from a downstairs window, looking on to an English street, a UFO rose from behind the houses opposite. The unknown friend then revealed himself as a science nerd and I crushed his thought processes by choking him, terrified that he would draw the attention of the OVNI. ("File under Spousal Abuse…")

After the event, the nerd revealed that he had been working on a project that turned the entire room into a camera via use of a special light, and that the image of the UFO was now latent upon the rear wall of the lounge. Nice work.

The next night, there was a procession through the street, hundreds of people, and a TV anchor came and banged on our door. I waved her away. As she retreated, I saw that an enormous piece of space-age material, presumably jettisoned by the OVNI, was being carried on the shoulders of the citizenry. It passed and passed in a silence a hundred meters long.

The next thought I had was that the tourist office in Tapachula may be closed when we arrive today, and that it would be a sound idea to research hotels before leaving… because, yes, I was awake and it was morning.

***

I met Luis in the Tica Bus station in Guatemala City. Raining. He was sat there, as, he had presumably sat there, since 8 a.m. (only three hours), due to the strangeness introduced into all of his scheduling by a chronic lack of funds. I sat next to him and we both saw a man with an idiotic beard, a thin plaited bell-pull extending half a metre from his chin. Clearly a man of peace.

I went to check out the Subway sandwich place and there was a line of six (counted them) tourists. I gave up. I can no longer wait anymore, and waiting behind people trying to assemble a complex Subway sandwich in broken Spanish is not desirable. On the way back to the office, I passed a pet shop with a rabbit in the window and thought, "I could go in there with a knife and a pan of boiling water and ask how much the rabbit is…" (would be faster than Subway).

"Oh no, no, no, Senor (horrified, naturally), es solo una mascota, no es comida…"

"Ok, ok, (producing a blowtorch), show me a mouse…"

Luis gave me some crackers to compensate for the lack of a sandwich and that brought to a close that phase of my life.

***

The bus left at midday and Luis started talking of his wish to go to San Cristobal de las Casas. Because of a television show. Such innocence!

Sights outside Guatemala City included :

- All sorts of home-made houses that answered the basic question - What does a house built with no money look like?
- A hand-painted sign for a computer repair shop of Homer Simpson´s computer exploding in his face
- A former police observation point painted over with Pepsi logos
- A profusion of maize growing through an abandoned church of recent construction

***

The last time I went to Tapachula, I travelled in no style, on a chicken bus that was running a Guantanamo Special - the chance to spend seven hours in a stress position. All that was missing was a shroud and some crocodile clips on my nipples.

This time, with Tica Bus, another side of the Guantanamo Experience was provided - the endless noise that facilitates sleep deprivation.

It came in the form, as ever, the most tolerated form of torture in the mass society, it came in the guise of entertainment. Five hours of Hollywood movies. It was appalling. I found it hard to sit there and accept that the needs of bored people (the other side of the entertain me! equation) to be entertained outweighed the needs of tired people (or contented people) to rest or pursue the path of their own thoughts without being attacked by pre-recorded sound and pre-recorded images.

"I am alive, and for me, that is entertainment enough!" I thought.

The movies were ultra-violent. The first had a wholly generic title, something like American Gangsters (this could be a good series of movies - American Cowboys, American Kids, American Soldiers, American Shoes, American Tablecloths…") and featured Denzel Washington. He began proceedings by dousing a man in gasoline, lighting him up, and then executing him with a handgun (three hours or more into the forced exposure to this marathon, I would find myself wishing I was that burning man, dead, but spared this sort of suffering).

Washington later executed a man in the street in daylight.

Washington later killed off a family member using a grand piano. (I won´t spoil things and tell you how)

Russell Crowe spent three hours fifteen minutes conducting the undercover operation that finally put Washington away.

***

 There then followed an annoying interlude when the driver´s assistant, who was as enthusiastic about movies as Barry Norman, came out and wrestled with the menus of a Ben Stiller ´comedy´, The Heartbreak Kid (I know, me neither). The basic problem was that the subtitles refused to appear, were steadfast in their decision to remain in hiding, and so, the captive audience was treated to repeated plays of the opening sequence of the movie (waiting until the first line of dialogue came up, Stiller and his dad, dressed preposterously, of course, walking down a hill in SF, to see if the Spanish subtitles appeared…) To get to this moment, it was necessary to endure one of the most annoying songs I have ever heard, something about a frog (it sounded like Mercury Rev or Flaming Lips). When this process yielded no fruit, we were then plunged back into the DVD main menu, where the driver tried once more to apply Spanish subtitles to the movie… Does this sound like torture?

I could not believe anybody would try so hard to watch a Ben Stiller movie.

"Not even Ben Stiller would try so hard to watch a Ben Stiller movie…"

The man gave up. (I had given up long ago).

***

Outside, a mountain range and volcanoes materialised with the sunset, forming a blue analogue of the slow drift into darkness…

***

For Tica Bus passengers, however, this was not enough. We needed more movies. The next movie (in place of The Heartbreak Kid), was predicated on the notion that three distinct movie markets exist:

1) The "We want to watch Christian Bale with his shirt off" market
2) The "We want to watch dragons" market
3) The "We want to watch Christian Bale with his shirt off fighting dragons" market

Please note that market 3 is formed from a subset of markets 1 and 2.

The movie is/was called Reign of Fire and is set in England. There was one funny moment, a caption, over a carbonised hill, that said - "Northumberland, England, 2020 A.D."

Please remember, if you are considering investing in property in the region, that this is only how Northumberland will look if the boyhood Christian Bale accidentally released a dragon from an underground chamber while visiting a construction site with his mother (mother killed by dragon - now it´s personal…)

What followed was a Mad Max type thing, where people live underground in clans, and the family car has been replaced by the clan tank - the clank?

Men shouted, dragons roared, women screamed, children wailed, it was really a lot like being in economy on any long-haul flight (minus the dragons).

At one point, women and children wailed in agony for a full minute and I thought, "How loosely defined entertainment is, that you can present the audience with images or sounds that are usually construed as unpleasant, repulsive even, and yet, under the banner of entertainment, they are consumed, provided they are seen as necessary to the story."

I bet nobody would guess that, finally, the dragons were vanquished by Bale, and he then appeared transformed, as a smiling woodsman-type, building a house above ground, joyously, in a dragon-free England. Marvellous.

***

We finally arrived at the frontier, El Carmen. And it was here, at El Carmen, that the problems began for Luis. Poor Luis. While I had no problems being processed, Luis, as a citizen of Peru, required a visa to enter Mexico, a visa he did not have. What he also did not have is any common sense, and he was soon surrounded by a bunch of money-changers and other petty (and perhaps, when darkness falls, not so petty) criminals, who were offering competing explanations of Luis´plight and producing all manner of fake documents, certificates, IDs, each available for a price, and guaranteed to secure entry into the promised land, Mexico.

I warned Luis not to keep being corralled by these people each time he approached the passport control, he just wouldn´t listen.

In the meantime, I changed some pesos with a money-changer. Firstly, it was ok, and I was prepared to swap a 1000Q. I said, "Ok, make it 1500" and then the money-changers calculator spat out a conversion figure that was hopelessly low. I pointed this out, he laughed, his cronies laughed, and out came the correct figure. 1875 pesos.

He counted it out and I watched him do it. He put the money in my hand and I got on the bus.

Once there, I counted it again and there was only 1250 pesos! SCAMMED! I was mad.

"Tramposo! Tramposo!" ("Cheat! Cheat!")

"Go and reclaim your money," suggested a Guatemalan woman, and I wondered if she was simply interested in seeing the results, rather than being concerned for my well-being, be it financial, physical, or both. Would I be laying on the floor, covered in stab wounds, and she´d be sat there, watching, and muttering, "Again… always the same…"

I could not let it go, though. I jumped off the bus in a rage. The money-changers cronies fanned out and I took a grip on his shoulder. "Eres una artista con las manos, amigo, pero quiero el dinero…"

This made everybody laugh and they started repeating that he was an artist. He made no attempt to argue, counted out my money and we shook hands. "Buen trabajo, amigo, y con el proximo bus, el proceso inicio otra vez…"

Luis was having less luck. Finally, he came back on the bus, explained that he had not been able to retrieve his passport from the officials, and asked me to wait with him. In El Carmen. In a dangerous place. With a whole bunch of money (whose existence was now common knowledge). With a WHITE FACE! Por Dios!

I said "No" and gave Luis 300Q, enough money to take a decent bus back to Guatemala City and work things out from there.

So that was the last I saw of Luis and on we went. One hour later we were in Tapachula, Mexico. Time to find a hotel.

BookArmor returns…

Posted on July 7, 2008

And here it is now, the moment you have not been waiting for. BookArmor returns.

While the home-made replacement was fine, it lacked the clout with the search engines to deliver site visitors (my lifeblood, people, my lifeblood).

And so, BookArmor returns, renewed, refreshed, recalcitrant…

Today I saw a man, a hulk, at the gym, and on the back of his black t-shirt it said:

"Tonight we dine in hell"

I considered the likelihood of this as I worked my legs on the leg machines. It’s at times like this, I thought, that I wish I carried a marker pen and a few spare white t-shirts. I could knock up a riposte, then go and stand next to the hulk, announcing, from the back of my shirt…

"You will be dining alone, jackass"

or "What shall I wear, handsome?"

I am sure that BookArmor readers can think of something else, maybe not better, or worse, just different…

(The photo I used for the banner is of the underside of a road bridge in Totnes, Devon, England, taken in 2007)

Last month

Posted on July 3, 2008

It is my final month in Guatemala (for now), before leaving for Taiwan.

I wrote this five page account of the progression and the changes in my character as a result of my two years here in Guatemala, and the experience of learning a new culture and a new language.

Anyway, it is smoothly executed, and I think it features some points of interest.

Bug Day

Posted on July 1, 2008

Bug Day

Thank you to those who commented on the previous post. It is heartening to receive comments. Thanks, as ever, to those who did not take time to leave abusive comments, I appreciate your non-participation (and hope for more non-participation from you in the future). Ok. That takes care of addressing two of my constitutencies, or, both halves of my constituency. As you will. (Or even, and here comes a new word (according to a Google search) - nonstituency, a body of people who participate via inaction - perhaps).

There is a flavour to some days, just as there is a flavour to some (or most) ice creams. Strawberry, pistachio, vanilla… That is not to say that a day is equivalent to an ice cream. That would be ridiculous. For example, you can lick an ice cream, but can you lick a day? Not unless you have a time-shaped tongue…

I will now be deluged by messages from people with time-shaped tongues…

Anyway, the flavour of today was extremely unpleasant - BUG FLAVOUR!(There is also a song by The Fall, Bug Day… this would be perfect listening while reading the rest of this…)

Permit me, please, permit me. Let me finish, by God, damn you people, let the man speak.

Today, I bought some groceries (not realising they would turn out to be… GROSS-ERIES!) from the supermarket. I walked home. Not that it is essential to know I walked home, but the next action takes place in My Kitchen. And in My Kitchen, I started to prepare to make pasta. Only, when I looked in the saucepan, and looked at the pasta, there was something there - something TOTALLY UNEXPECTED- and this was BUGS!

Yes. There were bugs.

I found hundreds more bugs in the uncooked pasta on the side. I drowned the bugs. The bugs were drowned (passive, like the voice in this sentence…) I cut open Pasta Bag number 2 and there were hundreds more bugs. They all started crawling, trying to escape. Again, the bugs were drowned.

I now had a kitchen sink full of dead bugs. And no pasta. And chicken that was cooked. And an appetite that had disappeared. Stupidly, I put pesto on the chicken, little green pieces of pesto, there in the bowl, reminding me of the bugs downstairs…

Bad.

So, I went to the supermarket and waited half an hour and then complained. I left the bugs at home. I complained about the bugs and about how long I had to wait to complain about the bugs. The woman was not interested in either of my complaints. The woman was not interested in withdrawing the pasta from the shelves (forthwith). The woman was not interested in giving me a refund. The woman was not interested in anything! I wanted aliens to land, or an armed robbery to commence - just to see, just to know, if there was anything that might interest this woman.

For my own part, I found bugs in my pasta interesting. And disgusting. (The woman was not even disgusted, well, except with me, perhaps. Somehow, by mentioning bugs so often, I was tainted in the process. As if this situation was happening to me for a reason - like I was dirty or something. I felt like saying, "I am not dirty, if that’s what you think…" Only, then the woman would be convinced I was dirty. So I kept quiet…)

She asked to see the bugs.

I went home and put the bugs and the pasta into a plastic container. And I brought the empty plastic packets, as proof.

I went back to the supermarket, walking through the streets with a plastic container full of bugs and pasta. A first!

In the supermarket, I placed the plastic container full of bugs and pasta on the counter.

"Tengo que ella quiere ver…"

I waited another half hour. The woman came, I shook the container, she observed the dead bugs.

It was made clear to me that there could never ever be a cash refund. But I was given permission to exchange my bugged pasta for goods of equivalent monetary value. After careful consideration, I selected three yogurt drinks. I felt so happy, taking the yogurt drinks from the refrigerator, yogurt drinks that signalled the imminent end of this nightmare…

I left the plastic container of bugs and pasta on the counter. I thought it would be what, a hoot? (Yes, a hoot), if one of the cashiers ran out into the street, yelling about how I had forget my bugs and pasta… "Senor! Olvidas tu pasta y insectos…" And I could turn and say, "Si, es un regalo…" and walk away, at last salvaging something, anything, with the successful delivery of this punchline.

Hell, I might even feel a little sauve after.

And then I came home, and I was not a little suave. I was absolutely sauve-free, devoid of elan, all out of debonair… And I was wet (from rain), and miserable (from rain, from life). The thing is, these bugs, and the hour or more of resolving the situation, and the consequent dimunition of my appetite, they coloured the day. It was like a William S. Burroughs hallucination (or revelation of reality - you decide), where suddenly the machine is working free of the illusions and the fictions that frame our experience of it, so you look at the product and see what they are truly happy to serve up to the consumer, and what the consumer is truly happy to receive - a bag of insects.

Amen.

El Chavo

Posted on June 28, 2008

Ok, scroll down for an amusingly named snack*…

Mildly annoyed at reading one of the comments on my last post - why do people equate being perturbed by noise with being elderly? Or it being some sort of character failure of mine not to forcibly evacuate myself from the apartment for 10 hours each day, seeing as I do all of my work from this very place (they are called laptops and fast internet connections). Even Clive did this, previously, and Clive works from home, too! It’s not as if anybody enjoys this noise (and clearly, as is noted below, people enjoy reading about it even less!) Maybe this is why my CD, pictured below, remains steadfast in its refusal to FLY OFF THE SHELVES…

All I have done is document a change in the environment - without warning the place where I live has been turned into a construction site. That this is having an impact on what I am writing (and equally, what I am not able to write, try writing through hours of drilling) is just how it is. Equally, if they’d opened a lap-dancing club next door, I’d have written about that, I might even have posted photos …

Would it be better to write about something else? ABSOLUTELY. Would it be better to just kill BookArmor until the noise ends? No. This thing is a historical resource for oneself, and if that means committing things here, on my own site, by my own hand, that simply testify to what was a miserable time, then that is part of the whole.

Is that so difficult to understand? The commenter clearly has another conception of what is worth writing (to a degree, as stated above, so do I), but this is not ENTERTAINMENT. This is one small history. I write it down so it does not disappear. It may not be worth reading as entertainment, granted, but neither is the back of a shampoo bottle.

Don’t criticise something for lacking X when it never purported to feature X.

It is Y.

I leave in a month anyway, so please, peace be upon you, be tranquil.

Ok. Today - a mildly amusing Latin American take on the chav thing.

* For those outside the UK, or who simply don’t know, a chav, Wikipedia gives this description…

"Chav also Charv/Charver are mainly derogatory slang terms in the United Kingdom for a stereotype fixated on low quality or counterfeit goods. It commonly refers to those belonging to a youth sub-culture, often stereotypically associated with a low socio-economic class, a striking dress sense and criminal activity."

I don’t use the term myself, as I find it a question of socio-economic prejudice, the haves having even more fun at the expense of the have-nots. Besides, when the aristos and the royal house are slurping down a drink called a "crack baby", then it might be better just to recognise that the UK is now a Chav Nation, period. Alternatively, everybody in the UK now has the mindset of an errant toff when it comes to wreaking havoc with a life of irresponsibility…:

"The following night he splashed out £2,500 on booze with brother Wills and his girlfriend Kate Middleton, 24, at a fashionable Kensington nightclub. Their drinks included potent "crack babies" - vodka, champagne, passion fruit and strawberries - and £400 bottles of Belvedere vodka, as well as booze on the house."

Whatever. I don’t believe royals are there to "set a good example for others"…

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