The Rise and Fall of the Great Saundini III

Well, the psychic wave came later this week than I expected, but it’s arrived now. Thus, let us delve further into the cloudy unknown that is what hasn’t happened yet! Hold on a sec…

Here we go, I see lots of nude people. That’s right, following the success of “I love you cheesy do” came the World Nudist Movement, swarming first through America and the England. India and China, become freer to build in other industries as a result of the lower output of their fashion and this goes alongside the natural shift in balance of power to make these countries world powers. This forms a super-Tourism as a result goes down in Western countries and our economies collapse because no one wants to trade with nudists. Eventually, people aren’t naked because it is the trend, but because no-one in our country can afford clothes at all. With the government in dire straights, the decision is made that democracy is now a bit useless in a struggling nation. As a result, free-will is dispensed as a necessary evil and it is claimed that this is a time for ’strong leadership’. As a result, Adam Hillier becomes Prime Minister of Britain and restores the nation’s economy and self-belief, that being British makes one superior to all other nations, particularly the French, and begins building, preparing for desperate war against France to regain a foothold in the world.

Having lost my job to the Nudist movement, I have in the mean time been struggling for work and suffering under the inevitable hyper-inflation that has occured. As a result, I jump out of unemployment via conscription, which all men must sign up to. There is an inevitable feminist protest at the fact that the women are left behind, but ultimately this is down-trodden with violence in abundance and future generations are persuaded through specialist schools of the important role of the British mother in ensuring the stability of the Second British Empire. My wife was still jealous though, that while I was going away to fight for glory in France, she would be slaving away back at home.

Anyway, training at the Windsor Barracks is fairly basic; the sergeants seemed to want us out of there as quickly as possible. By the end of five weeks of training I could do 10 push-ups, a single lap around the field and could load a gun. Wearing helmet’s seemed to compromise some nudists’ beliefs, but I am fairly happy wearing something. We sail across the English channel on a large boat and then soon into small metal soldier carriers, as in Saving Private Ryan. As we get to the shore, there is no one firing at us, primarily because we have not declared war and the French haven’t had any intelligence of us since no one wanted to enter our country for modesty’s sake. We go to a village and are ordered to ransack it by our captain, a man with a cockney accent, stubbled head and yellow teeth. However, at this point I have an attack of conscience and ask him if I can be excused. I am surprised at his response: “You bloody muppet! Do as I say Private or I’ll chew yours for me dinner!” (Sorry, a bit Carry On, that pun). Instead I run into the village behind all the other people and get out my gun. It is a manic scene… people are swinging by, kicking in doors, torching houses, ransacking shops. The villagers meanwhile look-on with horror, afraid that their weaponary will be used. The smell of ash and the sound of weeping is in the air. Just as I look on at all the carnage, I suddenly feel a metallic crash around the back of my head and am hauled off the ground by an elderly french lady. She is pointing a gun to my head. Fortunately, just as I am preparing for death, I feel her body slump over me. I turn to see a comrade knocking her down and then firing at her head, glaring at the other villagers. His eyes are brown and angry. “Pay attention, or you’re going to get us all killed!” Eventually, the villagers are cornered and we leave with the necessary supplies and move on.

The times of war are difficult for me. Sleepless nights and damp-stale clothes dominate my days. Eventually, trench warfare set in. And the troops stagnated in the cold and wet. Gunfire rattles on into every night and wet and cold are my bedfellows, why I only managed to keep myself sane by concentrating on the popcorn song (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=9N4ckFN96-k).  Unfortunately this was to prove my downfall, as eventually I become so engrossed in the majesty of such a tune, I fail to acknowledge that the camp is under attack until I feel a cold slap across my face from my comrade. He hands me a gun and I prepare to face the front line. I poke out towards the trenches and see men scampering across muddy plains towards me. Unfortunately, as I am about to defend position, I begin to think about the families those men have and how I am going to ruin people’s lives. I hesitate. Then I see a chunky boom-stick pointing towards me and instinctively I duck. A machine gun bullet rattles just above me. I hide under there and watch lines breached and colleagues die. A Frenchman jumps into the trench and I aim my weapon at him as he turns towards me. “Freeze!” I call to him. His hair is noir and eyes dark. With a gallic white-toothed smirk he shrugs arrogantly at me. “I mean it!” I call. However, rather than being taken aback, he strides before me. No alternative present, I shoot. However, there is no effect, and as in a dream he continues towards me. I fire again, and hear the trigger click, but no bullet pumps through my weapon. I suddenly realise that I have left the safety on, but it’s too late, as he is now to close. He smacks the gun out of my hand with his own and chuckles. “Tu es une petite idiot”. At that he thwacks me across the back of the head and I am out. A French prisoner of war.

Then… Um… Actually I’ve got nothing more. My brain feels soggy. Too late at night now, for me to concentrate any great psychic energy to this. We’ll find out what happens next, next week. In the meantime, here’s a clip of something cool I found on youtube, http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll2kajMH2u0. We’ve got to have an English version of this one!

The Living Dead

Hello blog-readers to the latest post of the Great Saundini! If you’re new here, I’d like you to wave your hands and twirl around. Alternatively, you can just ignore my wishes, which may or may not be dying, as you never can tell. Why, only today my mother told me to watch out for a birth-mark on my back, which may or may not be cancer (please note: I do not have cancer). So ignore this wish at your peril. I am merely trying to save you from the overwhelming guilt that you would almost certainly feel! By the by, apologies for people reading this hoping to read about zombies, this is a totally unrelated topic, possibly.

Funerals have always seemed a funny concept to me. For instance, in context with my Christian upbringing, why feel sad if we believe that a person is going to the best place in the universe? Now the bog-standard solution to this, at least the one I quickly learned, was that we mourn loss on the behalf of the people still alive. This seems to make sense for me. Mourners are suddenly having to live without loved ones whom they are accustomed to seeing regularly, leaving a hole in their everyday routine. This even translates to the tragedy of a young death, as the family around them do not expect to lose the years that seem pre-destined for them. However, I wonder sometimes if this reason accounts for all the feelings associated with mourning.

I remember when a friend of mine committed suicide when I was 17.  It was a bit of a shock and it felt like such a waste of potential. He had played in my Steel Band and I had known him since First School. I remember going to his Birthday parties as a boy, playing that cops and robbers game when the robbers have to draw arrows on the floor and the cops have to follow them. He even gave me my phobia of Wasps (not the Rugby Union club that have just made the Premiership play-offs) in one fateful P.E. lesson by over-reacting to being stung. Now I can’t even muster the courage to open a window to let wasps out, instead opting for the ‘waiting outside and hoping everything will be okay when I get back’ method. Anyway, I remember the Will Young hit “Leave Right Now” was played at the end of the service, which I thought was some unintentional black humour. Of course, I didn’t venture to laugh out loud, though I found this funny. Much of the service beforehand however, I spent wondering why I wasn’t more upset about this. True, it was shocking and sad news, but it seemed as though the convention of how I was supposed to be reacting contributed to my actual mood.

I know in this case I was relatively distant from the case, but in other death’s I have mourned the same dilemna and feelings have been present. Culture seems to have a large say over our reactions to death. It was really interesting to hear details of Sylvan Historian’s poetry project last term, particularly in reference to the different culture’s different attitudes towards death. From what I gather from various sub-conscious sources, China, with it’s bulging population, seems to have a lower view of human life than the Western world and this therefore has a bearing on how death is perceived. The Hindu’s, owing to their belief in re-incarnation, do not even allow for mourning as they fear this slows the progression of the soul into rebirth. I can’t remember the other examples, so maybe Sylvan can help me. My proposal however is that maybe our declining death rate and longer life expectancy because of the improvements in modern medicine, alongside our increasing athiesm and emphasis on free-thinking education, is causing us to fear death more rather than less having become so unaccustomed to it.

For me, the Hindu attitude to death seems much more healthy than our own, though some may argue that it is a repressive attitude. My counter-argument would be however that my lack of Hinduism limits me in my understanding and that it could well be that grief is something that is more prevalent in a culture such as ours that nurtures it. Essentially, death is a natural part of life. It’s a cycle. Although we should not neglect the memories of our loved ones, I think we should honour them by remembering the good memories and enjoying them instead of dwelling on sadness and absense. After all, every day seems to me a type of death. We can never get a day back once it’s gone. We’re just left with the memories of it. I will never be able to enjoy the days of courting my fiancee again, though that summer I remember being the most glorious and exciting of my life. It’s obviously better looking back than living through it. That’s the nature of nostalgia. However, I seem to go through life constantly missing out on the present because I look back too much. The unappreciated present, in the meantime, takes refuge in the past and becomes idolised itself. Nothing ever will be the same again. In turn, everyone who dies gets eulogised. Could it be that death is simply a rubber-stamp of the trauma of time passing? If this is true who is really dead out the corpse and it’s mourners?

The Rise and Fall of the Great Saundini II

Hello and welcome to this weeks blog. Over the past week more of my own future has become clear to me, clear like a pool that has just recovered from being rippled into distortion by a rogue pebble. What will I be doing in the future? Let us delve and find out the mysteries of the future!

Somehow, I manage to escape with my life from the factory at Merthyr Tydfil. Even I with my magical psychic abilities cannot determine how. Though now I think again, I think it turns out that I wasn’t the only Englishman there at the time. He “came out” at an equally disastorous moment as mine was, except his coming out was my future self’s redemption. I escaped back to Reading, back to my darling wife. Upon stepping out of the car, a dog barks and my irrational fear of them makes my foot slip over the curb and my head crunches into the concrete.

I lie aware of strange pains that I have never felt before; dull static pains in the back of my head and my arm. My eyes twitch open to see a hospital surrounding and a nasty anaesthetic smell which makes me want to spontaneously swell up into a Violet-Beauregarde bulbus berry. I try to move to cover my mouth, but am reprimanded with a sharp pain coming from my head and I decide that I am better off staying as I am. My left leg and left arm have casts on them as does my neck, which is in a brace. I wait, but soon get bored so I find myself colouring in my cast with my one free arm. Inexplicably, months later, after months of colouring, I emerge from hospital, with a bizarre passion for fashion!

Yes! That’s right! I want to become a fashion designer! Unbelievable. That’s not made my day, but at least my wife is happy. After all, she teaches me to sow which is my first step up the ladder. And only step up the ladder. I become good enough to get a job working in Mass marketing for New Look. The majority of my co-workers are women, but that doesn’t bother me, particularly after Royal Holloway. Anyway, I work from home, gathering fabrics and designing outfits before showing my results to the management. In my time I create a bright green sock with a big hole for the toes to slip through, designed to be worn with flip-flops of course,  a big red plastic hat with a complimentary bucket and spade (can anyone believe that no-one has come up with this idea until now?), and also a bright pink strapless dress going down to knee length with black thick pointy trim around the bottom, like a very long, fat catterpillar. However, my best is yet to come…

I have a revolutionary idea. I decide that women would look thinner (and therefore “better”) if they didn’t have arms. Thus, I decide to bring out a range of dresses without armhole. Instead the arms are strapped to their shoulders (I borrowed my inspiration for this idea from an escapologist). Surely, nothing could go wrong. No one could fail to marvel at the genius I had created. What colour is it I here you ask? Pink. My favourite!

However, for some reason, the New Look managers are none to keen with this idea. They think that the women would suffer too much. Suffer! Can you believe that? However, I try to convince them of the benefits of the dress, how great it would look and that fashion is all about suffering. If it’s hurting then it’s simply forcing your ugliness to be beautiful. I convince one of my managers, Estelle, who has blonde dyed frizzy hair hanging over a black complexion, to try one on. She has an enormous long thin nose. Her slim figure slides it over her head, looks in the mirror and says “Actually you’re right. I do feel beautful.” The dress doesn’t quite fit with her beezer, but what does? As a consequence, this fashion becomes a craze and eventually Britney Spears even tries one on for one of her concerts. Unfortunately, here is the collapse, literally. As she leaves the room, Britney bumps into the door and gets concussed, unable of course to use her hands to open it. A cheesy pop band called “I love you cheesy do” who are the back-band to this gig use their extended time on stage during the concert as a springboard to make it big. This sounds bad enough, but following hits such as, “Bare and beautful”, “When you’re wearing nothing” and “What’s that crap you’re wearing”, a nudist craze spreads like wild-fire and the fashion dies (Yay!) making me redundant and once again searching for a job. Searching. Explosions! Popcorn! Wet and Dirty Socks…

Drat! I’ve lost it! That’s all I have today. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you more. There seems to be some strange energy about this time of the week, so I suspect there’ll be more next time. Nos Da (or whatever time of the day it is!) and Yaki Da!

What are you looking at?

An evident answer to this question would be this blog, but I find that it’s not necessarily the answer to this question which is important but the assumption it raises. It’s an odd world, but does anyone wonder why looking at someone is such a faux-pas? I remember the first time anyone said this to me and it was as early as Primary School when I was a little lad in Year 1 or Reception. A boy in the year above me, I think he was called Timmy, was sitting behind me in an assembly and being disruptive, so as a natural response to the stimulus of unknown noise behind your back, I turned around and looked at what was happening. ”Wot are you lookin’ at?”

I was borderline autistic as a child, so I always have had a problem with eye-contact anyway, but I can’t help thinking that this experience worsened it. It’s recurred also throughout my entire life. Looking back, it’s obvious why the person said it; he didn’t like the fact that I was showing an awareness of his misdemeanors (or Mr Meaners at that point) without joining in. The eyes can be such a powerful weapon, so piercing and perceptive, that there is an embarrassment and vulnerability in letting them fall upon you, which triggers the typically defensive response.

This is heightened further by the fact that no one trusts anyone that much anymore. Staring is rude because it imposes on privacy, but in an ideal world there surely shouldn’t be so much to hide that just lies on the surface. It’s almost impossible to stare at somone in adult life without an assumption being made that there is a secret perverted lust for them and that you’re a weird loner.

For me though, it’s made me wear a mask. I can’t be myself around people and can’t make eye-contact with people because I don’t want them to judge me for it. In the end we forsake our individualities to live in a social environment and push aside our natural instincts in order to fit in.

It brings me to today as I sat in the glorious sunshine (Weathermen Ha!) watching picnics of people, despite their best efforts, not revising. I was thinking how lonely I felt sitting alone working on a bench and how I wished I was on speaking terms with the so many pleasant and interesting looking people there, studying diverse and interesting topics, and that I could be in a world where it wouldn’t be weird just to randomly go and chat to someone that you don’t know. A freedom to be yourself and share who you are unashamedly with people, an ability to be so comfortable with who you are that you feel as though you cannot but share your vulnerabilities and live in a breathing caring unified community. It would be heaven.

But that’s not in this lifetime, I’m afraid. On the other side of the coin, too much individuality would be hell for everyone. Social etiquette definitely exists for a reason, because otherwise there would be no restraint for people to act to the detriment of others. But still, I wish society was more open sometimes. As per usual, any comments welcome, but preferrably not abusive ones or I may pathetically wilt.

The Rise and Fall of The Great Saundini

Sometimes it’s better not to know what you’re going to do in the future. But then, I think, I’d rather know after all, as being perpetually unemployed is a pain. But then, would your ability to see into the future affect your future? Who can say? But I’m going to try it anyway, looking into my own future using my “prophetic” visions inherent in the poet that I am (so sayeth Sir Philip Sidney or at least implyeth!). So here we go… (Disclaimer: please note that this site does not advocate fortune-telling!)

I see early starts. Maidenhead. Rush hour. A school? Don’t tell me I’m a teacher! I walk through the school gates having walked from the train station and walk past the hoardes of young men. Some playing football, some avoiding football. The sun is shining? I enter the staff room and see some faces I recognise…

Wait a minute… they’re fellow students! This is the Student Associate Scheme I’m doing in less than a month! Well, that’s a relief! Anyway, time to get some answers, so further into the future… Wedding on the 16th, Honeymoon in the Lake District. Oh, here we are… my future job… (have you ever seen so much ellipsis…)

I see metal, steel, spoons, machines, antiques and grease. I talk to a fellow in a oily dirty blue outfit and I’ve got a Welsh accent! Apparently, I go into tool manufacturing, I’m a metalsmith. After I get my degree results I decide I don’t want to do anything with my qualifications and go to get a job doing something a little more practical. I apply at Reading, but they turn me down because I gave up DT before GCSE. However, I keep looking and eventually I discover that Merthyr Tydfil is looking for any kind of worker and even my Keystage 3 results qualify me provided I get a NVQ Level 3, which I do with a degree of difficulty, but manage to get through it. My wife, meanwhile works away in Reading as a teacher and we meet for weekends only.

Unfortunately, my first day is the day after England hammer Wales 57-3 in the Six Nations at Cardiff Millenium Stadium, so I try to lay low, because there are some tough looking Welsh people there. The majority of them are shorter than me, but they are as stocky as packs of beer cans. I put on a Welsh accent for my life.

Despite knowing all the theory behind working as a metalsmith. I quickly find I am utterly terrible at it, ruining most of the tools I work on by banging them completely out of position. After getting several warnings that this day could be my last from my boss, a short fat-faced paleheaded man with big arms, I get to work on trying to make a spanner. First I need to knock a bend into the end of the stick, but somehow I miss, as it goes in between my hammer blades. I hit it again slightly left, but I just leave a small dent in the metal. To compensate for my lack of strength I swing my hammer back further and bash something behind me. I swing the hammer back, but my grip slips and the hammer propels forward like a flying dagger, concussing someone. I turn around and see my boss cowering, screeching in pain and holding his reddening bald head. He glares up at me, his eyes becoming bloodshot and his mouth foaming. I plead that “I’m sorry” in my most charming Hugh Grant-like manner, but at the sound of that, everyone in the factory suddenly drops their work and goes towards my direction. I forgot to put on my accent. Soon a room full of big nationalistic Welshman are surrounding me, grinding teeth. Thus, I decide it’s best to run for it and then everything swirls and suddenly there’s barking, tape measures and a lady with a big nose…

But it stops and the little psychic powers leave me. How anti-climactic! However, possibly if I do this at exactly the same time next week I’ll be able to see more. If anyone has any “prophetic” visions themselves please share them.

Not what the Doctor Ordered

As you know I’m a Star Trek fan, it may not surprise that I am also a Doctor Who fan and on Saturday I finally managed to watch the third episode before going onto the fourth one in the evening. The Ood, the starring monsters in this episodes, are among my favourites in the Dr. Who Universe. They are outwardly faithful slaves to the human race, polite, obedient and mindless. However, underneath this exterior lies a hidden power; they are tall and menacing in stature and have a telepathic ability that trancends human understanding. In their first appearance, their possession by the Devil, in a very clever religious themed episodes, there was a constant suspicion that there is more to them than that initial story, that they partly allowed this take-over.

However, in this episode (don’t worry I won’t spoil it for those who are waiting on iPlayer) a different side is presented that gives some extra context. They are sold and bred as slaves, but secretly, hidden within their genetics, they desire freedom. So often in Science Fiction, the world is reflective of our own. This is the case in most Star Trek episodes, and I could blog about until the cows come home, grab a cup of coffee and watch television into the night. Much to everyone’s relief I won’t. However, the Doctor makes this connection between the fictional world and our present day obvious as he likens the slave trade in the Ood to the ways in which we British exploit so many from other countries worldwide. The really scary aspect about the mood, taking a Marxist view of it, is that at any point these subservient beings could rebel, reflecting our own concerns about class issues.

It reminded me of another program I watched last week. It was on BBC Three 9pm on Tuesday, called Blood, Sweat and T-Shirts. Catch the second program today if you can. Six Brits go over to India to work in the clothes production industry and it is a living nightmare. The people get paid a pitiful 20 pence an item of clothing, whilst they are made to work many hours in boring repetitive jobs under strict surveillance. It makes my summer job at Legoland nirvana. All this just so that we at home can pick up a bargain at New Look. Even on the sale rails clothes companies still make profit because of the ludicrously small sum that “real” workers get.

I was foolish enough to believe once that slavery had been erradicated as our society has become more civilised. The reality is that it’s just become more covert, just as the Doctor points out. It’s a disgrace and it makes me feel funny about even entering a shop again. It surely wouldn’t take much to pay the really poor companies that provide the clothes a fair wage, but it’s all about profit and making money. The whole reason that foreign imports are even used is because we can sucker them into working for us on a low wage. All the while we sneer at people trying to redress the balance. While we are able to bask in our own sovereignty and intelligence, there are people slaving their guts out to avoid starvation. What can we expect as far as immigration goes when we claim for ourselves most of the world’s resources? We’re really bringing it on ourselves. It’s the nature of capitalism. In a world where every man is for himself, it’s usually at the expense of someone else.

When we run out of fossil fuels and we can’t rely on trade any longer, this country will surely collapse. There are so many people and we rely so heavily on exports at the expense of our own farmers and producers and men with skills that we’ll all starve. Frankly, our country will deserve it.

I apologise for the blog turning into not only a rant, but a damning appraisal of our own country. I’m not condemning the people who shop, as it’s not their fault that our minds are controlled by a culture of greed, or that faceless organisations are trying to exploit, not only us, but the people who make these clothes. Some law has got to be put in place about fair foreign dealings maybe. Until then, though it can be rank, Fair-Trade will have to do. It just leaves me with the hopeless and desperate feeling that I want to do something, but I don’t know what. Anyone with any ideas about how to change the current system be my guest and post suggestions.

Which Star Trek Captain am I?

It’s a question we’ve all asked ourselves at some time (possibly)… Well now you can, with what is the final frontier of quizzes! Yes, the more cynical of you may just be sensing that I am only doing this so I can spend the minimum amount of time and effort in a blog because I’ve got lots of work to hand in on the 28th of April and you’d be 100% correct. But still, it’s nice to think well of someone, even if it is delusional. Please don’t take offence at my blatant disrespect of you all!

which-star-trek-character-are-you?

Like the Monkey questionnaire, simply answer the questions making a note of the answers and put it into Data’s computer (aka Microsoft Excel!) both attached to this blog. Or they both would be if WordPress allowed us to attach Microsoft Excel files, among the most important files in the entire universe, onto our blogs. This calls for a petition! Instead the only alternative is to reply with answers in a post and I’ll reply with your captaincy rating, if you are interested!

Anyway, until Monday, otherwise known as Judgement day, and into the undiscovered country of no work!

Pants Design

One week to go of project work and then freedom, and hopefully a good grade for my degree. Fingers-crossed! I’ve never been a believer in suffering for the sake of fashion, but one item that’s got me irked recently are jeans. Now when I say jeans I don’t mean jeans in general, but the ones which have buttons up the crotch instead of the good old traditional fly. Does anyone else find them frustrating? The main problem is that they take ages to do up or undo. The fabric isn’t very forgiving, so ultimately it’s a case of pushing or pulling an amount that no finger singularly should be doing. Now I’m going to be fairly graphic about the practicalities, because it’s important those realise both how difficult life is with them and how pathetic I am!Going to the toilet when you’re really bursting is even worse and you look excessively stupid doing a urinal jig trying to keep it in whilst very slowly undoing your fly in a public loo. Moreover, you can’t do up your jeans without pressing your dirty fingers all around your crotch which is pretty gross considering what you’ve just been doing. If you wash your hands then do up you jeans then it looks like you’ve wet yourself and if you walk to the hand-dryer you’re at a high-liklihood of forgetting you’re flying low! In addition to this, you’ve just walked around a public loo similarly exposed. It’s just plain wrong when all this suffering could be avoided with a single finger flick and a satisfying “zipp” noise. In addition to this, if you’re in public and realise you’re revealing your pants, then it’s not an easy job to hide your dignity without looking blatantly obvious. It’s a hard life…

And yet, this is not the only example of fashion being a bit rubbish. In fact throughout history there has been big hot wigs of the 18th century, Tudor face whitening powder, a bit like foundation but it actually corrodes your face, corsets (okay some people think they’re sexy, but I just think PAIN!) and high heels, and that’s just with my limited knowledge. Image just doesn’t seem worth it enough to me to justify the amount of anguish and preparation that goes into something.

Trinny and Susannah would say that I don’t have high enough self-esteem, but I’m actually fairly comfortable with the way I look. My fiancee reassures me on that count. I know it’s important to look good, but surely there’s a compromise. After all, as the glib cliche goes: it’s what’s on the inside that counts, and the people who are important to you will inevitably see you at your worst besides. I agree with T+S in the sense that I think that not having confidence in oneself is really sad. I don’t think anyone should feel that they have to prepare the way they look before they get up, but with the media constantly taking terrible photos of celebrities taking the “risk” of going out unprepared with the finest clothes and the best make-up, it’s easy to understand why.

I know that virtually the entire female population will disagree with me, but I personally think that a world without make-up, fashion and where we judged people less by appearance and accepted the beauty that nature gives us would be a better one. I’m probably arguing the wrong side of the coin (it’s definitely a good thing that my fiancee buys my clothes by force), but does anyone else prefer practicality to aesthetics? And if I’m wrong why?

It’s a Sign, I Swear!

I was surfing on the internet (not U.S.A unfortunately yet, maybe after I finish my last essay!) and I found some things of random interest on that marvel of mankind Wikipedia. This week, handsigns! Here’s the link: www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestures. The really strange thing is that I found it while researching a hungarian composer, Kodaly (who incidentally has the same birthday as Beethoven), for my fiancee. So people don’t have to do too much reading, I’ll bullet point my most interesting moments.

1. Apparently, lifting your skirt (obviously assuming you’re a woman) isn’t necessarily flashing, as long as it is done specifically to arouse an onlooker, rather than yourself. The perfect alibi for a streaker.

2. Mooning is a perfectly valid form of freedom of speech in the U.S.A, as long as genitals are not exposed.

3. In one battle during the 100 year war between England and France, the French mooned some English archers. A lot of them died, but it sounds like it was worth it. That’s what I call capital punishment for indecent exposure!

4. You can air-kiss cheek to cheek. Also “mwah” is now an official word according to the Webster’s Dictionary

5. Apparently, if an old model Volkswagen passes you on the road, you’re meant to do a Shaka hand signal at them (the Phones sign in the Phones4U advert, but the other way round).

6. For some anthropologists, the thumbs up sign is derived from the mutual celebration of the fact that humans have opposable thumbs. This is based upon studies on Apes in Gibraltar. However, cynics point out that they may just be copying the humans observing them.

7. In Iraq and Iran, giving someone the thumbs-up is the equivalent of saying “up yours!” And we wonder why they don’t like the West.

8.  The Give’me’five Gimmick is almost 90 years old, even older than the high five.

9. The backwards V sign is apparently only insulting in the U.K, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. Apparently George Bush Senior, while trying to do the Peace sign, actually ended up unintentionally performed the said insult when touring Australia. And we wonder where his son gets it from.

And lastly 10. Making devil horns at someone is actually implying that their significant others are cheating on them.

There are many other facts I could pick out, I’ve not even started with facial expressions, there’s a few to get you started. Saundini points for grabs for anyone who can think of any better ones. Real life situations are also particularly funny.

Another day, another conspiracy…

In Zimbabwe the votes are in, but haven’t been released almost two weeks later. The MDC claim they’ve won the election and judging by the previous statement it could well mean that they are right. Apparently, there are still “anomalies” in the polling data, so an extensive recount is taking place, including alleged seizing of land. Every government needs needs a boogieman for underhand dealings, for Nazi Germany it was the Jews, for Communist Russia it was the capitalist Americans, and even Tony Blair had his infamous “Weapons of Mass Destruction” for sending Britain into Iraq. In Zimbabwe, it’s the threat of the whites returning that are the reason for this violent reaction. Meanwhile the vote counters have been arrested and replaced for corruption, and I’m guessing that it wasn’t in favour of Mugabe’s party! In addition to this, the Zimbabwe high court have now ruled out revealing the results of the elections, until this is all done. The South African president Mbeki is fairly happy to wait for this internal re-ordering. I’m guessing by the end of it Zanu-PF will emerge as the rightful winners after all. The End. Forgive me if I’m a little bit cynical.

Rule 1 of International relations: Everyone likes someone wearing the democracy sticker. It’s like wearing a suit at a posh dinner. This seems to me exactly what’s happening. Zimbabwe will try to keep up as democratic an appearance as possible, but the fact is, there seems to be something salmon-like going on. South Africa, the only country who conceivably can step in, seem more content with building foreign relations with Zimbabwe than actively doing anything to stop this. Maybe I’m being a bit harsh, it’s pretty impossible to stop, because there is no proof. The fact is, just as I’m applying it, Zanu PF (Mugabe’s party) seem to have survived the public vote by playing the conspiracy theory game. As much as we want to believe the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change), can we really believe that they wouldn’t be motivated to rig votes, or that the vote-counters wouldn’t have MDC sympathies?

As absolute certainty is an illusion (how do we know anything exists for certain?) and there is no way of knowing sometimes beyond all reasonable doubt, conspiracy theories remain particularly powerful. It’s not an uncommon thought either. Hollywood constantly subjects us to plots where things are, indeed, not as they seem. Who’s to say that this can’t happen in real life as well as in a fictitious world based in some capacity on real life? Despite the fact the Diana death protests have been thrown out and “disprooved” who’s to say that it was absolutely fair and the evidence untampered with. Admittedly, I’m out of my depth in that case, but there is always the capacity for doubt. That’s what makes opinions so interesting. Here’s hoping for Zimbabwe, but I’m fearing the worst (I’m such a pessimist). It’s searching for the certainty to pin down these kind of situations that is the real impossibility.