The Importance of Being A Little Bit Rubbish

'Thanks for not being too much of a success, Dad.'  May seem like a weird thing to say to one's own dad, but seriously, I think it is one of the crucial cogs of one's own happiness.

I am not saying that having a total dropout for a father is going to render a person exuberantly delighted with their lot, but at least it sets the bar somewhat on the low side.  You see, the converse is actually very difficult for the vast majority of us to swallow.  Or at least swallow with any sense of contentment.

Blissful euphoria may really only be in the realms of complete fantasy, never to be actually attained, lest we then, having actually witnessed the supposed highs, find that the drudgery of daily tribulations are actually quite tedious.  What I mean is, getting all the way up there leaves us open to a big, fat face-plant style psychological bungee jump, without the cord attached.  Is that even something that most of us can recover from?  I think the short answer is a definite NO, since the public ability to deal with anything that isn't remotely standard lies somewhere between absolute zero and the sum that I would be willing to pay a doorstepping gypsy to have a look at my roof to 'see if I might needs sum new felt, like'.

So the real question should really be whether this state of plentiful pleasure is even good for us?  Well, who really knows?  Has anyone ever admitted to being in such a state of mind and not been condemned by the general powers-that-be (read miserable psychiatrists) to living a life surrounded by similarly labile emotives?

Anyway, we have digressed.  The main point to all this was to explore happiness and its myriad facets.

Am I happy? Yes.

Am I delirious? Sometimes.

Am I a little bit mad? Definitely.

Is my dad Bill Gates?  Nope.

And that must have made a difference, after all.

Prince Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud Kills Servant In Sexual Attack

A Saudi prince murdered his servant in an attack which had a "sexual element", the Old Bailey has heard.

Bandar Abdulaziz, 32, was found beaten and strangled in the Landmark Hotel, Marylebone, central London, on 15 February.

The court was told Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud had carried out several assaults on the victim before he died.
Mr al Saud, 34, admits manslaughter but denies murder and one count of causing grievous bodily harm with intent.

The jury has been asked to decide whether he is guilty of manslaughter or murder.
When the body was found the prince claimed his aide had been attacked and robbed three weeks before his death.
But the jury was told Mr al Saud carried out the killing - and injuries including bite marks to Mr Abdulaziz's face showed the "ferocity of the attack to which he had been subjected".

The prince has claimed he was "friends and equals" with his servant and denied being gay.
“There is clear evidence, over and above the bite marks, that there was also a sexual element to his mistreatment of the victim”
Jonathan Laidlaw QC, prosecuting, said: "The evidence establishes quite conclusively that he is either gay or that he has homosexual tendencies.

"It is clear that his abuse of Bandar was not confined simply to physical beatings.
"There is clear evidence, over and above the bite marks, that there was also a sexual element to his mistreatment of the victim."

The court heard that the prince and his aide had been staying together at the hotel since 20 January as part of an extended holiday.
Mr Abdulaziz's body was found with blood on the pillow and the defendant appeared "shocked and upset", the court heard.
Mr al Saud told police officers they had been drinking in the hotel bar until the early hours of the morning before returning to the room and that when he woke at about 1500 GMT he could not rouse the victim.

The prince had tried to clean up some of the blood and wash some of Mr Abdulaziz's bloodstained clothing, Mr Laidlaw said.

Bloodstains found in the room were "consistent with the victim having been the subject of a series of separate assaults before he was killed", the jury heard.
Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud (Left) The prince admits killing his servant but denies murder.
Asked by police about the injuries suffered by the victim, Mr al Saud said he had been robbed three weeks earlier on Edgware Road, in central London.

But CCTV footage showed the prince attacking his servant in the lift of the hotel on two separate occasions in previous weeks and kicking him outside a restaurant on the night of his death.
The post-mortem examination showed Mr Abdulaziz had suffered heavy blows to his head and face, leaving his left eye closed and swollen, his lips split and his teeth chipped and broken.
There were also injuries to his neck, ears and internal organs, bleeding to the brain and a rib fracture.
"There were bite marks to his cheeks, which had 'an obvious sexual connotation," Mr Laidlaw said.

The case continues.

I Am Crap At This

I have realised that with all the other stuff that takes up all my time, I don't update this as regularly as I would like

Bollocks.

Doctor Brother

You know it is a strange feeling when the object of trials, torture and tribulations eventually finishes a particular project. What I mean specifically, is that my brother has now officially passed his finals and has now joined the ranks of MD MBBS whatever you want to say.
Good on him - not that anybody was expecting anything less. I am sure he is going to be a happy chappy and will really be enjoying earning more in a month than he has been used to spending in six.

On that note, my dad actually has two cousins called Happy and Chappy - their parents were quite cruel. I am sure the immigration officers have a good ol' chuckle every time they travel. If they travel, that is - as I am not very sure they have left the town that they both live in.

A new era has begun for my parents, they now have no dependants and are officially now earning money for themselves. My mother managed this feat under the age of sixty - woop di doo. She may have done a jig, but maybe that would have put a hip out.

Squash is great

I have gotten back into playing squash after a hiatus of quite a few years.
I had a really crappy raquet and I am now in the market for a new one - gotta get one of the new super light big daddies.
I was playing with friends and by the end of it we had all played 6 games - in an hour. I wasn't tired at all - bloody great.

All the older boys looked slightly washed out though - should've taken a picture.

Boys Outnumbering Girls in Parts of India

The number of girls born and surviving in India has hit an all time low compared to boys, ActionAid says.

A report by the UK charity says increasing numbers of female foetuses were being aborted and baby girls deliberately neglected and left to die.

In one site in the Punjab state, there are just 300 girls to every 1,000 boys among higher caste families, it says.

ActionAid says India faces a "bleak" future if it does not end its practice of cultural preference for boys.

Girls 'condemned'

ActionAid teamed up with Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to produce the Disappearing Daughters report.

More than 6,000 households in sites across five states in north-western India were interviewed and statistical comparisons were made with national census date.

The real horror of the situation is that for women avoiding having daughters is a rational choice Laura Turquet, ActionAid

Under "normal" circumstances, there should be about 950 girls for every 1,000 boys, the charity said.

But it said that in three of the five sites, that number was below 800.

In four of the five sites surveyed, the proportion of girls to boys had declined since a 2001 census, the report said.

The research also found that ratios of girls to boys were declining fastest in comparatively prosperous urban areas.

ActionAid suggested the increasing use of ultrasound technology may be a factor in the trend.

The document says that Indian woman are put under intense pressure to produce sons, in a culture that predominantly views girls as a burden rather than an asset.

It says many families now use ultrasound scans and abort female foetuses, despite the existence of the 1994 law banning gender selection and selective abortion.

The charity also blames other illegal practices - such as allowing the umbilical cord to become infected - for the growing gender imbalance.

"The real horror of the situation is that, for women, avoiding having daughters is a rational choice. But for wider society it's creating an appalling and desperate state of affairs," Laura Turquet, women's rights policy official at ActionAid said.

"In the long term, cultural attitudes need to change. India must address economic and social barriers including property rights, marriage dowries and gender roles that condemn girls before they are even born.

"If we don't act now the future looks bleak," Ms Turquet said.

Some 10 million female foetuses have been aborted in India in the past 20 years, the British medical journal the Lancet has said.

Scams: The 2 for 1 Restaurant Voucher Book

Alright - let's talk about scams that people pull off on unsuspecting tourists around the world.
I know many of them - in fact I've even invented some that work and I have then given the victims their money back and a lesson learned.

For this scam all you need is to produce some convincing looking bookets full of discount vouchers that claim to give the user 2 for 1 on meals at various restaurants in the city.
The restaurants are usually well known joints in whatever city this scam is being pulled.
The scammer stops random passers-by and asks whether they would like a booklet of discount vouchers. Eventually someone will stop and have a look. The scam sells itself - remember all scams only work because people want something for nothing i.e. pure greed - usually the person having a look goes to restaurants often and 2 for 1 IS a very good deal.

The list of restaurants is usually made up of quite well known eateries, and this makes it ever the more convincing. There have been known to be scams where all the restaurants mentioned were completely fictitious, but the scam still worked.

The price of each booklet is usually low, and the sale is made by stating that even one voucher will pay for itself in the money saved (c'mon some of the restaurants are 5 star).

There you go, 1 hour, 20 sales - Bob's your uncle and the scammer's off.

World Petrol Prices

In England the petrol price is:

£1.18 per litre (£5.35 per imperial gallon or £4.47 per american gallon)
$2.28 per litre ($10.33 per i.g. or $8.63 per a.g.)

The diesel price is:

£1.30 per litre .... you work out the rest

I have bought shares in oil companies so every time the oil price rises I make money, which I then promptly spend on more diesel to fill my car.

What the fuck?

Sheikh Falah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Homosexual Allegations

A Swiss court is preparing to hear a case against a brother of the UAE president who is accused of assaulting an American citizen in a Geneva hotel.

Silvano Orsi alleges Sheikh Falah al-Nahyan made homosexual advances to him in the bar of the hotel and severely beat him when rejected.

The allegations date back to 2003. Mr Orsi said it has been a "five-year ordeal" to get the case to court.

The sheikh denies assault and has said he is sure "justice would be done".

Mr Orsi, 39, says he was drinking at Geneva's La Reserve hotel with a Saudi friend when the sheikh ordered a bottle of champagne to be sent over to their table.

A few minutes later, Mr Orsi claims the sheikh came over and began molesting him, and when the advances were rejected the sheikh attacked him and whipped him with his belt.

Mr Orsi says he sustained a herniated disc, nerve damage and post-traumatic stress disorder from the assault.

In a pre-trial hearing in 2007, Mr Nahyan, 37, said there had been a short scuffle in the hotel bar after he was accused of being gay.

The three-judge tribunal will begin hearing the case on Thursday and it can impose a sentence of up to two years in prison if the defendant is found guilty.

Mr Nahyan is the son of the late Sheikh Zayed, who died in 2004 and was succeed by Mr Nahyan's older brother, Sheikh Khalifa.

Mr Orsi has said he wants to bring a civil case against Mr Nahyan in addition to the criminal case, because he says to have been too ill to work since the alleged assault.

-My note: He looks a bit cold and should probably have his thyroid function checked-

Dubai Has Changed

I never technically grew up in Dubai, I just lived a short distance away from it and have seen it change from a dusty little town to one of the largest cities in the Middle East. I say one of the largest because it is nowhere near the top in terms of population but is fast increasing in area.

In fact, Dubai is now almost as large as Delhi and has seven times fewer occupants. However, all said and done, the city is a desert and even a temporary cut in the water or electricity supply causes havoc. Imagine trying to do anything when the temperature is 48 Celcius in the shade.

I know many people who grew up in the UAE during the eighties, who wish that things hadn't changed quite so quickly. Not that we are luddites and hate change but just that we have seen that extremely rapid development involves overlooked problems. And these problems just haven't surfaced yet.

Yes, the city has water shortages - I mean imagine pumping water almost a kilometre into the sky to supply the toilets at the top of the Burj Dubai (the tallest building in the world once it's completed). But, on top of that the city will not be able to provide for all the electricity needs either because of the rapidly expanding population. Each new household of three or four people, has a massive impact on the environment. They have huge carbon footprints, each parent has a massive car, usually some monstrosity with a small nuclear reactor for an engine. They throw out unimaginable amounts of plastic and other wrapping materials, because everythings been clingfilmed and then bubble wrapped and then carboard packaged.

There is no recycling available in the city. There isn't any way of recycling even the easiest of things such as paper, glass and metal. What a bloody waste.
Not only that, if you take the motorway out of Dubai to the east, there is a mountain of tyres that just defies belief - there must be about a billion tyres on the pile and it just keeps getting bigger.

I bet they will soon be advertising that as well - Burj Pirelli maybe...

Random email

I have a really short hotmail email address - got it the hour hotmail was created - in any case it has no numbers in it whatsoever. And, as a result, I get alot of funny emails from random people getting the email addresses wrong...

What the hell is up with you?

This is just ridiculous? Have you really lost the plot or what?

Lets remember YOU told me on Tues to sort your travel arrangements as you
wanted to come up at the weekend, then we had you shouting at ME friday
night as usual, then you on sat texting me you want to cut me hair, when all
i said was if you'd be tired il get someone to fix it so you dont get angry
at me as always, then YOU took offence to that, taked about looking for a
house for us and then 4 hours later you ring me from a bar saying your
sorting out bus stuff, then text me your not coming, you cant take it
anymore and let me down!! no explanantion!

You are the one who messes me cruelly around day after day, week after week,
and just lie to me all the time so i think you owe ,me an explanantion here!

What the hell is going on please tell me? After six years of being your wife
as YOU asked me to, what is going on with you? I know your drinking, you
admitted that already, but that is no explanantion for this erratic psycho
nasty behaviour at me, i need to know whats really going on here for gods
sake-this is messing my life up!

Im not leaving the UK without an explanantion, no i deserve that at the very
least, your suppossed to tell your wife the truth and not hide things from
me as your father told me you are.

So its time for the truth please as you have single handedly got your
message across that im no longer part of your life since you got to London,
i can take that, but i just need to hear the truth out your mouth, about
what you are doing, why and what you intend for your future.

This lady is obviously pissed off...

Hospitals - A&E

Public knows very little about hospitals and medicine in general.

I know alot about these two things.

Let me tell you some things.

Hospitals are scary places for patients. I empathise with them. They are sick, vulnerable and on top of that are thrust into an alien, somewhat-sinister, cold and clinical building. The decor is not exactly hotel-esque. In fact, the NHS does not even pretend to provide pleasant surroundings. The National Health Service is FREE at the point of delivery - and this means that money is not prioritised to providing fancy fountains or pretty paintings.

You have a problem, you call the ambulance or your husband/wife/son to take you to the Accident and Emergency Department.
You enter the swing doors and are given a triage (priority).
Triage clours go from RED (life or death emergency) to BLUE (can wait indefinitely), with other colours in between.
You then are either seen immediately, within five minutes, within one hour, within four hours or within your lifetime.

Now do not be tempted to complain if you have to wait long periods. Nobody is deliberately ignoring you. In fact, they would like nothing better than to clear the waiting room. It would afford some lovely relaxation time. If you do complain, or are rude, and are triaged green or blue, a doctor might put your file back a few times (by mistake of course) and your wait could become significantly longer.

Next, depending on your problem, your treatment will differ from this point. But, you will definitely be stripped and given a hospital gown (all the better to examine you in). You will have some sticky pads placed in an arc around your chest so that an electrical trace of your heart can be made (an ECG).

And you haven't even seen a doctor yet my lovelies.
I'll tell you about that next time.

Freaky Eaters: Cheese

I watched a programme on BBC Three a while ago. It was about this chap who hadn't aten anything except cheese for the past twenty years.

Cheese.

Twenty years.

Can you imagine such a person? How could he only eat one substance for such an extended period of time? Well, the fellow was not really a model human being. In fact, he was a well-below-par specimen. However, I just don't know how he got all the vitamis and minerals that he needed all those years.

The best bit was when his teary mother came on with wet eyes, wishing that they could all have a normal family meal in McDonald's. Yeah right.