Silly hat syndrome

A while ago I wrote about inappropriate use of puns in business names- a silly name for a cafe or hairdressers is one thing, but cause for concern at a doctor's surgery.

To this rule, we can add the wearing of silly hats.  Being holiday time, people love to wear all sorts of silly christmas costumes, just in case the hordes of shoppers and grating carols hadn't tipped you off that it was the festive season.  And mostly this is fine, at least if you are making coffee or working at a checkout. But you can understand my alarm when, boarding a flight on our national carrier, I catch glimpse of the pilot seated in the cockpit decked out in reindeer antlers and a red nose.

Rule of thumb: serving drinks and handing out in flight snacks = good to go with the santa hat.  Flying a commercial airliner at 500km/h = stick with the captain's uniform.

Emotive bullshit

How much of a story is it that people get stuck in European airports at holiday time?  Sure, it's massively frustrating for those involved, and I'm sure the backlog could have been cleared a bit sooner than it was.  But really, you take your chances travelling through the world's busiest airport during Christmas and in the middle of a cold snap.

And then you get this sort of pathetic journalism that attempts to manufacture a beat up, by tugging at heart strings:

It was not the first Christmas holiday little George Painter was hoping for.


The 10-month-old spent six hours stranded with his parents on the tarmac at Heathrow Airport after the family's QF32 flight to Sydney, via Singapore, was cancelled.

Now I'm not a parent, but I am fairly sure that a 10-month old's expectations for Christmas are pretty low.    In fact, I would say that little George Painter spent those 6 hours at Heathrow doing exactly what he would have done at home- sleeping, feeding and shitting himself.
 
That's some quality journalism.

The milky bars are on me

The milky bar and the milky bar kid are one of those classic nostalgic memories from my childhood.  It's one of those magic, rose-tinted views of the past, when summers were hotter, icecreams were colder and television was better.

Partly, it's because my brother was once a finalist in a competition to be the next milky bar kid- a rare childhood story that doesn't begin with the mythical "my cousin's friend once...".  And partly, back in the day before I developed a palate, I enjoyed the delicious taste of a milky bar- that cloying, full mouth taste of half a tub of margarine reconstituting into a congealed mass and then slowly dissolving. Mmm.

But, like many of my cherished childhood memories, it's been ruined.  I shouldn't be surprised.  It happened with all my favourite tv programmes.  Re-runs of old tv shows under the banner of 'classics' or 'those 70 shows' have revealed just how lame Knight Rider, Chips and MacGyver really were.  There was a time when my brother and I refused to exit Mum's car through the door, insisting on clambering out throught the window so we could be just like the Duke brothers.  Thanks to Saturday afternoon repeats I know now that it's a show with no plot line, dialogue or acting to speak of, loosely held together by a couple of 'chase' scenes.  And the same goes for movie re-makes.  Thanks, A-team.  Thanks for ruining it. I was quite happy in my blissful nostalgia-induced ignorance.

And now it's the turn of the milky bar.  Time for reinvention.  The milky bar kid has always been some floppy haired blond kid with glasses, who would dress up as a cowboy and dispense milky bars.  He went through a few iterations, but stayed true to this basic theme.  So I have a couple of issues with the current crop of finalists to be the new milky bar kid.

The new finalists are an over-compensatory rainbow of ethnic and gender diversity.  More than half are girls, some are half Asian.  Hell, there's even a ginger kid in there.  This is milky bar they're selling, not Cherry Ripe.  I thought half the point was that he's the physical avatar of a glass of milk- hence the blonde hair and pale skin.  Why does this have to change?  If you remake the Shaft movie you don't try and cast the titular hero as some nerdy white guy.  What's wrong with leaving it how it was.  They say assumption is the mother of all fuck-ups.  But reinvention is a close second.

Eggcorns, malaprops and buzzwords

Keen followers of this blog will have noticed that I have a love-hate relationship with the inane cliches that office workers like to throw around.  Love-hate in that I hate the people who use them, but I love taking the piss out of them.

The old business cliches and catchphrases are a gold mine of potential mockery.  And today I struck the mother lode. Witness some of the greatest mangled office jargon to date:

• I think we need you guys to act as the central suppository of information.  You know what you can do with your information - you can stick it up your ass.
• if we don't get this resolved it could go on for an internity. If you're walking around with a bunch of documents up your ass then I guess it would seem like an internity.
• we are dealing with some really curly and hairy issues.  Oh good, so my current project is the equivalent of finding a giant pube on your dinner plate.  Are we working in an office here, or making merkins?

Each one is stunning in its simple brilliance.  I have never heard 3 phrases with such grotesque elegance.

I have decided that there are simply too many great buzzwords to simply throw them around willy-nilly.  I need a system.  So, for now, I am sticking with an athletics-based theme for my office jargon.  And how would I describe my current job?:

"we are grappling with some tough issues, and the temptation is to kick for touch.  But if we can get up to speed quickly and hit the ground running, we can get some quick runs on the board and really add value going forward."

Again: what were they thinking?

The Craigslist website is the internet equivalent of the community notice board outside the supermarket.  It's the kind of place where people advertise their book club, a used couch for sale, or babysitting services.  Because it's a free website where people can post advertisements anonymously, it's home to various creeps, perverts and scam artists.  The last time I heard about Craigslist it was in a connection with a man who was murdering hookers that he found there.

In short, I'd be loathe to buy even a second hand mattress from there.  So why would you use it to find birthing services?

Yet we have these people, who advertised on an American city version of Craigslist for someone to act as a surrogate mother.  And shock, horror- it turned to shit. They didn't even bother to go and meet the person to find out if they were legit, instead relying on emails to establish the intimate bond between the genetic parents and the birth mother.  Then, suitably convinced that the kind of person who responds to an internet ad for a birthing service must be on the up-and-up, they proceed to send expensive medical shipments of genetic material across the Pacific.  Plus of course the fee for rental of the uterus, an undisclosed sum but if they're willing to drop almost 3-and-a-half grand just on a jizz container, then it's probably a hefty amount.

An expensive, and intensely personal process, bidding for the services of someone to give them a child, and they're not even bothering to meet the candidate.  I don't think you can even get a job at McDonalds without going in for an interview.

We need to stop these senseless acts

Illegal street racing is a serious problem in this country.  Each year scores of young people are maimed, disabled and killed in this dangerous endeavour.

This mother and son are speaking out, in the hopes that their message will save someone else's life.  While they embrace and reflect on what could have been, there are numerous other families who have not been so lucky.

Cyle Pops, 17, still bearing the physical scars of a horrific crash involving three of his mates last year, talked to The Dominion Postafter this week's crash involving more Wairarapa teenagers.

"The testosterone was flowing when one of my mates created a challenge while we were in class at school last year. I knew it was wrong, and I had a really bad feeling about it, but I didn't want anyone to call me a wimp or a pussy so I went along with it.

"I can still remember the impact. The glass shattering and the shards stabbing into my head. The crunch of metal and the shock and fear. All I can say to those my age, don't do it. Just don't lose your life by trying to be cool.

Sobering words indeed.  But while street racing is indeed a worry, there is something far more insidious and evil destroying our young people.  Something we need to stamp out before it's too late - silly first-name syndrome.

SFS is rampant now- an entire generation of young people destined for lameness.  Poor old Cyle (is that pronounced Kylie? Kyle? Sile?) never had a chance.  With a name like that, is it any surprise that he turned out to be an insipid teenager, the kind of reckless moron blessed with damp sponge for a brain and inspired by that dangerous cocktail of foolhardiness and poor motor skills.  Don't forget he was already lumbered with the awkward handle of Pops for a surname, but his parents decided to make this one a sure thing, by saddling their boy with a double-threat of eponymous idiocy.  

Nope, it's no surprise at all he turned out like this. It's a bit like naming your daughter Candi and being surprised when she becomes a stripper.

And what was the name of the negligent mother whose meth-smoking habits and chronic neglect led to the death of her twin babies, the Kahui twins?  Oh that's right- Macsyna.

Days 147-157: Manchester, Yorkshire Dales and Lake District, England

Manchester is a strange city.  The modern city has its roots in the industrial revolution, and this working class, industrial heritage dominates the cityscape even now.  The city is largely grey and brown, the muted colours of brick, certainly not beautiful, but handsome, possibly even striking.  In a head-down, no-nonsense, stark Victorian kind of way.

The city's 19th century foundations are now decked out in the trappings of the contemporary working class- chain pubs, gambling halls and graffiti.

Then, least where you would expect it, there is a vibrant gay community, a whole section of the city devoted to community parks, rainbow flags and gay bars.  The monosyllabic bar names- flesh, crunch, queer- a bold exclamation of liberal thinking and civil rights among the tired, water-stained brickwork.

On to the Yorkshire Dales then, one of England's most scenically stunning areas.  The hills are stacked on top of each other in neat layers, gently undulating from one peak to the next.  Fields are neatly sectioned off with stone walls, of indeterminate age, the farms extending up to all but the highest hills, when the stone walls finally relent and give way to a rugged mix of heather, rocks and misty rain.

The Lake District is the most famous of England's holiday destinations, with its towering fells and icy blue lakes.  Unfortunately, this also means that it is packed with holiday-makers, choking the roads, filling the pubs and booking out the campsites.  But you can always find a room for rent in a local village pub, and fuelling up on a genuine full English breakfast before a day's tramping, followed by a replenishing ale or 2 back at the pub is not a bad way to see the country.

Days 139-146: Sussex and Gloucestershire, England

An English "summer" is a dreary affair, for sure, the sun is scorching, but it makes only fleeting appearances, spending most the time hidden behind layers of thick, pillowy cloud.  Calling it summer is pushing things somewhat, a bit like passing off bangers and mash as 'cuisine'.

Mind you, such perennially lousy weather does go some way to explaining why the English are such a nation of hand-wringing wet blankets.  The opposite of the sun-baked optimism of the Aussies, a confidence and swagger born of a land blessed with sun, beaches and minerals.  No, England is a country of tskers and tut-tutters, whose job it is to protect everyone from any potential harm or offence, no matter how slight.  And most of all protect people from themselves.  Warning signs are posted everywhere, no matter how mundane, trivial or obvious the risk.  In the car park- warning: hot cars can kill your dog.  In a medieval castle- warning: stairs can be narrow and steep.  On a frozen packet of curry- warning: contents can be hot.  There's even a life preserver stationed next to a small pond barely 2 metres across at the site of the Battle of Hastings.  At one point, I overhear a family with tour guide "and here, at this field in 1066, thousands of men were killed as the Normans conquered England leading to... FOR GODSAKE MAN WATCHOUT! You'll get wet shoes if you're not careful".  Or perhaps I imagined that part.

But then, England is just lovely.  There's not many better ways to relax than wandering through centuries old villages, stopping at the local church and cemetery where generations of families lie together, or climbing through farmlands and hills, wandering alongside rivers and into fields of heather.

And, once you're sick of following stone walls and valleys,  sick of 500 year old churches, quaint villages and historic castles, there is the pub.  Universally friendly, you can sit in a 16th century riding inn and drink a local ale and eat some homemade steak pie.  If you're lucky, the sun might even make an appearance and you can enjoy your beer in the garden.  But it doesn't matter.

Days 127-128: White Desert, Egypt

It's fascinating to watch the desert slowly evolve into different terrain.  It's a mistake to think that all deserts look the same, as there are myriad forms it can take- flat plains, towering sand dunes, volcanic rock, jagged mountains.

Possibly the strangest of all the desert forms is the terrain at the White Desert.  It is dominated by chalk rock formations, some of them massive mountains, some small boulders and ridges, which can be broken into pieces with your hands.  There are also bizarre meringue-like floating rocks- once much larger but have been slowly eaten away by the wind, leaving random puffy shapes of contorted rock.

It's the closest thing I can imagine to being on the surface of the moon.  Walking over a crunchy, calcium surface, scrambling up steep mountainsides trying to avoid bringing down half the mountain in an avalanche of tumbling, crumbling rock and grit, and staring out at alien rocky pillars in the distance.

Day 125: Black Desert, Egypt

There comes a point when you've had your fill of monuments.  You know that the temple you are looking at is a stunning example of craftsmanship, labour and artistic achievement, but it's all so samey.  It's a bit like the cathedral fatigue you get in Europe.  It's not to say that you don't appreciate it, it's just time to move on to something different.

In Egypt, that means heading out into the desert.  The vast expanse of sand and rock that covers around 90% of the country and forces almost all of its population to live in the narrow, fertile strip alongside the Nile and within the delta.

As amazing as Egypt's great monoliths are, they are surpassed in power and majesty by its endless deserts. Our first trek takes us out into the Black desert- so named because of its volcanic heritage which has left much of the desert floor and mountains covered with black rocks.

There's two things which I find astounding about some people's attitudes when travelling.  The first is people who travel to places like the Middle East or South East Asia, and then complain about the inadequacy of the facilities- the toilets aren't good enough, the hotels aren't nice enough, there isn't enough vegetarian food.  The second is people who, having made it halfway round the world, won't make any effort to really make the most of the time.  And so I am astounded when, having travelled the best part of a whole day over uncomfortable roads, enduring the choking desert heat and meaningless checkpoints, most of the travel group would rather sit around at camp than climb a small hill to watch the sun go down.

After a quick game of "beach" cricket on the world's biggest cricket ground, it's left to 4 lads to gather some beers together, climb to the top of the rise and watch one of the best ever sunsets.

Days 120-134: temple overload, Egypt

There's almost a limitless supply of stunning temples and monuments in Egypt.  While the pyramids hog most of the fame of glory, there's plenty more to marvel at- the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut (the place where 60-odd tourists were machine gunned and macheted to death by Islamic nutjobs in 1997, but don't worry there's a couple of security guards now), temples at Karnak, Kom Ombo and Edfu.

Each one is a masterpiece of statues, hieroglyphs, archways and obelisks.

Days 120-134: Egypt

The random shambles that is Egypt.  With the odd charming moment thrown in.  But mostly shambles.

Day 120-121: Cairo and Abu Simbel, Egypt

There's not a lot about modern Egypt to recommend itself as a tourist destination.  Trash filled streets, buildings either half-finished or half falling down, and some of the worst roads anywhere- both badly maintained and choking with traffic.  It has pushy touts and shopkeepers who are usually good for a bit of banter ("I have a great selection of junk" being one of the better invitations), but a significant portion bordering on annoying, verging on full-blown rip-off merchants.  And then there's the heat.  A 45 degree day in the desert is a great experience, one of those world extremes that you need to feel for yourself to appreciate.  But once the novelty has worn off it's not so much fun.  Egypt in summer is the endless quest for shade, air-conditioning, swimming and cold drinks.  Baking in mid-40s temperatures isn't an easy proposition for a pasty white boy who has grown up in a temperate climate where over 20 is a lovely day and 25+ is a scorcher.  Even Jockey's best heat dispersing underwear technology is powerless against the merciless fury of Ra, the sun god.

Sure, there are some fantastic beaches, with superb snorkelling, diving, and sun-bathing (although to be fair not any better than any number of other countries around the world), but these have now been overrun by hordes of Russians and other sundry Eastern Europeans- all mullets, white pants and alligator tans.  Alternately leathery old couples parading around in the thinnest of bikinis, a mere skerrick of swimsuit struggling to stay afloat in a sea of flesh, and young couples, invariably a skinny chick with too much fake tan and bleached hair which has been straightened into oblivion, and some massive Euro man-beast, the kind of guy who is equal parts pectorals, biceps, gut and tribal tats.

Fortunately, Egypt has history on its side.  For a long time, Egypt was ruled by some of history's greatest megalomaniacs, who were fortunate enough to be blessed with wealth and a massive slave population, in addition to an inalienable sense of entitlement.  The monuments they have left behind are testament to their arrogance and power, and provide the modern tourist with some stunning sights.

The big daddy of them all are of course the pyramids at Giza.  The pyramids are so famous, so indelibly imprinted on our consciousness that it's almost dreamlike to see them.  A view that you've seen countless times before, an architectural archetype, a meme of culture, yet it is still a marvel to see for yourself.  The realisation of a childhood dream, the finally-I've-made-it moment.  There are all kinds of amazing facts about the amount of labour, stone and technology it took to build them, but they don't matter.  Simply standing still and looking is enough.

It's unbelievably hot, crowded and there are pushy touts everywhere, but it's an amazing feeling.  Unfortunately it's hard to capture this on film, as the best view which takes in all 3 pyramids is marred by by a dirty asphalt road carved through the middle of the vista, endless conveys of white tourist coaches blotting the postcard view.  It's possibly the only good quality, completed road in all of Egypt and runs through the middle of one of civilization's greatest achievements.

Possibly even more impressive is the temple complex at Abu Simbel.  Ramses II built this monument, in his own image, and a glaring statement of power and wealth, deliberately situated in the middle of nowhere in Southern Egypt.  A warning to any would-be invaders from the south that anyone with enough riches and power to build a towering edifice, carved from the rock itself in the middle of the desert is not someone to mess with.  Even now, for someone used to massive sky scrapers and jumbo jets, Abu Simbel still inspires awe.  For someone living in the Bronze Age it must have seemed as if it was the work of the gods, which I suppose was the point.

It's also one of the rare places where modern engineering can match the work of the ancients.  When the site was faced with being submerged by the planned Aswan damn, UNESCO funded an entire relocation of  the temple.  The temple was carved up into neat chunks, then relocated, piece by piece, to higher ground.  And not just the temple and statues, but the mountain itself.   Of course, it was all foreign funded and completed by outside contractors, otherwise Abu Simbel would currently be sitting in a disused pile, accumulating garbage and the occasional goat, and perhaps a crazy old man selling scarves.