Eating Putrified Shark Meat

This last weekend saw us embark on our last ‘boys’ weekend with Rob before he heads back to Australia. With Rob being the chief organiser of these weekends, we might not be travelling on so many more of them in the future. I enjoyed the trip and was fascinated by the place so much that I wanted to write about it. Although I realise that this might read a little bit like a brochure for the place.

Given that we are generally quite well travelled to places within only a few hours of London; the list of possible destinations was not as long as it might seem. So wanting to experience something new and different, our destination this time was the northernmost capital city in the world; at 64 degrees above the equator, Reykjavík the capital of Iceland.

Iceland is certainly like no other place I have been. With two thirds of the country’s 250,000 population living in the capital, Reykjavík does not at all feel like a capital city. There are no tall buildings, the population density is low as far as European cities go, and there is a real small community feel about the place. The locals are very friendly and their spoken English is better than many native English speakers can manage. This should not really be of much surprise given that, with such a small number of people speaking Icelandic, they would be significantly more isolated from the rest of the world, were they not able to speak in another tongue. Icelandic however appears rather difficult to pronounce, so the fact that the locals had the ability and eagerness to use English was appreciated.

We arrived late on Thursday night, and even though it was after 11pm, the sun had not yet set behind the horizon. Iceland’s geographical position just below the Arctic Circle means that the country basks in more than 20 hours of sunlight per day in the summer months. This can wreak havoc with the body clocks of those of us used to latitudes closer to the equator, and we experienced this when attempting to find a restaurant for dinner the following night. Venturing out for a meal at 10pm, feeling like it was a few hours earlier than that, we were unable to find a restaurant still serving food, apart from the local Chinese. So our first sit down meal in Iceland was not traditional Icelandic cuisine, but sweet and sour prawns and kung pow chicken, (though it was actually quite nice.)

Traditional Icelandic cuisine however, isn’t really something to get enthusiastic about. Given that food sources have not been plentiful or readily available throughout the centuries, Icelanders have had to make the most of what was. This generally means that every part of the animal is used. Sheep heads, rams’ testicles, dried fish, and various sea birds including puffin, are all available to eat. Modern Icelanders however tend to eat these kinds of things as thorramatur (food of the Thorri) during the traditional Nordic month of Thorri (Jan/Feb) and less so at other times of year. We were not however, going to escape the place without trying something particularly disgusting, and this came in the form of Hakarl. Hakarl is putrified sharks meat. Shark meat contains high quantities of uric acid and is poisonous when raw. Now the sensible thing to do in this case is to cook it, but you have to do that straight away, and of course fridges are only a new invention and so food was not so easliy kept for any length of time. And so to get around this, Icelanders would bury the shark meat in the ground for a period of up to six months. The decomposed meat is then somewhat dried and picked and eventually served up in small cubes. We found ourself chatting to a young local chap on the bus on Saturday and he was more than happy to get some for us, though later he did say he was hoping that it would make us sick. We all managed to have a bite, and despite gagging a couple of times, I ate quite a bit. It has the texture of pickled fish, with a strong smell of a combination of amonia and urine, which stays on one’s fingers like garlic does for days! It was probably the single most disgusting thing I have ever eaten, though I am glad I did, and glad I had my old friend Jack Daniels on hand to help me wash it down.

Apart from consuming rotten shark meat, we spent much of our Friday at the Blue Lagoon. The Blue Lagoon is a hot spring where the blue coloured water is heated geothermally – and nothign to do with a movie staring Brooke Shields. A small complex has been build around the spring to create a spa environment where people can enjoy relaxing in the lagoon. The water contains forms of algae, minerals and silica mud, which are supposed to have positive and healing effects on the skin and body. The lagoon however is not natural and was in fact created by run off from the nearby power plant which pumps up geothermally heated water from a mile below the surface. The water is used to generate heat and electricity and then the totally clean excess is ejected into the lagoon. Clever boffins decided to turn the area into a spa and a range of ludicrously expensive skin care products. Regardless however, spending time in the lagoons 40 degree water was extremely relaxing.

Hot springs are to be found all over Iceland; the landscape is dotted with clouds of steam rising from the ground where water has been boiled by magma from within the earth and has escaped the earth’s crust. In fact, when the first settlers arrived in Iceland, they initially thought these clouds of steam were smoke, thus Reykjavík actually means Smoky Bay. We experienced some more examples of this kind of activity on Saturday when we took a tour out to see some of Iceland’s natural beauty. We visited the Haukadalur valley where we saw Geysir, the oldest and one of the world’s most impressive geysers; as well as it’s little brother Strokkur. Although Geysir does not erupt particularly frequently, Strokkur was more reliable, erupting every 5 minutes or so, spewing boiling water 20 metres into the air; an impressive reminder of the earth’s power. Our trip to the Haukadalur valley also took us to the impressive waterfall Gullfoss, and from a distance, two of Iceland’s glaciers.

Geologically, Iceland is absolutely fascinating. The Island is only 16 million years old, which is geological terms is a very short time indeed. Formed entirely of volcanic rock, the earth’s crust is only one third as thick under Iceland as it is in most of the rest of the world. Eruptions in the area have continued through time; the Island of Surtsey, off the coast of Iceland was born in only a few days through volcanic eruptions in 1963. Iceland is situated right on top of the rift between the North American and European continental plates, literally, part of the country is located on the continent of North America, and the other part belongs to Europe. Our tour took us to the area known as “Allthing” or “Parliament” where the rift between the two places is about 5km wide. The land in between is in neither America nor Europe and is ‘pure Iceland.’ Further along the rift in different part of the island the plates are much closer together and you can actually stand with one foot in America and one in Europe!

On Saturday night we remembered not to leave it too late to go out for dinner and went to a local fish restaurant which had come highly recommended. However, while I did not actually eat any fish there, because as we all know I’m sure, whale is not a fish, but a mammal. Now, before anyone says I shouldn’t be eating that as a moral issue and that we should save the whales and all that crap; whales are killed legally in Iceland for scientific research, and instead of just wasting their meat, it is eaten. In any case, I didn’t ask where the meat came from and to be honest I didn’t really care; whale is not an uncommon dish in Iceland and considering it was probably going to be the only time I would ever eat it, I was keen to give it a try. I was glad I did, it was very tasty indeed. It is a red meat that was served as a steak with a pepper sauce, very succulent and tender and certainly a different taste to regular red meat, delicious. Prior to that we had all enjoyed smoked puffin; a pelagic sea bird which was also quite nice.

The entire young population of Reykjavik descends on the centre of town on Friday and Saturday nights. We had a big night out on Saturday night at a couple of clubs, everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves and there didn’t seem to be any levels of aggression from the locals that one can sometimes encounter when out drinking. Beer had been banned in Iceland up until 1989 and Icelanders are not known for being solid drinkers. Add that to the fact that beers will set you back £6 a pint and it is no wonder that locals were drunk early on in the evening; this can be the only explanation for the fact that they were dancing to the cheesiest music that is usually reserved for when everyone is well and truly hammered, quite early in the night. Though I must stress that the night doesn’t really start until midnight.

So the following morning we found a place that with English breakfasts and nursed our hangovers; while also nursing our wallets which had been severely damaged after a weekend in the most expensive place I have ever been. Despite that I very much recommend a visit to Iceland, it is a place like no other I have visited before. It really was an enjoyable time, made all the more possible by spending it with great friends, Duncan, James Mike, and Rob.

Cheers Guys and Cheers Iceland

I should be a columnist

This is pretty much exactly what I was saying in my rant yesterday, except without the swearing. It is written by Wigan manager Paul Jewel. I should seriously be a football columnist!

http://football.guardian.co.uk/worldcup2006/comment/story/0,,1811958,00.html

You suck Sven

The referee was never going to even book Rooney for the stamp. He had blown the whistle for the free kick to Portugal, even though he should have blown it earlier and awarded the foul to England, he made no attempt at all to reach into his pocket to show Rooney a card at that point. If you watch the footage, you will see that he stood there for some time signalling the free kick. It was only after Rooney pushed that little faggot Ronaldo, that the referee decided to show Rooney a red card. After the match, the ref has reviewed the footage, realised that there was no grounds to send Rooney off for the push, but conveniently Rooney has stamped on Carvalho and so claimed to have given the red card for that, even though he didn’t even see it in the first place.

But it wasn’t Rooney’s fault. England had a s**t manager who took the wrong squad and played the wrong players. If England had a decent manager with a bit of bottle then they would probably be still in the tournament. Why wasn’t Aaron Lennon played more and Beckham less? Why was Frank Lampard played at all when he couldn’t hit a f**king barn door with an England shirt on? Why oh f**king why, would you take a player who has never played in the premiership before, as one of only 4 strikers when you should have taken 5, then not even play the guy when you should be putting strikers on the pitch. Where was Darren Bent? Where was Jermaine Defoe? They were on holidays when they should have been helping England win the world cup. Why the f**k would you take the most prodigious talent the nation has seen in a generation, and ask him to play by himself up front, when that isn’t going to get the best out of your player? If you’ve got a player like Rooney, then surely you do everything you can to get the best out of him! So play another bloody striker alongside him so he can drop back, get the ball and start creating attacking moves, instead of just hoofing long balls up to him and expecting him to do the rest.

You suck Sven! You couldn’t successfully manage a children’s birthday party, let alone a potential world cup winning squad of footballers. Somehow though you conned the FA into letting you manage England and you shafted them out of twenty five million quid, AFTER TAX!!! And what do you have to show for it? Sweet F A. Well I bet there’s a pretty bitter FA right now. Still I should probably give you credit for that, I mean, we’ve all lied a bit on our CVs but you’ve managed the scam of the century. I should give you credit, but I wont. I won’t, because you’re a limp wristed, spineless wimp, with no balls or bottle. And you’re bald! And you look like Mr Burns. You suck! I can’t wait for you to come and manage Arsenal so you can get them relegated! Until then though, piss off!

Disgusted

In the last round of the Premiership season there is basically nothing left to play for. The Champions have already been decided and so have all the teams that will be relegated. The only thing left is whether Man U or Liverpool finish second, the team that finishes third will have to play in the 3rd qualifying round for next season's champions leage; invariably against a crap team from Eastern Europe in as much as either of these teams can consider themselves qualified. THE ONLY thing else to play for is the battle for 4th spot and the final champions league qualifying position between bitter rivals Tottenham and Arsenal. This has been talked about for months and months now. Sky Sports are showing the Arsenal match, which is entirely fair enough as it is the final game ever at Highbury. The other obvious choice would be to show the most important game in Tottenham's history, against long standing rivals and FA Cup finalists West Ham; which would be assured to be a cracker of a game anyway, regardless of how much was at stake. But so much is at stake and this is the crux of what people what been talking about for months. But Sky Sports are going to show Man United vs Charlton. What absolute fucking nonsense, without doubt the stupidest descision in the history of the world. I am disgusted to the point that I have sent them what is clearly a pointless email that will fall on deaf ears / blind eyes. None the less I feel slightly better, or have I just worked myself up even more, yes I think I have.

Myself and a large number of my friends and colleagues, both suporters and neutrals, are absolutely disgusted that you have chosen to screen the Manchester United vs Charlton game on Sunday, instead of West Ham vs Tottenham. The West Ham v Spurs game is obviously the most important tie of the round; the battle for 4th spot has been significant in the Premiership for some time now, it is virtually the only thing left to play for with the champions and relegation teams already decided. The consequences of Man United's result utterly pales in comparisson to the outcome of the West Ham v Spurs game, and let's face it, who the hell really wants to watch Charlton anyway? I am absolutely stunned that you should think any other tie of the round should be shown instead of what is clearly the most important game in Tottenham's history, made even more intense by the fact that it is against their bitter London rivals and FA Cup finalists. This WILL be the tie of the round and this IS the game that real football fans want to watch. You have shown to everyone that you do NOT care about football. I look forward to the day when you no longer have a monopoly over the game.

Some very suspicious people

We went to Moscow over the easter weekend, it really was an interesting visit. There were 8 of us all together, including some of my mates and my Sarah. As usual Rob has written a pretty good email about it so I will post that instead of writing one of my own.

With the Easter break providing a window of 4-days, we departed London early on Good Friday. The time difference meant that we lost 3 hours, and then the phenomenon known as Moscow traffic meant that we lost another 2, so after checking into our hotel, we had little time to do more on our first day than find a restaurant for dinner and plan our next days' excurisons.

Before getting on to the trip details, one of the highlights for me was our hotel - Hotel Ukraina. Built by the river, the 30-storey building is one of 7 built by Stalin in the style of "Soviet classicism". It certainly was a classic soviet-style experience - each room had period furniture from the 1960s, the marbled lobby included a ceiling mural of workers, farmers and soldiers waving red banners and, with over 1,000 rooms to administer, the staff seemed to be made up of communist-era public servants......... The hotel even had its own observation deck with wonderful 360 degree views of the city and came complete with its own secret service cronie to prevent you from taking photos of various important government buildings dotted along the cityscape.

On a rainy and cold Saturday we were met by our university student guides who took us on a tour through the city. We walked around the gardens and chapels of the Kremlin, past Red Square to St. Basil's Cathedral. In the evening we trekked out to the suburbs to watch the Moscow State Circus which was a very impressive show. It included some very talented trapeze and rope artists, acrobats and jugglers, animal acts, Cossack daredevil horsemen and, at one stage, the floor was even recessed to give way to an ice-rink with acrobatic skaters........

On Sunday we queued at Red Square to see the embalmed body of "Grandfather" Lenin and view the tombs of various other communist leaders buried outside the Kremlin walls. We then went on a walk through Moscow's inner city suburbs, up the main shopping street to the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. On Monday, we had the good fortune of stepping out the front door of our hotel to see a speeding motorcade taking President [Boot Scootin'] Putin to work - again, this came complete with secret service cronies ensuring that no bystanders were snapping away photos which may breach security protocol. With the day turning out to be particularly nice and sunny, we ventured back to Red Square and St. Basil's to take some brighter pictures. After a lunch of yummy borshch, vareniki and pelmeni, it was time to collect our luggage and make our way out to the airport.

The trip to the airport must be one of the cheapest excursions to any airport anywhere in the world! A remnant of Soviet pride is the massive Moscow Metro system. Each station is designed in grand Soviet style with statues, murals and mosaics of happy workers and soldiers being greeted by important figures such as Lenin and Stalin and bas reliefs still depicting the hammer and sickle. But with trains arriving each minute on a network combining more than 260km of track, this is the largest mass transit system in the world - It carries more passengers per day than the London Tube, Paris Metro and NY Subway put together! Meaning that the airport, in remote woodland some 40km outside of the city, can be reached efficiently for a fare of just £0.35......

Churchill once described Russia as "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". To me, I did not find it that strange - it seemed very much like a large industrialised city slowly emerging from its communist past. The way of life still seemed very regimented and basic, with unnecessary levels of security and administration. The city itself was generally dirty and emotionless and, humorously, the people's fashion and grooming senses seemed very much rooted in the 80s. But overall it was a great experience and a very interesting destination. Travel was not easy and I must say a special thank you to JC, whose mastery of the Cyrillic alphabet meant that we always got where we were trying to get to and remained well fed. Having seen the massive development and flood of tourists to former-Eastern Bloc countries like Czech Republic and Hungary, I was pleased to experience a city which seemed to have drawn the Iron Curtains, but had only just begun to open the window to allow capitalist culture to waft in.

Farcenal Part Deux

I don't know whether I want the Arse to beat Juve tonight. I do admit to being glad they beat Madrid, but I still hate them. Obviously I don't want them to win the competition, as the FA have already said that if they do and finish outside the top 4 then they will qualify for next year at the expense of the fourth place team, which I am hoping will be Spurs (but will in all likelyhood be Arsenal anyway)

There is something inside me that says I should support the only remaining English team, but fuck that, they aren't even an English team. The only thing about them that makes them English is that they play their games in England. There hasn't been an English player in the team for ages. I play for Kiwi FC, the team is entirely made up of New Zealand born players, we play our games in England - we are not an English team. There are more English players playing for Real Madrid than there are playing for Arsenal.

Fuck em - Go Juve

Back into the swing

Well it’s all back to normal in London town, it’s hard to get straight back into it after having had 3 fabulous weeks off – which is why I am writing this and not working at the moment.

Sydney was brilliant, it was so wonderful to see my family again, they are certainly living in a fantastic place. Was great to introduce Sarah to everyone and show her around my home town; did loads of things together that I just wouldn’t have done if I was there alone. Oportos just isn’t what it used to be, although I still ate plenty of it, we have a great zoo, and everyone should do the Bridge Climb – tourist or not. I have fallen in love with my city again.

Had a good few days in Hong Kong on the way back – the place smells of dried fish, urine, pollution and sweat. I had a great time pissing off electronics sellers buy suggesting ridiculously low prices for their goods, and every night I felt like I was in the movie Blade Runner.

So it’s back into the swing of things here, I am still slightly on Hong Kong time. I’ve got a mountain of work to get through but the hardest thing is getting back up to date and working out what has been going on while I was away. I haven’t caught up with many people just yet because they were all watching the boat race which I regard as the most over-hyped and pointless sporting event on the British calendar, and as such I avoided it.

Once the workload dies down a little I will do my best to blog regularly but for now I will make a parting comment with regards to that old Sydney v Melbourne thing that Melbournites like to call a rivalry. The calibre of the two cities can be summed up as such:

Melbourne: Commonwealth Games

Sydney: Olympic Games

Par Avion

This evening in about 4 hours, Sarah and I will be boarding a plane that will eventually take us to Sydney. Hooray. 24 hours in zoo class on a plane doesn't particularly appeal, but the end justifies the means. Sarah and I will be able to keep each other company until we start getting on each others nerves, and then my old friends Jack Daniels and Nytol will help me out.

So here's to the next 3 weeks in the greatest city on earth.

In the mean time, here's a really cool German word I learnt recently

Scheissenbedauer – The feeling of disappointment you get when things don’t go as badly as you had hoped.

The final card in the deck

As things continue to go from bad to worse in Iraq, Tony Blair has finally scraped the bottom of the barrel and used his last possible excuse for invading Iraq. It is continually becoming apparent to almost everyone who didn't realise at the time, that invading Iraq was a bad idea. Throughout all of this, Tony Blair has continually backed himself and made what has turned out to be rather spurious attempts to justify his actions in going to war. Finally, with nothing else to turn to he has used the last possible excuse, the one that he believes cannot be rebutted: God told me to do it!

"If you have faith about these things," he said, "then you realise that judgment is made by other people. If you believe in God, it's made by God as well."

His pal George Dubya has made this claim before, fortunately for him, this kind of nonsense is actually swallowed by the voting public in America. There is a different kind of attitude to religion in America, especially amongst those who vote for Dubya in the middle and southern states. I really don't think this kind of claim is going to be accepted in Britain. Surely now even the most ardent pro war supporters must see that not only was attacking Iraq a poor idea, but the people at the top in this country realise this as well.

To admit fault would be political suicide, it would see the end of Tony Blair and would have considerable damage to the Labour party. With the rise in popularity of David Cameron's conservatives, it would be disastrous indeed. So Blair cannot admit his wrong doing. Surely given everything that is happening there, he still cannot believe he was right? In public yes, in private, no. So Blair has to continue to excuse and justify his actions, but it does not work, there is too much turmoil; physical evidence in Iraq that says; what happened was wrong. Blair's only alternative is to invoke the Almighty. In a largely secular nation, a flimsy excuse indeed. The absolute last available option to him, the desperate words of a desperate man.

SU O MI , SU O MI, SU O MI

Ok well I was going to post a commentary on our weekend trip to Finland, but my mate Rob has written a bloody damn good email about it. I am not going to be able to write it any better without plagiarising large parts of it. So I'll just post his commentary instead. I will also add though that they have blackjack and roulette tables in nightclubs in Finland. I will also add that I am not very good at blackjack.

What do you do when you arrive at Helsinki airport at midnight with the temperature gauge at minus 5 degrees Celsius and nothing to wear but the jeans and jumper you already have on? Well, that was the prospect facing our Mikey when he was informed that BA had decided that his backpack with all his warm clothing was better off remaining in London..........

Thankfully, that was the only hiccup during our foray to Finland. And, in fact, Mike dealt with it surprisingly well. After arriving and transferring to our hotel we decided to relax with a pint in the hotel bar. We then discovered that our hotel also had a night club and, lured by the prospect of free entry, we were given some insight in the Finnish culture.......which was something else all together........ The night club was beyond tragic with the floors, walls and seating completely cover in 1970s velvet wallpaper with a floral motif, and even a fish bowl window looking onto the dance room which was painted blood red. The place was so retro that it managed to by-pass cool by such a distance that it made you think they were actually trying to make the place look like a brothel...... What's worse is that there was hardly anyone there. We were just about to leave when we were presented with some entertainment options as some really drunk people started to hit the dancefloor. We ended up sticking around to watch the circus which ensued, but decided that it was time to pull the pin when we bought some shooters of local alcohol - They looked like mud, had the consistency of porridge and tasted like dencorub. Given that the time difference had stripped us of 2 hours and it was by then 4am, it is still debateable whether we had stayed for one drink too many?.......

As we always do, we rallied in the morning, taking an early bus out to the quaint town of Lahti. After checking in to the hotel, and each donating a piece of clothing to Mike, we rugged up and had a pleasant stroll through the town which was newly covered with pristine light snow. We eventually reached our destination which was the Lahti Salpausselan Kisat the scene of the 2006 ski-jumping competition. For those who don't know, ski jumping is a sport where competitors launch themselves [at speeds just under 90km/h] off a massive jump and try to "fly" as far as possible - In this instance the winning distance was 129m. As we arrived during the (ironically named) "warm-ups", with the temperature still hovering around the minus 5 degree mark, we took the opportunity of doing some warming up of our own by staking a toasty piece of real estate in the beer tent. It was a fair while before our be ercoats had generated enough layers to allow us to venture outside, but we made sporadic trips to watch various jumper compete in this crazy sport.

Unfortunately in the evening the temperature dropped significantly and when my feet were still cold after having put on my "emergency" socks - the 3rd pair I was then wearing - we decided that, despite our genetic compulsion to watch sports, this was well beyond sane according to Australian standards so we decided to retreat to the warmth of our hotel. In fact, our hotel was actually equipped with a sauna which we decided to take advantage of. However, having been deserted by my travelling companions, I was soon joined by a Finnish sauna veteran who was obviously trying to thaw 30 winters out of his bones and turned the heat up to an unbearable level. When he was joined by his 3 naked friends and celebrated each of their arrival by turning the heat up 5 degrees each time, I took my cue to leave.........

Finally warm and fed, we decided to check out the hotel's night club which this time turned out to be more aligned to our usual tastes and, in fact, quite busy. We were also really enjoying ordering beers, with the local drop being called Koff and there being 4 of us, somehow sidling up to the bar and telling the barman "Four Koff" just seemed to get funnier....... In the night club we stuck it out through the choking fog of cigarette smoke, and the 30 minutes set of strobe lighting, but at 3.30am when "Love is in the Air" started blaring through the speakers we were again looking down the barrel of a new debate - This time whether we had stayed for one song too many?............

The next day, after a bit of a lay in, we again headed to the ski jump arena to watch some more competition. The temperature was not as bad as the minus 10 they were predicting, but we again still spent our fair share of time in the beer tent. With the Austrians taking the team title we decided that this was close enough to an Austr[al]ian victory, so we hopped on the bus for the 100km journey back to Helsinki airport. We checked-in just in time for BA to tell Mike that his bag had just arrived and ask whether he would like to check it for the flight home............ The weekend really was both unique and random, but it was altogether interesting and made even better that once again I was able to enjoy the crazy experience with my closest mates JC, Rolly and Mike in the loony way we always do. And, as an added bonus, when I got out of bed on Monday morning facing the prospect of going to work in 3 degree temperatures, suddenly I thought "Hey, this isn't so cold" - Something I never would've expected to be saying in London.......

Shrove Tuesday

I just can’t bring myself to do any proper work this afternoon. I do have plenty of work to do, but I’m procrastinating. I am going on holiday in less than 2 weeks, hooray! Heading back to my home town Sydney to visit my family, see their new place, see friends, soak up the sun etc. Really looking forward to it, have missed home a lot recently, and to be honest I really need a holiday. Taking my English girlfriend Sarah back with me, all her friends insist she will fall in love with the place and not want to come back….. yes that is the plan!

I’ve had just about enough of the cold weather in London for now. We were teased a bit a couple of weeks ago when it got rather mild and we thought that was it for winter, but it’s been freezing the last couple of weeks which adds extra incentive to get back to Sydney for a few weeks. Before that though I’ll be spending a few days in a far colder climate than London; my mates and I will be showing our commitment to doing things a little different by going to Finland this weekend. We’ll be going to the Lahti Ski Games. Current forecast for Lahti on Saturday is –7C. Am sure if we can avoid freezing our bollocks off we’ll have a good time.

But that’s still a few days away and in between now and then I will have to do the work I am procrastinating now, but not this afternoon. No once I have posted this I think I will go back to The Neurology Channel and decide which incurable neurological disorder would be the best/worst one to have. Lou Gehrig’s Disease looks pretty unfortunate, then there’s CJD, although that’s pretty mainstream now, and it’s pretty hard to look past everyone’s favourite, Tourette’s Syndrome. But for a pure ‘shit that would really suck’ feeling today I’m going to go with Huntingdon’s Disease. Huntington’s disease is a fatal hereditary disease, progressing without remission over 10-15 years, that destroys neurons in areas of the brain involved in the emotions, intellect, and movement. The course of Huntington’s is characterized by jerking uncontrollable movement of the limbs, trunk, and face (chorea); progressive loss of mental abilities; and the development of psychiatric problems….. I think I’ll pass.

I am Nostradamus

Well what a terrible result in the Champions League on Tuesday night, not only was I forced to listen to the utter bullshit that is the commentary of Peter Drury, but Thierry Henry actually won! Yes it was Real Madrid vs Henry and weren’t we constantly reminded throughout the game about how Arsenal were such underdogs and wasn’t it weird to say that, and weren’t Madrid in such a rich vein of form, how on earth were Arsenal going to win!?! I should actually point out that the last time I watched Madrid play they were ripped to pieces by Zaragoza, in a 6-1 cup thrashing. So it was really not a surprise to see Madrid play so poorly as even though they have a star studded line up, they are certainly capable to not turning up on the day. Which made the ignorant ramblings of ITV’s commentary team even more irritating.

So Arsenal and their only decent player managed to pull one over, in fairness it was a pretty good goal, but they are nothing without their funny shaped headed striker. I’m sure normal service will be resumed and Madrid will win the return fixture 4-0. That will then be the end of Arsenal’s season, they will focus their attention on claiming fourth spot in the Premiership, to which they will be beaten to by their North London rivals.

This will have disastrous consequences for the club. They could not possibly expect to retain the services of Henry, their only class player, he will off to Barcelona. With no champions league football they will be unable to attract star players and improve their squad. Their inaugural year in the new stadium will be tainted by the fact that they are no longer a top 4 club in the country. The departure of Henry will no doubt ensure the departure of other old hands at the club, do not expect to see Pires, Ljungberg, Cole or Bergkamp next year. Sol Campbell has already lost his mind, and will no doubt be selling the big issue in 6 months time. Moving to a new stadium is very expensive; they will be without the significant income that the champions league brings. This will mean that they will have to direct all their funds into payments on the new stadium, thus not having any money to spend in the transfer market, a further hindrance to improving their squad.

So 2006/07 will not turn out to be a very successful season for the Arse. A top 10 finish but no European football. Debts will start to mount; the club will need to sell its better players in order to fund its new stadium. This will further deteriorate the quality of the squad, Arsenal will continue their slide down the ladder. We have seen all this happen before, yes that’s right last time it was called Leeds United. It may not be that season, it could be the season after, but Arsenal will be relegated. Once this happens, they cannot possibly expect to afford to stay at their very expensive stadium, indeed how can a club expect to fill a 60,000-seat stadium when playing in the championship? So Arsenal will be forced to move to a cheaper, smaller stadium, however by that time Highbury will no longer be a football stadium. So where could they go? Who cares really, I’m sure they’ll find something, but in order to stay liquid they will need to lease their own stadium out to another side, that’s if it hasn’t been repossessed by the creditors. So which team would by that time be looking for a bigger stadium to seat its many loyal supporters while playing in Europe’s premier competition? Yes that’s right,

Tottenham Hotspur.

Crazy fucking insane maniacs

More utter madness.

More violence, death and destruction, all because of a few cartoons! Yes they were not in particularly good taste, but surely this has gone too far! Do the people involved in this nonsense actually even know what they are rioting about? Forgive me for being somewhat condescending, but are those in Nigeria responsible for this, really that well connected with international news? Pardon me, but I can’t help but suggest that this is a game of Chinese whispers that has gotten a little out of hand; because surely the printing of cartoons 6 months ago cannot cause people to commit terrible acts of violence! Maybe word has made its way there and the story has been twisted so now that people think that the people of Denmark constructed a large statue of the prophet Muhummad, threw all their shoes at it and then tipped the entire nations’ raw untreated sewage over it, all whilst proclaiming that Islam is the scourge of the entire world and solely responsible for cancer, AIDS, poverty, homosexuality, ingrown toenails, ginger hair and reality television. AND, somehow, the Christian population of Nigeria, colluding with McDonalds, KFC and David Hasselfhoff, are all responsible. Maybe then could you start to convince me that these violent lunatics might have something to crow about. This doesn’t even need to be about religion any more, forget about it, these people are crazy, fucking insane maniacs!!

Yet there has been so much dignified protest as a result of the cartoons that has been so sadly overshadowed by the mindless violence and destruction. There was a peaceful rally by British Muslims in Trafalgar square recently, that expressed their displeasure not only at the offence of the cartoons, but also at the aggressive reaction of so many Muslims as a result. Good on them, these people should get more publicity because they are the true voice of their religion. Sadly they will not because peaceful protest doesn’t make nearly as compelling news stories as burning buildings and murdered people.

There has been some opposition expressed at a South Park cartoon that is due to be shown in New Zealand later this year. I love South Park; I love its irreverent humour, its pointed attacks, controversial content and generally foul dialogue. If I were a Christian then I would be pretty offended by this particular episode. I am not so no doubt I will find it funny. However I cannot imagine the Christian community having the same kind of reaction that we have seen from certain parts of the Muslim community. Allahu Akhbar, God is Greatest, God is also forgiving, truly religious persons know this, regardless of faith. Those who are now rioting, ransacking and murdering cannot claim to be religious. They are a stain on their faith, petty, pathetic, disgraceful, Godless people. To hell with them.

Name Change

To go along with my attemps to breathe life back into this blog, I have changed the name and the format. Clearly if you are reading this then you already know that.

The Armed Republic of Disgruntled Citizens

Created a nation state in the East Pacific. Is quite a cool site to interact with. I plan to become rule a far right society with a corrupt and hard line government. Although the site is not complicated enough to allow me to overthrow other nations in the region.

http://www.nationstates.net/disgruntled_citizens

The Armed Republic of Disgruntled Citizens
"Please stand to the right of the escalator"
UN Category: Iron Fist Consumerists
Civil Rights:Few
Economy:Strong
Political Freedoms:Outlawed
Location: The East Pacific

The Armed Republic of Disgruntled Citizens is a tiny, pleasant nation, renowned for its compulsory military service. Its hard-nosed, hard-working, cynical population of 6 million are kept under strict control by the oppressive government, which measures its success by the nation's GDP and refers to individual citizens as "human resources." The medium-sized, corrupt government is effectively ruled by the Department of Defence, with areas such as Religion & Spirituality and Social Welfare receiving almost no funds by comparison. The average income tax rate is 12%. A large private sector is led by the Trout Farming industry, followed by Woodchip Exports and Cheese Exports. Crime is moderate, and the police force struggles against a lack of funding and a high mortality rate. Disgruntled Citizens's national animal is the platypus and its currency is the sullen.

Soldiers are not policemen

IRAQ: What a farce. Almost 3 years we’ve been there now, and it’s still fucked up beyond recognition. A haven for insurgents and extremists, dozens of innocent people being violently killed every day. The place is an absolute mess and there really are no signs of it getting better any time soon. Would have to be thus far, the 21st century’s mother of all fuck ups.

It’s now such common place for someone to blow themselves up in a crowded part of Baghdad for Basra, killing scores of innocent people, that it barely makes the news. We have become so accustomed to seeing this death and misery that one can’t help but become desensitised to it. What has made the news this past week however, has been fresh evidence of abuse of Iraqis by British and US soldiers. New pictures have been released by SBS of prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib by US soldiers. This kind of treatment of anyone is unacceptable, however I feel that those responsible are not as responsible as has been made out. The soldiers concerned have been tried and some jailed, but soldiers follow orders, and no one is going to convince me that someone high in the chain of command didn’t give the order to make prisoners feel ‘a little uncomfortable.’

A video was on news this week (with sound) that was taken by a British prisoner and showed a troop of British soldiers rounding up some Iraqi civilians who had been rioting in the streets. They dragged a few of them back into their compound and, while the Iraqis were screaming for mercy, beat the shit out of them. The whole thing was recorded with a gleeful running commentary from the cameraman.

Again this has brought outrage from Iraqi citizens and members of the international community about the behaviour of the occupying force. The US and Britain cannot afford for these kind of things to happen, it is highly damaging to their whole plan. The problem that is faced is that The US and Britain invaded Iraq on the basis of moral superiority; that Saddam was a bad man and by attacking his country, they would in fact liberating the Iraqi people from his tyranny. Even the operation was given the beguiling name ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom.’ Although perhaps it was more about freeing Iraq of its oil, and freeing it up to become another pro US outpost in the middle east, but I argued about that 3 years ago. So revelations such as these are highly damaging because they strip the moral superiority away from the coalition. Evidence such as this continues to raise questions as to whether these people were better off with Saddam there anyway. How can an army claim to be mounting an operation to free the Iraqi people from tyranny, and then end up treating them like this?

This has all happened because the coalition are still bogged down in Iraq. The US didn’t plan for any of this, all they knew they were going to do was attack the place. They had no strategy of what to do once they had ousted Saddam, no real plan on how to maintain law and order, return the country to order and get the hell out of there. I bet the administration didn’t reckon they’d still be there 3 years down the track. They probably had figured they’d be well on their way to attacking another country by now. So what happens when you get stuck like this? You ask your military to perform a job they were not trained to do. Let’s face it, they’re soldiers, not policemen.

Without trying to condone the recent actions of the aforementioned soldiers, they are being forced to police the country, when they were sent in to perform a completely different task altogether. A solder is trained to attack and disable, usually by killing its enemy. This is what is in the soldier’s head when he goes to war and this is the mentality he will hold while he serves his tour of duty. You cannot then successfully ask an army to become a police force. A soldier will want to protect his or her life and that of their comrades; while their presence may have a policing effect, any signs of trouble or potential conflict and soldiers will revert to their training. They are not police officers, they are soldiers trained to go to war and kill. This is why we keep seeing incidents of so called mistreatment and it will keep happening while ever Iraq is occupied.
None of this was ever supposed to happen, but I don’t think anyone had any idea what was supposed to happen. The longer the coalition stay there, the more they are damaging their whole campaign, and the more people will see this was a bad idea in the first place. The catch 22 is that they can’t just leave now, that would be even worse, the country would be left in turmoil; a likelihood of civil war and certainly no pro US government. There is real question whether the US and Britain can achieve their objectives and withdraw successfully; perhaps they need to compromise on some of those objectives because they need to hurry up and work out how to get out!

Further to the smugglers

I would just like to make a further note on yesterday's post. I will qualify it though by saying I do understand the sentiments of the parents involved. However let us imagine that the Bali Nine had succeeded with their plan, and now think about the consequences of an additional 8.4kg of heroin hitting the streets. This would infact end up being a lot more than 8.4kg once it had been cut so many times down the chain of supply. How many more people would become addicted to heroin because of this, and how many existing heroin users would die from injecting this heroin? Would their blood be on Scott Rush's hands? Yes. Had the Bali Nine not been caught, would they have attempted to smuggle more heroin back to Australia in the future? Possibly, Renae Lawrence had already made the trip once before! So the interception of this shipment of drugs, and the imprisonment / execution of those involved, has probably saved a small number of lives.

Whether or not the lives of heroin addicts are worth saving is another question. Perhaps heroin exists in order to weed out the undesirables from society. One less heroin junkie on the street is one more car stereo that remains unstolen.

Drugs are bad mmkay!

No one else to blame

Today saw the sentencing of Scott Rush and Renae Lawrence, members of the so called ‘Bali Nine’ to life in prison for their part in attempting to smuggle 8.4kg of heroin from Bali in April 2005. The other 7 will be sentenced this week with 5 more expecting to receive life sentenced and the 2 ringleaders expected to be sentenced to death.

What has prompted me to comment on this fact is the following quote of Rush’s parents from the Sydney Morning Herald

Rush's mother, Christine, said their "family tragedy" proved Australian citizens could not rely on their government. His father, Lee, had tipped off federal police that Scott was being recruited to smuggle drugs, in the hope they would stop him visiting Bali.

"Australia has always held as a value and a philosophy opposition to the death penalty," Mrs Rush said. "However, our laws are such that our children are exposed to the death penalty … this must not happen to any Australian again."

While we are sympathetic to the parents of those involved, and perhaps to a certain extent some of those involved as well, why is any of this the fault of the Australian Government? The Government does not exist entirely to stop its citizens from doing silly things. Simply because Lee Rush had spoken to a member of the AFP concerning his son, does not then place the onus on the AFP to prevent Scott Rush from attempting to smuggle heroin.

It is certainly a normal human trait to try and place blame on somebody else. I would perhaps suggest in this case, that Mr Rush is more desperate to lay the blame on the AFP because he knows he could have done more to prevent it. Surely a person’s father is in a better position to influence his son than almost anybody else.

It is widely known that the penalties for trafficking drugs in Asia are very harsh. Just because one is a citizen on another country, does not exempt them from the laws of the country they are visiting. These people were knowingly smuggling heroin, which, regardless of what country you are in, is illegal. They took a risk, a rather big one. Sometimes the risks we take in life pay off, sometimes they don’t. When they don’t we must accept the consequences involved. Sometimes the penalties are much harsher than might seem fair, but that still is a consequence of the risk taken, and life is not fair.

Cartoon Farce

It has been quite some time since I last made a post, I will make no reasons or excuses for not having done so. I may or may not continue to post regularly from now on, however the urge to have a rant about something has grown in me again and I am therefore posting.

Front page news at the moment is all to do with the current reaction to a series of cartoons that were published in a Danish newspaper last September. Why the protests are suddenly all coming to the fore many months later and not immediately after the event is another question; however I would suggest that it is more of a case of a number of pathetic fools who wish to jump on the 'mob mentality' bandwagon, and use it as an excuse for violence and unrest. In the same way that we saw hordes of people gathering to riot in Cronulla recently, many of these people were not that interested in the purpose of their actions, but merely looking for an excuse for a fight.

Now let me pre-empt my comments by saying that I am in no way going to tar the entire Islamic world with the same brush, the vast majority of Muslims and indeed the vast majority of people throughout the world, are honest and decent citizens. However as is often the case, it is the actions of the minority that casue problems.

Indeed it was the actions of a minority in the first place that started this whole episode. Only a small number of people were responsible for printing the cartoons, in turn a small number of people have targeted the entire western world as culprits for this, and in turn many of those in the western world will treat the Islamic world based on the reaction of the few.

What essentially this issue has now turned into though, is quite frankly the most laughable case of hypocracy I have seen in a while. There is no reason why Muslims should not find these cartoons offensive; however mild they may be, they are still insulting on a certain level to a particular faith. Let us consider though the degree to which the reaction to these cartoons has reached. Because these cartoons have been printed, those of us in the west must be killed, preferably by beheading. We are to expect more attacks such as the ones on September 11 and July 7. Let us all be clear that the punishment for these cartoons is death, and there are many people out there who are threatening to kill us. Now I'm pretty sure that it is actually illegal to make such threats in this country, where indeed much protesting has been seen. In fact, one chap decided he would dress up as a suicide bomber and suggest that people be killed as a result of this most heinous and unforgivable insult of Islam. Of course this fellow was quick to realise that his actions were indeed far worse that those responsible for the cartoons, and given the ill feeling that exists regarding the recent bombings in London, he hastily made a public apology. Unfortunately for him, he happened to have been released on parole from a five and half year gaol sentence; evidently he had broken the terms of his parole and was quickly thrown back behind bars. Silly boy.

Clearly all this hated and rage is being fuelled by extremist groups who will look for any excuse to promote their cause and try to gather troops to fight it. These are the same people who promote a constant stream of hate towards Israel and the west. There are countless anti western and anti Zionist rhetoric and literature that are spewed from these people. Promising death and destruction to all who do not follow their cause. Committing acts which many would agree are far more despicable than drawing cartoons.

So the fact that those who protest as a result of these cartoons are not innocent themselves; the fact that their protests and threats of death have made them far more offensive than those they are protesting; smacks utterly and totally of bald faced, blind eyed hypocricy. Surely there are so many people who can see how laughably ridiculous this whole thing is.

Riots that have broken out in Damascus, Beruit, Tehran and other cities in the Islamic world, have seen violence, destruction and death. Yet it is not those of us in the west who have been killed, inspite of the threats, it is the protesters themselves who seem to be killing each other; which makes this ridiculousness beyond farce.

Perhaps those who wish to attack certain factions of the Islamic world should take note; do not send your own warriors in to fight, they too may suffer casualties. Let's instead print a few cartoons that insult your enemies and let them all kill each other in the resulting outrage! Surely this is far more economical.

Random irritating rant #73

Have just been looking on a real estate agency website curious as to what kind of houses are currently available on the market. This is the first sentence from a house description

From the moment you step foot into this charming double storey Victorian terrace your invigorated with a feeling of tranquility.

Is there something wrong with me if that kind of commentary just totally pisses me off and would completely put me off using these agents because of it? I would consider the term 'invigorated with tranquility' as being a complete oxymoron, the experience of being invigorated does not leave one feeling tranquil! Apart from that though, it should obviously say you're invigorated, not your.

It goes on to make further appalling errors in spelling and syntax. Apparently the place has a stainless steal kitchen and each bedroom has there own built in robes. Due to the fact that the author has obviously never seen a comma before, apparently the balcony has a full bathroom.

It's just sloppy and it says to me that the author is an idiot, professional commentaries like this, especially ones that are trying to encourage people to spend one million dollars, should not look like they have been written by a Mongolian nomad child with learning difficulties.

If I was the vendor I would take my business elsewhere.

Have no doubt this is not an isolated case.