You Know, For Kids

Best Alphabet Book Ever!!!!

For Those About To Learn, We Salute YOU!

I think I know some kids who will be getting one of these as soon as my credit card comes through.

It's True, Swears

Travelling In The Age Of Terror

Interesting parallels here.

On wednesday, I will walk up to one end of a long line of men. Sometimes there are women, but it’s always mostly men. They are there to watch me, and I am there to be watched. I start at one end, smile at the first man I encounter, and begin. Slowly. Carefully, I take off my glasses and fold them neatly, just like my nighttime bedroom ritual. Then I lean over and unzip one long black platform boot, and then the other. I present each piece of footwear as proof — as if the sudden shortness in my height, and its message of vulnerability isn’t evidence enough. I am now smaller, more feminine, and a little more helpless. I take off my earrings, my necklace, deliberately placing the girlish silver with my glasses. I’m usually still smiling now, because it’s time to take off my belt. I know what’s going to happen. I unbuckle the metal and leather, sliding the belt through its loops around my waist, which serves to loosen my pants and move the denim to and fro as I work the belt free. The top straps of my g-string always peek out; I can’t help this. I unzip my hoodie and peel it off, revealing the light cotton tank top I always wear. And even though it makes no sense, I always take off my stripey arm warmers, because if I don’t, they *make me* take them off. So I do it in a subtly slow demonstration, one opera-length glovelet at a time. Next, and last, I unclip my hair, letting my almost waist-length black and blonde locks down over my now-bare shoulders and arms.

They all watch. Then I wait for their commands, and their approval. I do what they say, unconditionally, and this is an unspoken agreement between me and the men. Hardly a word is said, and I make sure to smile as I softly pad past all eyes, which are on me, even if just for a flicker or two. Then at the end of the line, I slowly dress — I like to take my time putting my clothes back on.

What I related to you above is very much my experience when I go through security…. When you think about it, the modern process of going through pre-boarding security has far more kinky sexual elements than it should. Here’s why:

* You have to undress.
* While you undress, you are being watched and sized up.
* It’s a power-exchange scenario.
* Lots of uniforms.
* You are totally vulnerable, and it is humiliating.
* You are exposing intimate details of your person and dress in front of dozens of strangers.
* Your submission is unspoken, it is a rule, and it is unconditional. Your submission is for public consumption.
* There is a constant threat that a stranger will touch you. They can touch you anywhere, and in your most intimate places if they want to.
* There is an undercurrent and tension that they will open your posessions and touch your private items, such as your underwear, clean or dirty.
* It is nonconsensual. And in garden-variety BDSM practice, even this is forbidden territory.

On Being Scottish

Feel free to disagree at any point. Also if any of my Aussie readership would like to do one on their national characteristics please do.

What being Scottish means.

Your own interpretation of my euphemisms may appear in brackets. Friendly (drunk); forgiving (because we've all done it ourselves, when drunk); curious; counter-cultural, in that it's OK to profess no interest, ever, in the likes of Diana; difficult; self-aware, self-taught, self-reliant; over-analytical; noble (maudlin); wry, shambolic, baffling, and curiously able (except when drunk) to be the first to rip the living piss out of ourselves. Much more, for good and ill: doomed, inventive, fatalistic, spendthrift (don't believe the myth, it's a myth).

And what being Scottish means according to the Urban Dictionary.

SCOTTISH
An adjective describing a pleasurable sexual experience.

What a Scottish Shag!

I am loathe to argue with that definition.

Watchu Readin' Fer?

Been tagged by the lovely mskp.

So here Goes

1. one book I've read more than once.
Donna Tartt - The Secret History,
Is probably one of the most audacious debut novels of the 90's. It appeals to me on so many levels, the bacchanalian excess, the college campus life, the inspiring lecturer, her use of language. That it's an imporatant book with a thrashy pulp novel plot. I usually read it once a year. A true modern classic.

2. one book I would want on a desert island.
The SAS survival guide.
Self explanatory

3. one book that made me laugh.
John Kennedy Toole - A Confederacy Of Dunces,
As sarcastic and caustic as Jonathan Swift who he stole the title from. Ignatius is a man for our times. Blithely farting away to himself.

4. one book that made me cry.
Andrew O Hagan - The Missing
A Scottish author not much older than myself. This first work of non-fiction weaved together stories of people who had gone missing in the uk. It dealt with the twin stories of infamous Scottish serial killer Bible John, and the latterday demons of Fred and Rose West. Utterly compellin and heartbreaking. He instills the book with such heart. Highly recommended.

5. one book I wish I'd written
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby,
Because it's the greatest novel in the English langauge.

6. one book I wish had never been written.
The books of the religions so many ascribe to.
Or at least put them back into context.

7. one book I'm currently reading.
Tony Parsons - Stories We Could Tell.
It's fun and lightweight and Tony like Nick Hornby does men of a certain age so well. And it was the only book in Brisbane airport worth picking up.

8. one book I've been meaning to read.
Ever since seeing him interviewed on highlight reel of Parkinson greatest interviews, I have been meaning to read Borges Labyrinths. In the interview on Parkinson he described the War in the Falklands thus, "Two bald men fighting over a comb". Genius

9. one book that changed my life.
Leo Tolstoy - Anna Karenin.
It made me realisethat there were authors outside of the USA, as a student I ahd immersed mysef in American authors, wether it be Mark Twain or William Burroughs. Reading Anna Karenin opened my eyes. Probably my favourite book of all time.

10. one book that made me think.
Christopher Hitchens - The Trial Of Henry Kissinger.
Since 9/11 old Chris took a step closer to the right, but if you read this you can see where is heart really lies. Hitchens, I believe is one of our great modern day polemicsits. And Kissinger shoud have appeared in the dock a long time ago.

I tag book club queen Miss Holly C
Smartie Artie Mr Richard Watts

That is all.

Oh The Irony

What would one expect from the country that gave us Peter Cook, That Was The Week That Was and other gems of the ironic and the satiric.

In a recent poll conducted by the BBC History magazine, it was revealed that the best British prime ministers of the last 100 years were Clement Attlee and Margaret Thatcher.

Hilarious.

A quick history lesson, Clement Attlee was Britains first post war prime minister. He helped to create the modern welfare state and the National Health Service. His goverment was responsible for the nationalisation of utilities such as the coal and steel industries. He created British Rail and was responsible for many other social welfare programs.

Anyone who is able to gain the following ringing endorsement out of the Queen Mum can't be doing all bad. The following was contained in a letter written by her.
"her decided lack of enthusiasm for the socialist government" and describes the British electorate as "poor people, so many half-educated and bemused" for electing Attlee over war hero Winston Churchill.

His leadership style, of consensual government, acting as a chairman rather than a president, won him much praise from historians and politicians alike.

What an irony it is that he is joint first with President Maggie.

A woman(I use the term loosley) who basically dismantled everything that Attlee had created.

The Conservative government closed all but 15 pits, before privatisation in 1994.

Thatcher invited apartheid South Africa's president, P.W. Botha, and foreign minister, Pik Botha, to Chequers in an effort to stave off growing international pressure for the imposition of economic sanctions against South Africa, where Britain had invested heavily.

After the 1983 election, the Government became bolder and, starting with British Telecom, sold off most of the large utilities which had been in public ownership since the late 1940s.

She had this to say about homosexuality.
"Children who need to be taught to respect traditional moral values are being taught that they have an inalienable right to be gay".

The record of the NHS under her leadership went from bad to worse.

And Of Course

"There Is No Such Thing As Society"

People Are Scared

I came across a website and was flabbergasted by the amount of hate and fear I found on it.

Someone had left the following comment.


Just read the first ten posts on this here blog.

Why are you so filled with hate?

Do you need a cuddle?
Dave | 08.28.06 - 4:19 pm |

He had not been replied to, so he asked again.

You did not answer my question.

Why are you so filled with hate?
Dave | 08.29.06 - 1:56 pm |

This time he got a reply.

I can't speak for anyone else, Dave, but I'm not filled with hate.

Anger, yes. Frustration, yes. Despair, sometimes. Like when I recently read Bruce Bawer's book, While Europe Slept.

And I'm often frightened.

I look at the big picture. I watch the news, read the blogs and other news sites. I listen to what the islamofascists are actually saying as opposed to what I think they are saying.

It's not pretty.

Our government here in Brackistan is doing 9/10ths of SFA to protect the general populace, and MrLefty just doesn't seem to see what's going on.

I'd love for some of these lefties to sit down with me and explain to me how a doctrine that declares me half a person (if I'm an adherent, less if I'm not) advocates beating me for disobedience and thinks I should be circumcised and wrapped in sacks, is peaceful, dignified and worthy of regard.

And I'd like a hug every now and then, too.
Nilknarf | Homepage | 08.29.06 - 3:27 pm

Then he really got some replies.

Do you seriously feel that frightened, angry, frustrated? I feel really sorry for you, if that is the case. Obviously you do need a hug.

Surely by you feeling frightened then the islamofascists as you call them have won.

What would you like to see done to the followers of Islam? In order for you not to feel so very frightened.
Dave | 08.29.06 - 4:56 pm |

Dave, can I ask how you've managed to overlook the massive bodycount for Allah Islamists have wrought (a huge proportion of them women and children) in the world?
Mike Jericho | Homepage | 08.29.06 - 6:09 pm | #

"What would you like to see done to the followers of Islam? In order for you not to feel so very frightened."

A large mushroom cloud over Mecca.
Keith | 08.29.06 - 6:18 pm | #

Dave, either you're a moron or having us on, I can't decide which.
Why don't you pop over to Beslan and offer the parents of the kids who were raped and blown up there a hug? I'm sure it'll make them feel so much better.
Keith | 08.29.06 - 6:20 pm | #

I'm not overlooking anything, I just refuse to be sucked into this whole culture of hate and fear. It just seems an extremely unhealthy way to be going about your business.
Dave | 08.29.06 - 6:23 pm | #

And religions and creeds of all walks of life have wrought massive bodycounts including women and children throughout the ages.
Dave | 08.29.06 - 6:24 pm | #

" I'm not overlooking anything, I just refuse to be sucked into this whole culture of hate and fear"
Well, jolly good for you Dave. For refusing. But of course, you're in a position to refuse, aren't you? And what do you suppose pays for that option?
Not glassy-eyed stoned out peace love and mung beans thoughts.
What pays for that option is the efforts of countless thousands of people who work to keep you safe from the gibbering blood-soaked animals from the 7th. century who would just as soon see you decapitated or shot.
"And religions and creeds of all walks of life have wrought massive bodycounts including women and children throughout the ages."
So what? We're not talking about throughout the ages here, although that seems to have failed to penetrate that stoned, smug self-righteous fog of yours.



While you witter on about hugs people are dying--a girl is being hanged in Tehran, a little black African boy is being taken into slavery in Darfur after his parents were murdered, a woman is being stoned to death in the Sudan.
Our civilisation is looking down the barrel of a barbarity unseen by most of us. The fact that you, personally, don't have to face it is no excuse for the obscenity of offering "hugs" as some kind of solace, some kind of cure or compensation for the anguish and anger decent people feel.
Keep your fucking hugs. If you can't pick up a gun to fight evil or if you can't bring yourself to condemn it, you are a waste of God's (or nature's) good oxygen.
Keith | 08.29.06 - 8:48 pm | #
I thought I would help our friend Dave, he seemed to be getting it with both barrels.

Keith, i'm certainly no hippie. I could not even tell you what a mung bean looks like.

Keep being frightened Keith.

The world needs hate mongers like yourself.
davethescot | 08.29.06 - 9:34 pm | #

No Dickhead Dave. The only way the islamists will win is if we let you leftist fuckheads stop us doing what we must to kill the islamists.

Look, if you leftist shitheels want to be the camel to your muslim buddies, go right ahead, but don't try and force us and our civilization to present our arses.
Tiberius | Homepage | 08.29.06 - 9:46 pm


davethescot, if you think I'm frightened you're very much mistaken.
I'm burning with the kind of anger that Western men once knew well, before their gonads were removed by years of soft living and pc bullshit.
If this fight ever becomes a civil war in Western countries between the left and the rest (and I believe it will) then people like you will discover the difference between fear and anger.
And then God help you.
Keith | 08.29.06 - 9:46 pm | #

DAve, I am a single woman living in suburbia with a four year old daughter.

Being suspicious is second nature.

Living in Bogan Central is also not like living in the trendy parts of town.

I've had my life threatened on several occasions, and it will no doubt happen again. It's a fact of life.

I work very hard at raising a confident child, and if that means that I keep a very concerned eye on the RoPers, then so be it. I won't be caught unaware.

I watched the twin towers fall, I watched the tragedy and travesty at Beslan. I almost lost a close friend in the first Bali bombing.

Don't fucking patronise me.

(Oh, and hugs rock).
Nilknarf | Homepage | 08.29.06 - 10:27 pm |

Now I'm scared.