A Rum Affair

My Bosun Higgs has been rather fractious of late. He is convinced that if we do not change course soon we will either be capsized by sea monsters or fall off the edge of the earth.

He's always been a suspicious sort, dispensing home spun wisdom and old wives tales when in his cups. I am constantly amazed by his rum fuelled loquacity, though I have to say that I am less than happy with his unhealthy interest in my cabin boy, Master Bates. Seaman Staines has informed me that on more than one occasion he has had reason to suspect that Bosun Higgs is more fond of sodomy than rum and the lash.

The bounder may well find himself at the sharp end of my cat o' nine tails, or peering at a sharks grin from the end of the plank. Standards at sea must be maintained, and I will have no hesitation in making an example of one errant crewman in order to ensure the maintenance of a happy ship.

One just can't be too careful.

Black Flowers Blossom

This really should be digitally encoded, strapped to a satellite, and blasted off to the farthest corners of the universe. There it will be swallowed by a black hole and disgorged for the enjoyment of bemused Cadbury's Smash eating aliens.

Or something.

Take from it what you will.

Hail Palin!

I was most gratified to learn that after over 300 years of inexplicable obduracy the North American Colonials have finally had the good sense to choose a polite, well spoken, and erudite Englishman as a candidate for high political office.

I'm not sure about that John McCain. I've always been suspicious of men with square heads, and there's definitely a hint of the oblong about McCain's cranium. He looks like a suitable candidate for trepanning to me.

Michael Palin will make a perfect VP, restraining McCain's bellicose instincts with his self deprecating wit and debonair gentleman's distaste for ostentatious displays of military vulgarity.

Michael's influence will ensure that tea drinking is declared compulsory. He will also make daily 'God Save the Queen' sing-a-longs obligatory, and insist that any American who fails to realise that the word 'jaguar' has three syllables is encased in a straitjacket and confined to a mental institution for life.

Some semblance of sanity appears to returning in America. I just hope it lasts.


* This post is a bit wordy for MJ, so I suggest that instead of struggling to read it she feast her gaze on the penis/log displayed below. I know that she likes this sort of thing.

Blogorrhea

NO!


NO NO!!



YES YES YES!!!




Apparently Canucks like to pig out on macaroni cheese. This is a strong point in their favour, but one completely counter weighed by their inexplicable liking for the ghastly poutine.

I can't bring myself to post a photo of this foul foodstuff, and I definitely won't be emigrating any time soon.

Other

My Great Aunt Maggie almost married a man who was "deciding how to spend my money!": but she didn't. This was a sensible decision, a fine display of rationality that had unfortunate repercussions for both herself and my uncles.

It wasn't that big a house, but it was Georgian: nicely proportioned; with a brook, and bells for the servants. Time had settled there, and the accretions of generations expanding their demesne had leant the place a reassuring solidity: clocks ticked, cornices crumbled, the anti antimacassars had less and less call for laundering.

Maggie ended up in an annex, what one would today call a granny flat. She didn't yell and flail, she carried herself magnificently even when stooped.

It was after the Great War, and most women couldn't afford to be choosy. Maggie was, and I salute her for it. She had a look about her, which my childish self saw as malevolent witchcraft.

Porkies

Pigs are intelligent creatures, I've always felt guilty about eating them. Dogs are retards in comparison; you won't find your average porker licking it's balls, or chasing the postman's van in a gormless fashion. We don't eat Fido, although by rights we should.

I wish I could desist from eating pork. Very tasty it is, but I can't help but feel a bit of a cannibal as I tuck into a nice juicy chop. I have no doubt that were I to detach an infants limb with a chainsaw and roast it with some shallots the resultant meal would be as redolent with porcine unctuousness as Mr Piggy.

It's no surprise that Pacific island cannibals used to refer to Johnny sailorman as 'longpig' as they simmered him with some fragrant herbs in a big pot. Being a white fellah they probably thought he was an exotic variety of pig anyway, so you can't really blame them.

Perhaps the war on obesity could be won by forcibly detaching beer bellies and roasting them slowly with honey and star anise. Fat tasty grub would be guaranteed for all and there would be fewer wobbly folk ambling about.

That would definitely be a hog roast to remember.

The Potency of Cheap Popular Music

Top tunes don't date, they don't evolve, they don't transmogrify; they remain in the cave of their making, working the dying fall.

Here are two that, if politics and ancestral hatreds are ignored, have the shared quality of yearning.





I quite like the latter because Stu is sat beneath an early 'Liquorice Allsorts' period Francis Bacon.

Roman brings home the Bacon

I was interested to learn that Russian tycoon Roman Abramovitch recently spent $86.3 million on a Francis Bacon triptych. Of course that sum of money is a measly amount to Roman, who accumulates football clubs, trophy wives, and super yachts as mere baubles to display on the mantelpiece of his inflated ego.

I wonder what it is about Bacon that attracted Roman. Was it the nihilism? Was it the anguished depictions of the human form as little more than hunks of convoluted meat? Was it the despair at the futility of the human condition? Personally I doubt that it was any of these. When it comes to art I imagine that Roman would much prefer a tableaux of swaddled babushkas cavorting in the Russian snows executed in lurid acrylics.

I doubt that it was even seen as an investment; why invest in genius when commodities dug from the earth might provide a better return? Abramovitch is typical of the new rich: an uneducated, uncultured money grubber with about as much aesthetic vision as a myopic moose. Roman buys a Bacon because he can afford to. He hangs it as he imagines that he can bask in the glow of genius, a man of substance disporting his good taste.

I wouldn't want a Bacon; it's not just that there was more than a whiff of the devil about the man, it's also the horror that he depicts. His vision may have been an appropriate response to the violence and brutality of the twentieth century, but as much as I admire his visceral and startling images I certainly wouldn't want one hanging on my wall.

Call me an ignoramus if you like, but I'd much prefer this:

Credit Control

To: The BBC

The Bedford Hotel
Bognor Regis
Sussex
19-1-46

Dear Sir,

In reply to yours of 17th January.

It seems to me that a considerable mistake, to put it politely, has been made. It was "mistakes" of this sort that caused me to tell Mr David Thomson when he first approached me to write a radio-play about Captain Kidd, that I was unwilling to undertake further work for the BBC owing to their slipshod methods of payment.

This script was only undertaken on the understanding that payment for my work would be prompt and expeditious. I returned your form to you only on completion and delivery of the script. No money was forthcoming under the terms of the contract.

On Friday last I made a special journey to Rothwell House to see the producer, who wanted some alterations made and one scene added. He assured me that if this was done the play would be definitely accepted. Mr David Thomson was present throughout the interview and will corroborate my statement.

But in view of the manner in which the matter of payment has been handled, I must be firm in requesting full payment (30 guineas) by Thursday next, or my permission to broadcast will be withheld. Of course half the fee will be forthcoming as repayment for my time and trouble. Please do not worry me with further correspondence – except a cheque for the sum stated as I'm a busy man* and detest writing letters.

Why, by the way, was your letter addressed to Bayswater Road when my telegram explicitly specified above address? Please rectify this additional error when replying to me, by cheque, this time.

Yours very truly,

J Maclaren-Ross

Some people just can't manage money. This may be due to sheer financial ineptitude, pie-in-the-sky insouciance, or an inability to recognize that a minus figure at the bottom of a bank statement is a very bad thing indeed. I can't claim to be a paragon myself in this respect, but having experienced financial misery on a number of occasions am rather more careful with my hard earned these days.

There is another class of person that spends all their money as soon as they get it, but does not allow their temporary embarrassment to compromise their lifestyle in the slightest. Friends are sponged off of, bouncing cheques are issued, and various creditors are led a merry dance in pursuit of what is rightfully theirs.

Julian Maclaren Ross was an exemplar in this field, not slow to take umbrage when payment that he felt was his due was not dispatched swiftly, but a total amnesiac when it came to paying hotel bills, boarding house landladies, or publicans who were foolish enough to allow him a bar tab.

You have to admire his style.


*in the pub.

Ever wished you'd just stayed in bed?

Poor Jim Reid. All those years spent in a Scottish council house perfecting your Lower East Side Manhattan cool in front of your bedroom mirror have come to naught. Not only does the dickhead Letterman introduce you as an 'English band', he also lands you with the bass player from hell.

It's ok for William Reid, he can just gaze at his shoes and get on with his twiddly business. There's no escape for Jim, his studied 'I wear sunglasses indoors' cool is well and truly punctured by a pony tailed dork in a red jacket jumping up and down like Tigger on amphetamines.

If you watch carefully you can clearly see him making a 'you're a wanker' gesture at Tigger.

It's only rock 'n' roll boys and girls.

1966 and all that

Having been born at the extreme fag end of the 1960's I didn't make it to San Francisco to wear some flowers in my hair. I didn't have the opportunity to drop acid with Timothy Leary, nor did I have a backstage pass to Woodstock. The nearest I got to turning on, tuning in, and dropping out was a Farleys rusk and a dummy tit.

Likewise, I missed out on Punk, being at the age where Brotherhood of Man's 'Kisses for Me' was the acme of musical cool. I didn't see the Sex Pistols at Manchester Free Trade Hall, I didn't start my own fanzine, and the nearest I got to sniffing glue was an Airfix kit.

All in all I missed out: the Smiths did provide some compensation, but the ghastly Duran Duran and assorted permed hair guitar soloists more or less ruined everything.

Of course every decade is essentially shite. As far as I can see most people in the 1960's dug coal out of the ground for a living, holidayed in Skegness, and wore nylon shirts. The food was inedible, the cars were crap, and small boys were forced to wear NHS specs and Startrite shoes. The 1960's sucked, big time.

Here's Grace Slick, who used to be a cracking bird before she got fat and old, giving her view of 1966.



The other bad thing about 1966 was England winning the World Cup, an achievement they haven't had the good grace to shut up about since.

I suppose this was OK.



Not much else was.

The Cheer

Cyprus

I'm standing in Paphos market marvelling at the shuffling masses of British tourists leering at cheap booze, fags, and leather belts with Man Utd buckles. An acrylic silkscreen Madonna sways in the dessicated breeze, a Cypriot crone languorously scratches her arse.

It's the dryness that gets to you, the sense that your innards are a reservoir on the verge of permanent exhaustion. Everything aspires to dust, is working towards its own depletion. The power shower in the hotel still functions, the water slides are still alive with yollering children, but the air has almost surrendered.

And then a shower, a brief belligerent flurry that would delight a parched Yorkshireman's whiskers batters the stones. Everybody cheers. Not a football chant, more a communal cathartic yelp of deliverance.

Scotland

Weather sets in from the west. The average will be well maintained.

Olympic Tiddlywinks

I hate all team sports with a passion. I put this antipathy down to being forced to play rugby by a perverted little games master who liked to watch our blue limbs as we skidded across the perma frost. I've equated moustachioed dwarves with sadism ever since.

I suppose individual sports aren't so bad. At least you can watch cute birds in tight lycra disport themselves gymnastically, or marvel at the girth of female shot putters thighs. To be honest I don't know why they go to all that effort to try and win a gold foil wrapped chocolate. It's not as though you can spend it or anything.

Tiddlywinks should definitely be an Olympic sport. It requires skill, dexterity, and steely eyed determination. I think I might have what it takes to represent Britain at tiddlywinks. It would be good as I could chain smoke while playing and put off the dastardly Chinese competitors by blowing smoke rings in their eyes.

Feck Off

I like to think of myself as a reasonably generous individual, always ready to lend a hand to needy souls. Unfortunately some people just take the piss and are in need of a good slapping. I'm thinking in particular of the guests a couple of years ago who booked a lodge for four and then arrived with a caravan. They seriously expected me to allow an additional three people to stay in the caravan.

Unbelievable, although I suppose I should have allowed them some points for chutzpah.

Here's some caravan hell.

Dutch Cap

You can't really have a go at the Dutch because they're just so inoffensive. What is there to criticize about the culture and habits of hurdygurdymen who like 'guitar based 1970's rock music, yah!'?

Even their well known tolerance of deviants isn't an outcome of prurience or hedonism, but the manifestation of an ingrained Calvinism. Not the hair shirt and 'ban all pictures of boobies' Calvinism of your average Scots Presbyterian; rather the 'each man shall seek out his own salvation' variant. This means that you can get up to anything you want. The Dutch live in 'the low country' and have no objection whatsoever to you going down.

It makes sense: what could possibly demystify drugs more than the soporific sad old hippy boredom of a Amsterdam dope cafe? As for the fat bints displaying their cellulite in shop windows, nothing could dissuade the average Joe from visiting prostitutes more.

The Dutch are also all middle class and determinedly unflashy. They might own just about everything in Europe but you won't catch them flashing Rolexes and boasting about their Bentleys.

The canals of Amsterdam may resemble the concentric circles of hell to some folk but the place gets my vote every time. As far as I can see the only drawback with being Dutch would be speaking English in a ridiculous accent. That would be a big drawback, but not as big a drawback as coming from Birmingham.

Don't Let's be Beastly to the Germans

Don't let's be beastly to the Germans
When the age of peace and plenty has begun.
We must send them steel and oil and coal and everything they need
For their peaceable intentions can be always guaranteed.
Let's employ with them a sort of 'strength through joy' with them,
They're better than us at honest manly fun.
Let's let them feel they're swell again and bomb us all to hell again,
But don't let's be beastly to the Hun.

Noel Coward

Jurgen the German is back in force this year. The whole country is groaning under the weight of panzer division BMW's driven by Evas and Hermans, the morning air redolent with bratwurst and sauerkraut.

I pride myself on my ability to spot a German from twenty paces. They have a very particular smart casual style, the emphasis clearly on the smart with well pressed denims and immaculate mountain jackets in lurid colours. They also all wear expensive spectacles, which I take to be a particular German fetish. It's probably a displacement for lederhosen.

Germany's somewhere we don't tend to holiday. I don't know why; it has beautiful countryside, cities with magnificent culture and architecture, and damn fine beer. I don't think it's got much to do with the war any more. We don't have to suffer the cringe factor of being the poor neighbours, and we can't use the excuse of not speaking the lingo as most Germans speak English.

I think it's probably because the Germans are too much like us. Worse than that, they're better at being us than we are: better at football, better beer drinkers, better sausage eaters, better at building cars.

Perhaps we should just declare ourselves a province of Germany. Things could only get better, and we wouldn't have to suffer being governed by Scotsmen.

It's worth a thought.

Louis

Louis MacNeice - The Sunlight on the Garden

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.


Warm, innit?

Gasteruption jaculator (Linnaeus, 1758)

Gasteruption jaculator is a name to conjure with: intimations of coitus interruptus abound; a hint of premature ejaculation colours the picture; indigestion raises its hand. I do like a bit of Latin me. Although not much versed in the classics, I do think that as archaic languages go it's pretty hard to beat for scientific classification purposes.

Gaster, as I will henceforth refer to this beastie, is conclusive proof that nature adores a practical joke. Just imagine that you are a giant wood wasp who has just gone to the trouble of inserting your ovipositor in a pine tree trunk. The strain, the grunting exertion leading to the deposit of a mini me larva who will dine on pine tree for up to five years before emerging to indulge in giant wood wasp whoopee fills you with satisfaction.

Along comes Gaster to spoil your party. Her ovipositir laughs in the face of your puny proboscis. She listens for juniors cheerful munching and then inserts her larva in juniors to thoroughly ruin his day. The muncher has become a munchee.

Life's a bitch, unless you're Bill Oddie.

A Tingle in Your Dingle

Pain and pleasure are closely linked sensations; how else can we explain the delightful burning sensation produced by the chilli pepper? It burns, it makes your eyes water, you sweat profusely, you suffer the dreaded 'ring sting' the next morning: why do you do it?

I am a chilli addict. The things are addictive, that irresistible curry craving that overcomes me is down to the humble little birds eye chillies lurking in the balti gloop. Apparently it's all down to the body's release of endorphins, a natural opiate that has a calming effect. Feeling stressed and flushed my dear? Have a vindaloo; it may heat you up, but it'll soon cool you down.

Rather like a heroin addict, the chilli head develops resistance. Intake occurs with increasing frequency, the level of tolerable burn on an inexorable upward path. Before long you find yourself casting lustful gazes at the big daddy of the chilli universe: the Scotch Bonnet.


It's a pretty name for a malevolent bastard with enough ooomph to power a moon rocket. It looks innocuous enough, a plump little fellow that deceives the unwary into a foolish complacency. It squats in the sauce like a satisfied little toad, waiting patiently to release its evil on the taste buds.

If you really, really hate someone the best thing to do is secrete one in their sandwich or their undergarments. You will reflect on their tormented screams with pleasure for years.

A point to bear in mind is that chillies and genitalia do not make happy bedfellows. A high concentration of nerve endings jangling excruciatingly as they respond to a gentle chilli embrace is a somewhat less than pleasant experience, a pain only alleviated by dousing the effected organ with milk or yoghurt. This is unlikely to appeal to most people, unless they're Max Mosley (who isn't even slightly a Nazi at all).

Have you ever had a tingle in your dingle? I'd love to know.

Steak Frites

Being an unrepentant carnivore I take considerable delight in a nice well aged piece of rump or sirloin cooked rare and served with bernaise sauce and some frites. Being as frites are a froggy invention I should really steer clear, but I do have to admit that these crunchy matchstick chips have to be the best accompaniment to steak. The British chip cooked to perfection is a glorious beast, but in this case it must play second fiddle to the French interloper.

There's steak and there's steak: plastic packed anaemic supermarket beef; the under aged stuff from economy class butchers; and the truly glorious well marbled and aged article. If you ain't got the right stuff to begin with your steak frites won't dance the light fandango baby.

Frites (AND CHIPS) must be cut from dry, floury potatoes. Using waxy or 'all purpose' varieties is the perfect recipe for a droopy frite. The finest potato is the King Edward, although the Maris Piper makes a perfectly acceptable substitute.

The French do steak frites best, but similar can be found in New York and London if you know where to look.

Beats lentils and brown rice any time. Sorry George, I ain't ready to join the vegan sandalist brigade just yet

Old Lived in Face

The world of newspaper journalism used to be full of Lunchtime O'Boozes, their shabby suits sporting stains of indeterminate origin, their breath reeking of scotch and chicken vindaloo. Alas, their kind is extinct, killed off by the vicissitudes of Thatcher and the evil digger Rupert Murdoch.

I knew one of the old school in Bristol. He had raised bedraggledness to an art form and drove an ancient Ford Granada dangerously. Sobriety was not his strong suit, nor were morals as he would happily have shafted his grandmother for a story. I spent many an entertaining evening in the pub with him as he reminisced about serving with the Gloucesters in Korea, or shagging Sue Lawley in Cardiff.

The long liquid lunch survived for a long time after the Thatcherite enema had supposedly purged the country of such inefficiency. The weekend began at 12.30 on a Friday, the only sign that work took place in many offices a jacket draped on an empty chair.

On the whole I preferred that world; the country may have been a bit of a dump, but at least it was a good laugh as long as the beer kept flowing.

The Great White North

Canada is one of those places that is mind blowingly (or should that be numbingly?) big. Most of it is of course uninhabitable wilderness, home to the grizzly bear and the odd coonskin hat wearing maniac who regards temperatures of -30 as pleasantly bracing. The Canucks all live within a hundred miles of the American border. This may suggest a communal huddle of warmth and conviviality, but I suspect that the sheer distance between their cities suggests that they really don't like each other very much at all.

Canada tends to slip beneath the radar. Ask anyone over here who their Prime Minister is and you will receive a blank look. Even I'm not entirely sure what he looks like. There was a nondescript looking sort of bloke at the last G8 summit who might have been him; then again, it might have been a gardener who had stumbled in on affairs inadvertently.


SPOT THE HARPER No prizes awarded for identifying George (I've got one growing out of my head) Bush.

The beaver squealers are having one of their interminable recruitment drives over here at the moment. Why they should have the right to nick our brightest and best is beyond me. Oh well, I suppose we shouldn't be too hard on them as they do tend to turn up on time for wars (unlike some I could mention) and are obviously in need of a few elocution lessons.

"For you Tommy ze war is over"!

The decline in unionist sentiment in Scotland since the 1970's has less to do with oil and general Jock chippiness than the disappearance of Commando comic from the newsagent shelves. Small boys lack tales of British martial derring do to gird their loins against the Hun and hoist the stout shield of Britannia.

The really good thing about Commando was that the Americans always played a secondary role to the brave Tommy with his sten gun. Quite right to, as the chewing gum masticating oiks from Milwaukee never tire of reminding us that 'we saved you guys Limey asses'. This is obviously tosh as they didn't turn up until brave Blighty fought off the squareheads with little more than bits of old string and stripy mint humbugs.

I don't know why we bother with ASBO's and Community Service Orders. What we really need is conscription for twelve year olds to toughen the pampered little scrotes up a bit. More time spent reading back issues of Commando and less playing girly games on the Wii and posturing on Bebo would do much to reduce delinquency.

Give them guns and divide them into warring Buckfast Brigade and Tamazepam Terrier factions and let them fight it out to the death. That would give the survivors a taste for good literature and reduce youth unemployment at a stroke.

I really should stand for Parliament.

Pass the straitjacket Petunia.

Losing It

It is estimated that 750,000 people in this country suffer from dementia, principally Alzheimer's, but also its less well known but equally hideous variants. It's an ailment we prefer to shove into the background, the elephant in the living room.

My mother has Pick's Syndrome. Medical students memorize it for their exams as "Pick's disease picks off the frontal or temporal lobes but leaves the rest alone". The person I love most in the world is living a hideous inverted childhood, retreating into a mute presence, all her innate vitality vanishing into a black hopeless vacuum. Thankfully, as she is over 70 the progression is slow. Unfortunately it is also inexorable.

Empathy: a simple word for the most complex and rarely achievable human quality. My mother had it in spades and it was the solace I reached for at many times. She kept my black dog at bay and was a light that I could reach for when at my most wretched. Today, if I was killed in a car crash she wouldn't notice.

I have become a part time carer. The care I provide is subsidized by the State with the princely sum of £58 pounds per week. I have money, so that level of support isn't a problem, but as a level of payment for people of more limited means it is an utter disgrace. The cost of a care home is in excess of £500 per week, so our Government is effectively relying on familial love to prevent a burden on the State.

I do apologize if this blog sometimes seems cynical and flippant. The only thing I can offer in my defence is the netherworld that is a constant backdrop to my life. My father is elderly and the strain is killing him.

The only good aspect of the whole business is that I have finally had to become responsible, with inevitable lapses. . I can't say I like it much, but it is teaching me a few lessons that I should have learned years ago.



Only connect.

Cheesy Wotsits

Everybody has guilty pleasures, secret indulgences which are kept strictly under wraps lest howls of public derision lead to complete embarassment. I'm not referring to secret sexual proclivities and fetishes here, although I'm sure MJ has a few, but to the private enjoyment of the saccharine and superficial.

I have a few of my own which I am happy to reveal in the blogosphere as nobody can point at me in public and laugh uproariously.

* Pizza Hut buffet lunches

It's pizza Gianni, but not as we know it. The average Neapolitan would projectile vomit if forced to ingest a Pizza Hut pepperoni, the very idea of a deep crust fill them with existential angst. For me it's the sheer blandness that appeals, that and the salad bowl with crunchy bacon bits drenched in thousand island dressing.

* Lees' Macaroon Bars


A sugar hit to beat all sugar hits, even Kendal mint cake. Unbelievably unhealthy but undeniably scrumptious.

* Girl Groups

There have been non cheesy girl groups like the Supremes, but for me it has to be the likes of Bananarama. The less musical talent the better, it's the jiggling and pouting that cuts the mustard.

* Popcorn Films

Independence Day, Eight Legged Freaks, Slither, et al. They have to be mindless with wooden acting and over the top effects. Art house is all very well, but a body can only take so much sub titled thought provoking artfully shot ruminations on the human condition.

* The Carpenters

I happen to believe that Karen Carpenter had one of the great soul voices and I will challenge anyone who thinks otherwise to a fist fight. This is deliciously cheesy and definitely one for the desert island.



Anyway, I'm off to read some Dostoevsky and brush up my Hegelian dialectics. If anybody has a cheesy secret pleasure please feel free to share, I'll try not to laugh.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

This being the holiday season most right thinking folk have buggered off to diego land or the far east in order to improve their skin cancer prospects. Only the poor saps like me involved in the domestic tourist trade have to stay in drizzly Blighty and attend to the whims and peccadilloes of moaning tourists.

I watch them from my living room window, departing for another days jolly while I face the dispiriting prospect of mowing their lawns. I suppose I can't complain too much as their cash is germinating in my pockets, waiting to sprout vigorously in the winter when travel and accommodation is at its cheapest.

I'm getting the wanderlust bad at the moment, and am indulging in my favourite pastime: deciding where I shall go next. This is highly pleasurable as everybody knows that the most enjoyable part of travel is the planning and anticipation.

I would like to ask you to advise where I should bugger off to next. It will be for a month, or possibly six weeks, so it ain't gonna be a long weekend in Riga or Bratislava. I've narrowed the contenders down to three seductive prospects, but being torn as to which I should allow to ravish me can't make my mind up.

Spain

No Costas. Eating cooked breakfasts with lame and halt Mancunians (no offence KAZ) in Fuengirola doesn't appeal. I'm thinking mini cruise from Portsmouth to Bilbao for a mooch about the Guggenheim and some top Basque nosh. Then it would be a leisurely peregrination around Madrid, Seville, Granada, Valencia, and Barcelona - possibly with some Balearics thrown in should time permit.

Italy

Three weeks in an apartment in Venice sounds good; nice and misty and romantic with loads of stuff to explore and no bloody tourists in St Marks Square. I quite fancy myself as a Doge. Then Genoa, Bologna and Florence. Nifty.

Mitteleurope

This one is definitely a strong contender. My bollocks might get frozen off, but Prague, Budapest, and Cracow would make up for it with their beer and dumplings. A bit of faded Austro Hungarian elegance appeals, and I relish the prospect of scoffing sachertorte in a grand hotel haunted by the ghost of the Emperor Franz Josef.

Over to you.

Bugger Bognor

I'm fed up with newspaper travel supplements waxing lyrical on the delights of Caribbean and Pacific idylls where cocktails are sipped on bleached wood balconies as azure seas glimmer seductively.

All very well and good I suppose, if you can afford it; which I can't unless I decide to liquidate my rapidly depreciating UK property assets. Actually, that might not be such a bad idea as I'm increasingly of the view that hoarding assets to fund a sybaritic retirement is a fools game. What's the point? I'll just end up a decrepit old crumbly leering pointlessly at nineteen year old lovelies and imagining what it would be like to bounce 50 pence coins off their firm young stomachs (among other things). Either that or I'll get dementia and they'll wheel me off to a old folks home that smells of boiled cabbage and wee. Then they'll steal all my money to pay for the indignity of dribbling in a high chair and being forced to participate in cumpulsory 'Heigh Ho Silver Lining' singalongs.

Unfortunately I'm not brave enough to say 'fuck it' and squander all my readies on jet set travel and louche living. Maybe I should emulate campervanman and spend six weeks touring the British coastline. I have already indicated my love of British seaside resorts, so this cheap and cheerful escapade definitely appeals.

I'm sure I could produce an interesting tour guide, complete with evocative descriptions of furtive couplings beneath disused piers and alcoholic cider swilling vagrants raving at seagulls. I would complete my tour at Sanna Bay, the most splendid sweep of beach and dunes in Britain. There is nothing tawdry there to tempt the tourist, just the swell of the atlantic and sunsets filtered through the clear northern light.

Garfer's Guide to Peace, Love, and Understanding

There has been much moaning recently about the cost of motoring generally, and more particularly about the cost of fuel. Personally I think it's a good thing that fewer of the hoi are able to choke up the Queens Highway with their hideous little eco boxes and people carriers.

When you think about it the obvious method of reducing CO2 emissions from vehicles is to ban the working classes from driving. They used to cope ok on bicycles and trolley buses and the like, so I see no reason why they shouldn't revert to type. They could even start wearing cloth caps again. It would be most heart warming to watch the masses trudging to work in the pouring rain like in the olden dayes. Perhaps the powers that be could bring back tuberculosis to whittle down their numbers and reduce pension committments, thus leaving scope for tax cuts on beer and fags for the rest of.

I digress. The gist of my argument is that cars with petrol engines of four litres and above with a cylinder count of a minimum of 6 (although 8 or 12 are obviously preferable) are a minority because most people can't afford to drive them. If these cars were the only ones which could legally be driven the level of CO2 emissions would plummet.

It's blindingly obvious. No Kevin and Traceys lowering the automotive tone in their tatty old Ford Focuses, no smug marrieds in people carriers with 'baby on board' stickers on the back windscreen, no dieselists clattering about. This would not only reduce pollution at a stroke, it would also make Britain a more attractive and fragrant place.

Mr Squeaky Shoes

Chinese food in Britain is all much of a muchness; a 100 item main course menu, prawn crackers, and a healthy dose of mono sodium glutamate. Strangely the food in all Chinese restaurants tastes slightly different. You'd think they'd all be singing from the same hymn book, what with being Hong Kong Cantonese and all. I suppose it's just one of lifes mysteries, like the Loch Ness monster, or the British inability to run a public transport system fit for purpose.

My local Chinky has an exuberant and hail fellow well met waiter who bounces around on an extremely squeaky pair of shoes. The high pitched squeaks always let you know when your foods on the way. This helpful squeakiness, and his indefatigable cheerfulness, always compel me to leave a largish tip. This is unusual for a stingy Brit like me, so he must be doing something right.

Yesterday he was rather taciturn, his normal bouncy squeakiness somewhat deflated. I enquired tactfully if anything was the matter. "Yes" he replied "we've just had some customers from Beijing. They ordered me about all over and made me charge up their mobile phones. These Chinese are very rude (gesticulates). I from Hong Kong, we VEWWY polite"

So there we have it. Next time you get called a Gweilo and are shoved off the pavement in Hong Kong try and look on the bright side, you could be in Beijing.

Maybe I'll give the Olympics a miss.

Loveless

Popular music is a limited form. This isn't surprising given its origins in the blues and the hillbilly music of Appalachia. Those origins are a narrow seam of the purest gold, but I increasingly feel that they have been virtually mined out.

Maybe it's just a consequence of getting older, but these days I feel that I've heard it all before. The same old chairs are being shuffled around the room. To be honest nothing over the last six years or so has really grabbed me. By 'grab' I mean the 'oh fuck' moment when you hear something for the first time and realise you've found what you were looking for without knowing that you were looking for it.

Loveless by My Bloody Valentine was released back in 1991, and remains the one album that I never ever get tired of. The word 'genius' is much too casually bandied about, but Kevin Shields emphatically has it.

Nothing since 1991, but so what? If you achieve perfection why sully it with anything less than perfect?

I can't really describe Loveless. It's elusive, melodies buried, vocals lost in the swirl, lyrics enigmatic.

Greil Marcus said that rock music is about 'power, beauty, and excitement'. Here it is in all its glory, its romance, and its despair.

Turn off the lights and turn up the volume. This was drifting from bedroom windows in 1991 for good reason.

Rowan

All blogging relationships are vicarious by nature.

Some of us have met, but mostly we are connected by nothing more than cables. Strangely that can make our relationships more intimate, sometimes divulging things which we normally wouldn't in face to face encounters. In that sense blogging is valuable, particularly in its international context. We become aware of the circumstances of other peoples lives and discover that whatever the distances that separate us we are made from the same crooked warp and weft.

I have never experienced tragedy. Nobody close to me has ever died; the things that have caused depressive phases are piffling compared to bereavement.

Rowan's loss is almost unimaginable. Although we lost touch, I feel her loss deeply.

Run Lola Run

I am always on time, never early, never late. I don't regard punctuality as one of the cardinal virtues, it certainly isn't up there with donating a kidney or adopting a kitten, but it matters to me.

Perhaps it's the potential embarrassment factor that does it, the realisation of lateness and the sweaty fumbling hurry to be somewhere at the appointed time. The room is already full, the audience attentive, the speaker into their stride. You open the door and a room of faces turns its gaze briefly on your perspiring dishevelled form.

No, I don't do late.

Early is potentially worse, it suggests over expectancy or nervous anticipation of the potential outcome of the meeting. Not good, and potentially fatal.

No, punctuality's the thing.

Noir Rock

I was on a knife edge all morning. My nervous twitch started playing up and I only quelled the staccato tapping of my foot by downing half a bottle of Scotch and chain smoking a pack of Players Weights. Pinkie couldn't be trusted. He was shifty, a little sewer rat with no morals who used a razor as a conversational gambit. I couldn't be sure the little bastard would come through, but he knew he owed me big time. I had the dirty on him with the snaps of him cavorting with those baldy Yorkshire poofs and he knew it.

No rock and the word would out.

I heard the rumble of a car engine. It could've been Big Vern with another consignment of shootahs. It could've been Sniffer of the Yard on my tail again, but the engine note was wrong. I peered through a gap in the drapes.

The omens were good.


The goods were intact


Top quality gear. Stripy. Mmmm....nice.


Now I've had my fix Pinkie thinks it's game over, but he's got another thing coming. I'm gonna take the twisted little scrote for all he's worth: first his candy floss, then his 'kiss me quick' comedy policeman's helmet, and finally his donkey.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

The sad demise of the traditional British seaside resort when the hoi cleared off to Benidorm has been much lamented. The descent into tawdry decrepitude didn't happen overnight, the fly blown encroached gradually. Bed and Breakfasts were slowly colonised by the homeless, usually suffering alcohol or drug problems. The paint on the sea front hotels flaked and peeled, their once proud frontages turning into the face of a demented dowager aunt.

There has been a recovery of sorts over the last decade or so. The affluent have bought second homes and the demise of the ghastly boarding houses with their harridan landladies has resurrected a tourist trade, albeit one a shadow of its former self.

I like the seaside. Nothing beats candy floss, rock, amusement arcades, fish 'n' chips, and cockles eaten from a polystyrene cup. Even the slightly downbeat air of a seaside resort in winter appeals to me. The disconsolate wander along a blustery parade, pause, and gaze out to sea into their futureless futures.

The Boy With The Arab Strap

Twee is not one of my favourite words. The twee is hard to define, but you know it when you see it. For me it is epitomized by clay figurines of tartan clad haggises playing the bagpipes.

Herge Smith made the unforgivable error of describing Belle and Sebastian as twee. This is precisely what they aren't. They capture the underlying melancholy romantic Scottish spirit perfectly.

I rest my case on the untweeness of Belle and Sebastian on this video. I must advise that this video (containing images of the lovely Miss Isobel Campbell playing the recorder, tambourines, people clapping, and a drummer wearing a Perthshire Advertiser T shirt) is unsuitable for young children or those of a sensitive or nervous disposition.



Clap along now boys and girls.

Bitter sweet ain't twee.

A fool and his money are soon parted

Bob.

Imagine for a moment that it is 1930 and you have saved £80 which you have lodged with the Midland Bank on the Tottenham Court Road. You are inordinately proud of this £80, it resides at the back of your mind and its comforting presence may be summoned when the workaday world overwhelms you with its tedium and pointlessness.

That £80 is destined to diminish; at first in trifling amounts, but as your infatuation gathers, with unforeseen haste. It will soon reside in Jenny's delicate little hands. She won't have grasped it, she won't have consciously tried to steal it from you, but there it will reside.

I don't normally like television adaptations of novels, they lose much and add what is inappropriate. Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky is an exception: perfectly pitched, perfectly acted, perfectly adapted.

Delusion, despair, and thwarted dreams have rarely been so uplifting.

Vulgar Bulgar

The siblings Gloom, Doom, and Despondency are dancing the light fantastic at the moment. The general air of 'God help us all' is increasingly inclining me towards the view that Herge Smith's imminent departure on a banana boat owes more to astute financial prescience than to the sybaritic hedonism I had hitherto suspected.

Now that the Labour Party has finally made a total balls of the economy (which they always do eventually) I fear that life on this island will inevitably become increasingly depressing. Drunken mongs throwing up on the pavement and knife wielding hoodies are just about tolerable when fivers are apparently falling like confetti, but when buying a loaf of bread and a tank of petrol doesn't leave enough change for a copy of Viz then all hope evaporates.

Like most people, I would like to emigrate somewhere warm and cheap. I think I'd settle on Bulgaria; it has all the plus points of mostly sunny weather, cheap booze, and long legged lovelies. Not only that, all Bulgarians smoke all the time everywhere which makes the place ideal for inveterate chuffers like me.

I think I've got what it takes to become a vulgar Bulgar. I might even grow a moustache and beat up Gipsies, just to blend in like.

May I Have a Word?

Words that deserve to exist

*iconoclastic - a nice concatenation of syllables this one. I try to use it in everyday speech such as: "That's a very iconoclastic frock you're wearing today Marjory".

*circumnavigate - as Milo almost said: "why say go round when you can say circumnavigate?"

*desultory - just right this one, with a nice hint of insouciant couldn't care lessness

*ampersand - because its the word for that squiggly jobby that indicates 'and'. Not a lot of people know that.

*ennui - listlessly draped on a chaise longue swigging laudanum and feeling melancholy and bored in a slightly pleasurable kind of way. And it rhymes with pee. Obviously French.

*dinner


Words that don't

*banquette - most commonly used in conjunction with the phrase 'faux suede'. Deeply contemptible.

*epistemological- beloved of philosophers and sociologists, as in 'epistemological break'. For me this always conjures up an image of groups of bearded sociologists rushing off to the gents urinals.

*actually - oh really? How fascinating.

*chalet - pronounced 'shally' in Britain and used to describe beach huts built from bits of old cardboard.

*gotten - this is an American invention, and utterly unforgivable. They may have Harvard and Yale but while this monstrosity continues to exist they will remain backwoods hicks.

*umbrage - because people are constantly taking it with me for no apparent reason.

Dublin Milk

There are few more traumatic experiences that a young man can suffer than to draw back the curtains of a stinky Dublin hotel room and find his nakedness scoffed at by a gurning urchin perched precariously on the window sill.

That's when I knew it was going to be a bad holiday. The auguries hadn't been good up to that point; Dave the Brummie had stomach cramps on the flight, Nina drank too much gin and was rude to a stewardess, and Keith and Karen were on the verge of splitting up and spent the entire journey swapping sarcastic bon mots.

Dublin: city of exquisite Georgian architecture, former inspiration for the genius of Joyce and Beckett, cradle of Oirishness gleaming by the softly flowing Liffey.

My arse.

When we got to the hotel/hovel there was nobody there: no lights, no welcoming smile from a pretty receptionist, no fuck all. After several phone calls a pissed munchkin turned up and informed us that " de owners have gone to de Cheltenham Gold Cup and oim lookin' after de guests till dey get back". The swaying dwarf then escorted us to our rooms, although he obviously had no idea which rooms we were supposed to be in as singleton Dave the Brummie (who still had stomach cramps) got a family room, Nina and I got a squalid little wardrobe in the basement, and Keith and Karen were confined to an attic garret.

During the course of our stay we enjoyed dirty hotel rooms, miserable bastard Dublin bar men, and ubiquitous urban drizzle. It was so depressing that even copious amounts of Guinness and Bushmills failed to lift our downtrodden spirits. I tried to cheer things up by suggesting we visit a south side Dublin bar, where tourists never ventured and where the real milk of human kindness Dublin bonhomie still lingered. Unfortunately Keith got into a political argument with a drunken harridan who accused him of being "no better than a fuckin' Black and Tan" and "the spawn of Satan". We were ejected.


And that was that. Dublin: rip off capital, cockpit of miserable bastards, armpit of humanity. It's no wonder Joyce and Beckett got out of the place as fast as their legs could carry them.

Still, things could have been worse. At least we didn't meet Bono.

Lost Weekends

I'm sure we've all had 'em, regretted 'em, forgotten 'em, and glorified 'em while glossing over the more embarrassing details.

Unfortunately I haven't had one in as long as I can remember, so I'd like to solicit some advice on what I should do during the lost weekend that appears to be welling up in my psyche. It is important to remember that all things are possible on lost weekends, the outré or esoteric equally likely given the appropriate level of chemical enhancement attained.

I've tried to narrow the field down as far as possible, so give me your best shot.

Prague - I'm not over keen on dumplings, but I love cheap beer.

Inside Uma Thurman's underwear - for obvious reasons.

A Butlin's glam rock weekend - this would be to satisfy my sense of post modern irony. I have no desire to dance along to Mud's 'Tiger Feet'.

Inside Robert Mugabe's Head - so that I could understand the obliviousness to human misery that megalomania enables. Then I'd give him an aneurysm.

With Jean Paul Sarte - just to find out if he really was such an ugly little bastard as everybody claims.

With Simone de Beauvoir - just to find out what a cracking French bird was doing with an ugly myopic little French bastard like Sartre.

Saigon - so I could wander around in a linen suit, quote French Existentialist philosophy in a pretentious manner, and smoke opium.

Unfortunately I don't suppose any of these are particularly likely. It's more likely to be Edinburgh, Perth, or Glasgow as usual.

One can but dream.

Floppy Haired Git

I recently purchased an iPod Touch, a gorgeous little gadget which has become my constant companion. The only catch with the device is that it isn't Flash enabled. Sure you can get YouTube, but that still leaves a lot of internet content unavailable.

Thank God for the BBC, who have converted iPlayer content into a format that can be viewed on the iPod in superb quality. They didn't have to do this, and it's good to see them spending money on the people that really matter (i.e me).

I'm not so keen on them handing out £18 million to Jonathan Ross. I appreciate that the organization can't hold to a Reithian ideal, but I fail to see why a tosser like Ross should command silly money. Clever he may be, but he is also deeply repulsive. He's like Ricky Gervais in that respect; he may be good at what he does but he makes my skin crawl.

I'm convinced that the BBC should spend that sort of money on high production value series like Lost or Heroes. My God, the talent is there and the CGI makes it possible to do things that were unthinkable twenty years ago. A proper adult sci fi production would sell overseas and probably recoup its costs many times over. Personally I'm bored with costume dramas, what I want is aliens and stuff that doesn't look like it's made out of traffic cones and sticky back plastic.

Doctor Who is all very well and good, but ultimately it's a kids programme.

Sasha Say

Valentine

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

-- Carol Ann Duffy

I like Carol Anne Duffy, and the onion is obviously metaphor material as my cut fingers and inebriated lachrymose tear ducts will testify.

Sasha thinks otherwise. Her arguments, although not unassailable, do have an urgent pithiness which is hard to ignore. I for one would be proud to write a poem titled "My Love is Made of Ostrich Meat". Building "Andrew Motion's fun bus" sounds a bit like hard work, but I'd give it a try if there was some Meccano handy.

Brian

..................Lead on small mollusc.

I don't think I've ever met anyone interesting called Brian. It's the sort of name you expect a librarian or a minor civil servant to have. Most Brians will have garden sheds, wear bicycle clips, and regard grey socks worn with sandals as a rather fetching combination. I suppose one could just about imagine a Brian being a kiddie fiddler or a voyeur, but I very much doubt if they would have sufficient imagination to indulge in either unwholesome activity.

The only remotely charismatic Brian that I have ever encountered is Brian the Snail off The Magic Roundabout, and he was a bit dim witted.

Fortunately for Brians everywhere there may be a glimmer of hope. I was intrigued to learn that eccentric avant garde glam rock star and conceptual artist Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno is "terribly attracted to women with ocular damage"*. What he means by this I'm not sure; perhaps he likes them to be cross eyed, or have a coquettish squint.

As I see it this is the perfect opportunity for the ladies who read this blog to grab their very own English rock star firmly by the goolies. I'm sure the prospect of joining him as he performs with his male voice choir in his London studio, or conducts interesting horticultural experiments in the grounds of his Elizabethan manor house, will be too much to resist. All that will be required is a glass eye and a wink and Brian will be theirs.


* Incidentally, he also claims that “the bottom is the large brain”. Whatever that means.

The Homo Superior

I am sure that I am not alone in my disgust at the vile and degrading accusations levelled by MJ at the Barnsley based (but Jock ginger by origin) blogger Piggy.

What MJ fails to appreciate is that Piggy is a Tomorrow Person, a Homo Superior who deigns to grace us saps with the sagacity of his wisdom. Piggy is a sensitive type, much given to extemporaneous versification on the gritty streets of a rough northern town. He isn't known as the 'Bard 'o' Barnsley' for nothing I can tell you. Not only that, he feeds poor starving orphans and is a stout defender of the rights of elderly folk.

I suppose we should really feel sorry for MJ. She can't help the fact that she is an uncouth coonskin hat wearing backwoods Canuck whose idea of an evenings entertainment is pelting harmless racoons with empty beer cans. A vocabulary limited to the word 'eh' interspersed with grunts and simian gestures is also not to be envied. Perhaps this is why her posts contain more pictures of a vulgar and puerile nature than words.

Well, I'm glad to get that off my chest. It's about time poor Piggy had some defenders.

Thtop Taking the Pith.

I recently purchased some sweatshirts from Orvis on-line and have been very impressed by their quality. Subsequently I have been bombarded with the Orvis catalogue, and now have a keen appreciation of the appropriate attire for gents who intend to venture into the depths of the steamy jungle and scrape leeches off their todgers.



Orvis amuse me as their target market appears to be fat Americans who suffer from Ernest Hemingway complexes. It's all Zambesi twill this and bush ranger that, with due nods given to the vital nature of hard wearing materials and a profusion of pockets in jungle jackets. Then there is the extortionate price of their clothing. I am particularly taken with their Over the Channel Shearling Parka which is an absolute snip at a mere £990.00 (ex P&P).

I think Herge Smith should stock up on Orvis garments and accoutrements in preparation for his journey to the mystical lands of the east. He might need several tea chests to accommodate his chattels, but I'm sure he won't regret it.

You just don't know what might come in useful when you're groping with a stoker off the coast of Kuala Lumpar.

Sulu in Gay Love Shocker

One by one the icons of my youth are proving themselves unworthy of my worship. Pete Townshend gets nicked for viewing child porn, Paul Weller announces that he sends his kids to Public school because he doesn't "want them coming home talking like fucking Ali G", and as for the preening Morrissey - the less said the better.

I don't know where it will all end; now Sulu, ice cool and unflappable helmsman on the Starship Enterprise, turns out to be a woofter. This is deeply shocking, but now I come to think about it Star Trek was always full of homo erotic undertones. From all that wrestling in tight polyester jumpers to Spocks archly raised eyebrow there were always undercurrents. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if the lovely Uhuru turned out to be a lezzer, or McCoy was a cross dresser in the privacy of his own cabin. As for the Klingons, they were always suspiciously butch and spoke in what was clearly homosexual code.

All in all Star Trek was less an allegory for 'truth, justice, and the American way' than an excuse for gay cruising in the nether regions of the universe.

My illusions have been cruelly shattered. I'll never be able to think about wormholes in the same way.

"What hurt you into poetry"?

I think my first inklings of the poetic occured when I lifted a stone and an earwig scurried blindly towards safety, his dark sanctuary violated in an uncouth and violent fashion. That and the sea anemone at the bottom of a rock pool, inhaling and exhaling rythmically.

I like poetry because it can interrogate the everyday; see the significance in a callous, question a glib gesture, take pleasure in a well baked loaf. It is a function of intelligence, but is also rooted in an ache below the left nipple and always pays due heed to the musicality of which the tongue on the roof of the mouth is capable.

It is a useless thing and, as such, necessary.

Here Comes Norman

Most of my relatives are slightly mental, but they have the good sense to realise that their time is best spent working, playing golf, or drinking beer. Activities of a more adventurous or esoteric nature are liable to send them completely hatstand doolally, a fact testified to by my Aunt Lorna's spell under medical sedation following an ill advised infatuation with spirit mediums.

Unfortunately Uncle Norman has completely lost it this time. As a retired police detective with a fat pension and a megaquids house anyone would think he should be as happy as a sand boy. Not our Norman; oh no. He has decided that it is his duty to divest himself of the proceeds from the sale of his humungous camper van in order to improve the lot of dirt poor Africans. Most people would give the money to charities, who would then spend it on sensible things like white Landrovers, conferences in swish African hotels (where the Africans call them bwana), and prostitutes. Not Norman. He has decided to build a village a primary school himself, employing only the villagers themselves.

This is a noble thing to do and, sour faced cynic that I am, I can't bring myself to deride what is undoubtedly a fine and selfless altruistic act. Unfortunately I can't help thinking that in ten years time the school will have holes in the roof and there will be chickens roosting on the dirt floors.

That's the African way. Sixty years of giving haven't achieved much.