Nawlins :: 06:08 PM :: easyjetsetter

I was asked yesterday to justify why I wished to return to the US, and I found myself on the defensive (again) and today, I realise, I should just have shown the questioner this: Craigslist's Katrina relief page. The generosity of spirit in America, what makes strangers open up their homes to people stricken by hardship, or offer whatever help they can. The red cross has already received $14 million in donations, and private companies' aid have come to a further $16 million in cash, and that doesn't include the in-kind donations listed here.

I was led here:

this is not about red states v. blue states...this is not about left v. right...this is not about liberal v. conservative...

the people in louisiana, mississippi and alabama are americans. this is about america. and americans have historically always rolled up their sleeves and pitched in to help out their fellow countrymen in need.

And people wonder why I tear up at the Star Spangled Banner and not bloody God Save the Queen. What a country.

Bush did the right thing :: 06:19 PM :: easyjetsetter

Faint in disbelief oh faithful readers! But today is Uzbekistan blogging day, and I have something to say. I don't believe in knee-jerk political labels, and to prove it, I am going to praise the 44th President of the United States.

In Uzbekistan, President Bush did something honourable and humanitarian, and not just because it was politically expedient, nor was it beneficial to the US's War on Terror.

He provoked the hitherto friendly Uzbek authorities to close a U.S. base in the country because they refused to let Kyrgistan (can't spell) repatriate 500ish Uzbek refugees and instead flew them out of the country to safety. Read on.

The British government, by contrast, trained the troops that turned their guns on cilivians, killing 500. The 'Decent Left' indeed.

Now go read more. I'm off to Nosemonkey's piss-up.

Small Pleasures :: 11:12 PM :: easyjetsetter

More on Nosemonkey's pissup tomorrow, I have lots of touching wonderful things to say, but for now, I have had several excellent things occur to me this evening:

1) I received my first london whistle and catcall. I have missed the harrassment I used to complain about so much in Paris. How else is a girl supposed to know she's dressed sexily on a given day? I was pleased to see the image of class I seemed to be projecting in France (maid t'es trop classe!) translates well, as the guy whistled, bowed and said 'madame.'

2) I had a hankering for something sweet on the way home and discovered some raspberry millions, which I have not had since we used to go swimming on wednesdays at school and we'd stop in the chip shop on the way back and I'd get 100g for the ride home. The taste of them gave me proustian umbilical whiplash and I could suddenly smell the chlorine, the chips and Phillip Rogerson's aqua di gio... the only men's cologne which still turns my head.

3) I have a job interview tomorrow. Shan't jinx it by saying much, but when you're staring unemployment in the face three weeks away, an interview (and it's a step up - not in money, but in prestige and duration) is like manna from heaven.

Oh and:

1) I have now met four male bloggers. Every single one carried a messenger/courier bag. Until this evening, I had only met two, robin grant from perfect at an expat bloggers picnic, and MTF (for those of you who didn't know already know, surprise! I met him online.) This evening both Nosemonkey and Rafael Behr from the Observer sported the man bag. Two is merely a trend, four is evidence.

2) Nosemonkey and Rafael are both much younger and slimmer than I thought they'd be, especially considering how much NM claims to drink.

3) Nosemonkey said almost exactly the same of me (except the drinking bit) and added that he thought I was a bloke pretending to be The Only Girl Political Blogger On The Intarweb. I guess it's a compliment, in that I suppose he reckons that I think like a man...

4) I've been thinking a bit about this fallacious 'no girls on the internet' thing, and I reckon it's about time to do something about it. I'll be making a bit of a policy announcement on Monday to this end.

And then... :: 11:46 PM :: easyjetsetter

When I thought the evening couldn't get any better, I found spell with flickr. I heart the internet.

Holy Crap :: 07:50 PM :: easyjetsetter

I just got done reading up on katrina, and there is some serious mismanagement issues. Now, I admit, Nagin's a bit emotional, but he's the guy on the ground. Go read.

The National guard only just rolled in. That's because there's only two-thirds of their regular force active in the US. Where are the rest? Iraq. The Mayor makes the point, that we'll see a lot over the next few years, that Nawlins called again and again for levees to be fixed, reinforced, etc. But the money wasn't there. Where was it? A lot of people are thinking: Iraq.

This could be Bush's hostage crisis.

Can't live with them, can't afford to emigrate :: 12:29 AM :: easyjetsetter

Family weddings eh? Nothing like a bunch of people with very closely matching DNA getting together to bring out the recriminations and the tissues.

The one I went to this weekend wasn't bad, as such things go. Sure, my sister made me cry and my mother accused me of creating a rift in the family deliberately, and the resulting migraine had be in bed at 9:30pm, but on the plus side, my Dad gave me one of his handerchiefs (daddy's hanky is the stuff of myth in our family - a kind of philosopher's stone which cures all ills) and I got to see my spaniel, who is, and I speak without bias, the most beautiful dog on the planet.

I looked quite dashing also if I say so myself, lilac shirt dress and clutch contrasted nicely with big black hat and sunglasses and black heels. Very Holly Golightly, though I'm more Goheavily, as unlike Audrey Hepburn I didn't spend my adolescence starving under occupation by the Nazis (unless you count my sister) and am therefore less svelte than her (and than Audrey Hepburn).

Of course, there are certain questions one has to answer at such events:

1) How are you enjoying Cambridge?

It seems that when I was applying to university six years ago, my mother told everyone in the family I was going to cambridge. She appears to have spun my later-withdrawn application (I got a better offer) in such a way that my entire extended family are under the impression that I am doing a degree there. Frankly, Orville the duck could apply for Cambridge, it doesn't mean he'll get in.

2) My! How you've grown!

This means two things. From the women, it means you've put on weight. From the men, it means they've noticed you have breasts now.

3) And what are you planning to do with your life?

I've taken to making up answers to this one. At least, in earshot of my sister. Don't want to create a family rift after all.

4) Don't you want to sit next to Gabriela/Felicity/Amabel? You're so close in age and could be such good chums...

Of course, these people who are so close in age to you are invariably 12. I have nothing to say to prepubescents, other than maybe 'so, mothers, eh?'

5) Wasn't it a lovely ceremony? We have to get you married off next. Anyone special in your life?

Strangely, nobody felt the need to ask my sister this one. Who wants to marry a manic harpee after all?

Anyway, no matter what situation your love life is in, this question is best answered with a sad smile and a 'nobody special'. Unless, of course, you're my mother. Who felt the need to leap in and say 'AHA! Tell them about MTF, dear, go on!'

I knew it was a mistake to tell my parents about him. It was, of course, necessary, since he was going to be in their house when they were there and even I am not a good enough bullshitter to pretend frequent trips to Germany are due to an overwhelming love of the Vaterland.

You see now why I am compulsively secretive about such things. I tried to do it casually, saying 'and if you tell anyone without my permission, I'll kill you.' Such subtlety is lost on mothers, who translate this to 'oh goody! now I can prove my daughter's not a lesbian despite her lackadaisical approach to leg hair removal.'

Anyway, the best way to deal with such pronouncements is shift the attention away from her, and onto yourself. I feel that shouting 'MOTHER!!' at a decibel level not generally permissible at weddings and discovering an odd gravelly growl in your voice, which scares off the people who asked the question in the first place, is the best approach.

It has the adverse effect, though, of everyone else breaking off conversation and staring at you, including the jazz quartet. The wind whistles across the lake for a moment, the bell tolls in the nearby village, the crickets chirp in the undergrowth. Then they all remember the champagne is free, that you went to university in America where people don't know how to behave, and they go back to getting drunk. Problem solved.

Oh dear. :: 07:07 PM :: easyjetsetter

I've been receiving a fair number of hits about people looking for MTF. The words that have been cropping up in that search string are also odd: girl, girlfriend, boyfriend, boy, operation.... Yes, apparently, in the language of personal ads, MTF means male-to-female transsexual. Sorry dear.

British teeth :: 01:09 PM :: easyjetsetter

There's a great poem by Pam Ayres, beloved of kiddiewinkles nationwide:

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth,
And spotted the perils beneath,
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food,
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.

This is not my problem. I am often praised by my litany of dentists for their cleanliness. However, I have genetic problems....

I have a fun fun hereditary disease that means I don't have adult teeth pushing up behind the majority of my baby teeth. My American friends gleefully use me as proof for all the stereotypes about awful British teeth (although they look quite nice). My friend Dan, in particular, says it's because we're all inbred on my little island.

As mentioned in my 43 things, I have four missing teeth, but you'd never know to look at me. In fact, I have more teeth than that missing, but only four are bridged with fake teeth. Now that four places are filled with bridges, I have no gaps, just what my American dentist openly referred to as "a freakishly tiny mouth."

Dinah B. Vice, for that was her name, dislocated her shoulder filling my only adult molar last summer, and now the dead, rootless, nerveless baby tooth beside it is threatening to rot it away. I knew it was a matter of time before that baby tooth needed a bridge, and that the adult molar needed to be crowned, but I was hoping it would be once I was earning a decent enough wage to pay for £1200, yes, £1200, of work to be done. I could buy a excellent car and a pedigree puppy for that. Not that I could drive the former, or have a flat to keep the latter in, but you catch my drift.

The problem is, I need three crowns...something called a cantilever conventional bridge that costs triple any other dental work. I go private, because this is the face of NHS dentistry. Also, the only abcess I ever had was due to a botched filled by an NHS dentist, who illegally administered laughing gas to me aged 10. And my NHS orthodontist was recently barred from practice for swindling the government.

Anyway, I know too much about my jaw. At some point, once things have stopped growing and rotting away and moving, I am going to Florida to have implants done by a guy who can offer them for the princely (and relatively cheap sum) of around $5,000.

I would give my back teeth for more...well, you know, those white, enamel things that make apples edible. Jeez, you'd think my parents were related or something.

Lies run around the world before the truth has its boots on :: 11:51 AM :: easyjetsetter

This story from the BBC, when I emailed it to MTF on Thursday, was headlined: UK allows cloning.

Now, I have a scottish higher in biology and read Science and Technology Daily, and even I could tell that the process they were reporting was by no stretch of the imagination identifiable as cloning, except, I think, they used the same technology as the roslin institute did with dolly.

But there it was, the top story on the BBC news website on a thursday afternoon, and when I left the office the Evening Standard Boards outside London Bridge Underground said "scientists clone humans" and the next morning the free Metro paper had the cover headline "First humans cloned in Britain" or words to that effect.

Although I had my suspicions, I, like the editorial staff at the standard and metro, trust the BBC. Now, I had the added advantage of a lovely geneticist at my disposal to explain these things to me. Not all of the general public do however, and how many pub quizzes around the nation will be asking "which university this week succeeded in cloning humans?" Which will add weight to the lie.

Over at the BBC, please note that the headline has now changed to "embryo with two mothers approved" and that there is a separate story called "second bid made to clone humans" and you realise that the original "first humans cloned" story on thursday afternoon was in fact due to (shock! horror!) lazy fact checking.

It seems that Newcastle university applied and was granted a license to clone human embryos for shits and giggles. Unrelated to that, Newcastle university later created an embryo from a cell of one woman (nucleus removed) and the nucleus of another (just add sperm for a disease free baby!) and the BBC science editor conflated these two.

As MTF said in his reply to my email: "I assume the BBC Science editor has an A* grade GCSE (like 60% of all other candidates) and a degree in media studies from wherever / any degree from Oxbridge....."

Of course, luckily, nobody noticed that the temptation to use a bad science * reporting buzz word overcame the venerable and venerated aunt of britain, because researchers handily came up with an even better science story about babies to distract the public. Immaculate conception.

Considering the potential to eradicate sin and produce babies, I expect Ratzi to be reversing his position on stem cell research any day now.

*From, OH THE IRONY, the Guardian.

Dilemma :: 01:01 PM :: easyjetsetter

Considering the overlap between the kind of people who dig up corpses for animal rights and the kind who vehemently opposed GM food, I now fully expect a schism in the church of greenpeace between the animal liberation front and the liberation front of animals. Splitters!

WTF? :: 02:52 PM :: easyjetsetter

Weird story about an alligator in an LA city lake being caught:

The effort to find Reggie — and keep people from being attacked — had cost the city $50,000 as of early September, said Ron Berkowitz, director of the Los Angeles Parks Department. That includes overtime for having a park ranger and lifeguard on duty around the clock.

Apparently, a policy officer had one as a pet, and he got too big (700lbs apparently...) to keep, so he was dumped in a lake. What's reeeeellly weird is that during the hunt, they found a three-foot one as well. Just an 'extra' alligator. How many man-eating animals are out there living in our cities? Apart from me, I mean.

Here's the kicker:

Young was just the latest in a parade of self-described gator experts who had visited Lake Machado in hopes of catching Reggie. He tried unsuccessfully to catch Reggie last month, showing up in full Crocodile Dundee regalia: hat, alligator-tooth necklace and leather pants.

Young said the city paid him $1,600 for his first attempt to catch Reggie. He said he donated his services this time.

Sorry, he was paid how much for FAILING? I am in the wrong business. I go around NOT catching alligators all the time. Nobody's showing up with a big fat check. Maybe I need leather pants.

Brilliant Politics :: 09:40 PM :: easyjetsetter

He's amazing. Just amazing. I thought he was done for. But LOOK! By saying exactly what everyone has been whining for him to say, he has simultaneously removed the wind from their whingeing (now they just look petty if they continue) and has given himself free scope to set the agenda for change in "response capability" exactly how he wants it because he has taken "full responsibility" on a "federal level". Notice, response capability doesn't have "hurricane" before it in the statement.

You can hate Bush all you want, you can disagree with him, you can spit on his policies and despair what they rob people of, but you've got to admit, the man gives the people what no other current western political leader does: leadership and certainty. Basically, he's got balls, and he knows how to use them.

Now, there's a politician. Fucking brilliant.

Political Correctness Gone Mad! :: 10:08 AM :: easyjetsetter

Margaret Thatcher, in Cockney rhyming slang, is known as "the Milk Snatcher" for ending the distribution of free milk in public schools. Nevermind that it was often left unrefrigerated all morning and was subsequently warm and fermented by break time. It is the phrase that epitomises her evil for a certain segment of society, notably those brought up in rural Northern England in the 1970s and 80s and owned "Coal not Dole" badges. A good point is made in the comments over at samizdata, however:

School milk as it was in my day would these days be banned as:

(1) biologically dangerous because unhygenically distributed;
(2) a health ans safety risk: glass bottles with loose tops among primary children, the children using scissors to pierce the tops--someone would be prosecuted immediately;
(3) fatty, too easy to enjoy and over-indulge in, unhelpful in relation to the healthy-eating agenda; and
(4) discriminatory, since children from some ethnic minorities, may lack the relevant enzymes to digest cow's milk.

Tee hee.

In related news, John B. quit the blogosphere because irony is dead. People are really crap, you know.

The path to truth lies through google :: 12:40 PM :: easyjetsetter

Why is Dannon/Danone ceasing to use plastic caps for its individually sold yoghurts in the US? Is it because of the environment, as they claim?

Kind of. What is plastic made of?

...based on polymers, which are produced by the conversion of natural products or by syththesis from primary chemicals coming from oil, natural gas or coal.

How much does oil cost?

What's the year-on-year change in oil prices?

Starting in 2003, crude prices climbed from $30 to around $45 by the end of 2004. Since the beginning of 2005, they have gained another 50%.

Environment indeed. Pshaw.

I'm only happy when it rains :: 07:48 AM :: easyjetsetter

It always seems to piss it down on the days that I leave places. Yes, my internship is over, and I have failed (ouch, I hate that word) to find a job in the six weeks I had. Which means it's back to the parental abode in sunny glasgow, where it rains a lot more, to feel inadequate for a while again.

But not before one last hoorah in the land of the living: drinks with the mysociety people this evening, a weekend in Paris, eight days in Germany. Then lugging my comically huge bag to Luton airport for the evening flight to Glasgow airport on the 27th. Ironically, as my high-life days end, I shall be flying a certain bright orange logoed low budget airline. Figures.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder :: 02:52 PM :: easyjetsetter

And your viewer stats plummet...

For the few friends who have sent concerned texts and emails saying 'are you ok? your blog has died' a short recap of the last week.

Leaving my think tank was sad, but the good news is I have an interview to do exactly what I did at my think tank for an organisation that wants to pay me a living wage to do it. Even better, the think tank I was working for has produced reports and done research for this organisation, which means I have lots of prepatory reading to do that other candidates won't have access to. I'll keep you posted.

I met the girl I was subletting from, who came back from Asia the night before I left for Paris and Germany, and she rocks. My roommates had said for the six weeks I was living there from time to time "oh it's weird how like Eli you are" so to meet my alter ego was fucking awesome. So awesome that we spent all thursday night and most of friday morning gabbing and I forgot to get the self-raising flour and the clotted cream required for my trip.

These may seem odd things to take to paris, until one remembers that the ladies of the American Church were throwing a book launch tea party for the book I edited for them. It was also my goodbye party, two months after leaving Paris. Go figure.

Paris was awesome, in a way that London has failed to be. I really feel at home there, I know the streets, I have my bonnes addresses and my circle of friends, and I get this sense of belonging beyond these things. Just have to get into grad school and I can live there again...

There was a housewarming party, termed charmingly a cauldron hanging party in French, and Adam drank two thirds of a bottle of gin. Saturday was the tea, followed by lebanese food with Okie and Blanche. Sunday I discovered that I had a monstrous cold, which didn't help my already deteriorating French. Brunch with Florence, tex-mex with the pub quiz team before the quiz itself.

Monday morning I hopped on the slowest train in France from the Gare de l'Est and came to see MTF. That's all that's been going on really, but I'll write a post looking into comparative pub quiz cultures and practices, since we went to an English pub on Wednesday night to storm into first place at MTF's pub quiz. There will also be a slack-jawed diatribe about beer tents and german dancing, and the dangers of cultural tourism. And I'll be writing something about my new project to work on while I'm unemployed at home and going stark raving bonkers save but for the power of broadband. Anyway, sorry to be away so long, we'll catch up properly soon.