Join the ANTI-ANTIVIRUS VISTA 2010 PARTY!

I hate my computer, I hate it with a growing passion.

The reason I hate my computer so much is that it is nearly brilliant, but in the end, it's frustrating and annoying. Take for example the variety of different windows systems. I have Vista, which I almost love. I almost love the sidebar especially the exchange rate things, except being as I live in the UK, and my fiance is American, and also I like to know how the euro is doing, I have to load up the exchange rate thing twice. Grrr. (Thats a three R grrr by the way. I have moved from the two R grr, to the three R grrr as its gotten that serious. Also the two R grr kind of looked like I was a fan of motor racing.)

I also love the system monitor that watches my processing speed, except then it just tells me one of my processors is working madly whilst the other one is not, and they can't switch the workload to make the thing quicker, and what the hell is it doing anyway, I didn't ask it to do a damned thing! Why can't my lazy processor (which I have now decided to call Berbatov) just pick up the slack! Besides which, have you seen how much operating memory it takes!



I love the windows background features, but I now have thousands of pictures suitable for my background and I want my lappytop to randomly choose one, but Vista doesn't do that, so I end up finding a program online to do it for me, which works fine, except it's really really slow, and it interferes with a load of other programs (No, I don't care that you have just changed backgrounds when I'm in the middle of running away from a hoard of hungry zombies!) and have you seen how much operating memory it takes!

I love the internet, because it gives you access to everything except when you want to find one specific thing in which case it gives you everything BUT the one specific thing you wanted. In fact rather worryingly more and more even google takes you to sites selling you stuff rather than the information site you actually want. (When I type "All Holes at Augusta", I didnt expect to see THAT. I had my Mum in the room!)



The worst thing without doubt on computers though is, rather specifically, ANTIVIRUS VISTA 2010.

This as you may know is not an anti-virus but a virus. It infects your computer and installs a program called AV.EXE on your PC. This program is a very very annoying advert that repeats itself again and again until presumably you link to their website and buy the product that, one can only pray, will leave this virus on your pc dormant, but more likely will either copy all your passwords and steal all your money, or send itself to all your friends instead.

This is also particularly annoying as turning the process off doesn't work as EVERY SINGLE TIME you use any program, it turns itself back on again. Also somehow it manages to stay hidden by an anti-virus, a spyware, and a malware program, which must make all three of those an even bigger waste of money. Why did I bother getting them when this insidious pice of software can jus waltz in whenever it feels like it! Half of my computer space is taken up with anti-viruses and anti-spyware and none of it works!

You can't delete ANTIVIRUS VISTA 2010 as, well it's not a stupid as all that, and even if you could find the right file location and get to the file, it would only reload itself into your memory on the next boot up.

It's like Russell Brand, you don't like him, you don't want him but he keeps bobbing back to the surface like a floating poo.

There is an election coming up in May, and I am offering my vote here and now, and I suspect the vote of thousands of internet users in this country, if ANY PARTY promises to hunt down the people who run this virus, who take the money, who create more and more strains of this insidious thing, and hang them from their scrotum, in a public place, like the Tower of London, for the whole world to see. Then supply us with big sticks so we can hit them like a pinata!

It can't be that hard, freeze the accounts, petition for their arrest, they are committing a form of robbery or fraud or extortion or something here! There must be a law against it. Why is no-one fighting this.

Please stand with me and scream and shout. Lets complain to our leaders, lets demand they do something about this. Viruses are infecting our systems and they should be stopped once and for all! Join the ANTI-ANTIVIRUS VISTA 2010 PARTY!

There Probably Is No God... Just Be Good For Goodness Sake

This was my favourite news story of the year.



The reaction was priceless



There is NO OUTCRY IN BRITAIN! lol... We seriously didn't care! We really really didn't care! You can't believe how much we didn't care....

The fact is WE in Great Britain.. have absolutely no interest in what religious people do...

According to the census statistics in 2001, 71% of brits are protestant... but think about this. In the 1600's our King Henry VIII broke free from the catholic church so he could get a divorce from dodgy looking Catherine of Aragon, and have his wicked way with the tasty sex-kitten Anne Boleyn. We called the newly reformed protestant church... The Chuch Of England... get it... THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

If we called it "Martin Luther's German Christian Church of Protestants", NO ONE IN BRITAIN would ever mark it down on their census forms. The british people have not cared about religion for a very long time. Bear in mind that the same census in 2001 reported an excellent 0.7% of people claiming to be Jedi Knights, making it the fourth biggest religion in the UK!

http://www.vexen.co.uk/UK/religion.html

There is a religion in the UK, people go every week, people believe in it completely, people love it like they love their own family. It's not christian, it's not Muslim, it's not even Buddhism....

Football is the religion of Britain, it has been since the 1900's. And it is followed far more than any make-believe deity, its attended each week with crowds bigger than any church or mosque could dream of on our isle.



If you walked down a street with a quotation of the bible on your t-shirt, chances are you would be stopped and/or laughed at. We don't thrust our silly ideas at other people, and we don't presume others need to be saved, we don't enjoy being told what to do, especially by people who seem to have no regard for their own rules. Walking down the high street with a football shirt is as normal as baseball hats in the US.

I don't even like football that much, but at least its real.

BIG BIG BIG WELL DONE for the right-wing Fox News to come out with even more rubbish about britain. They are really having a bumper year after their attacks on the british health System. Seriously people... drive 100 miles to see a doctor, have operations without X-Rays, kill people off because they're too old!  Fox News really has made a big effort this year!

Now they manage to take the mickey out of the one group of people saying just be good regardless of what you believe in. We dont see American Humanists bombing buildings, or terrorising abortionist doctors. They just want people to be good to each other.



Wow! I bet Jesus would approve... I seem to remember reading Jesus wasn't a big fan of churches either.

Stereotypes, Racism and My Two Front Teeth

There is something odd about Stereotypes. We all recognise them as being intrinsically wrong. After all they assume that everyone is alike, which they obviously aren't. The only trouble is that clearly there is something right about stereotypes too. Whether you like it or not, the Americans are gun-toting, the French are arrogant, the Japanese do take pictures of everything and the English do create "little england" wherever they go. That is not to say that all of them are, but enough to make it a reasonable stereotype.

If they are a reasonable picture of a people or a culture though, why are we so offended by them. In the UK we had a hit show in the 70's called "Mind Your Language". It was totally successful right up to the end of its run, and had massive viewing figures. It was however racist, and ITV took it off the air. The show was about an english speaking school. The english teacher would try to teach people from different nationalities the nuances of english. The french lady was whistful and sexy, the italian man was passionate and gaudy, the japanese man had a strict code of conduct and so on.



My mother is Chilean and she loved it. She recognised and associated with the spanish bartender character Juan. She understood his protective family values, she laughed herself silly when Juan would treat Mr Brooks the teacher like his closest brother, and laughed harder still when he would raise his fists at the teacher and threaten him with a "punch up". The truth is that in Chile, they have strong family values. They are very protective, and should you be welcomed into the family circle of friends then you really are like the lost brother returned. I experienced this myself when were in Chile. I had never met these people my mother introduced me to, but their welcome was honest and heart-warming in a way I had not experienced before.

This show was filled with stereotypes, from the efficient german au pair, to the chairman mau quoting chinese lady. It was also filled with warmth celebrating our differences and understanding that each nationality has a different set of problems when trying to conform to the british way of thinking.

In the end, as the world got more PC, this well watched show was shown to be racist. As a brit I understand that on the one level we are just laughing at the funny foreigners and their stupid ways. On another hand though it was saying we are all different, let's not be frightened to say so.



The truth is that each and every stereotype has come from somewhere. There are however, reasons for them. Not excuses exactly, but reasons. There is a stereotype of the English being arrogant and nationalistic, superior and outspoken. Pretty much everything you get from Al Murray's "The Pub Landlord". We have an unhappy history in England, we have lorded it over half the world for many years. We have exported "Britishness" and reaped its rewards. And now we are paying for it. The English are disliked the world over for its oppressive history. From our closest neighbour Scotland, to Australia on the other side of the world, everyone enjoys seeing us fail.

We are not an apologetic people as a rule however, so instead of crawling into a corner we stubbornly stand out unabashed claiming how wonderful we must be for everyone to want to beat us. We become visciously protective of our nationalism, shouting from the highest rooftop how we do things better than everyone else, and no-one will tell us what to do, especially those foreigners in Europe. Obviously this isn't everyone, but all the english feel this streak of jingoistic zeal around them.

When asked "What is England?" however, we tend to struggle. We know its not double decker buses and beefeater hats, but over hundereds of years of trying to keep an empire, then a commonwealth and always a United Kingdom we lost our identity in a way the Scots, Irish and Welsh would never have done.



To say "What is Britain?" however! We know instantly of a proud nation fighting alone against insurmountable odds, of a parliament that was the template of governmental process around the world, of a system of laws and courts that balances our sense of equality and justice, of a talented and well educated people that have influenced the worlds thinking from Charles Darwin to Isaac Newton, that changed the way we see the world from William Shakespeare to George Orwell, and who led the world in creative invention from Isambard Kingdom Brunel's brindges to  Adam Smiths ideas on competition.

Anyway, the reason I mention all of this is because this Christmas I am staying with my brother in Scotland. He is 5 years older than me and we used to do exactly what the archetypal stereotype of brothers do. We fought all the time, were horrid to each other at every opportunity, we were jealous and competitive at every turn but we would fight side by side if someone hurt us, and backed each other through thick and thin when trying to get one past our parents.

Today as we were driving through the snow, some of the old arguments were brought up. There was no way that I could compete with my brother physically when I was young so I learnt how to get to him emotionally. In fact I became an expert in it. I could get him to fight me within a minute if I wanted to, and since he had no reasonable response, he would end up punching my teeth out. I would claim the moral victory and get the double bonus of him getting unfairly told off by my parents. By pointing out irritating failings in his comments I managed to provoke the same angry response I got all those years ago.



Now I'm not 8 and he isn't 13. My brother and I are both mature now, and we're smart enough to know what was happening, so he didn't get told off by my parents, and I still have my teeth, but as he protested telling me I am argumentative, and as I frustrated him  by reminding him of his unreasonable opinion, I thought about how we got to where we are now. How just like glaciers carved the rock into hills and valleys, our time growing up together helped carve our personalities. As last night wore on, and the entire population of Aberfeldy tried in vein to take on the Allen boys in doubles pool. I felt so proud to be once again back to back with him taking on the world.

Stereotypes aren't always wrong, they aren't always unjust, but the truth is that they don't tell the whole story. Searching for the larger picture can be fun, entertaining and inspirational. Assuming a people have a "type" is not as big a problem as not asking where the "type" came from.

Zombies, Werewolves and England's Favourite Terrorist

A big well done for all those excellent costumes we saw on Halloween night. The streets of Dorchester were lined with covens of witches, packs of werewolves and the odd one or two vampiric bloodsucker. Funnily enough as the night wore on and the festivities (and the alcohol) took their merciless toil, I felt more and more like I was in a tribute to Michael Jackson's Thriller video.



Ah well, such is the nature of the ever changing world we live in. Its all in with the new and out with the old. Clearly the influence of our american cousins (Some would say cousins loosely as in the Darwinist definition) has had a profound effect on our celebrations of all hallow's eve. I saw many parents walking around their young monstrous offspring in the expectant delerium of a sugarhazed high. This is progress from last years groups of teenage ogres throwing eggs at old ladies windows, but still there is something very unbritish about it all. Maybe its the use of the term "Candy", or the fact that the kids get very rude if you give them the "trick" instead of the "treat", but something about this pre-pubescent charity jars with me.

Maybe its because so much attention has been focussed on this splurge of materialism, teaching our not so innocent children to beg for fattening sugar seems immoral somehow, perhaps we ought to have a "bum a fag" day, (on reflection that will mean something very different in the states i'm sure... here in the UK, it means to beg for a cigarette.) but I suspect the thing that bothers me the most is not about what Halloween has become, but what it isnt.



Tonight, November 5th is a very special day in England, or at least it should be. Guy Fawkes was born in 1570 in York. He was brought up amongst Roman Catholics attending the St Peter's school in York before joining the army in 1586. In 1605 he led the "Gunpowder Plot", a plan to blow up the House of Lords, during the State Opening of Parliament whilst King James I was inside.

He basically figured we were better off with it ALL gone. And why not. I think every once in a while we should recognise that things are just a bit rubbish and that we may need to blow it up and start again. In fact, Guy is a reminder that we are able to do just that. Thomas Jefferson said...

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."

Thats what Guy Fawkes stood for, and not only that, but in the true spirit of the English, he failed completely!



We celebrate this day, November 5th, as the day his fiendish plot was discovered, by lighting bonfires and burning the effigy or "Guy". This is a uniquely english celebration, which now involves fireworks, wooley gloves, scarves and the odd greasy fry, but its obvious to me that even though we have done this practice for the last 400 years the times have changed.

This year, all of our regular public bonfires (an opportunity to place things appropriate to burn on the giant heap in the green) seem to have disappeared. I can only assume this has something to do with the loathed 'Health and Safety Committees' that have sprung up around the country spoiling our fun and ruining our lives, since there has always been something magnetic and powerful about a giant bonfire to young and old alike.

It occured to me though as I watched so many monsters haunting the streets, that perhaps it was time to let this tradition go. Perhaps this pyre, this last vestige of englishness should be set ablaze and allowed to drift off into the forgotten sea.

I was in the supermarket today and spoke to a friend I hadnt seen for some time. She had split with her cheating husband and had returned to Dorchester for some tranquillity and a new begining. And thats when it occured to me that before we let all our antiquanted traditions go, we should see if we can blow a little more life into its dying embers.

I put it to you that there is plenty of life left, and that even if you dont see the benefits of burning the last traces our most famous terrorist, then you should replace him with your own burning effigy. Perhaps a cheating lover would be appropriate or a tyranical boss, an interfering mother-in-law or even a sadistic dentist. Perhaps a fraudulent polician would be more appropriate to burn, or a perverted priest, or even an inconsiderate, rude and just plain annoying driver, who cuts in on me and doesnt indicate and stops for no reason whatsoever!





I personally will be imagining enjoying the sight of Dorchesters loathed teenage "Chavs" going up in flames, but whatever beats your drum.



Either way, I think we should try hard to keep this wonderful old tradition. We should celebrate our bonfires and sparklers, even if it does scare the bejesus out of the local dogs!

Burn Baby Burn.....hahaha!

Culture Shock and Double Cream

As some of you will know this trip to the US is very different to the last one. Wheras last time we were going out all the time spending the days in museums, art galleries and theatres, and the nights in good restaurants trying to teach the two skiddles which fork to use, this time the closest we have been to going out has been McDonalds.

It has been a good thing though, interesting and challenging. For my part with my girl in her new job leaving at 7am in the morning and coming home at 6pm at night, and the kids gone from 8 to 3, its meant that I had to get to grips with a very different Oklahoma. I have kept myself busy enough, or at least I did initially, trying to keep the place clean, and cook a variety of things, but I have noticed some "differences" which have not helped in my plight to become a domestic god.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="264" caption="Whipped cream"][/caption]

For a start, some of my world famous recipes, have not gone according to plan. In fact they have not gone according to plan so much, that now both the skiddles and my girl are a little... well i'd like to say worried but the truth is that they're more scared than worried. And whilst I accept that some of it has been my fault, most of it hasnt been. Say for example just the other day when I made a peach desert. I wanted to top it off with Evapourated Milk, a delicious, thick and sweet liquid, that goes nicely with a spongy cake type thing. Imagine my disappointment when the stuff that came out was much more like UHT (which they have never heard of over here). It was very hard to explain how it really does taste better in England! Luckily we had some "Whipped Cream"... Whipped cream over here comes pre-whipped in a margerine tub, for you to spoon out!

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="242" caption="spaghetti i think"][/caption]

The other day I was cooking some sticky lemon pork, which went well,

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="210" caption="bad rice"][/caption]

but the spanish rice.... this is rice boiled in chicken stock and tomatoes didnt go so well. For  a start, I spent a good half an hour trying to figure out how to use the can opener, then the rice I used turned out to be quick cook rice, and so went very squidgy by the time I had finished with it. Then there was the spaghetti... now i know what youre thinking... how can you get spaghetti wrong, well two things happened. First the tin of tomatoes I had turned out to be tomatoes and chillis. Now, I am sure that skiddles the world over are fussy. I remember my mother fighting with me over fussiness when I was younger, and my girls skiddles are no different. They took to my "chilli" bolognaise like cats to water... it was not pretty. It didnt help that when I asked how much spaghetti to use, my girl, not realising it was a big pack, told me to use the lot, which then overfilled the pot, until they went all sticky and starchy!

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="316" caption="spanish tortilla"][/caption]

Then there was the spanish omelet (or tortilla) which I made with green beans (cos I didnt think the kids would like spinach), but apparently since I called it a tortilla, and so they expected a flat mexican pancake, and i gave them a thick eggy omelet, they objected to!

In fact the only thing that seems to have gone down okay is my salad dressing, and even that has a limited success. I have noticed that the kids have taken to "adding salt" to everything I cook now, not cos it needs salt but because that way they cant taste it, and they can turn to mommy and claim "its too salty, can I throw it out"!

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="285" caption="cool"][/caption]

Now speaking of Mommy for a little moment... Mommy started off by backing me up. "you must try it", "Its all food", "children in Africa would love to eat this", but as the weeks went on, I noticed she started having "A full lunch with the boss"

So I have started to feel more and more deflated, and its not just in the cooking department either. Take for example the toilet cleaner, which comes as a powder that you leave in the toilet bowl for a while before flushing it. Except flushing it at the wrong time, or putting too much powder in the bowl (especially with such a high water mark on the loo) meant that the foam would flow over the lip of the toilet and may have covered the toilet floor and I may have had to spend a while cleaning it. erm.... but thats not all, even their floor cleaner proved to be too tricky. Instead of having a simple mop and bucket, which everyone and his grandma could deal with, they have a "swisher", a strange device that looks like a mop with a button push cleaning fluid ejector half way up the stick....  Now how was I supposed to know that you needed to put a sheet on the bottom of the thing.

Enough said.... There are things I could have done better, and there are things I have been plain unlucky with. All this is part of the culture shock you get when you come here for any amount of time. I was stunned the other day whilst watching the american version of who wants to be a millionaire that I couldnt get past the first three questions! How was I supposed to know the lyrics to some childrens song!

The truth is that the US might look a little like England, might feel a little like England, might even talk english, but it aint England! No double cream, no clotted cream, no sugar in chocolate (the chocolate here is horrid!), no hot tea, no back bacon, no mature cheddar, no branston pickle, no curry and no crusty bread.

Not that Im saying England is better, just different. And the US offers so much more..... pazazz.  It surprises you with its never ending supply of drinks, the swimming pools, basketball nets and tennis courts connected to each set of apartments, its free telephone lines in other countries when you get a new local contract.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="147" caption="heheh"][/caption]



The US shows how the customer really can be king, it floods you with a million special offers and a billion freebies. Sometimes though its hard to look past the BOGOF's and the Open Days and see how you are being manipulated. Its hard to see that the cheap fuel given to you in one hand means a divisive and unethical manipulation of the international market on the other. Sometimes you feel like you are living in a fantasy, and you just cant imagine people living a different way. Its easy to "expect" things and after a while I have found myself questioning service instead of stoicly putting up with it like we do in the UK.

I can see why they often appear to us as brash and demanding. Its just what they expect over here, but wheras we suffer everything with a good dose of cynicism, they have none and blindly believe what is told to them. I was astonished to see that President Obamas speeches are used to advertise bad debt companies, can you imagine Gordon Brown appearing on a British Beef advert!

Their belief in the polarised one side or the other system is quite astonishing. Not just republican (tory) and democrat (labour), but Dallas Cowboys or Pitsburgh Steelers, No guns or you must have a gun or Jesus or the Devil. Everything is black or white and there is no voice for shades. And the language is so confused that you sepnd half your time trying to work out what you are supporting (or not). Pro-life or Pro-choice... which one believes in abortion? If someone talks of euthanasia, another person talks of death camps.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="234" caption="uh??"][/caption]

Since I've been here I've heard arguments that Darwin caused World War II, that Gravity is gods way of keeping us on the planet and that the US of A have won every major war since the war of independance. Mostly told by nutters that have no place singing on street corners, and yet they do.

I have had a discussion with my future father-in-law that said that the americans saved "your butts" in Granada. If you dont know what happened in Granada, I advise you to look it up and see what the text books say. I had to aquiesce since I didnt know the subject, but I must have done enough, because a revised edition was handed to me the next time I spoke with him, and therin lies another great thing about the US.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="She might not be pretty but she brings pure joy!"][/caption]

When they do realise, accept, appreciate they are wrong, they really do something about it. Service is incredible, in every regard, like when the kids ordered some drinks the other day and the waitress brought them over, but the kids started crying telling us they wanted a different drink. In England you would die of embarrassment and tell them to shut up. In england the waitress would huff and groan and charge you double. In the US the waitress told us no problem and came back two minutes later with the new order at no extra charge. Or the way that my girls steak was not cooked well enough for her so they asked her to remove the baked potato, so she had something to eat, whilst they cooked it up, and then they gave her ANOTHER baked potato with the newly cooked steak. This was not special attention, this was common practice.

I went to the school the kids are at again. I had gone several times last time I was here, and I had to pick something up here this time. The staff remembered my name, allowed me to sit in their office, offered me a tour and a drink. There is something incredible in that level of commitment. And believe me, its not just to me they offer it, its with everyone.

I hope that my life here doesnt make me forget my cynicism. Doesnt stop me questioning the facts I am told about the world. I hope I keep doubting everything, and looking for my own answers. More than that, I hope that I keep pushing my new family to see the rest of the world, to recognise what they consider as being normal or passable actually is incredibly good in any other country. I hope I can bring a little realism to their lives, as in my opinion everyone needs to know how they have it good wheras others have it bad just because they happened to be born in the wrong country.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="192" caption="spoilt?"][/caption]

I have alwasy been greatful that my parents did that for me, that they forced me to eat things I didnt like as a child, forced me to sit through things I was bored at, and forced me to try speaking languages when it was much easier not to. I hope I can help do that because its a start to being a more understanding more sympathetic person. To appreciate that things are good here, in part because they are bad somewhere else, and that things covered overnight but not put in the fridge is what millions of people with no fridges do every single day, and perhaps we shouldnt worry so much about the germ that got away, and that maybe a few germs can make us stronger not weaker.

That wasting food/fuel/energy/plastics/boxes may not be a crime, but it is a sin, in that it is a crime of priviledge that both sides of the pond are guilty of.

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="216" caption="flu pack"][/caption]

In the US at the moment they have adverts for "Swine flu packs" these include tissues, cold medicine, headache pills, muscle pain pills, face masks and hand cleaning gel. They are aimed at children, in fact such is the panic of swine flu that schools are regularly closing their doors for days at a time to stop the spread. We are talking about swine flu here. On the grand scale if things, swine flu is not a big killer, its not even killed as many people as measles did last year. According to statistics, your child is more likely to get run over going to school than they are from the swine flu they are very unlikely to get at school. And its that kind of manipulation that scares me. When you are swamped with it, then its hard to see the truth.

After all, how many in the UK were worried by asian flu, or the millenium bug. We all fall victim to this crazy manipulation caused by newspapers and media looking for sensationalist stories to catch the attention of a scared public. And I'm in the heart of it. Right here. I dont want to succumb to it, and  hope I never do significantly. Its that part of me that I worry about the most though. That part of me that forgets how ugly hard and real life can be elsewhere, when we have it so good, that even our homeless people have somewhere to ask for help if they are prepared to. I'm reminded of Alan, one of Dorchester's tattooed drunks that recently was given a home to live in. After years and years of choosing not to accept help he finally gave up, saying that his tramping days are over and thanks for the retirement present.

I'm thinking whilst it is good to see the old stallwart walking home every night, what people in Sierra Nevada or Pakistan would have thought of the choices he made. What the young innocent girls of the Surinam, raped by men who have aids because a witch doctor told them that was the only cure, would think of it. What Indian children of 8 years old would think of it as they climb up giant rubbish tips in search of some tin to sell. I wonder in fact how much money those same children would make over here in the US in one year climbing up the mountains of trash over here.

As a conclusion, and I'm sorry this is so long, I want to say that the US is a wonderful paradise of opportunity, where the best really is appreciated and demanded, but I just want to see a little piece of the other world. The world of poverty and hunger. When I was a child I saw Barry Norman on a kids tv show. The nations favourite film reviewer at the time said that to be a film reviewer, a good one, you had to watch an awful lot of BAD movies, to know a good one when you see it.

I think thats good advice for me now, and for everyone.

From Cherub to Chav

For those of you who have no idea what a chav is... well thats a tricky one... Wikipedia (always fun for a laugh) says

"The stereotypical "chav" is an aggressive teenager or young adult who often engages in anti-social behaviour, such as street drinking, drug abuse and rowdy behaviour. They are often assumed to be unemployed or in a low paid job. Stereotypical "chavs" typically wear tracksuits and hoodies made by sporting brands such as Nike and Adidas and listen to dance music and RnB."

Its typical of wikipedia to sugarcoat these things. I wondering how many chavs grimace at such an official and flat sounding description

You're in your car and you see a Chav on a bike....Why should you try not to hit him?
Its probably your bike

The urban dictionary, home of many an amusing alternative definition comes out with something alot more precise....

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="162" caption="Frightening huh!"][/caption]

"Picture this a young lad about 12 years of age and 4 ½ feet high baseball cap at ninety degrees in a imitation addidas tracksuit, with trouser legs tucked into his socks (of course, is definitely the height of fashion). This lad is strutting around, fag in one hand jewellery al over the over, outside McDonalds acting as if he is 8 foot tall and built like a rugby player, when some poor unsuspecting adult (about 17/18) walks round the corner wanting to go to mcdonalds for his dinner glances at the young lad, the young lad jumps up in complete disgust and says “Whats your problem? Wanna make sommin of it? Bling Bling” when the adult starts to walk towards the young lad, the young lad pisses himself and runs off to either his pregnant 14-year-old girlfriend or his brother in the army crying his eyes out."

I think you get the picture. In fact I have just seen a webisite that describes these delightful young people as a cross between a "wigger" and "white trash"... so erm.... "wigger trash???" I dont know!

What do you call a chav collecting his moms child benefit from a post office?

Sorrrrrted!

Anyhow, whilst packing with the kids today, I was reminded that even the worst chav started out as a small and often adorable child. What is it about our children that turns even the sweetest, most angelic, doting little girl into a 15 year old foul mouthed, dirty trollop? What has happened to our civilisation that allows the utter dregs of society, the laziest, most ungrateful, theiving,  joy-riding, drug crazed, disrespectful, immature and pathetic youths to happy slap their way into british culture like a childs version of the mafia?

What do you call a Chavette in a white tracksuit?
The bride.

So I wondered maybe its something we are doing. Naturally my first instinct was to turn to The Usual Suspects. Maybe its diet, too much sugar, insecticides in the food cycle, preservatives or MSG. Perhaps its bad parenting due to the nuclear family, single parents, modern working families, reliance on schools, lack of respect. Maybe its obsession with possesions, getting the latest ipod, mobile phone or Wii game or a simple degradation of society, no religious values, bad policing and useless laws.

Why did the Chav cross the road?
To start a fight with a random stranger for no reason whatsoever.

I guess all this is possible, but to find the truth I think we really need to look at our little ones. As an unqualified adult, but not a father I am in a unique position of perspective. I am encountering children but do not have the blood connection that society automatically allows us certian rights. I have to be very careful what I do and say to the children I care for, always being aware that every action I take could be scrutinised from granma to the next door neighbour.

It occurs to me that maybe we have somewhere along the way given children too much consideration. So I looked up some of the great literature on the subject, voices that the world will recognise instantaneously as being profoundly right and decent.

"I believe the children are our are future, Teach them well and let them lead the way
Show them all the beauty they possess inside, Give them a sense of pride to make it easier"

[caption id="attachment_321" align="alignright" width="228" caption="Haiiiii-Yah"][/caption]

Whitney's portentious edict suggested that we must teach them well and let them lead the way. Im not sure Whitney has ever tried to teach a chav, it would be fun to watch, after all I strongly suspect they are a lot more inclined to listen to Bobby Browns advice on how to bring knuckle bruises down whilst wearing stupidly low pants.

And one thing you can definitely say about chavs is that they have pride, normally in the quantity of "bling" they have stolen from their grannies, or the best fastest most outrageous and loudest Vauxhall Nova they have stolen this week. I wonder if Whitney meant something more incidious, like the beauty inside being their heart, rib cage, stomach? Hmmm, perhaps I have underestimated her

Two Chavs in a car without any music. Who's driving?
The police

So what are we doing wrong to our kids to make them behave in such an anti scoial manner? I have an idea... take a look at the following picture. I believe it will be made very very clear......

[caption id="attachment_327" align="alignright" width="127" caption="Hmmm"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_328" align="alignleft" width="134" caption="curious"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_329" align="aligncenter" width="134" caption="ahhhh"][/caption]

To me, it seems pretty clear that when we take photos like these and then post it to literally millions of people on the internet, it is bound to affect our little ones, so when they turn into the teenage chavs, we only have ourselves to blame.

[caption id="attachment_352" align="alignleft" width="111" caption="I see, birds huh"][/caption]

One last point. If you are in the UK remember it is better to have tried and been happy slapped down, had your mug viewed by thousands on slappy internet sites and shown on the naional news, than not to try at all... apparently! If you are living in the US however, please note, he may look and act like Vanilla Ice, but the gun he's carrying is probably B.I.G's.

[caption id="attachment_335" align="alignright" width="150" caption="scary"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_349" align="alignright" width="112" caption="Ungh"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_339" align="alignnone" width="105" caption="erm..."][/caption]

An Englishman in New York

Okay, Okay... I'm not in New York, but An Englishman in Oklahoma City doesnt work.

So, I just wanted to tell you how my trip has panned out, a random morning in my random life. A brief description of  the differences between the English way and the American way.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Gerroff!"][/caption]

First, I woke up at 5am. I didnt intend to, but its hot here, much hotter than in the UK, which means I'm not used to it. So naturally when I try to sleep under the covers I end up sweating a couple pounds away in the night. I do the smart thing therefore, I sleep on top of the covers and keep nicely cool especially when the air conditioning kicks in.... .hmmmm. Anyhow, as I said I woke up at 5am... not because I wanted to, but because clearly my totally exposed bottom is too much of a temptation for the kitten that owns the flat. At 5am exactly, the miniature fluffball that I shall call 'Damian' decided to crawl up my body and paw-pad my bum. I dont know why its called paw-padding, the damned feline was using the sharp end of its claws!

So having screamed at the top of my voice, waking the entire house up, running to the bathroom to see if I was bleeding and washing myself down with cold water to get over the shock, I return to the bed and to sleep, which is now uncomfortably sweaty cos I'm terrified of being minced again. Naturally my fiance gives me as much sympathy as I will next time she sees a spider.

At 7:30am the skiddles decide that enough is enough and I must be put to my proper use. No more sleeping allowed, now I have become a climbing frame. They leap on top of me with the athletic ability of the russian gymnasium team, and just like a pack of lions ripping through a dead gaselle, they rip through the last of my dreams and bring me to a bumpy reality.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="233" caption="Very Useful"][/caption]

I stumble into the bathroom for my morning ablutions. Now I have to tell you, bathrooms, and more specifically toilets... are different in the UK. If anyone is coming over here for a holiday, you must be prepared for this. The water lever in the toilet bowl is much much higher than in the UK. I shall say that again to re-emphasise it. The toilet water level is much much higher than in the UK.

Now (I am trying to be delicate here) in britain we may occasionally miss our target, and cause a little smearing on the lower bowl, but this is easily cleared up with a quick wipe of the loo brush. In the USA, it appears the higher water level avoids this problem completely. However, this causes three other unexpected problems.

First and least worrying is that with a low water level, any toilet paper disgarded generally covers any deposits left in the bowl, so when you turn to flush, you see nothing. You can look carefully into the depths of the bowl with the only thing on your mind being 'I wonder how many sheets they use in Africa?', but with a higher water level, there is more surface area, and if you arent very careful at looking sternly forward at all times, you may accidentally discover floaty things! Before you know it you have lunged for the flusher and vowed to yourself you will never again use a toilet on the USA, well that or you will never eat again. Perhaps thats why the models are so skinny. hmmmm. I am telling you, because if you arent expecting it....

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="330" caption="Very Teethy"][/caption]

The second problem is considerably more significant. With a water level only an inch lower than your bottom, you really dont want to stray too far on your reach.... below! Especially in a supermarket toilet, which are unbelievably clean by the way. My beautiful fiance was convinced I had gotten lost when I finally emerged out of the loo. How could i tell her that I had been touched by the hand of pooh and had spent the next 2 hours scrubbing myself clean.

Finally there is the sound issue. With a higher water level a man... I cant go for the noise reducing, china hitting pee. Instead I have to aim for the much noisier water hitting pee. So the middle of the night pee is like betting it all on black. I have no idea whether my girl will wake up and if she does what will she think. Quite honestly, even though we are engaged, there's still only so much reality a girl can take. Worst still what if she is not impressed... what if she thinks a true man should be able to hold more in his bladder... okay, now that is bothering me.

Anyhow, after I get dressed we decide to pop out for breakfast. I wrote about breakfast before, a full english breakfast in a greasy spoon cafe, but instead of that humbling and risky adventure into botchulism and listeria we went to an 'all you can eat' breakfast place, where the kids took their plates and filled them sky high with a healthy old fashioned breakfast of gummybears, jelly beans and chocolate mousse. My fiance and I were far more reserved, having a giant omelet followed by mashed potatoes and half a cow.

This idea of the all you can eat, whatever you want style restaurants would be totally alien to the british public, as would only paying for your drinks once, and getting as many refills as you like. You dont even have to go anywhere to get it, The waitress brings the iced fizzypops, iced tea and coffee regularly ensuring you never run out. In fact the only thing you "run out" of in the USA appears to be time, because they seem to badger you to leave quickly once you have finished eating. This surprises me as in britain you can be the first person to arrive and last to leave and the staff wont bat an eyelid, having said that, the reason they wont bat an eyelid is probably because they are nowhere to be seen, either smoking out the back before sticking their fingers in the food in the kitchen.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="245" caption="Hmmm. I wonder?"][/caption]

Having "filled up" to a level totally unnatural to me, we wobble out to the people carrier (for 4 people?) and go off to town. Hmmm, town... yes thats more of a idea than an actual thing. Dont get me wrong. You can buy anything you want here, they have sizes going up to 6xxl! You can buy a pair of pants that look like a flag, or a flag that looks like a pair of pants! The trouble is that with the exception of a couple of 'malls' everywhere else is what we call a warehouse outlet store. Imagine Cribs Causway, without the shopping centre part, then imagine that on every street. The smallest shops are still massive.

In comparison we drove to the latin area the other day, and suddenly the whole place thrived with life. Music coming from every small shop, spanish being shouted across streets, and an explosion of colour and culture swamping you with its intimate and personal touch. The smells of meats being slow cooked in chillies, or peanuts being toasted in upside-down dustbin lids, almost make you want to swing your samba hips and dance with a mexican passion. The culture shock hits you once again, as you find yourself trying foods from a street market stall that you would only risk at the state fayre.

Just a few miles later though we drive to another area where OKC hits you with surprisingly interesting streets filled with ambitious personalised houses that Prince Charles could only ever yearn for. The archetecture is all over the place but that doesnt seem to matter, as each and every owner seems to have put their own stamp on their buildings. English names like Dunroamin are dismissed for the far more extravagant Rivendell Ranch, Klingon's Castle or Hogwarts Hollow! What you have is houses that wish they were made a hundred years ago next to homes that look like they belong in science fiction novels. Its fascinating, and kind of fun.

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="280" caption="Wookies Hole?"][/caption]

All-in-all though the experience is surprising different, and I still feel culture shock coming here. From the incredibly flat landscape and the ridiculously straight roads, to the vibrant specks of culture, music, art and powerful bostonian archetecture, there is always something dramatic to look at. And I have yet to meet an american I didnt like a little.

They are a little naive about the rest of the world, and some are a little closed off too, but they greet you warmly, normally with a little food and a big smile. They let you talk even if they dont have a clue what you're saying, they often enjoy your opinion even if they think you are wrong. And they always make you feel welcome.

For me there is no doubt. I am definitely warming to this big old state, and even if im not ready to don a baseball cap, drive a truck and buy a rifle, I am just about ready face my own personal prejudices. And perhaps its time for me to make a little lemonade, and invite a few people round for a barbeque... do they even have briquettes here?

[caption id="attachment_281" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Chicken Leg anyone?"][/caption]