Bits and bobs

Just watched 'Super Size Me' - been meaning to watch it for two years. Tomorrow night it will be either 'Uzak' (Turkey), 'Brother' (Russia), 'Hiroshima Mon Amour' (France) or 'Bad Education' (Spain). That should round off a day of work.

Good interview with Nitin Sawhney from the Guardian earlier this month.

Listening to: one of the best DJs on UK radio. Sean Rowley of BBC London (94.9FM, DAB and the internet) plays a fantastic, eclectic mix of sounds. You can listen to an archived copy of his show using the BBC radio player.

Bollox

JK Galbraith has died.

Listening to: Yamasuki, Marvin Gaye and The Go Team

Writing: something for that other pseudonym (it's branding, baby)

Watching: nothing yet...may watch Almodovar's 'Bad Education'

Itaewon

Well, I went off to Itaewon. Full of pasty-faced folk with their firm prejudices and fat fucking dollars - you know the kind, the 'new colonialists', looking down on the locals. But that wasn't all. I saw near-emaciated Ukranian and Byelorussian ladies with fear in their eyes. Nigerians in groups, lone Pakistanis with beard and shalwar kameez - all rubbing along amidst a sea of buzz cuts and tattoos. It is a melting pot in the way that the rest of Seoul is not. But frankly, Itaewon is like the upper end of London's Oxford Street (near Centrepoint), full of tourist shops and rip-off bars. It has a little bit of Kings Cross with it too - if you want a 'massage' head towards those places sporting barbers poles.

I went for a stroll up and down 'Hooker Hill' which is near the US base (it takes on a different character at night).

The people gave an impression of saudade; the place, a distinct feeling of seediness. If you want to see the real Korea, avoid Itaewon. The rest of the country is fantastic.

Highlight of the day was going to a Pakistani restaurant (I have eaten Chinese/Korean food since leaving London and I love it, but fancied a taste of the old country) and speaking to the staff in Urdu. I haven't used it for the last week and a half (apart from calling the folks now and then). Going to Itaewon was worth it, if just for the glass of lassi.

Yes Simon & Kristof - I picked up two TTA 24 chargers.

A documentary-fest (of sorts)

I have a love for documentary films. One of my favourites was a BBC documentary from the Storyville strand - 'Life and Debt in Jamaica'. It's been described by one critic as one of the best documentaries ever made. I don't know about that, but it combines excellent journalism with music and the texts of Jamaica Kincaid. There's more about it here, and an article by Linton Kwesi Johnson.

I couldn't find out from the BBC if the film was available, but it has been on DVD for over a year - and on its way to me, as well as 'The Agronomist' and 'Death in Gaza' - the doc that concluded with the murder of its filmmaker, James Miller.

But I am over 5000 miles and two weeks away from my post.

Dongdaemun

Just returned from Dongdaemun market. In the 20 minute drive from Kangnam, I was struck by how eerily quite the surrounding areas were - especially given that it's a Saturday. The market itself was heaving though, and I got hold of some clothes and jewellery and tried what passes for snack food here. The 'market' is an area the size of Reading town centre, except it has approximately six shopping malls - so you see quite a lot of duplication in terms of clothing articles. A new mall had just opened, but approximately 25-30% of the floor space was unused.

D would have loved it (better arrange that APAC press tour that got signed off).

There were also an awful lot of sports shops (the market is next to a sports stadium), so the Cistern Kid would have felt at home too.

Tomorrow i'll try Itaewon and probably Yongsan. I may go to Insadong on May Day to check out the festive events.

Bye China, hello Korea

Beijing was something of a missed opportunity, but I will be back in late June. Tianjin also - especially the restaurant with the amazing floral tea and 100 different kinds of dumplings.

Shanghai was a blur. Just two days in town. I did however manage to catch up with GT, but I wasn't able to get him to wet himself again at TMSK. As usual, he picked an excellent restaurant. The 5.30am start the next day for Seoul was painful, and I discovered that the stewardesses for China Eastern airlines are not well known for their juggling skills (coz they can't, I found out, as hot coffee streamed across the ether towards me).

Actually, I think I have covered three of the four Chinese cities that report directy into the central government rather than the provincial government. That leaves Chongqing. Not sure I could find a reason to visit, unless I took some vacation time.

Now in Seoul with three days off - two, as I must spend a day preparing for meetings (the Ritz-Carlton is swish, but I shudder at the cost for my company - well, almost). I want to go to the DMZ, but it can wait until I am back in June. At least I managed to catch up with JO last night for dinner and plenty of Korean sake - a more bitter, sour concoction than the Japanese version.

I think today I will go to Itaewon and Dongdaemun Market and check out some threads and tunes. There are also a couple of Pakistani restaurants in Itaewon - I wonder if the Pak-based crime syndicates working in Korea have a 'franchise' there? I can't wait to check it out and cause some mischief.

Shouts out to: Da Bomb, D, Cistern Kid, the iPod Perv & Mia

Lone bullet to: the mini mughul

Activity Time!

The link for today is Girls Are Pretty. The word for today is from Hindi, and is 'Bakhshish'. It means 'bribe'. Another is Italian - 'Tangentopoli' - 'bribesville'.

Ciao, Fearless

Is censorship...

...regional or brand-specific? My blog was blocked in Beijing this week (at the Kerry Centre and Tianhong Plaza), and has previously been blocked in Shanghai (at the Zhongyou and Bao An Hotels in Pudong). Now, at the Purple Mountain hotel in Pudong, as Johnny Nash would sing, 'I can see clearly now'. I can also read the news pages on the BBC website - who would have an affair with John Prescott? It's too fantastical! Maybe I want the news to be blocked again?

'Girl with a laptop' (I don't know her name, but I think it begins with a 'K') appears to be in NZ with a job, so no longer fashionably unoccupied, but doubtless still going clickety-click, tap-tap-tap (which sounds a bit like an internet scat). Anyway, her sister/PR manager and myself have exchanged enough compliments about 'K' (from my side, I think she's cute, but am very glad she didn't hit me).

Right, time for lunch, then that meeting...

Listening to: John Coltrane, Buckshot LeFonque & The Cassandra Complex

Thinking about writing: 'The Time of the Rebeccas', ostensibly because Tosh told me to, on the basis that in one day last week I had contact with three ladies called Rebecca (Dorta, Miller & Stavros) - that's excluding another Rebecca (Woolley) a week earlier. If it was two, that would be a coincidence; three, a conspiracy; four, government policy.

Finally

Phew! Granta submission emailed off to SuzySue. I have decided to run with the following six pieces: 'Slum Scum Humdrum', 'Killer Funk', 'The Talent Scout', 'Diplomacy by Other Means', 'Tsunami' and 'Everyman in Exile'.

It hurt a little to not include 'Closing Time', 'Khamosh (Silence)', 'Freefall, Brother', 'A Day in the Life' and 'Czlowiek Z Zelaza', but I hope they'll get their day too.

I am somewhat surprised to have been contacted by the sister of 'Girl with laptop' from the Queen Elizabeth Hall. Do they share the same laptop?

Anyway, the sister's blog is an interesting account of writing, (cow) farming and milking. Worth a perusal.

If I am coughing, I can't hang out, so...

Just had my head shaved in Beijing. Those clippers sure shaved close, as I think I can see what passes for my brains.

Listening to: D's top 225 songs

Working: preparation for forthcoming meetings

Imagining: what 330,000 tons of sand looks like (see previous post)

Not blogging...

I haven't really bothered to blog much. Apart from feeling rough with a bad cold & cough, aggravated by the recent dust storms in Beijing, there is also the problem of censorship, which includes the following forms:

• Skype calls are often disrupted (the rumour is that China Telecom are trying to disrupt this to encourage people to switch to their paid-for service)
• Skype messaging is filtered within the PRC (Skype's CEO has admitted this)
• Any news item about China on BBC World is broadcast, until it gets to a sensitive (i.e. not totally positive) piece, at which point the screen goes blank. What's funny though, is that you get to hear the lead-up, so you know that everytime it blanks out, it's because the news isn't flattering. For instance, I know that Hu Jianto was heckled by someone outside the White House, I just didn't get to see the footage (blanked out)
• I can access the radio page of the BBC website, but not the news pages
• I can access blogger.com to write a post to my blog, but I - and indeed everyone in the PRC - cannot read my blog, as all blogspot.com blogs are blocked (with help from Google, i'm sure, who own the blogger.com service)

No wonder people go nuts over all these American companies (Microsoft, Yahoo, Google) doing business with an authoritarian regime (and disclosing the identities of dissidents to the authorities, leading to their arrest). Reminds me of IBM working with the Nazis, or BAE working with the Saudi authorities, (allegedly) supplying them with kit useful for torture and repression.

Sure, you can make the argument that the PRC regime/administration is not as nasty as the Nazis, or as ideologically wobbly as the House of Saud. Perhaps that's true. But I do not think a dissident with an electro-shock baton upside his head will quite agree with you.

China is a great country, the economy is opening up, but two big stumbling blocks remain - the administration want to keep control (note that control is not the same as responsibility; big difference), and the gap between rich and poor is growing at a cracking pace.

How it pans out depends rather a lot on your time perspective. In the short-term; messy. Long-term (20+ years); better.

The HN51 blues...

We were a little bored towards the end of the final day of the conference, so Mister Tosh and myself took our little rubber duckies, and gave some training on our improvised assualt course.

















Just check out their visionary stance, looking skywards for a better future (not that they can fly though).
















The power slide was the most gruelling pasrt of the course.
















As with any such course, not all were able to make the grade, and indeed one of them became a fallen hero, buried with plum sauce and a pancake in my belly.




















But sometimes you just feel like you're part of a giant assembly line..




















Up and down, round and round, just longing to be squeezed to squeak.

...and nothing happened

My flight with Air China was totally without event. I was very disappointed. Inconsolable, actually. But then, as if by magic, I realised I caught a bad cold from the chap seated near me.

Sweet.

All part of the crack

As an erstwhile creature of habit, I have tended to fly with BA for long-haul. Unfortunately, they don't fly to Beijing on Tuesdays, so I have to fly with those sons of fun at Air China. Check out the reviews. It sounds like my kind of airline (but then, I enjoyed flying Aeroflot).

Thanks to D for the Pimsleur (and top 225 songs), and Kristof & Carlos for the demo kit.

Avanti!

Fearless

Just plain groovy...

'How's life been treating you or should I say how are you treating life?'
Kamran Rafi




Panicking about: packing (clothes, DVDs, mags and work kit), charging batteries, backing-up data, laundry damnit, laundry!

Supposed to be: preparing Granta submission

Listening to: The Undertones, Can, Ali Slimani and Funkadelic

The Dressing Station

One of my favourite books of recent years was 'The Dressing Station' by the war surgeon Jonathan Kaplan. I have belatedly discovered to my shame that he has just published another book, 'Contact Wounds'. Here is an interview with the man himself. In both his writing and in conversation, he is astonishingly frank:

'My skills have become suited towards crude extremes of suffering – war trauma, humanitarian crises. There is little other market for my abilities, or for the odd combination I suffer of imperfect clinical detachment, the vice of restlessness and some tarnished shreds of idealism. It is really only in the world's darker corners that they have any chance to shine.'

Acrobats at play

Last night I saw Collectif Acrobatique de Tangier at the Queen Elizabeth Hall (after handing one of my cards - with a hastily written short-short poem on the back - to a girl who, with powered-up laptop and coffee in tow, transported me from the idyll of the South Bank straight back to the office environment. No, I don't think she liked the poem I left her, but then it did drop a hint as subtle as a housebrick).

The acrobats were gentle and lithe-humoured, backing their feats with chanting and singing in Arabic, almost like a Sufi Qawwal. The troupe of 12 consisted of ten men and two ladies, who were the stars of the show, as well as the barrel-chested strongman - yes, he did have a fairly bushy moustache (must be mandatory).

It was the first time since my childhood where I have involuntarily uttered the word 'wow' at a public performance.

Wonderful words of the World

From the language that gave us the incomparable 'Saudade', we have 'Bunda', which lead me to an article on Pepetela. I dig the cover art, shame the text is not yet available in English.

Can art really, truly, imitate life?

I wouldn't want to be Tom Wolfe this morning. See the Lexington column in The Economist.

'Messianic Visions' = 'Helter-Skelter'

Chilling stuff... You can't beat a good bit of Seymour Hersh.

Listening to: The Cure and some Philly Funk

Reading; Granta

Going to see: Moroccan acrobats on the South Bank

Dreaming of: D's Kurosawa collection

Under 'Miscellaneous', is says 'see here'

The Award for Most Innovative Service Goes To...

Hsinchu, Taiwan, March 2006

Porn
Simon, happily sucking away...

Hsinchu, Taiwan, March 2006

Product Placement
Graeme promoting a product with a memorable name, if only I could remember what it did...

Barcelona, February 2006

The odd scratch...

Fortunately, Paul Wasn't In It

Is 'MuthaCuntyFuck' rude daddy? How many points is it worth?
Here's a link I stole from D's blog. God bless Ben Goldacre.

Holiday plans

This post is just a reminder to me, as I seem incapable of keeping any post-it notes on my forehead. Things to do apart from all the concerts, films, etc:

• Hay Festival (25th May - 4th June). Will probably have to give this a miss owing to family committments
• British Beer Festival, Earls Court (1th - 5th August). The Cistern Kid's favourite event.
• Joint birthday bash (either weekend of 5th or 12th August) for Fearless & Cistern
• Oktoberfest (16th Sep - 3rd Oct). Wiessbier, sauerkraut and intolerably bad wind, broken in time to an oompah band.
• Marrakesh; time and space to reflect

The lost weekend

I have just returned from a long weekend in Krakow. Beautiful people, beautiful weather. Unfortunately, both the iPod Perv and Cistern Kid decided to turn themselves into human distilleries for the duration.

It was a markedly different trip to my last stay in Poland. During New Years, I spent time in Gdansk, Szeczin and Soport, and met several young professionals preparing to leave Poland, mostly due to the cost of living, but also the blurring between State and Church, resulting in authoritarian pronouncements and some homophobia.

The Krakow trip, in contrast, was like being on the outside looking in. I felt like just another tourist - and I hate that feeling.

Listening to: Kirsty MacColl, Bucketheads, ELO and Chet Baker

Looking for: my pants

Working on: home admin - bills, booking tickets and voting (of members to the council of Liberty) - but also finding my pants

Happiness...is men with beer

Lounging

The Cistern Kid looks a little Arnie, a little Max (Headroom) and quite Chav. The dark-haired girl in the background is better looking though.

Sightseeing

The many faces of the iPod Perv

Feel free to print out individually and create your own stop/start animation.

Adios muchachos

No sign of Trundley on eBay. I had the car for four years and it brings back lots of memories, e.g. Emma, Susan, Michelle, Christina, Nikki & Anna-Maria - not to mention the brief flings - Lorraine, Louise, Carole, Karen, Caroline, etc.

[Statutory disclaimer: I am not a womaniser. I simply worship womankind, and take it a bit too far with some of her ideals made flesh - but I have reformed]

Anyway, after one minor mishap, the OnyxShoppingTrolley is good2go. The in-gear acceleration is about as fast as my premature ejac- enough of that. Off to Krakow tomorrow morning via the iPod Perv's place - minus work mobile and email access (I have received some strange emails in the past 7 days).

Time for a short-short list - women I love today:

• Souad Massi
• Mariza
• Two of the ladies from Varttina
• The dark-haired girl in the Renault Clio who played cat & mouse with me on gthe A3290M at 9.15am this morning
• The red-haired usher at the NFT

Time for that cold shower.

Avanti!

Fearless

London Calling

Hmmm, this is just a little bit mental. Also, link of the day.

Swapped Trundley for the G-Force shopping trolley, [sob].

Everything happens for a reason, and anything is possible...

I should be writing about the fabulous, seductive evening I spent watching Susana Baca in performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall last night. After all, I had the ticket, but it all fell apart. I reached Richmond station in the nick of time - or so I thought. It was closed, so I went home and got loved up with some raspberry ripple ice cream.

I have found out that my outgoing chariot will be auctioned off on eBay. Sweet.

Not: writing any prose or poetry - i'm working!

Looking forward to: Krakow this Friday with the Cistern Kid & the iPod Perv

Struggling to arrange: sensible timings for my three week trip to China, Korea & Taiwan

Top 3 Fantasy Women

The list for this weekend:

• Rowan Pelling
• Juliette Binoche
• Olivia Judson