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URGENT REQUIREMENT: Rugby Team capable of beating All Blacks, England

My High Profile client is looking for experienced candidates to revitalise an important project due in October-November. You will be a self motivated hard worker, and will have several successful campaigns behind you. Cool under pressure, you will have sure hands and a proven track record of achieving results. This position requires you be a Team Player, but able to take initiative as well.

Any experience in Avoiding National Humiliation or of the Swiss Americas' Cup Team will be advantageous.

Citizenship supplied.

Contact eddie.jones@lasthoperecruitment.com ASAP for interviews.




posted by Terry at 12:18 PM [edit]

Which Old Witch is a Wicked Witch?

You get all sorts on The Tube. Gorgeous people, ugly people. Suits, punks. Men, Women. People who didn't shower that morning, people who are not Irish.

But one fixture amongst the many is the crazy people. We've all seen them. Well almost all of us have.

There seems to be that select group of sane people who walk around in an inpregnable crazy-free zone. Totally devoid of the swearing, the grabbing-of-the-air, the distressingly akimbo walking. Not for them are the delights of wondering if they are carrying a knife, whether they should be carrying a knife, and why didn't I buy that Machete when I saw it on special at Sainsbury's??

This is not me. I am a crazy person magnet. Leaving aside the immense body of evidence that is my group of friends, there is evidence in one crazy person encounter that had a little more 'edge'.

I'm not sure where this term 'edge' comes from. He's got it, she's got it, have you got it?
What?... The Edge.
This Edge seems all powerful, right up there with the Seinfeldian Hand. Whereas that Hand stems from a over documented psychological ploy, this Edge is a bit more nebulous. If you have The Edge, G-d is on your side, and no less Edged person can do a thing about it.

I was living in Arnos Grove a sleepy little suburb in the North West of London. That is, if you call sleepy as having double glazing on every house there. My house had the misfortune of being on one of the main arterials, the M/N1. Occassionally you would get lulls. The police would block off the road and the Emergency helicopter would then make a more crisp roar than the vague ambiguity of car noise, to land on the Circular to scrape the remains of the poor-fool-who-dared off the tarmac. Those pedestrian barriers are there for a reason, a reason not extending to being sumarily hopped over in the vain hope of not being scrunched by an early morning trucker.

Bright center of the universe that Arnos Grove is, for some reaon that day I had had my fill of the place. The Crematorium, the dodgy Indian and the rotting fruit shop had done their fair share of entertaining and instead I hopped on the tube to go into Leicester Square.

One empty train pulls up, platform 2. Enter passengers.
"I'm sorry because of a defective train at Northfields", 10 miles away, "this train is being held here."
Then another tube pulls up going toward the centre, passengers already on board.
"The first train to Heathrow will be from Platform 1"
Exit Passengers.
"Sorry ladies and gentlemen, because of a defective train at Northfields, this train is being held here."
Wait.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the first train to central London will be from Platform 2"
Exit all passengers.
Wait.
"The train on platform two terminates here".
Exit passengers. Wait.
Four staff arrive to lend emotional support to the situation. They seem keen to use the Collective Scratching techniques they got taught at Train School.
"The first train to central london departs Platform 1"
Enter Passengers.
Much fussing, aching of hip replacements and dentures. We've all been here 20 minutes.
The group staff take up a strong position of sky gazing as the OTHER train quickly trundles off to Central London.
Piss-up. Brewery.

A few stations along a large school troops into the carriage. They excitedly take seats. They're cute. I'd say 8 or 9. Quite a mixed group, Anglo Saxons mixed with chador wearing girls who sit next to me. They immediately cause a ruckus. This partially violates my head-space. I have no special dislike of kids, but there is a critical mass. Anywhere over 10 kids, they are a cute collective. Anywhere under that number and they are a small posse of screaming monsters, who serve as testament that the drive to procreate is stronger than ever thought.

This group met the requisite mass, and I was slightly pleased to hear that 'You stink!' is still a cutting remark.

One stop onwards and my Mad-Magnet swung into action. An elderly lady got on. Fully hunched she shambled into the carriage. Her head was wrapped in a paisly head scarf, and she had a walking stick. This was fine, but as she shifted to the unoccupied seat to my left, the fact that her bright red lipstick was a bit too thick and misapplied was evident. The kids noticed this and tittered amongst themselves. She cast a beady eye around the child laden carriage. She stopped on the chador wearing girl, collected her thoughts and spoke.

Her teeth were filthy, coated in a hellish before-treatment dentists sales' book level of grey and yellow muck. Far too many teeth had been crammed in there, in direct contrevention of genetic theory. The thick red wonky lipstick tore as she pointed directly at the chador girl, sitting past me to my right, and said "You're... UGLY".

The child recoiled as far away in her seat as she could. Over the noise of the locomotion, only a few people had heard, but the intent and effect was clear. The passengers across ruffled their papers and buried themselves deeper in that article they were now slightly more than half interested in. I wasn't going to let this stand.

"Thats an awful thing to say, who do you think you are?". This time it was the older womans time to recoil. She was clearly unused to being confronted.

She didn't know what to do with herself. She shuffled across to the seat directly opposite me, and faced me. Everyone started listening in.
"You oughta watch what you say, you might get a knife in your mouth"
"From who?"
"Mmmeeee"
"Im not scared" [laughing]
"Why not?" [menacingly]
"Because you're old and past it."

Well, that shut her up for a millisecond. The male passenger who had taken her seat and engrossed himself in the safety blanket of his newspaper, took this as his chance to bravely leave the vicinity.
Next stop a benewspapered young lady sat next to me instead, Economist at the ready.

The old crone surveyed the others. After a lenghty pause she asked
"So you're a fucking Australian?"
"Yes."
"Where were you in World War II?"
"We foug.."
"Patrica and Sally, Turkey, killed... Where were you?... fucking Australians.."
"FUCK OFF BACK TO AUSTRALIA".

Me: "you shut up, I don't know who let you out for the day, but they were WRONG!"
"Go back to the asylum, these are children you're terrifying"

She stood up abruptly, and stormed to the glass section [shameless London reference] . She would pause to collect her vim, and then hurl abuse at me from the corner. I had a retort for each statement, some of them funny enough to repeat, but not memorable enough to remember.

She finally came up with the ultimate come back as she looked at the Chador Girl. She pursed her lips in a smirk and tottered over to me this time bearing my steady gaze. She pointed at the girl, still next two seats away, and terrified. The old witch imparted her most vitriolic statement as loudly and clearly as she could, and everyone else was discreetly paying as much attention as they could.

"she's young, you can tell...Pure for you young Aussie...Virgin...Bet she's got a TIGHT CUNT!..."

There was no more.

The young lady next to me sprung up, and said "Shut up you horrible old woman! Get off the train." She was clearly posh English, no nationalistic retort possible here.
"but.."
"Get off now!"

By fortune we were pulling in to a station at that point. Under a barrage from the lady and myself she exited, and stood glowering on the platform, right outside the open doors. She was going to get back on, everyone thought. There was a collective sigh of relief as the doors beeped and closed and her curses were drowned out by the noise of the motion. Her horrible visage drifted from window to window, but eventually was banished by the intervening bodies.

The young lady and I debriefed what a horrible old bat she had been. The young girl came and spoke to me: "Thank you for making the badlady go away, we were frightened"
"Never mind what she said, she's crazy"
"Okay".

This limp looking woman sidled up to me. Clearly the teacher responsible for the children, I'd seen her skulking by the pole, glancing nervously as the argument had unfolded in front of her. I had an urge to give her a piece of my mind. Then she said "Oh I didn't want to get involved, I couldn't hear what was going on". Liar, fucking whimpy liar. I looked at her, and she was so pathetic and upset over her own failure that I couldn't sink the boot in further.
posted by Terry at 10:25 PM [edit]

Space

At 6 p.m. I awoke, and headed to Space, which is the day club in Ibiza. All the big parties hold their afterparties there. Ordinarily, there is little night time activity. On Sundays though, as well as their afterparty, they have a 22 hour full blown party. These feature big name DJs. That night Danny Tenaglia and Laylo & Bushwaka were playing. Danny Tenaglia had played the best set at Homelands, and I was keen to see him again. Space is located south of Ibiza Town and alongside Bora Bora beach [Platya del Bossa].

The area around Space is very much like Manly Beach. A long Corso, lots of tourists and no functional cash machines. Peseto-less I was forced all the way back to Ibiza town to source funds.

On return I detoured off the Corso to the beach, and saw some of the Bora Bora cafes playing to a large crowd of people, for free. A significant portion of these were topless women, straight out of the surf. But more on this a lot later.

I arrived at Space. It is positioned well back from the road and is a rather unimpressive looking building. The elegant logo is comfortably minimal. One thing is immediately obvious, as I did a Steven Segal tactical dive for cover. Planes land directly overhead, at very low altitude. A slight fuck up at the right point would claim a lot of casualties who died with a big smile and dilated pupils. Anna Wood eat your heart out.

Amazingly, I happened to spot Niki, et alia, outside the club. After re introducing myself, we waited for their contact to come out and give them their VIP passes. When that was sorted I joined the paying Plebs queue, and they went to join the fucking massive VIP queue. I made much better progress too, as the front of any VIP queue is always congested with people jostling to blag their way in. "Oh-my-g-d I can't believe that person I called yesterday, who said I could get in, didn't actually place me+35 on the guest list!". I watched the deflated egos get turned away, whilst the money paying customers got whisked in. Entry was 7500 Pesetas. There are roughly 100 Pesetas to the Aussie Dollar, and 250 to the Pound. So AUD$75, for the mathematically challenged. My camera was confiscated, and I was charged 200 Pesetas for the honour. One enters into the outside courtyard. This is covered by a thick black plastic Hessian. 10 foot diameter fans do a good job of keeping the crowd just below melting point. This seems quite large, for an outside bit. Say about as large as one floor of the old Plastic, including bar, stairs etc.

Space is really a misnomer. They should have called it Packed. The dancing throng reached all the way to the entrance. Clambering through every one + dog, I toured the club. The outside was pumping away to Danny Tanaglia and house music. Inside was quite frantic and much harder. Sweeping Hard house.

The Patrons

It is worth taking a Mr. Smith [SBHS] like aside at this point to describe the clubbing demographic on Ibiza. If Blur sings about the English 'Herd' seeking Greece, then surely the song that features 'Ibiza' is Italy's answer to Damon Alban. They are all Italian. Statistical outriders are then in order, Spanish, English, German and Other.

If that comes as a surprise, then you know how I felt.

The Italians are extremely fashion conscious. All were festooned with the latest Gucci look. All the eyewear was authentic Versace equivalent 70's style tinted disco specs.

There were other prominent transnational groups. Gay guys. Lots of them. They occupied definite sections of any disco they were in. They were all fucking amazingly HUGE. I am talking really muscular. And most had shaved heads and no shirts. As a Sydneysider, it made me feel vaguely at home, if at home means surrounded by fifty huge gay guys. They did party with the best of them, and kept any shenanigans for dark alcoves, out of the public eye.

Second after gay dudes, were transgender people. Usually more than twenty per club. More on this later.

Third was dwarfs. Each club had there own resident dwarf bouncer. There were a few others scattered around too.

Does it taste any better? I don't think so

Finding supplies wasn't hard. Basically the same as London, this time, short but sweet. Danny Tenaglia fucking rocked the outside. Higlight was definitely the Miss E "Get your freak on" remix, which spanned about 12 minutes. Danny excused himself at midnight, due to noise restrictions, saying he'd be playing the final 3:30 - 6 set inside. This introduced me to 'The Mammoth Set'.

Ibiza club entry prices are very high, hovering around 7000 Peseta's each. The DJs for the big nights are world beaters. The difference is, the sets demanded by the Clubs are five hours +. Sasha, Cox, Oakenfold, Seaman. You'd be hard pressed to find a set from them under four hours. This is great, and allows them to get a theme going.

I trooped inside. Laylo and Bushwaka were playing the most awful set. Totally opposed to Tenaglia. Niki and co. took this as their cue to leave. I did not see them again. I held off a second, for Tenaglia's return, 3 hours thence. So you can imagine I had returned to Earth, around 30 minutes into that wait.

Outside was good, but inside was LOUD. Space inside has the most cranking, clear sound system I have ever heard. There is no distortion, there is only pain. And when a bad set that doesn't fit your mood is blistering your ear drums, you don't feel good. When you're alone surrounded by people who you don't know glowing under UV, you don't feel good. When you order a red bull, and is costs AUD$30, you definitely don't feel good. Yep, that's right. 3000 Pesetas for a Red bull. I needed it, but I felt really pissed off afterwards.

I spent the rest of the set trying to keep my ears shut and eyes open. Danny Tenaglia came back on, as did other things I'd calculated. Dissapointingly, he chose to continue the ultra hard sound of his predecessor, and I was forced out. I left feeling really low.
posted by Terry at 11:33 PM [edit]

High and Low in Ibiza

Now up to section 2

Abstract

This is a rambling attempt to document my trip to Ibiza this year. The main reasons for going were

I needed a break from London - 8 months straightis too long

Kieren Bosenburg was there

I wasn't in employment, and needed to regroup

Kieren had been touring around Europe after finishing his thesis. I'd longed to meet him in some sunny destination, but couldn't get the time off work. Kieren left and work decided to have some time off me. A very long time off.

go

An email from the ex President announced that he'd be on the Isle of Sin for a couple of weeks, starting 4 p.m. that day. I hurriedly scanned the web for flights. The going rate was £240 return. Somehow, I managed to pick the next days flight with go, and get the amazing deal of £140 return. Not bad. Accomodation could wait until I got there. I fired off a few emails to Kieren to let him know I'd be there.

This was all on Friday. Saturday evening, I'd packed my bags and was on the way to Stansted airport. Everything proceded in the typical airport fashion.

On the long subdued bus to the final boarding pen, a loud fanfare of trumpets and some catchy chorus exploded over the loud speaker of the airport bus. Discount airlines couldn't resist the captive direct marketing opportunity. Those who weren't suffering heart attacks seemed genuinely interested in go's discount flights to Rejkiavik. The chorus faded out, maintaining the memorably inventive "go go go-go go, go go, go go"

eivissa airport

Spanish refer to Ibiza as Eivissa.At 4 a.m. Eivissa airport temperature is around 40 degrees C. Outside is a cool 32. I pfaffed around and got hotel guides etc. The bus started at 8 a.m., so I got in a queue for taxis. I thought it was long when I joined it, but as I neared the front, I realised it had quadrupled in length. A young shaven headed dude I was next to wondered if anyone was heading to Ibiza town, which I had decided was a good enought place to start, so I joined him.

Welcome to Ibiza

This was Richard. Richard knew a PR for a club, and was heading to meet this guy, who had organised his accomodation. Both Ibiza virgins. We arrived at Hotel M, the Manumission Hotel. We exited the cab. The hotel was a large pink building with Cerese fittings. Sort of what a Saint Joseph's memorial hall would look like if the school were to be say, unfortunately destroyed by Godzilla.

The bouncer was the fattest dwarf I've ever seen. Richard's friend Steve hurried down to meet us. He was a cool gay dude, with a very attractive friend. Niki is what you'd picture as the epitome of the Ibiza chick. A gorgeous 6''2' black girl with puffy teased hair, white croptop, hotpants combo and legs up to her armpits. I like a girl who fawns all over you and demands [friendly] kisses upon first meeting. I liked Niki. She is exactly what those cartoon images of black chicks look like on the chillout album covers.

We spead past the dwarf, who withdrew upon a gesture from Niki, dropped our bags in the Green room equivalent and headed through the thronging party and up five flights of stairs to the roof party. This had been done in a Hawaian style with reed thatching and bamboo fencing. Now I realised. Everyone looked like those cartoons people off the chillout albums.

I bought Richard a drink for being so nice, and letting me hang around. I had a chill out on the roof for quite a few hours, meeting some of Richard's mate's friends. Niki's boyfriend was particularly cool. Most of these dudes were in Ibiza long haul, doing PR for the big clubs. This basically means getting in free everywhere. Upon light questioning, most did similar stuff back in England.

Niki had been a singer. in a band. something I may have heard of? possibly a song a couple of years back. oh really, would I know it? yes, possibly, went something like 'I'm horny, horny horny horny'. Ahh.

I'm sitting on an Ibiza rooftop with cartoon perfect individuals and the horny,horny,horny girl. In hotpants. Things were starting to look good.

The first rule of Ibiza

They all happened to be coming along to Space the next day. This was good, because I looked like I knew what I was talking about. This quickly faded, as I professed that I hadn't organised any accomodation. They weren't to sure about me being able to find any. The party ended around 8 a.m., and I was dropped off at San Antonio.

I trekked around. No luck for a room. I called. No luck.

I caught the bus back to Ibiza. I asked at the Police station for a backpackers. They were quite helpful, but you don't need to speak broken-English to know that they didn't like my odds. I followed their map [I now had several free ones, thankfully] to the suggested place. A nice lady in her pygamas politely informed me that she didn't have a room, nor for the next two weeks, nor would I find any others.

I kept asking at other places. Nope. They wouldn't take my bags for left luggage either. Finally after five hours of looking I returned to the pygama woman and managed to plead her into taking my bag for a day, only. She refused money, saying she didn't need it, and she was only helping me because I looked pathetic. Must lose something in the translation.

So it turns out I'd come in the first of the two busiest weeks of Ibiza tourism, and so learned it's first rule: Don't come without accomodation.

S'Argamassa

I hired a scooter. The guy, a young bloke called Tony, looked rather amused as I tried to get the fully automatic scooter to go. I just wasn't revving it high enough. I wobbled away fifty meters to ensure that I could embarass myself in front of new people. I couldn't work the stand. Around twelve amusing attempts later I had partial faculty. I looked in my go inflight magazine which I had pilfered, and noted on the beach listing, S'Argamassa was listed as letting people camp. I determined to go there and sleep in my hammock.

The journey there was long and filled with picturesque Spanish countryside. The earth is very very red. The buildings are all whitewashed, with little adornment. There are windmills all over the place. These may be purely Quixotian giant decoys, because their sails are made entirely of outline thick metal rods. No filling mesh or anything. I never saw a single one move.

Ibiza is very large. I had pictured Koh Pang Yang, where things were onlyh fifteen minutes away. Ibiza is as large as two Koh Samuis, or extended Wollongong, for those who don't know Thai geography. It took roughly two hours to scooter to Santa Eularia, the main town north of Ibiza and near S'Argamassa. This I later cut down to 50 minutes, at 70 kph. The roads are good.

I had my day pack. In it I had my life saving Hammock. I'd purchased this in Koh Pan Yang, before leaving. It had sat unused in my London flat since arrival

I was starting to feel a little anxious as I headed back, dejected, from the campsites. Not only were they full to capacity, but they also refused point blank to allow me to rent a space without a tent. All I wanted was to use their facilities and hang my hammock somewhere, but no. I checked out some of the beaches, but S'Argamassa was further around.

Hippie Market

Flowing around from Es Canar, where the campsites were, I came upon the famous Hippuie market. This had gone the usual way of all things notably Hippie. It had become commercial in the extreme. The resident hippies looked as thought they had been designed and manufactured in Madame Tussauds to the exacting "Authentic Hippie" specification.

I fucked this off and headed to S'Argamassa. This was 500 meters along. Next to the beach was a derelict house. It used to be a bar, and all the doors were caved in and it stank from the refuse lying prominently inside. Adjoinig this was a field of tall pine trees, surrounded by a 7 foot stone fence. The beach facing portion of this was wire fencing.

Further back were the real hippies. They had occupied several disused rusty busses and some other buildings. Interestingly, some of the more upmarket Hippies had demountables.

After a swim and casing the joint, I walked timidly into the Hippie enclave. I ensured no one was around and scaled the wall. This was relatively easy, as it had a nice rounded top, and was very solid.

The area I was in was fenced all around, as described. It seemed to be the dumping ground for all the hippie stuff. There were mattresses, bathtubs, a wheelbarrow, and most importantly the burnt out VW Combivan. Passers by could seen me through the fence, and the hippies could see me through a sturdy locked metal gate to their area. I stole some old rope around a tree and erected my hammock.

The trees were very important. Ibiza is very very hot, and falling asleep with stuff exposed to the sun is a surefire way to transcend even Danielle Petrie levels of sunburntness.

Finally after 36 hours, I got some sleep.

---

Space

At 6 p.m. I awoke, and headed to Space, which is the day club in Ibiza. All the big parties hold their afterparties there. Ordinarily, there is little night time activity. On Sundays though, as well as their afterparty, they have a 22 hour full blown party. These feature big name DJs. That night Danny Tenaglia and Laylo & Bushwaka were playing. Danny Tenaglia had played the best set at Homelands, and I was keen to see him again. Space is located south of Ibiza Town and alongside Bora Bora beach [Platya del Bossa].

The area around Space is very much like Manly Beach. A long Corso, lots of tourists and no functional cash machines. Peseto-less I was forced all the way back to Ibiza town to source funds.

On return I detoured off the Corso to the beach, and saw some of the Bora Bora cafes playing to a large crowd of people, for free. A significant portion of these were topless women, straight out of the surf. But more on this a lot later.

I arrived at Space. It is positioned well back from the road and is a rather unimpressive looking building. The elegant logo is comfortably minimal. One thing is immediately obvious, as I did a Steven Segal tactical dive for cover. Planes land directly overhead, at very low altitude. A slight fuck up at the right point would claim a lot of casualties who died with a big smile and dilated pupils. Anna Wood eat your heart out.

Amazingly, I happened to spot Niki, et alia, outside the club. After re introducing myself, we waited for their contact to come out and give them their VIP passes. When that was sorted I joined the paying Plebs queue, and they went to join the fucking massive VIP queue. I made much better progress too, as the front of any VIP queue is always congested with people jostling to blag their way in. "Oh-my-g-d I can't believe that person I called yesterday, who said I could get in, didn't actually place me+35 on the guest list!". I watched the deflated egos get turned away, whilst the money paying customers got whisked in. Entry was 7500 Pesetas. There are roughly 100 Pesetas to the Aussie Dollar, and 250 to the Pound. So AUD$75, for the mathematically challenged. My camera was confiscated, and I was charged 200 Pesetas for the honour. One enters into the outside courtyard. This is covered by a thick black plastic Hessian. 10 foot diameter fans do a good job of keeping the crowd just below melting point. This seems quite large, for an outside bit. Say about as large as one floor of the old Plastic, including bar, stairs etc.

Space is really a misnomer. They should have called it Packed. The dancing throng reached all the way to the entrance. Clambering through every one + dog, I toured the club. The outside was pumping away to Danny Tanaglia and house music. Inside was quite frantic and much harder. Sweeping Hard house.

The Patrons

It is worth taking a Mr. Smith [SBHS] like aside at this point to describe the clubbing demographic on Ibiza. If Blur sings about the English 'Herd' seeking Greece, then surely the song that features 'Ibiza' is Italy's answer to Damon Alban. They are all Italian. Statistical outriders are then in order, Spanish, English, German and Other.

If that comes as a surprise, then you know how I felt.

The Italians are extremely fashion conscious. All were festooned with the latest Gucci look. All the eyewear was authentic Versace equivalent 70's style tinted disco specs.

There were other prominent transnational groups. Gay guys. Lots of them. They occupied definite sections of any disco they were in. They were all fucking amazingly HUGE. I am talking really muscular. And most had shaved heads and no shirts. As a Sydneysider, it made me feel vaguely at home, if at home means surrounded by fifty huge gay guys. They did party with the best of them, and kept any shenanigans for dark alcoves, out of the public eye.

Second after gay dudes, were transgender people. Usually more than twenty per club. More on this later.

Third was dwarfs. Each club had there own resident dwarf bouncer. There were a few others scattered around too.

Does it taste any better? I don't think so

Finding supplies wasn't hard. Basically the same as London, this time, short but sweet. Danny Tenaglia fucking rocked the outside. Higlight was definitely the Miss E "Get your freak on" remix, which spanned about 12 minutes. Danny excused himself at midnight, due to noise restrictions, saying he'd be playing the final 3:30 - 6 set inside. This introduced me to 'The Mammoth Set'.

Ibiza club entry prices are very high, hovering around 7000 Peseta's each. The DJs for the big nights are world beaters. The difference is, the sets demanded by the Clubs are five hours +. Sasha, Cox, Oakenfold, Seaman. You'd be hard pressed to find a set from them under four hours. This is great, and allows them to get a theme going.

I trooped inside. Laylo and Bushwaka were playing the most awful set. Totally opposed to Tenaglia. Niki and co. took this as their cue to leave. I did not see them again. I held off a second, for Tenaglia's return, 3 hours thence. So you can imagine I had returned to Earth, around 30 minutes into that wait.

Outside was good, but inside was LOUD. Space inside has the most cranking, clear sound system I have ever heard. There is no distortion, there is only pain. And when a bad set that doesn't fit your mood is blistering your ear drums, you don't feel good. When you're alone surrounded by people who you don't know glowing under UV, you don't feel good. When you order a red bull, and is costs AUD$30, you definitely don't feel good. Yep, that's right. 3000 Pesetas for a Red bull. I needed it, but I felt really pissed off afterwards.

I spent the rest of the set trying to keep my ears shut and eyes open. Danny Tenaglia came back on, as did other things I'd calculated. Dissapointingly, he chose to continue the ultra hard sound of his predecessor, and I was forced out. I left feeling really low.

---

posted by Terry at 11:52 PM [edit]

Ping.
posted by Terry at 1:45 PM [edit]

The Centilitre

Britain over the ages has always felt the influence of Europe.
Historically this has been in the form of being conquered, raped and pillaged.
In more recent times the influence has taken more subtle forms.
As part of the EU, most of the retail products available are prepared for the European market as a whole.
This leads to a wide variety of languages on the packaging.
To accompany this is a whole host of symbols, that incdicate what country the copy is intended for, in case you forgot what language you speak.

Then variously, there are the accreditation symbols for the regulatory authorities that the product is under the jurisdiction of.
CE, e, EU, Euro monikers are ubiquitous.
Those out there struggling for hidden meaning of affairs, quietly laugh at the prevalence of that vowel of the moment being included in most of all things Europe.
This is a bit to easy a target, so I'd recommend those people get back to thinking of the true reason why Mulder smiled in episode #135 of the X-Files.

All this homogenisation, [ and in the case of poor foaming British cows and sheep, pasteurisation] has had its negative aspects.
Units of measurement have born the brunt of standardisation.
The pint, the quart, gallons, schillings and the pound have all fallen to the wayside.
In their place now stand the metric units.
Kilograms, millimeters, and decimal currency we are all familiar with.
As an Engineer, I love it. I can do all my calculations without having to put my Casio fx580 into a special mode.
With all the improvements, a few ghastly absyses have slithered their way in.

I dislike the comma as a decimal place holder. This is the Australian/ South African way, where I was educated.
Britain having to give ground fine, but we've had it right all along.
What happens when you want to compile a list of decimal numbers eh? This will lead to anarchy and world destruction and the wild proliferation of exaggerations.

But the greatest abomination that disgraces packaging is the Centilitre.

This poor excuse for a unit is how drinks are measured.
A soft drink can here is 33 cenitlitres. Why the do they have a centilitre?

I even prefer it when it is measured 0,33L. Evidently what they were trying to do was to break down the Litre into more understandable delineations.
But I think they're wrong. Centilitre has all the grace of mucosal ballet.
It simply doesn't sound nice. One may say the meter of the milli/Litre is neater. One may have to then duck any airborne vegetables. I can see James Eyers' pithy section headings are having too much effect on my own prose.

The Europeans had the opportunity to do things properly and cajole peoples education into the proper triple powers of ten.
It is dissapointing to now be affronted daily by this awkward measurement.
This intellectual pillage shows that old habits are hard to shrug off. I'm off to drink my 33 cL of Coke.

Homelands

I guess this is the one you've all been waiting for.
Chemicals are excitedly being released in the language part of your brain that contain the concept-to-word mapping for huge, mega, pounding and wicked.
Those neurons can re absorb their transmitters, because I certainly won't be usuing these words to describe Homelands.
Certainly not in the context they'd be used to.

Background

Homelands, for those not familiar is a big dance party. Big in terms of the numbers of punters and DJs. 50000 and 80 respectively. The party used to be Creamfields, but the organisers had a falling out, and thus Homelands was born.
Some of the biggest names in the Dance music scene play.
Admission was £50, and the party ran from 1 p.m. until 6 a.m. the next day.

The day

James Eyers and myself met up with a girl called Michelle at Waterloo McDonalds.
We'd scoffed a Big Mac meal each.

McDonalds here is strange. They've taken some of what S11 and M1 have had to say and anti-globalised their menu.
I guess I should have realised whith the McOZ burger, but it is easier to discern out of context.

McDonalds in Britain offers the Vegetable McNaan. This is not some mis Hansard of a Prime Minister but an attempt at an Anglo Indian snack. The marketing guys must have rejected the "Fillet o' Curry" early on. The underlying structure is that McDonalds have globalised their policy of localisation.

We pottered off excitedly to our train. One every 15 minutes through Winchester, where the event was held.
All the closest carriages were full, so we were forced further down towards the front of the train.
We did get some good seats to ourselves, as it happens, in Car E.
This was quite a talking point for some thirty minutes as we enjoyed the spirit of the occassion and glossed over the reasonably high odds of this occurrence given the length of the train and the order of the alphabet.

Within an hour we were at the station to alight. There were reasonably few people. Certainly not a crush. The signage directed us to a queue for the busses to the event. Without realising it we entered the Drugs Amnesty Zone.

The Drugs Amnesty Zone

In this area, it was proclaimed in large black and yellow, people could safely rid themselves of their 5 grams of cocaine and 300 ecstasy tablets before proceeding. There was to be no fear of prosecution in this small area. If you wanted to, you could calmly discard your intravenous heroin kit and stash, while Police officers nodded approvingly. The cops had done their research and so huge bins were provided for the task. These resembled the largest Hazchem bins you have ever seen. About as tall as I am. Not many people seemed to be shedding their illicits though. They were to busy focussing on the further instruction that upon leaving The Drug Amnesty Zone, they were liable to be searched by the police. Said Police were very very obvious. There was an air of coolness that prevaded in the queue for the bus, as the police patrolled up and down the line.
This cool is cooler than average. It is the cool you need to affect in order not to look like you are bothered by the five or six police staring at you.

On board the bus there was much sighing, and a few phew!s. People were a bit too shaken by the exertion of that much cool, and stared warily at the person who sat next to them, obviously an under cover cop trying to see whether you relaxed or not.

We trekked of the bus and onto a path through a field. We couldn't tell what it was a field of exactly. The program was in the style of the wear-around-the-neck backstage passes. This helped reduce the prestige of those arrogant fucks who parade around with their VIP passes.

The queue for ticket collection was massive. Forunately, I had randomly booked from one of the underdog WWW ticket resellers, who had no queue to speak of. As the envious Ticketmaster customers watched my afformented arrogant-fuck stroll past them, tickets in hand, they barely noticed when I then went and joined the back of their queue. Michelle had gotten her ticket through Ticketmaster. So much for getting in early.

Fido the Wonder dog

The crowd was herded down the hill through a central point. This had the look of a busy queue for a chair lift at the snow, minus the lift and the snow.
This central point had been cleverly designed to be indescernable immediately before arriving at it. The throng and watching police ensured that there was no escape. One by one we were taken past a sniffer dog. This dog was very active and was keenly doing its best to sniff where dogs love. Quite a few people were concerned about this. I was temporarily dumbstruck, and my portion of the convesation with James and Michelle died down to forced nods and sweating. Would Fido do me wrong and suss the NSW personally consumables?

The liberal laws and past history have imbued a lot of New South Welshmen and Australians in general with an attidtude of being able to smoke an possess with gay abandon. This is really a silly true-until-proven-wrong concept.

This dog was testing its veracity to the limit. If the police officers had not been so occupied restraining and guiding the dog to everyones nether regions they would have seen some vaguely concerned facades. Sure enough, the pesky pooch did not betray, and there was a very releived descent down to the main entrance booths. There the dogs human counterparts gave a more intense search. I was asked to show the contents of a pocket. Suncream and glow sticks were the offending articles, and they did not give away the other pockets. Doubly relieved, we were all in.

There was a section of the crowd immediately beyond that consisted of people detailing breathlessly what they had managed to sneak in. Fido needs some more training.

The Party

The Party was sponsored by the Mobile Phone manufacturer Ericsson. This was odd, as they'd placed the event on a plain in a valley between four hills. Mobile reception was not to be had, Ericsson or no Ericsson.

There were 11 areas. 6 of these were, you would say, fuck-off tents. The rest were perfunctory areas such as a converted bus [The Bud Bus], a Mexican style cantina [Bicardi Bar] and Tripods-esque Pyramid [Radio 1].
There were fairground attractions too. Some of these made sense, some were more tenuously affiliated.
There were food vendors, herbal ecstacy hawkers and glow stick stands.
Then there was a large camping style tent for the Samaritans. They had information about how to say no to drugs and have a clean healthy time. It was not busy. The 50 somethings sat around in their cardigans, and revelled in being able to pressure the Government into requiring them for an event license. I whole heartedly endorse having this available, and would like to see more of it.

What makes less sense is the Giant Ferris wheel, and Shotput. Shotput is basically inverse Bunji Jump. You sit in a two meter diameter sphere cage and are hurled into the heavens, being rescued once the bouncing subsides somewhat.
Intolerable to some straight, I wonder why on Earth these things are sanctioned with a more bent clientele. To accentuate the juxtaposition, these rides spew forth licensed Rock music upon every iteration.

Meandering around later at night I briefly contemplated which mega star DJ was ballsy and avante garde enough to pull out Queens - "We are the champions" at such a big event. None, it would seem, as the source was quickly ascertained when it repeated three minutes later.

The ground was quite rolling, and so you always danced on a slope. Forunately the weather had been perfect for two weeks, and remained so. It would have been too muddy to describe otherwise. The incline made it feel like a military manouvre to capture a fortified position. The DJ was always holed up in their horizontal booth with the revellers subjugated below. This was most striking with John Digweed, who was atop a massive stage riser with two cinema size screens either side behind him, and a little mini display in front middle. These had the usual mind fuck imagery. It was only medium level mind fuck material. I'm sure this will dissapoint some After Effects guru out there who was hoping for a small percentage of seizures, fits and general amazement.

Impotence

The sights
There was a green lazer in the Carl Cox tent, but again no crowd scanning. A laser without crowd scanning is just another light. It will become a lost art soon. Those of us who have experienced a Gatecrasher @ home, Ministry of Sound 99 or equivalent lazer show would most empathise with this statement as they struggle for the menu to increase the font display size.

A lazer with no crowd scanning is impotent

The sound

The sound system decided to blow up three quarters of the way through Carl Cox's set. In general the sound was aweful. Plenty of blown speakers, scratches, distortion and just not loud enough.

The people

To continue the military metaphor, the punters here are weary. Not battle weary, but "party weary". I noted this at Gatecrasher NEC, but Homelands has confirmed this observation. This is on the scale of the biggest dance party in Britain and people know it. The problem lies in that they've been coming to Homelands and equivalent events now for five years. That makes for a lot of huge parties based on much the same premise. The punters haven't taken this standing up. The hills resembled a fluro battlefield from a bad 60's science fiction flick. people passed out where they crouched/reclined/lay. Often this was in the middle of the dance space with eight thousand still-abled dancing around. This was not the crap music slaying them a la Ben Korbel/ Paul Holden Field of Dreams set at Age of Love 2K. This was simple inability to sustain a dance move.
Around these recalcitrants the full strength Australians and South Africans raged on regardless.

Kevins and other Party Groups of Scorn

There were not that many Crasher kids here. There were in stead a lot of Kevins. As most of you would know, my younger/youngest/only brother's name is Kevin, so it is dissappointing for it to have such a pejoritive sense in Britain. On of my best friends is a Bogan too. It just isn't fair on those poor unfortunates who are blameless in their names. All the Homer Simpsons and Tim McVeighs out there would know the anguish I am refering to.

Kevins generally are known for wearing ultra white trainers with smooth, ribbed toe caps, and unidirectional spike tread. They have close cut hairstyles with gel clearly glistening in the light. Their top is an England soccer top. And they are definitely the type of person that would come dressed in the above to Homelands, and bring their soccer ball.

Mostly they stand around in groups of their mates and ogle the women. They are generally far too whimpy to score with these. They are not as slimy as Wogs, not as gross as fat sleazes, nor as amusing as geeks. They are in a no man's land of scorn.

They come for the usual reasons of these groups I have mentioned; There will be girls so fucked on drugs and desparate that they may score. This must lead to a very random experience for them. Either it is crap because no one went unrepelled, or it was fantastic because the girl was good looking and paralytic.

I don't mind Kevins as badly as some of the other dickhead groups that attend these events with clear agendas beyond having a good time. They even rate above arrogant fuck VIP people. That is, those VIPs who are arrogant coke snorting pigs who think the expense of their clothing and A class elevates their shallow cavorting. Not all VIPs are like that though, some have made a contribution.

DJ lineup

I saw:

Norman Jay: Fantastic funky house. As always a pleasure and good way to start the day
Carl Cox: Ditto, but with trance. Truly one of the greats
Fergie: Miss this guy, he is full of old DJ ticks that are very forced
John Digweed: So slooow. Good technically. Not for a big event like New Years. I won't rush to see him again.
Paul Van Dyke: Passable. Not really very trancy.
Danny Tengalia: Best set of Homelands. Dark dark hall. He has this sand spot light and holds it behind his head an points it at people in a very Peter Garrett fashion. Works so well you have to see it to believe it. A real showman. Also pulled out this cranking remix of Eurythmics Sweet Dreams.


The end

Heard a fantastic two hour wind down set. Digweed was so slow that people were merely bobbing up and down on the spot. The next DJ set at a different tent was the pumping wind down from heaven. Perfect for a flip. James and I went hard, as we tend to, and left when the second encore finished. Huge, wicked, etc. Trip home was funny. James listened on qietly as I endeavoured to get my head punched in by idiots I was paying out in the queue we were all in for the busses. Those who have attended these events with me know that I am as outspoken as I am on this web page. This can lead to some pissed off people trying to decipher whether I was paying them out with that pleonastic insult loudly voiced. Being big and boofy won't save me all the time is my fear.

Homelands was haphazard. The DJ lineup for Gatecrasher Summer Sound System is much better. It features Paul Oakenfold, Matt Hardwick, Chemical Brothers and Hybrid. This one is sure to be huge, and I will post a review in turn.

GSSS is on in two weeks 16/6/01.
posted by Terry at 8:38 AM [edit]

Linford Crisities

"ooh, I wouldn't do that if I were you mate, there's a lot of, what do they call 'em,... 'Linford Cristies' round here."
These prescient words flowed from the mouth of a stall holder in Brixton, from whom I was buying some batteries a while back - wallet in hand.
I was further warned to keep my wallet in a front pocket from then on.
Rightfully admonished, I followed my orders.

Today I was admiring one of the patchy moments of sunshine that London offers, walking along towards the tube.
The imminent rainclouds were not to be seen and I had just polished of a deliciously guilty jam doughnut. There were some vendors selling Persian rugs by the side as a large mass of randoms waited aimlessly at the bus stop. There was talking and laughing and everyone was having a good time and a bloke was running and grabbed a mobile and in a quick sprint did a black teenage Frogger impression across the major road and into a housing estate.

Did you see that? He took my phone.

Laughing, talking, waiting for bus.

Excuse me, that guy just took my phone.

Some pay attention, shrug, laughing, talking, waiting for bus.

I stare in amazement. This tall girl is in as much shock as I am as to what just happened to her mobile phone, which she had been talking on as it was grabbed. I dumbly mouth consolations.

Several different emotions betray themselves to me as I watch her. I move towards my ATM [NatWest], 20 meters away. There some police are interviewing some completely different victims, oblivious.

My first Linford Christie.
posted by Terry at 2:07 PM [edit]

Friends on Business

Subject: A possible invite.

Now this may seem odd, and it is.
It may seem insulting, but it's not.

I have a spare ticket to a fantastic west end show tonight. The person who I was supposed to be going with cancelled on me. You were my logical next choice. The problem is that you would probably not be able to make it, due to the email lag time, and other commitments. So I have been inviting others in parallel to yourself. <ducks for cover>

This is mostly so I don't waste the ticket and go by myself like a loser. The show has received rave reviews by a few of my London friends. [Sal and Shay]

Would you like to come, even after all this business?
<airline voice> To check availability of tickets,
please dial 07870 zzz xxx. [my mobile number]

The show is Shockheaded Peter, and it starts nice and
late at 9:45. Picadilly Theatre, right by the tube.

Would you be up?

Terry.

Subject: Re: You can shove your invite where the ...............

Odd - no, not really.
Sensible - yes, quite.
Keeping one's options open - absolutely.
Strategy - very intelligent.
Notification of this strategy to the invited party - very unintelligent, certainly disheartening.
Invited party's current demeanour in light of this revelation - devastated, demoralised, and completely disinterested in attending the evening's festivities
Insulted - thoroughly.

Kidding??- absolutely!!!!

Kim Mc.

---

I love having funny friends!

Toby Ehinger is also now going to be living in London. I caught up with the Swiss for a beer. He's well, for those who know him.
Kim is heading back to sunny Melbourne. Say hello to her when she gets back.
posted by Terry at 5:41 PM [edit]

Gatecrasher

James Eyers and I attended a Gatecrasher dance party on Friday 13th April.
Normally I have an aversion to going out and getting trolleyed on a Friday night, due to it being the Jewish Sabbath. This can impact severely on my enjoyment of the night. Not so this time.
We were very lucky to get tickets actually. The ordinary entry tickets sold out, and only travel package deals were left. We needed a travel deal anyway, so that was cool. London tickets sold out, so we had a journey to Luton first.

Luton is a sort of full-scale model replica of a backwater. Accurate down to every detail.

The single level Paramatta style Westfields clone
The closing down car factory [Vauxhall]
The occasional mullet
and a Camber of Commerce that bills Luton as a stop over point.

The bus initally contained for passengers. The other two were locals and sat up the back.
Radio 1 was turned on and Seb. Fontaine played some tunes. Good music.
The route was via Oxford, we disovered.

Some way into the journey we started to see signs for Weak Bridge. I didn't remember this in my Lonely Planet, but the English have a penchant for archaic litteral names. Marble Arch is the classic example. Weak Bridge was quite an attraction, but unfortunately, turned out to be a weak bridge with a limit well below that of the cars on it, let alone our bus. Avoiding a dice with death involved a well acomplished three point turn in this huge bus. The alternate route involved some 60 Mph hairpins down narrow and windy roads of the English countryside. Our driver was both keen to get us there on time and do his best to continue the Foot and Mouth epedemic. We sped past a lot of farms with big red placards, and some very concerned looking sheep.

Into Oxford, we rejoiced as we got to experience more of the joy of 'Bus three point turns in a busy intersection'. This continued for over forty minutes with the driver stopping every ten minutes, dashing down the street to ask directions. Finally we pulled into the not terribly concealed bus terminal to aleviate the anxiety of a lot of Crasher Kids.

Crasher Kids

I dislike Plastic. Partly this is due to its chosen night of Friday. Partly it is due to associations with the old venue, where it was so hot and sweaty during the Green Turtle party that I had to dry my wallet for a week. The remaining dislike extended from the clientele. This assortment of basement dwellers spasmed and jerked all night along to the dark pounding hard house. They have tatoos of devils, dreds, goatees, wraith like countenances, missing teeth and sweaty armpits.

I would wholeheatedly hug and rejoice to be with the denizens of Plastic every day over Crasher Kids. These 18-20s dress up in fluro. Not just any fluro. Spiky shoulders in fluro, spiky hair with fluro tassles and definitely glow-stick. I don't mind these usually, but their dancing is so considered and rehearsed that they resemble the offspring of a union between Rick Astley and Peter Andre. It's like Melbourne on acid, if Melbourne was not already on acid.

Similar in their difference

I first noticed this with Gothics. The underlying premise was antidisestablishmentarianistic, but they all went about it in the same way. The black, the white make up, the robes. Then parading around Bondi Junction to ensure they frightened the Year 7s and were seen by the society they pupported to shirk and to rate themselves against other Goths. My girlfriend is fatter and shorter than yours, I'm more rake thin than you etc... Same deal here. I think the basis is that there are a limited amount of certain key aspects. There are only so many:

Colours that are fluro
Possible lengths of shoulder/knee/elbow/crotch foam spikes
Methods of attaching the above
Ways one may do one's hair that is not reminiscent of goths,80s,70s,60s,punks,afro
Fluffy creatures you can make into a little backpack
Babies dummies with a chain, so you don't lose it while so spastic on ecstacy that your mouth opens of its own accord

Beyond this there is the dancing style. Now I've seen a few pseudo-epeleptic performances before, quite a lot at Plastic even. But these Kids are like bad dancing evangelists. They not only disgrace your vision, but feel compelled to demonstrated it to any one else especially another of their ilk wearing a mutually exlusive fluro ensemble. Combined with the mandatory chained Dummy in mouth makes for an image that would see the prison term for Ecstacy supply skyrocket.

Gatecrasher was huge. Music was great. Production was massive. And I had a great night.
posted by Terry at 3:57 PM [edit]

Back to the first blog:

The position of the Apostrophy. An important question; in the form of a statement. these days with all lowers for email AND ALL CAPS FOR MOBILES, this particular question often goes overlooked. Destruction or evolution of the language? From my perspective as a nerdy Latin studying freak, I argue the former. This is mainly to retain the explicit specification of meaning, rather than whole-heartedly falling back to contextual reliance. A good example is rap-music and ghetto slang, sited as the potential evolution of English. A good deal of the language has been subverted into contextual references. This makes it quite difficult to interpret without a broad amount of background knowledge.

The contra-argument would then be that rap is a newer form of poetry, and poetry has always employed its eponymous License to allow context only references. The danger then lies in the integration of this concept into the spoken and prosaic word. To draw a parallel, I guess it's like Henry III walking around spouting "Forsooth"s in day to day life, just to stick to a meter.

One of the driving forces, or at least a justification, for this contextualisation of street language is that it makes communication more effecient by removing the extraneous explicit information. Maybe so, but the 'lookup-miss' time is then very large; the time that it takes to communicate that you have not understood and have the information restated an intelligible format. Sorry for the computer reference.
Those people who think they're so busy they cannot afford the time to properly state something sans ambiguity, should get a life, or stop dealing drugs.

Aside: I have quite an extensive experience with drug dealers. Most I have respect for. This previous comment about them comes out of a desire to find a metaphor to explain my meaning. They are very busy people. But the crux of the point is that they really only communicate very sparsely.

"I'd like three e's by Friday, please"
"No problems, $50 each"

Is really parsed into PLEASANTRY TYPE QUANTITY DUE_DATE, and in reply OKAY PRICE. They very seldom seem to discuss much more, aside from a Hopoate joke here or there, or retelling stories of which cops they have on the pay-list.

In summary J-Lo should keep the lingo in the lyrics. By contextualising too much, you lose portability of what you're thying to say.

To get back to the initial comment, this is the Guide of an expatriate, myself. Not a guide for expatriates, unless they so choose. See what meaning we lost in the mangling of the Dative and Genitive together?
posted by Terry at 7:16 PM [edit]

"Fuck!" The loud exclamation reverberates around the empty warehouse environment of my work.
My first blog effort lost. Not logged in it tells me, after around twenty minutes of typing.

Indeed. pretty pissed off at that effort. Not a good start from the blogging people.
I'm pretty annoyed at the moment, but I'll try to recreate the previous. It is a pity that it will lose a lot of its spontinaety.
Also I'd hand coded a fuck load of XML into the document, and I hate writing those damn tags.
posted by Terry at 6:31 PM [edit]