Some twenty-odd years ago, a little boy of about 7 grabbed a black umbrella off the hat rack in the vestibule, ran up the stairs to his room,clambered through a window and onto the railing of the veranda , unfurled the large umbrella open, and - brandishing it high above his head in one hand - jumped out into space. Give or take a week before that, he'd been spotted (by a nosy-good-fer-nuffin neighbor no less) tying a rope around the uppermost branches of a Jacaranda tree and swinging off in full vocal rendition of a tribal ululation, clad in nothing more than "...what appeared to be Scooby Doo..."- (to damnation, i say, that no-good neighbor's eye for detail and even more-so, her feeling of moral and communal obligation to rat on one to one's parents)- "...undergarments". Barely two days before that, he'd been standing in the backyard with a makeshift cape (later to be identified and confirmed during a rather painful disciplinary spanking, as mum's best table cloth) fastened around his neck, his hands fisted at his waist, feet wide apart and staring brazenly at the sun in an apparent let's-see-who'll-blink-first showdown.

 A couple of Mary Poppins-Superman-Spiderman-Tarzan-Huckleberry Finn- inspired gaffes were about as far as the effects of television on my development as a kid went. No broken bones (surprisingly) , but in their place a lifetime's worth of stories, bookmarked in all the scabs, scars and bruises i sported proudly; much like the pins, badges and sashes of an old general in full military regalia. Television-inspired violent conduct in our day amounted to the occasional staged post-kung fu flic mass fracas involving all the lads in the neighborhood or in the playground at recess; or the McGyver-glorifying attempts to build a nuclear submarine out of planks of wood, fire crackers, dental floss, super glue and chicken wire.

i suppose the lads and i followed some unspoken rule or code as to how far towards the border between the realms of make believe and hard hitting reality we could take our copycatting, concerning what we witnessed on television. i'm almost certain we were pretty much cognitive of the basic differences between the two. i'm positive we knew when Wile E. Coyote kept coming back from a fall/an explosion/getting chopped up into slices/disappearing underneath a large boulder , that it was really all make-believe? That it couldn't really happen in real life? i'm convinced we knew that when Rambo rattled off a couple of shots at the enemy to send them screaming and sprawling off a cliff edge or off the roof of a building, that all that 'blood' was really only just ketchup? That upon the scrolling of the credits at the end of the movie, we'd find out that 'Bad Guy #1' actually had a name and that he wasn't really dead, after all? But that the same couldn't be said of those other people on the news,y'know, the ones covered in white sheets or zipped up in black bags at that school?

We were 7. Grown kids, we were. Of course we knew the difference between fantasy and reality. Just as much as i'd known the difference when- as a seven year old- i'd grabbed a flimsy umbrella and jumped off a balcony 26 feet up with the expectation of floating and steering myself to wherever the wind would take me; or as i swung around from a frayed, knotted rope attached to the branches of trees the height of buildings in the full belief that i was the king of my very own patch of jungle; or when i did permanent damage to the photoreceptors in my eyes by staring down the sun in my cemented conviction of my invincibility as an underground superhero.

And so, when an eight year old goes to school one morning with a couple of loaded handguns in his backpack in preparation for that day's exciting game of cops and robbers at recess, of course he deserves our benefit of the doubt that he knows full-well the difference between make believe and reality. After all, he has it on good authority that the presents underneath the tree at the end of the year will have been delivered by an overly-obese, jolly good Samaritan of a man dressed in a red coat and hat with a long white beard. He's also seen that on the telly, by the way, but he knows for a fact that the jolly, fat man is real. 

He's pretty sure he is, anyway.

Scabs, Scars & Tangy Ketchup

i've got mixed feelings about the death penalty. It's an uncomfortable topic to talk about- one of those you don't bring up at a dinner party, right along with religion, politics and the real reasons behind Uncle Bubba's showing up in a D&G evening gown with matching snake skin handbag and Jimmy Choo heels at the family reunion last spring. It's one of those topics (not the Choo heels, the death penalty i mean) that there's really no right answer to, and equally one of those it seems awkward to have an on-the-fence opinion on.Almost as awkward as it does not to.

Today i hear a convicted killer, one Ronnie Lee Gardner (why do the famous killers always have treble-syllabic names?), 49, was executed in Utah, US.He'd been on death row the past couple of decades for killing a lawyer on his failed escape attempt from a court house, where he was already facing charges over another murder- that of a barman. Not a particularly special case, not even considering his request for his preferred mode of execution-that of death by firing squad. Apparently he'd made this request before this particular mode of execution was banned in the state.

Now, see, this is where the awkwardness creeps in, for me. "Death by firing squad" is banned in the state of Utah, in favour of the lethal injection- much like all US states where the death penalty is in use (35, as of October 2009). Only Oklahoma still offers the firing squad as an alternative, and i doubt very much that this will be the case in a few months' time. Now, why do you suppose this is? Cutting costs by saving on bullets? Hardly likely. Try: a more humane way to die.

  That's right. You committed a heinous crime in the denouement of which you happened to extinguish two human lives, thus we're going to punish you in the most severe way afforded to us by our high positions of authority as bearers of the sword of justice...and smite away yours too. Only...um... in a more respectable...uh... humane and... er...merciful way. Instead of shooting you to death, we're gonna inject you with a lethal cocktail of poisons. It'll kill you softly, y'see? You won't (you shouldn't) feel a thing. You should be thanking us, y'know. We're doing more for you than you ever did for your victims.
 
i dunno bout you lot, but this fence feels like it's getting wobblier by the minute. Funny, the vultures seem to be keeping their balance pretty well...

Cocktails & Barbedwire Fences

i'm baaack! Aye, t'is following a heroic escape from the halitosis-infested jaws of death that i currently address you- alive, super-charged (well, save for- the occasional sniffle and sound-barrier-shattering phlegm-powered wet cough {bet that's the last time you eat a chicken mayo & avocado sarmie while reading this blog, eh? *wink wink* heh heh}) and raring to get going on my World Cup adventures in South Africa. i fought this particular bout of flu tooth, nail and fistfuls of pills, and won.Or rather more like football (anyone who persists in calling it "soccer" {*vomit*} should be shot) won.

 That's right, i'm off to see the greatest show on earth- the very one i've waited the best part of two and some decades (read: my whole darned life) for. This year's edition also happens to be the most memorable in the competition's entire history: for the soul-gratifying reason that it will be the first ever hosted on African soil. You see, this is one of them moments in your life you want to make sure you experience live and direct, in order to update your mini- library repertoire of personal life stories that it is inevitable your snooty, we-don't-take-crap grandchildren will ask about in the not-too-distant future. If, in the future, you do NOT want to come across as just another foggy old toad that reeks of snuff and vanilla-scented denture glue to a bunch of snotty-nosed upstarts, then i advise, good folk, that TiVo-ing and PVR-ing the biggest and most significant never-to-be-repeated-again events of our lifetime is not the way to go.

The little buggers will tackle you from behind, pin you down and force you into various contorted positions of submission, before clinically picking and extracting a story (the ransom, and only condition securing your release) from your past and from the cob-webbed and dusty recesses of your octogenarian mind. Your grand-spawn won't want to hear about something they could just as easily experience by logging on to the first video site that comes up on the net. No, dear chap (and chappette), forget the flesh and bone, they'll want to get right at the marrow; the stuff of which only intimate and personal experience is made of; the substance.

They'll want to know first-hand about what it was like to be crammed in the stands, surrounded by a seething mass of humanity from all corners of the earth, of all creeds and races all screaming and shouting and exalting in pure unburdened euphoria at the wonderful spectacle that is the beautiful game; they'll want to know what it was like to blow on the "vuvuzela" and add to the collective spine-tingling drone of a hundred thousand angry bees quashed into a jam jar; they'll want to know why you couldn't hear for days after.

They'll want to know what it was like to sit next to a complete stranger and not share a single word between yourselves for an entire game, but hug and pound fists with each other, slap backs and cry tears and leave as firm friends,yet still not know each others' name, and in all probability, never see each other again; they'll want to know how, in all the jumping and shoving about, you lost a contact lens and watched the remainder of the game with one eye screwed shut and the other open and darting around like a pin ball; they'll want to know what it was like to scream in joy as the first goal went in and choke immediately afterwards as you received a timely reminder of the hot-dog baguette with Dijon mustard, pickles, deep fried onion and hot garlic mayo rammed halfway down your throat; they'll want to know how hard your stranger-friend slapped your back to dislodge the half-devoured guilty suspect...only to allow you enough breath so you could both continue screaming in wild, boyish joy in seeing your team take the lead.

They'll want to know. And from my contorted position on the floor- my octogenarian bones creaking in hapless submission- i'll smile, nod and give the cute but naughty little buggers what they're burning to hear. Simply because, ladies, gentlemen and members of the panel, i was there in 2010. i was there. And i did it for them.

A Hundred Thousand Bees In A Jam Jar

So, like, i'm sick.Not mind-in-the-gutter sick (however hard those who think they know me personally will try and have you believe) but bed-ridden-throat-feels-like-people've-been-putting-their-cigars-and-cigarettes-out-in-it-i-feel-cold-oh-so-cold-can-somebody-hold-my-hand-i-see-dead-wombats-i'm-so- gonna-sue-that-so-called-doctor-for-mixing-up-my-meds-with-those-meant-for-the- zoo sick. Yes, it looks (and certainly darned well feels) like i'm currently under seige; an attack from the insurgents of the armed wing of the Orthomyxoviradae Party of the RNA virus clan, otherwise known as the Influenza Movement for Autocracy (dude, don't ever say you don't get edjumacated from reading this here blog). It's a serious attack and these guys brought all their heavy artillery. Diplomacy's long gone out the window and they mean business. There'll be casualties here yet.

So yeah, i'm on a strict overdose diet of Flumel, Cal-C-Vita, Halls, Strepsils, Vicks VapoRub and an anonymous, raggety box of oversized pills i found at the bottom of the "sick box" that look like the stuff you'd take in order to survive a nuclear fallout (there's a partly faded set of numbers printed on the back that ends with "97".Not too sure if that's the manufacture batch number or the...?...nah...couldn't be the "best before" date...could it?? Regardless, they've proven effective in knocking me out a couple of times, but not before sending me swinging from the chandeliers in total, unencumbered bliss and euphoria).

There's only one thing this miserable marriage of circumstances (bed ridden and fighting for dear life) is really ever any good for, and that's the chance afforded to abuse your extensive dvd movie collection. And a monstrously impressive collection- if you'll allow me the plaisir of a moment on the soapbox to indeed declare- dear earth folk, is what i most certainly have. My collection spans genres and eras any self-respecting movie buff would weep tears of unabashed joy for and tip their hat at in respect and sheer incredulity. I can sit here and confidently state that as we speak, i own 10% of Hanks's new Porsche, 15% of De Niro's condo at Martha's Vineyard and also have a hand in funding the relaying of Gibson's inch-perfect kikuyu grass lawn this summer.

In truth, the reality reads more like: 50% of Lú's kids' annual tuition, 70% of Chiang's debts to the loan sharks who've threatened to hold his family as collateral and 85% of the expansion costs to Xiao's cramped two-roomer, so he and his big family can get a feel of what it's like to live like human beings for the first time in their lives. Ofcourse, my extensive movie collection never began as a humanitarian gesture towards anyone by any means, (and neither is it now to tell the truth), but rather from my megalomaniacal hunger, birthed out of my love for the medium.

  A brief digressive lesson. It began as a Tale of Two Cities: Hollywood and Piracity, dealers in trade of one of the most sought-after and powerful drugs in the world: Audio/Visual Entertainment. Hollywood had ruled the roost for years in terms of supply. No problem with the demand, that was always going to be there, right?; the miserable junkies were continually (and increasingly) hungry for more of whatever was churned out. That meant Hollywood could do what it wanted with the price of its stock, and exploit that advantage it did. Of course, Piracity looked to get in on the big money and get a cut of the sweet and profitable pie. It saw its chance when it tuned in to the fact that the junkies weren't as loyal to the pure nature of the drug as was previously perceived. Piracity discovered that the junkies would settle for a lower quality replica product if it was offered at a lower price. Hollywood's exploitation had had its toll. It'd turned a large majority of its market away and towards its sworn enemies. End of lesson.

  Hollywood has lost out big time. US$ 244 million a year's worth of big time. It's a shame really, because the solution's so stupidly simple. i'd honestly prefer to buy the original higher quality product (and boot loads of it too) if it were at a competitive price to what the Piracity product is offered. The gap in prices couldn't be more stark. For the cost of one Hollywood product, i can get 24 of Piracity's. It does, however, mean risking quality issues that range between the near-perfect, to having a man-shaped silhouette hobble across the screen mid-movie and also having dvd blurbs that read like the following example, found on the back of a Piracity copy of The Sum of All Fears:

...If the Earth would be exterminated, you have to use the remaining time? The United states a keen astronomy students in Europe inadvertently discovered a new comet, did not expecthuge comet Earth billowed into North Korea has come in one year would hit the planet, human destiny is at stake. In order to avoid mass hysteria, the U.S. military blockade of this news, but after all the media expose, then United States President Baker (Morgan Freeman) to plan a dangerous space mission, from experienced astronauts 'small fish' (Laoboduwa) leader in an attempt to detonate...

Well, you get my drift. So Hollywood, there you have it. You've heard our call, it's up to you to heed it. But until you do, Piracity's going to be a way more popular destination to visit. Horrendously misspelt road signs and all.

**DISCLAIMER- Like, dude, what's going on? i took one of those nuclear fallout pills mid-blog and got knocked out by a Muhammad Ali-esque haymaker. Next thing i wake up to find this random, anonymous dude sprinting out my house, my blog finished and published and helicopters hovering outside with bullhorns blaring something about getting on the floor with my hands on my head and that it's the FBI?? This had better be a nightmare... or a really, really bad movie.

What's In These Pills, Doc?

A light inner-city subway train has an average maximum speed of 70km/h, with total passenger places of 275 (54 seating & 221 standing). It has a start up acceleration of 1.2 m/s2 and weighs about 250 tons.

A three-wheeler pram, better known as an "All Terrain Pushchair" sports a gas-sprung mechanism which allows it to unfold with one touch, a lockable, double front swivel wheel, large rear pneumatic wheels, all round suspension, an adjustable soft-touch rubber handlebar, adjustable multi-position front-facing and rear facing seat, adjustable leg rest, and an all around weight of about 12.2 kg.

The average six month old human infant weighs 8.2 kg and is 81.28 cm in height.

The math is clear cut, but the reality continues to defy all logic and scientific explanation. Let's cast our minds back to an incident that occurred a little less than a year ago,-Friday 16 October 2009 to be precise- at Ashburton station in Melbourne, Australia. A day as normal as any other until, as the CCTV footage testifies, a mother waiting by the platform for the arrival of the train with her baby boy in a pram momentarily takes her hands off the three-wheeler pram's handles and fails to notice as it slowly edges towards the tracks.

Too late, the mother suddenly spots the baby carrier picking up speed and rushes forward with outstretched arms to try to save her young child, but the pram tips over the edge of the platform, sending the baby slamming head first onto the tracks below and into the direct path of the now oncoming train. The 250 ton train, customarily slowing down for its approach to the platform, slams into the pram at 35km/h to the horror of the baby's mother and the shocked onlookers, dragging it 30 metres beneath the front carriage, before coming to a slow and agonising stop.

The boy? Well, he escapes with nothing more than a slight bump on the head, and none the wiser-nor could he care less, mind you- about what's just transpired. He probably also wouldn't have given two shakes of his rattle to know that all the odds-scientific and mathematical combined- were fully stacked against him surviving the ordeal. And the mathematical probability of the very same incident occurring again with the very same outcome? That would be in the "near-impossible" stack of calculations, wouldn't it? Well, it did. 26 May 2010, Melbourne Australia, yet again. This time a 15-month old escapes with facial bruises and minor cuts to the head.

The formulaic bases of mathematics and the sciences are grounded on the tangible. In essence, anything intangible cannot be calculated and therefore cannot exist. And so any funny talk about mysterious protective forces-call them guardians, shepherds or whateverhaveyou- assigned to ensure the welfare of children is pure balderdash. Old wives' tales over snuff and hot broth. Simply insane. Maybe so, because every human being comes with a date of expiration, much like a can of corned beef: when you're off, you're off.

What i think the old wives' tales suggest however is that sometimes, just sometimes, the expiry date on the can is somehow changed and postponed to a later date, with a little help from somewhere (something?), and that this phenomenon is mostly evident around children. Shucks, who are we kidding?. It would, however be interesting to find out what the mathematical odds and probabilities would've been for each of the following wives' tales, just for interest's sake...

2 January 1995- A dazed 10-year-old girl with a broken arm emerged as the lone survivor of a plane crash in northern Colombia in which 47 passengers and five crew members were killed.

21 August 2008- Three children aged six, eight and eleven survived the Madrid air disaster, which claimed a total of 153 lives, in what rescue workers have described as “a miracle”.

30 June 2009 -A 14 year old girl was plucked from the ocean off the coast of the African Comoros Islands, the only apparent survivor from a Yemeni airliner crash that killed 152 people.

13 May 2010- A Dutch boy is the sole survivor as more than 100 die in a Libyan air crash.

And then again, maybe science requires a tangible bunch of feathers scattered around every site as hard evidence, in order to even remotely consider the impossible. Or maybe, just a mug or two of hot broth will do.

A Feather Or Two & A Mug of Hot Broth

The Sir Aleque Turkey Mayo on Toasted Rye, Please

Is it just me, or is there something exceedingly greasy (sorry, couldn't resist) about the developments around the oil spill off the Gulf Coast on the eastern seaboard of the US? In case you're a revolutionary social recluse and have been stuck in your cave and living on tofu and grilled insects in a bid to live as detached and as far away from civilisation as possible for the last couple of months, a brief recap.

  Following an explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon drill rig on April 20, which incidentally also killed 11 workers, the resultant oil spill is courtesy of a severed underwater riser pipe, which has so far gushed out 910, 000 gallons (12,000 barrels to 19,000 barrels of oil a day) of gunky crude oil (i suddenly have this inexplicable urge to visit the fish 'n chips kiosk), forming a giant slick that extends 29, 000 miles in the ocean . This has in turn closed down about 63, 000 miles of coastland along the Gulf, affecting the livelihood of thousands, as well as causing an enormous environmental calamity in what is already being coined "the worst oil spill disaster in America in 18 years" (yet another record to keep the lads down at Guiness occupied for a while)and that is likely to affect the region for decades.

Let's digress a tad. Mistakes and accidents are bound to happen. Some are unavoidable- such as speeding off from the gas station with the gas nozzle still attached to your tank in a mad rush to catch the final episode of The Sopranos ( er...a friend's cousin's aunt's dad... apparently...*ahem*) - and others not quite entirely avoidable, but with the right contingencies, preparation and foresight, definitely somewhat so. And just in case you're wondering, the BP oil slick disaster falls under the latter. End of digression.

 In a set of farcical attempts on BP's part to plug off the gallons of crude oil pumping out of the fish 'n chi-...er...pipe (one of which comprised dropping a four-storey cement building on top of the whole darned show and calling it a day, just in time for the Seinfeld reruns on the telly)- something has become glaringly obvious to me.

Nobody knows what the huckleberry finn they're doing.

 Not BP. Not the experts. Not even Chuck Norris. Which brings us to our conclusive and very, VERY disturbing question. What else are we increasingly likely to be dependent on in the future of which, in our rush to develop, have in all probability overlooked a few "minor" details? "Nucular" [sic] energy , anybody?

 Now, about that greasy craving...

Want Fries With That Oil Slick?