The big guy who is our Reading mole’s rugby shirt/pizza-fed office ‘colleague’ has landed on his large behind and is dating a wealthy lady from one of the Channel Islands. She is ‘wealthy’ and he’s not – though he is from Surrey – so it’s a chance for him to try and get her to flex some financial muscle by paying for his flight:
'If she wants to pay for me, I'll go club class’
Some of you may think he is being selfish: however, his girth means he needs a larger seat than everyone else
A suit has joined a golf club. Naturally it won't be long for him to jump up to the next level... rest assured when he does he can get some classic advice on joining a group of connected people from the bouncy rugby fool:
‘My Dad knows the former director of MI6, he’s a member, I've been asked to join many times'
Join a club and you GO PLACES, simple as
Everyone likes to be competitive – I know I do. The vastness that is our rugby-playing progressive has been comparing time spent chatting to girlfriends with the golf-playing, also rotund adult-child:
‘How long did you speak to her last night?’/‘Already spoke to Nat for an hour this morning...’
Surey von Suresson, that ante be upped – seen
The frustrated Surrey-based eating machine, returned from the Channel islands, and the idiot gimp boy were comparing their respective weekends with their ladies. Gimp boy met his girlfriends’ parents:
‘They’re not kind of rich or anything, they’re quite comfortable, they have got a detached house. It’s between Dorking and Guildford.’
Well done, tick the aspirational box
The weekend encroaches, two days away from such inspirational colleagues is almost too much too bear. Thus succour was assured from the 2nd floor resident-in-largeness’ description of the rugby team’s BBQ:
‘I drank half a bottle of bourbon and had nine joints last night’
NINE, beat that you squares... Though I am not sure how big those nine were. And do two blazes count as one joint? ‘18 till I die, I'm gonna be 18 ‘til I die...’
Office rock talk: There is no accounting for taste. Our Microsoft land mass was ruminating on what the hirsute rock icon Brian May did a few years back, to celebrate the Queen’s golden showers:
‘How cool is that, playing on top of Buckingham Palace?’
Answers to this address please and rest assured I'll pass them on
There’s plenty of unoccupied office, retail and residential space in the M4 corridor. Go live the dream before someone gazzumps you….
Banksy’s big bronze statue of a Regina-like lady in prostitute garb lasted only a few days before Islington Council carted it off to its Drayton park depot, from where the street artist will have to pay a hefty recovery fee.
Pointedly situated opposite the Masonic halls on Clerkenwell green, launch point for many a march, the Old Bailey-esque objet, nicknamed Justice, brightened up the blighted traffic island, the worst part of the historic EC1 ‘green’ area. Hardly repellent and not particularly provocative, the whore with its legend ‘Trust no-one’ – a nice play on how consumer capitalists actually think – made people smile and ponder that nebulous ‘system’ rather than plan a full-scale sedition. No-one working the cafes and restaurants had any objection to it; indeed it did far more for the area than the vacuous and recent Architecture Biennale, some said.
Such a slice of situationist pop art was too much for Islington and the slattern was peremptorily removed last week. “Of course I love the art as much as the next man but he didn’t come to us for a licence,” Upper Street apparatchiks probably appealed last week. To justice can be added the age-old issue of property rights. In England, we simply must have everything claimed for and signed off.
Once again, stifle that creativity, muffle ideas. It’s the only way.
Some of you may have seen the BBC news story about “the celebration of Saudi culture” event, held on 31 July-1 August in the grounds of Syon House, a mile or so from Murdoch Mews, Isleworth. Bankrolled by Riyadh and big local companies like Saudi Aramco and Banque Saudi Fransi and attended by ambassador-in-residence Prince Turki, the field was full of superannuated bedu tents packed with stuff about the desert culture that no-one really lives anymore since the peninsula was thrust into modernity on the back of the last throes of imperialism and black gold. Camels were penned in outside and Lebanese chain Maroush did the catering.
As an ‘Arabist’ as I believe the ghastly expression goes (a counterpart to Said’s “orientalists”), I attended the event and can assure you that it was mere propaganda. A nice way to spend an hour or two and all that, but a mere tool to deflect attention from the ever-growing body of dissent against the Saud royal family, from internal insurgents, western governments and western media. Of course those who were there were Arabs or afore-mentioned non-critical Arab enthusiasts (and the odd local inquirer) so the event was saturated in coverage for western and domestic sofa electorates.
So a slick marketing exercise it was, never better personified as when the procession of Saudi men with swords and embroidered garb that would have done Hendrix proud sang trancey tribal mantras to Prince Turki and his brothers. Healthy monarchy + progressive government + safe oil industry (honest x 3) = Brill Kingdom. The country may be developing as fast as it can (presumably in the belief that better quality of life=fewer people becoming insurgents) but a little trimming of the bloated numbers of princes and their stipends and some democracy (not the hideous version preached by Bush and Cheney) would go far further than this stunt.
