Child Innocence

This is a rather amusing story about the bond formed between a little girl and a group of building workers. 

A young family moved into a house next door to an empty plot. One day, a gang of building workers turned up to start building on the plot.

The young couple's 5-year-old daughter naturally took an interest in all the activity going on next door and started talking with the workers.

She hung around and eventually the builders, all with hearts of gold, more or less adopted the little girl as a sort of project mascot. They chatted with her, let her sit with them while they had tea and lunch breaks, and gave her little jobs to do here and there to make her feel important.

They even gave the child her very own hard helmet and gloves, which thrilled her immensely.

At the end of the first week, the smiling builders presented her with a pay envelope containing two pounds in 10p coins. The little girl took her 'pay' home to her mother who suggested that they take the money to the bank the next day to open a savings account.

At the bank, the female cashier was tickled pink listening to the little girl telling her about her 'work' on the building site and the fact she had a 'pay packet'.

'You must have worked very hard to earn all this', said the cashier.

The little girl proudly replied, 'Yes, I worked every day with Steve and Wayne and Mike. We're building a big house.'

'My goodness gracious,' said the cashier, 'And will you be working on the house again next week?'

The child thought for a moment. Then she said seriously:

'I think so. Provided those wankers at Jewsons deliver the fucking bricks.'

Tags:child,builders

Name The Prince

Jacqueline Pascarl, at 45, is still very much a stunning beauty. In fact she must be the most beautiful lady I had seen for a long time, at whatever age. She was born in Melbourne and living there in Australia. She makes documentaries for television, but before this career she had been princess, or whatever one calls the wife of a Malaysian prince. She was being interviewed about her life as in a very foreign land at the tender age of 17, being married to a real prince.
 
She was asked about her life as a royal in Malaysia, her subsequent escape from that life that was to her more like a slave, being 'locked' for years, beaten up regularly by her own husband, leading to her running away with her 2 children and hiding out for 7 years, until her husband kidnapped them and kept them away from her for many years, allowing no mail or even a phone call from her. Until the youngster came of age (now 22 and 25), and had the liberty to travel on their own, before they were united with the long lost mother again. They come and go now, seeing her whenever they can.

What intrigued me of the interview was when she disclosed her husband's name. It has to be the longest name I have ever come across: Yang Amar Mulia Raja Ahmad Bahrin Shan ibni Yang Amat Mulia Tengku Sriva Raja, Raja Ahmad Shak.

Exhausting just to say it!! Translated it means something like: Your Highness Royal Prince Ahmad Bahrin, Sir, Son of ...... such and such and more and more titles and honours. On his passport, there are hardly enough space for all the names.

Another interesting aspect is that she said her husband the prince received his university education in western country, speaks English perfectly when outside of Malaysia, and carries himself very much like a well educated gentleman. But as soon as he returned to his own country his whole personality changed, and became very serious and rigid. She was convinced for years that there were 2 of them in the same body. Or, double personality.

I can understand that to a certain degree, that in Malaysia he must behave as a royal prince, because it's expected of him, maintaining his dignity and position. Even so, it's not explainable the way he mistreated his wife, in their private life. I am sure beating up the wife is hardly the correct protocol even for the royalty.

Tags:Malaysia,prince

One Liners From Edinburgh Festival

• I realised I was dyslexic when I went to a toga party dressed as a goat
  - Marcus Brigstocke at the Assembly Rooms
• Cats have nine lives. Which makes them ideal for experimentation
  - Jimmy Carr
• The right to bear arms is slightly less ludicrous than the right to arm bears
  - Chris Addison at the Pleasance
• My dad is Irish and my mum is Iranian, which meant that we spent most of our family holidays in Customs
  - Patrick Monahan at the Gilded Balloon
• The dodo died. Then Dodi died, Di died and Dando died .... Dido must be sh*tting herself
  - Colin & Fergus at the Pleasance
• My parents are from Glasgow which means they're incredibly hard, but I was never smacked as a child... well maybe one or two grams to get me to sleep at night
  - Susan Murray at the Underbelly
• Is it fair to say that there'd be less litter in Britain if blind people were given pointed sticks?
  - Adam Bloom at the Pleasance
• My mum and dad are Scottish but they moved down to Wolverhampton when I was two, cause they wanted me to sound like a tw*t
  - Susan Murray at the Underbelly
• You have to remember all the trivia that your girlfriend tells you, because eventually you get tested. She'll go: 'What's my favourite flower?' And you murmur to yourself: 'Sh1t, I wasn't listening ... was it self-raising?'
  - Addy Van-Der-Borgh at the Assembly Rooms
• I saw that show, 50 Things To Do Before You Die. I would have thought the obvious one was 'Shout For Help'
  - Mark Watson, Rhod Gilbert at the Tron
• Got a phone call today to do a gig at a fire station. Went along. Turned out it was a bloody hoax
  - Adrian Poynton at the Pleasance
• Employee of the month is a good example of how somebody can be both a winner and a loser at the same time
  -Demetri Martin at the Assembly Rooms
• A talking dog goes into a hardware store and says: 'I'd like a job please'. The hardware store owner says: 'We don't hire dogs, why don't you go join the circus?' The dog replies: 'What would the circus want with a plumber'
  - Steven Alan Green at C34
• It's easy to distract fat people. It's a piece of cake
  - Chris Addison at the Pleasance
• If you're being chased by a police dog, try not to go through a tunnel, then on to a little seesaw, then jump through a hoop of fire. They're trained for that
  - Milton Jones at the Underbelly

Tags:EdinburghFestival

Opium Eater

"Under connecting feelings of tropical heat and vertical sunlight, I brought together all creatures; birds, beasts, reptiles, all trees and plants, usages and appearances, that are found with all tropical regions, and assembled them together in China or Hindostan. I was an idiot; I was a priest, I was worshipped, I was sacrificed ...". Surely this timeless prose flowed from Jorge Luis Borges's hypnotic pen?

Not so. It's the strange fruit of Thomas de Quincey's (1785-1859) opium induced blather, of which, a century later, Borges was to squeeze abundant tangy juice. De Quincey is best now remembered, if at all, for his " Confessions of an English Opium Eater", a book well worth reading.

His addiction started in 1804, when a friend suggested he took opium to alleviate a particularly painful toothache. For a few coppers, druggists in those days sold Laudanum (a solution of crude opium in alcohol) without demanding a prescription. It was supposed to cure anything from diabetes, consumption, syphilis, delirium and an endless range of other aches and ailments. Gonfrey's Cordial, which also contained opium, was renown for it's power to quieten crying babies, though a slug of Gin was believed to be a sound alternative. De Quincey referred to the goodies sold over the counter at the druggist's as "portable ecstasies". The appalling addiction were the only downfall.

Father of eight, De Quincey stumbled through life paying off creditors with sporadic handouts from an uncle, who had made his fortune foisting Indian opium on the Chinese. Fuelled by guilt and self-hate, the writer's Laudanum added mind began to swarm with frightful images of innumerable Chinese ransacking the world civilization. He came to regard all Asians as incurably savage in the moral sense.

When it all boils down, was the Opium War (1839 - 42) any different from the later war in Irag? Portable ecstasies imperial wars.

I stood a corner,

My feet were dripping wet;

I asked every man I met ....

Can't you give me a dollar?

Give me a lousy dime,

Just to feed that hungry man of mine.

 

Tags:Opium,LivingEcstasy