Rotisserie Australiana

There are many things I love about Australia but the sun isn’t one of them. Well, not necessarily the sun itself but certainly the rays, or perhaps it is the lack of ozone...or a combination of both.

I went beach fishing for a few hours yesterday morning and managed yet again to get seriously sun burnt! We did have some sunscreen (although we ran out) but I find it only protects to certain point. At least I had a long sleeve shirt (at the beach?!) and a hat.

However prepared, the reflection from the ocean and wearing only shorts my face and neck along with my legs and hands now have the same colour as a cooked lobster. A man in this condition could easily lose his sense of humour when putting socks and shoes on!

This has been an ongoing problem, and one summer I decided to hide inside a beach tent where I thought I’d be safe from roasting. Unfortunately my right foot was sticking out so I ended up burning the sole of my foot- didn’t even know you could burn there!

Perhaps my pigmentation is just a little too keen as I can burn in the Australian sun in about 30 minutes. It’s actually become a bit embarrassing and somewhat of a bad joke that I’m not able to play on the beach with my kids nor go swimming for more than 10-15 minutes. Walking around in a tracksuit isn’t my idea of fun at the beach, and besides, even if I did I’d still burn my hands and feet!

A kingdom for a clear and completely waterproof sunscreen spf 10,000 I say!

Thought of the day- Pharmaceutical Conspiracy No 37

Back in the good old 60’s people took LSD to make the world crazy. Now when the world is crazy, people take Prozac to make the world normal.

A Sucker for Punishment?

The authorities in central Niger state charged Mohammed Bello with "insulting religious" creed and "unlawful marriages" after local chiefs and Muslim leaders gave him a September 7, 2008 deadline to comply with Sharia, Islamic law, which allows a man to have no more than four wives.

The 84-year-old Islamic preacher with 86 wives was jailed after he failed to comply to divorce all but four of the women.

I have one wife, whom I’m madly in love with, but she sure is a handful. Having ‘challenging’ wives seems to be a pretty common thing among men these days, so what in the name of God would persuade a man to have 86 of them?!?

In addition, he’s got 170 kids- tough break for Christmas!

Finding Motivation

In my current business (recruitment) I frequently do a lot of work for no pay at all. This can of course put a major dent in your motivation and there are days when you simply can’t get over ‘losses’ worth tens of thousands- occupational hazard they call it.

The real trick is to get the motivation back although a particular strategy or approach may not work every time. So you have to look for new things or ways to make it happen.

I had a couple of those days recently where nothing worked. My eldest daughter looked at me and asked what my problem was (cheeky little shit) to which I explained that I lost some money at work.

She immediately slapped in the face and told me to "get over it".

I think the shock of my daughter slapping me must have worked ‘cause I’m back to my normal self.

I guess sometimes you don’t need to look hard for motivation- it could be right in front of you!

Public Humiliation – A New or Returning Trend for Punishment?

Shanghai police will post photos and videos of jaywalkers in newspapers and on TV in a bid to shame them out of breaking traffic rules. Offending pedestrians, moped riders and cyclists would be snapped at selected intersections and their images put in regular columns and on special television programs set up by police. A local lawyer was quoted saying "It's a principle of law that a penalty should match the seriousness of the crime".

Jaywalking is a way of life in major Chinese cities, where crossing roads legally can be a hair-raising battle of nerves with oncoming cars disinclined to give way to pedestrians. Traffic police recorded 7.78 million jaywalking violations at Shanghai intersections in the first eight months of 2008.

The scheme had come under fire from lawyers who said public humiliation was too steep a punishment for jaywalking and warned of defamation lawsuits against police.

The interesting thing about all this is that during the 1700 and 1800’s similar punishments were very common in Northern Europe- the log punishment, whereby the person being punished has his or her legs firmly shackled in logs and placed outside the church door along the roadside for public inspection, or the pillory which consisted of hinged wooden boards that formed holes through which the head and/or various limbs were inserted and the boards locked together to secure the captive. These pillories were set up in marketplaces and crossroads to hold petty criminals, often with a placecard detailing the crime nearby.

They do say that fashion is cyclical and it would seem that this is also the case for public humiliation as punishment. Then again- the British tabloids have been around for awhile so perhaps it’s not a new or reoccurring trend after all.

Business Opportunity for New Yorkers

The global economic pressures are evidently not sparing anyone, and if you don’t believe me, well, here's the proof- the price of rat meat(!!!) in Cambodia has quadrupled in the past year from 31 cents to $1.28 per kg. Who saw that coming?

In addition to expensive rat meat, Cambodia is currently experiencing high unemployment, whilst the City of New York has twenty times the amount of rats than humans- a real problem for NY.

So I had a thought- send 2,000 Cambodians to NY for two months to chase rats (=job creation and solving rat-overpopulation problem), let them keep keep/eat 5% of all rats caught (=food and supplementary income) and send them to Cambodia for 50 cents a kg.

New Yorkers would get rid of the rats and in the process make some extra money to...I don’t know- polish the Statue of Liberty or something. Guess I don’t need to spell out the benefits for Cambodia?!

We should all pressure our Governments to think outside the square. I mean, think about it- who would have ever thought about importing labour to fix a serious problem, which would in turn lead to exports to a country in demand of such a sought-after commodity as rat meat?!?

Is Public Nudity Effective?

I just read an article (and watched the TV clip) in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet, about two women showering naked right smack in the middle of Stockholm’s central square. They claim they did to raise awareness for the environment, animal welfare and for the poor people of the world.

One of the two showering activists was quoting how many litres of water it took to produce 1 kg of meat and how many showers that equalled annually. The sign on their very minimal shower screen called people to clear their conscience and become a vegetarian.

Is this effective you ask? Well, I for one agree that taking your clothes off is a highly effective way to get attention. In this particular case, however, I think it may have had a slightly different effect, as I am quite sure the majority of the male spectator got a real hunger for flesh

Future Olympic Sports?

On Thursday my creative sister published some suggestions relating to how to improve the Olympics and make sports more interesting (see link on the right- How to Open a Coconut).

Her suggestion focussed on combining existing sports thereby making them more challenging and entertaining.

These included:
• 100 m Fencing
• Synchronised Swim Boxing (two teams of synchronised swimmers would launch team members wearing boxing gloves at the other team to try to disturb their routine)
• Underwater Hurdles
• Synchronised Ski-jump Shooting
• Triple Javelin Jump
• Ice Tennis

I got inspired by this and came up with a few suggestions myself:
• Triple pole vault jump
• Canoe archery
• 400m high jump (instead of hurdles set the high jump bar at 2m)
• Basketball Tae Kwon Do (full contact basketball)
• Underwater wrestling (truly a test of strenght, stamina and holding your breath)
• Ski jump discus (throw the disc while in the air)

...and for the real challenge- synchronised Triathlon.

I did have a bit of a chuckle when I thought of how funny it would look to combine hockey and equestrian, only to realise that the English already invented Polo...