Monday 31 May 2010

I try to be nice but israel is so fucked up.

So bizzarly, the news machine has gone into overdrive about israel's attack on a civilian aid convoy. Interestingly, we've seen all manner of politicians from Turkey, Germany, Italy and the UN yet nothing in particular from the higher ups in the UK. Sure William Hague said something ballsy about how Israel needs to stop the blockade of Gaza, but if you read between the lines, little is said about israel's damnable offenses.

When i first read about it, i decided to read different newspapers and articles from around the world to get a feel for the varied stances certain papers and countries. As it stood, the readers of papers from the guardian to the sun to the BBCs website, commented in a sensible way condemning israel's actions. Over we go to comments posted by Americans on an american paper and boy oh boy. Apparantly, there is no need for aid in ghaza, they're all fine and all terrorists there. And loads of cries of support for the state of israel.

just to clarify, killing civilians is illegal. Let's not bug Israel with the issue of morality, let's just deal with accountability. Killing people is illegal. Storming a ship in international waters is illegal. Denying people basic human rights is illegal.

Yet, nothing is being said or done regarding israel's blatant disregard for the law.

And on a side note, what is tony blares new job? Something something about middle eastern something or other. It'll be interesting to see what he says about this latest act of evil.





Typing all this on my iPad has been way fun. This thing rocks.
Seriously though, Israel is fucked up.
But my iPad! Which, let's face it was probably designed somewhere in apple labs in Israel. Yuck, im sick of this thing already. My only solace lies in the fact that it was manufactured in china and that china will soon rule the world. And there's no room for a wild card like israel in china's vision of the future.

My iPad!!!!!! So shiney and nice and new!

Anyway, I have work tomorrow. Good night.

Wednesday 26 May 2010

When in Constantinople

Do as the Romans, the Ottomans and the Greeks(?) did....

Well. Hi!
Sorry for the hiatus- I've been traveling. While I initially considered updating this blog during the trip, I fought the temptation, squeezed as much out of my holiday as I could and decided to fill in all the details once I arrived here.

Here I am!

I have to say, Turkey rocked. We went to Istanbul, and if you ever decide to go and need to plan some sort of itinerary, then here are some ideas! Visit some of the amazing historical sites. You have the blue mosque, the Grand Bazaar, the Turkish Baths, the Spice Bazaar, the OTHER mosques around different parts of Turkey.

Loads of fun. Plus the Mediterranean climate. Phwoar.

So, where should I start?

British Airways.
Well, BA were allowed to strike in the end. Fortunately, this didn't affect our flights. However, it still left us in a precarious situation with booking hotel rooms- we had to book in a relatively last minute manner meaning our selection was diminutive and expensive. I was personally spending in the region of 80 a night for (what I was expecting to be) a double bed. I'm sure we could have got much nicer rooms at a far cheaper rate had we booked in advance, but hey, that's the way shit goes down sometimes.

Otherwise, we had little to fault BA, their service was friendly, efficient and got us to where we needed in relative comfort. My niece had a penchant for kicking the back of my chair. But I think she just liked stretching her legs. The in flight food was a little weak and there was no entertainment. So, actually, we COULD fault them. For quite a bit. But no, I'll stay positive because Turkey has made me a happier person.

Turkey.

We arrived in a bizzarly shiny, modern looking Turkey, late at night. Zipping through the streets we caught glimpses of a conglomeration of hotels shooting into the skyline. Nothing but hotels for at least a 10 minute stretch of road out of the Airport. And then a McDonalds. They drive the other side of the road from us. A fact that kept escaping me and left me in a precarious state on more than one occasion. But on the first night, we zipped straight to the hotel.

While you're imagining me sitting in the back seat of a cab, looking out of the window, marveling at the wonders that presented themselves before me, let me give you a bit of what I THINK I know about Turkey. With regards to Turkey of Today, the country is on the brink of joining the EU. Some opposition is being thrown its way from current member states- from what I've READ, again, I'm PROBABLY mistaken, but I think Germany holds issues with Turkey joining. This could be for a mirriad of reasons, that it's a majority Islamic nation, that it would lead to an influx of immigrants to other parts of the EU, that... I dunno, but I think on the front of it all, they give the latter reason for opposing their membership.

As it stands though, Istanbul, the capital of Turkey has been nominated as the European capital of culture. Meaning they're throwing exhibitions and concerts and all manner of fun things. Which can only really help their standing as being seen as a developed, well functioning, ASSET to the European market. So great stuff, keep up the good work.

We stayed in quite a central area of Istanbul- Cemberlitas- there are accents under the c and s to make it sound Chemberlitash. That's wedged between quite a few famous landmarks- The Aya Sophia, the Blue Masjid, the TopKapi the Kapli Karsi, many of which have accents under their letters too. But we got to see most of those places. Save the Aya Sophia.

Economically, Turkey uses Lira as it's main currency, they converted at around 2.25 per pound sterling at my time of visiting. Many, more central places also accepted Euros but these aren't widely accepted in general shops so best to use Lira.

Then there's Turkey's geographical placement. It may well be the only country that's actually wedged half and half between two continents. There's and Asian side and a European side. I didn't get the opportunity to step into the Asian section though it didn't really appeal to me as much as the luxury and (relative) familiarity of the European side. Unlike the UK, Turkey is right near the equator, meaning the sun goes much higher in the sky by noon. The day's were all bright and amazingly warm. Perfect tee shirt weather.
The people are very friendly- where I stayed seemed to be practically a merchant town with people stopping you in your tracks, asking you how your day has been, where you come from and insisting you want to buy a pashmena. Quite similarly to Pakistan, you generally have to barter when you're in the market places and you're advised to begin your bartering at roughly the halfway mark of the sellers original asking price. They WILL try to riip you off at every chance they get. I bought a sheesha vase that was originally being sold to me for 210 Lira for 150. I had to place my initial offer at 100. Though nothing in my repertoire of bartering skills will come close to some of the displays put up by my family. There's the shambolic attempt by one of my sisters:

Sister: I'll take this one for 5 Lira.
Shopkeeper: But it's only 2 Lira....

That was funny. She's really, really bad at bartering.

While on a polar opposite, my other sister.

Sister: I want these trousers, how much are they?
Salesman: 65 Lira.
Sister: 20.
Salesman: (!) I Can't do that! No, no, no, no, no! 55 Lira! Lowest price.
Sister: 20.
Salesman: But why won't you listen to me?! I can only do 45 lira for you, special price. Only 45!
Sister: 20.
Salesman: Ok, final offer, I do it for 35 Lira no less.
Sister: No thank you. Only 20.
Salseman: Ok, ok fine.

I just stood there amazed watching her do her thing.

UNLIKE Pakistan, the quality of things available can actually be very good, particularly with their silks, leathers and pottery. We bought ample little trinkets as gifts and as I mentioned before, I got a sheesha. It's lovely. Although I hated carrying it home today. Trains. Gah!

Anyway, as it stands, I'm going to leave it at that. I'm tired, Gran Tarino is on and the family just got back from THEIR flight. Joy.

Anyway, it's been fun, for more information on Turkey, read my next post!! This one was just a cover of Turkey in general, tomorrow I hope to tell you things that actually happened. Make time to listen about the Pakistani dude who tried to sell me a prostitute. The Turkish Bath incident with my brother in law involving an overly friendly male masseuse. The inside joke about face jacker and our attempts to freak out Turkish people. Shopping! The conundrum of what do do with the cat?! The porn in the hotel rooms! The food! The Jet plane that I saw fly over my plane on my way home today!! Well, actually, that last one's pretty much already been said. There was a plane. That flew directly over my plane. And was very close. And left a stream of cloud-like gas in its trail. So exciting!

But seriously, I'm shattered. Night peeps!

Sunday 16 May 2010

4 Lions

I don't think I'm going on Holiday...
BA are striking and now the ash cloud is back.
Damn ash cloud. I'm in awe of you, yet I'm so fracking annoyed at you too.

I'm ill. =( Sore, sore throat, which I think I've exasperated by loads and loads of sheesha. It's a really filthy habit. I'm worried it might give me cancer later in life. Which is totally messed up...

But to be fair, I'm not all that hyped about going to Turkey as it is. We're going to like... a family holiday place. Where I'm going to be "admiring" things...

Actually, I lie, it would be cool to see all the old buildings. But I feel the appeal would wear off once I've seen them once. And how many interesting buildings CAN there be??

I hope one of those interesting buildings has sheesha in it...

Hmmmm... Suddenly the idea of Turkey doesn't seem that bad...

Better than a Conservative facking Britain. How lame, right?

And bloody Nick Clegg. I'm so shocked he'd agree to the coalition deal. Also, right... They want to raise the retirement age! To 66!!!! Which is shit.
I'm not intending to work till I'm 66. It's okay for MPs who have awesome salaries and great pension schemes. Actually, my pension at local government isn't too bad...

Have you lot heard of a film called 4 lions? It's a comedy about Suicide Bombers. I want to watch it. So bad. My brother in law saw it and said it was hilarious. It's showing in Stratford cinema so woohoo!

Any takers? Of course not. You're probably a little offended I'd mention it.

Loosen up.

And watch this trailer:




Teeheee heeee!!!


Anyway! I'm out, my throats a-hurtin' so I'm blurtin'!

Saturday 15 May 2010

I'm BAAAAAAACK!

But did I ever REALLY leave you? Always in some small little part of your heart? Brain? Memory? Dude, let me get a foot in somewhere, I'll even take the bladder if I have to...

Oh my diddly doo dah days! I have the internet again!

Well, that's all I wanted to say.

AND... That I apologize for all the bad things I have said about Virgin. While they were all perfectly justified and irrevocably true, Virgin are no way near as bad as BT. Let me clarify- Phone line ORDERED in FEBRUARY! STILL not got it till this day......

So in the wise words of some dude, You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find....... You get what you need. Rolling Stones I believe....

Expect more regular-ish blog posts to be cropping up. This interwebby thing is fun! Did you know you can do this thing called... Porn oh graph E on it?

CrAzY days...I think I might have a barbeque today. Plenty of things to moan about by the way. Like how I fast tracked my passport so I could go Turkey next week and suddenly, BA are on strike!! So I might not be going after all....

Meh, will go into details of that another time. Good thing though, is that the family leave a few days before I do (IF I do...) so I get to throw some cRaZy parties around mine. Not crazy. XBox. x2. Plus big screen. Plus food. OOH A bbq. Hmmmmmm....

BBQ.....


Yumm.. Weathers nice today, stop reading my blog and enjoy the day!

Friday 7 May 2010

Who stuck around for the Ending of Iron Man 2 After the Credits?!

So, with this blog, I seem to have got quite a small, quite a familiar audience, people I know, people I'm COMFORTABLE enough with, that I can talk about relatively mundane, ordinary day to day things.

Like Kheer.
Like... Afters in Leyton.
Like... Needing to go to the loo.
Like... Practically everything in day to day life.

But then, SOMETIMES- and by sometimes I mean with regards to my last blog post, I write an AWESOME title. A title inspired by a slogan I saw someone carrying around at Nick Cleggs last speech before the elections. A banner that read:

Nick Clegg You Gorgeous Bastard.

But, you see... I must not have been the only person who saw that banner. Oh no. But unlike the... let me count, one second...

Unlike the TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY SIX(!!!!) people who typed it into google to SEARCH for it and came across my blog...

I decided to use the phrase to write a blog post.

So invariably, so TWO HUNDRED!!!!! AND FORTY SIX PEOPLE!!!
Just sent my page load reading off the goddamn chart.

Bloody hell.

In comparison, my bar chart result for the day before looks like The BNP's total votes in Birmingham...

But yes, as it stands, I really shouldn't use AWESOME titles that are going to attract certain people to read my blog and then say very little regarding the topic of the title itself.

That can only lead to confusion, annoyance and embarrassment.

Now... What should I call THIS blog post??

=)

Wednesday 5 May 2010

Nick Clegg You Gorgeous Bastard!

I went to Afters in Leyton last night. After doing Sheesha and getting a call from my dad in front of all my friends asking: Usman, if you do sheesha, do you think you're going to begin smoking for real? Don't you know it's bad for you? You DO know you're practically smoking right?

And my friends bust have simply seen me saying, "No, it's alright. No I won't. No, I won't start that. I'll stop soon. Sorry, I'll be home soon. Bye!"

Uuber uncool. Fortunately there is some plan of moving back out in the pipe work.

Though rather strangely my dad asked if I'd be interested in working with him to buy a property..... Which threw a massive curve ball into my plans. And would be awesome.
But as it stands, while I'm waiting to see how that pans out, I'm living in the here and now. On a ridiculous level. Spending like a twat saving like a civv.

A large portion of that spending goes towards Afters in Leyton. Because a) They're convenient and do decent cakes. b) because there is a hot waitress there. More because of B since their cakes aren't THAT good. In fact, they're not good. But don't tell her I said that. And don't tell her about this blog. Lame.

Anyway, I got my mum some Kulfi from there last night and I went next door to Ambala and got her some Kheer too. Kheer is an indian desert. It's creamy and sweet with weird nut things in it. She just got her latest round of results from the hospital back and it was all clear so this was just a little present.

Obviously, I decide to give her stuff that's really unhealthy in a scenario where I'm congratulating her on her good health. Turns out me mamma didn't want the kheer but liked the ice cream. My dad, seeing how I left all the stuff on the living room table decided to pop everything in the Freezer.

Kheer is not meant to be frozen.

So now, I'm tucking into a whole new brand of ice cream. Kheer-cream. And it's not so bad. In fact, it's quite nice.

Yeah, all that back story, all that explanation of getting stuff and going afters- practically EVERYthing written beforehand was just to build up to say I'm eating frozen Kheer. Nice.

So vote Lib Dems tomorrow please. PLEASE! Vote for change, vote for fairness, vote for who you think deserves to win and who you think could REALLY change this country for the better.

Or failing that, just vote lib dems anyway.

I came across a blog just now, that appears to be written by my sister. How strange is it that there are THREE bloggers in my family? Very. I seem to be the only one with a regular influx of visitors though. Thank you random people from king's college who visit my site. Or people who I have pestered to visit for ages and ages. And you Babor, for always reading what I have to write, even though it is predominantly spiel. Who am I kidding it's all spiel. But the kind of spiel that comes from the heart.

Much like the way Lib Dem want you to vote. From your heart.

Honestly though, we COULD be on the brink of a once in a generation outcome. And you could put your name down as one of the people who made it happen. We could however, also be on the precipice of a Conservative government. One thing is for sure, we're about to undergo a dramatic change in our Government. With all likelihood pointing towards a hung parliament, these coming years could really impact on how our country moves forward, the values we adopt and the issues we prioritize.

So vote for Lib Dem.

Because I agree with Nick Clegg.

Enough of the election smecktion stuff from me.

I've got training for some weird computer system they use in libraries tomorrow. Even though I don't really work in a library. BUT, it's a day off work so why not?

And the number of comments has gone down from like.... FIVE(!) to One. And it WAS an awesome comment.. No wait, let me try and think what you wrote Babor....

Probably something inflamitory and silly. Let's copy and paste.

Since when did Facebook polls become an accepted as a valid form of a poll compared to Ipsos MORI or YouGov?

Nick Griffin for Barking MP!!! (Not my constituency by the way)


Hmm... 
Well, no, it wasn't awesome was it? You should stop saying you want the BNP to win, some people I don't know DO actually visit this blog you know.... Like that person from King's College... And like, this one other person who commented as anonymous recently. Those TWO people might think you're genuinely supporting the BNP. And s/he might go and support them too because of you.


It would ALL be your fault...


Actually, my sister's were leafleting for labour in Barking- the only real opposition for the BNP in that constituency so that's the ONLY reason it's cool to support Labour over the Lib Dem. ONLY in THAT borough. And while they were leafletting, they stumbled across none other than Nick Griffin! Remember that sly mother F?! Well, he's still alive and kicking black people. And spewing his evil on our streets. Our multicultural streets that have been shared equally among people from all nationalities and religions! He dares to tell us that the way we've been interacting with one another is wrong, telling us we aren't British enough for him... He can... well.. I've fizzled out of hate for him really. He's inconsequential to me. Unless his party wins a seat or two. Then I'm going to have to seriously reconsider what I think it means to be British.


Ah and the newspapers at work. I always come to work to find a conglomeration of tabloid newspapers spread across the desks of the staff room, each hailing David Cameron as our messiah and slating Gordon Brown/ Nick Clegg as loonies. As a way to reach out to the millions and millions of people who make up the tabloids' readership and OBViously visit my blog, here's a video.





Ah I love that song.... Thanks Mav.


What else happened recently? That volcanoes still at it. Crazy, right?


I want to be a film writer. I had a wicked idea for a film/tv show but I won't tell you because it's too good and you might try and steal the idea from me. It involves a cow. And a skinhead. And a pair of tweezers. And a pogo stick. And LOTS of sunflower oil...


Okay now I'm starting to think maybe eating that Kheer wasn't such a god idea, I gotta go to the loo. I'll leave it at that for tonight... *pukes*

Saturday 1 May 2010

I don't care what the weatherman says

Because it's FLIPPING RAINING! What difference does it make if he SAYS ANYTHING!! GRRRR!!

I have kid's running around my house. It's annoying. They keep going Meow thinking they can trick soomie into thinking they're cats too.

They aren't the brightest little crayons in the pack..

The plus side of guests- the ample quantities of fried food! Samosas and Pakoras watch out!!

In response to Anonymous- Blogger lets me post blogs on a Mac but can't let me post comments on my own blog. I dunno... Safari is weird.
Anyway, in response to you, with your comment in my last post; Yes Gordon Brown MAY be cuddly and cute and like a grandpa, but those aren't qualifiers for him to reign over us as prime minister. Those are qualifiers for him to shout and for no one to listen. And for us to put him in a home when we've had enough of him. NOT 10 downing Street! I think Santa's cute and I'd want him as my Grandad but, as my Prime Minister? He'd use our national wealth to buy us all Action Man/My little Pony dolls.

Which is probably a damn lot better than whatever Gordon Brown's been doing with our monies.

PLEASE vote for the lib dems people. Don't let the Tories get into power.

This isn't going to be a particularaly long post. I was out til 3 yesterday and Had to be at work for 8.45. So right now my eyes are fluctuating between half-moon and fully closed.

I actually fell asleep RIGHT there. Okay, I'll call it a day on this one. I'm gonna have a nap and then install some windows seven on my big mama of a desktop..

Facebook stats for the elcetions. Things are looking good!!