Don't try this at home

It's been three days and a couple of hours since I stopped smoking. And I'm hating it!

It's not the first time either. I've been on and off cigarettes for the past 15 years. The longest break I had was a couple of years. but somehow I always get back into the old habit. You know how it is: you're in a pub, everyone else is smoking so it doesn't really make a difference if you have one, and so it goes. The next day you just finish the ones left in the packet. Then you just get a packet of ten, just for special occasions. And after a couple of days every coffee break is a special, bloody occasion.

So I'm a veteran of failed attempts to quit smoking. And now I'm trying again. The difference is that this time my reasons are quite different from before. There are, naturally, some of the same factors that you encounter in a country like Finland every winter: at some point you just start feeling like a mug standing outside in the rain or snow, freezing your ass off, and sucking on fag, while other are enjoying healthy life indoors.

But this time there is another reason. More pressing than the usual ones. Now I'm simply fed up of going for a cigarette at work, not because of the facilities (which are crap by the way, but as a smoker you learn to live with that) but because of the endless whining and whinging that goes on there. I mean, half the fun of having a fag at work is that you can have a break from your work. But when you go out and all that people are talking about is how horrible their jobs are, it's just too much for me. I'm not kidding, it's like the old Monty Python sketch about the moaning yorkshiremen: "Oh, my job is so shite, I have to work 20 hours a day for 10 cents per hour". "You have it so good. I have to work round the clock, and they don't even pay me". "But that's nothing, I have to work 30 hours a day, 8 days a week, and pay to even get into the building!" It's fun for the first couple of days but then it starts to get to you.

So, it's no more cigarettes for moi. I will start a new, healthy life, free from all the moaning and whinging. Maybe as an added bonus my blood circulation will return to normal and my hands and feet will stop feeling so bloody cold all the time.

That's the plan, anyway. I'll let you know if I fall off the wagon.

Just in case...

..you are as bored as I have been lately:

Click here only if you are ready to switch your brain off for a good while and stare at your screen.

If that doesn't do it for you try this

Go nuts!

Feared 'Chaveller'

The next are quotes from The Independent

http://travel.independent.co.uk/news_and_advice/article327167.ece

"When chavs first burst on to the scene in their tacky tracksuits, designer baseball caps and oversized jewellery, Middle England shuddered.

"A few years later, those concerns have been justified. Chavs have indeed taken over their world.

"Taking upward mobility to new heights, the "chaveller" has become such a common figure abroad that the middle classes are opting for some of the most far-flung locations in the world to avoid them. According to the UK and European Travel Report, instead of heading for the beaches of Spain or Portugal, the chav-allergic tourist is more likely to explore countries such as Mozambique or Libya.

"According to the report, the rise of cheap air fares has propelled the "chav" around the world. The trend has gathered pace because "chavellers" feel more able to quit their well-paid jobs or trades, knowing they can pick them up again when they return home."

Oh dear, I have sometimes dreamed about doing something like working for a while, saving money, leaving my job and then go for a nice treat somewhere to then come back to look for another job and so on and so forth. I actually did not have a clue that such category was assigned to the chavs...At least they are enjoying some of that sort of freedom that many of us can only dream about.

Well done for the chavs! (Be aware that this comment is limited to the content of this article and not to the rest of the chavs' activities/attitudes)

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Useless...

That's me. Haven't been able to write again for good two weeks. This time it truly feels like I have nothing to say. Been busy at work, tired at home and generally wondering what the hell do I want to do with my life.

It all goes back to work, as always. As I'm currently in a situation that I have no job description (but a mountain of work on my desk) I'm supposed to figure out how to place my position in frames and perhaps, even give it a name. Now, it's not that I'm incapable of inventing fancy titles and all that bull, it's rather that I currently run three different projects, out of which none have a thing in common with one another, and that makes the framework question a bit less feasible than it already is.

To be honest, I shouldn't be writing about this stuff as I know that it's utterly boring and useless information for anyone possibly reading but it's how I feel, honestly.

I'm going to visit my homeland this weekend as Ryanair was kind enough to sell me a ticket for £26 return. It should be fun as it's one of my best friend's birthday party as well. Nice too see the 'old faces' after a while. In fact, this is what I am really looking forward to - seeing all the guys (and now their better halves as well) from the past and realizing that we are still all the same. No uncomfortable feelings and superficially polite comments about each other's jobs, no comparison of the 'keys for the cadillacs' and most importantly - no necessity to appreciate how great it was that England beat Argentina on Saturday. I'll report on this occasion later, with a huge likelyhood proving myself entirely wrong on how the 'old faces' were...

This is turning out to be a much longer post than I anticipated and therefore I might as well mention a few words about our recent trip to Champagne. This was a very nice trip made with a couple of friends from the university years. None of us had been really keen champagne drinkers but as we were about to spend three days in the heart of the region, it would have been a waste not to sample some of the local product. Scenery was truly nice and specifically Epernay and the Marne valley were really nice. And just how lucky were we - it was above 2o degrees all the time as well!

Well, even if I'm not sure yet what is so great about champagne, at least I can now tell how it's been made and what are the different varieties etc. Actually, I have to admit that some of the vintage stuff was quite nice, if a bit dry to my liking. After all, a really nice break with nice company - that's enough for me.

Next time, I'll be sure to get some interesting stuff here and maybe whine a little bit less about the job. Well, just maybe...

For men only

I had my birthday recently. One of the presents I got was a set of face scrub and moisturiser for men. Oh, good, I thought. Just the sort of thing that a modern man needs. But something about the concept of "products for men" was bothering me. Maybe it was some primal resistance reflex to cleanliness, or maybe it was common sense. Anyway, I did what I suspecteed a modern man would do and did a search on the Internet. The quote below I found on www.expresschemist.co.uk:

"Modern, 21st Century Man is more interested in appearance and health than he's ever been, and so he should be. With all the great products on the market now there's no reason why Men shouldn't be as clean and healthy as possible."

Ah, there we have it! Step aside filthy Neanderthals, the modern man is here and he's armed to teeth with all kinds of manly health products. Technology has finally come up with weapons to fight man's natural smells and looks.

But hold on. There's something wrong with the picture. After the modern man has finally cracked under the pressure and bought himself every possible lotion and potion for men it should be time to sit back and wait for them to start working their magic. But instead a sneaky feeling of suspicion starts to bother the modern man. Suddenly the bathroom is full of boxes, jars, tubes and cans: there's a girly moisturiser for her, and a butch one for him; there's anti-wrinkle cream for her, and a more manly looking one for him. The list goes on and on.

So, what exactly is the difference between a moisturiser for women and the one for men? Do they put a drop of testosterone in the cream for men? Does it make you less of a man if you share a skin product with your wife? Or could it be possible that we are being taken for fools?

It must have been a great moment in the marketing department of the Great Soap and Cream Corporation when (undoubtedly after a long pub lunch) someone came up with it. It was so simple that it was scary: "let's convince men that they need a separate face cream from the one that women use". There it was. All it took was some masculine, blue and chrome packaging and a rumour that using your wife's soap will make you gay. After that they could light their cigars, pour themselves stiff drinks and watch the sales figures double.

And it didn't stop there. Once they had got started the ideas came almost effortlessly: Creams for morning, day, and evening followed. A soap for mondays, hair gel for cloudy weather, and a foot soak for hermaphrodites are expected to be in shops any day now.

I'm telling you, our children will go to museums to see displays of life in the last days of 20th century, and they will cry in front of the authentic bathroom: "how horrid it must have been for poor old mum and dad, sharing a bar of soap, and what's that, oh God NO, unisex body lotion!"

Working class hero

I went to a friend’s party recently. Most of the people there I already knew from before: work mates, friends, and so on. It was a pretty normal party, some people talking about the latest office gossip, others complaining how they still hadn’t manage to finish their theses, and the rest just getting happily intoxicated.

"As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be"

At some point in the course of the evening I bumped into a girl I hadn’t met before and we got talking. She had quite recently moved into town. Ah, so another student I figured. But no, she had come here for a job. Ok. So, what field is she in then? Cleaning. Cleaning? Yes, cleaning. To fund her studies, right? No, that’s just what she does. Yes, quite, well, another drink then?

"They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be"

I haven’t felt that stupid in a good while (and this is coming from someone who feels more or less stupid most of the time). I had completely frozen. I just did not know what to say to a cleaner at party. But why? I couldn’t pass for a snob if I tried, it’s not about an attitude. And also, I meet cleaners every day at work, this is not supposed to be a big thing.

"When they've tortured and scared you for 20 odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be"

It may seem like I’m the smallest person on the planet here for having a problem like this. But what I figured afterwards (yes I actually had to think this through) was that what had failed me was the context. I can have a perfectly nice conversation with our office cleaner when she comes round to our end of the office. The thing is just that I have never met a cleaner in a party before.

"Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be"

Now, before you go and think that I’m some posh twit who only goes to champagne parties and caviar restaurants, I’ll set the record straight: that’s not it! I go to normal parties at normal peoples houses. The thing is just that the way the society works also pretty much determines who we meet and socialise with. After you finish compulsory education comes the first divide: some go to study more and make new friends, others go to work and also make new friends. These groups don’t necessarily mix as much as might think. Then later on at work, you are much more likely to go out for a drink with your colleague than anyone else.

"There's room at the top they are telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be"

That’s just how it goes. During the years of this division, you somehow forget that the division is there at all. That’s until the perfect image falls apart and you have to face the fact that you are in fact very much the product of what your work, colour of skin, education, religion, and society has turned you into. So much for being so bloody classless and free and all that jazz.

(Quotes from Working class hero by John Lennon)

The Americas

Nice pictures awaiting for Bush's presence in South America.