IT'S SATURDAY, DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR FRIDAY WENT?

At around ten thirty last night there were over two hundred page views here, according to my blog stats. It is quite likely that those were all spam bots, as most people at ten thirty on a Friday night -- in my neighborhood, at least -- are thinking of donuts at Bob's on Polk Street between Sacramento and Clay.
Before the crowds get there, peaking between one thirty and three.
Spam bots are, understandably, not into donuts.
Instead they come here.
How sad.

I was asleep by then. That is, I was trying to sleep, but my sore throat kept waking me up. To bed at seven PM, up again by six AM. The concept of donuts was very far from my mind, as swallowing was incredibly painful.


Crullers, old-fashioneds, Long Johns, strawberry frosteds, buttermilks, shishkys, pampushkys, Berliner, dulce de leche benuelos, coconut sprinkles, custard filleds, old fashioneds, Boston creams, bear claws, jelly filleds, maple bars, apple fritters, cake donuts, chocolate glazeds, coffee caramel creameds, Dutchies, glazed blueberry cakes ....


My infection, which had been at a low ebb for a week, got a second wind Thursday night, in consequence of which I had maybe three hours sleep.
I must be getting better, because last night between seven PM and six AM there may have been as much as five or six hours of slumber.

My Friday was spent convulsing from the pain every time I swallowed, and postponing the agony of hacking and spitting as much as possible.

I know where my Friday went. It went somewhere dark and depressing, and altogether nasty, an ante-chamber to hell, a foretaste of the second Trump presidency. It was in several ways apocalyptic.
As was, unfortunately, Saturday.


I shall blame the existence of other people's children for this.
We all know they're little disease vectors, right?
And I have an urge to blame anybody.


No, I shall not have a donut.
Can't even imagine it.

Two more days to my work week before I'm off.
I was off Friday, and should've enjoyed it.
Bad disease vectors! No donut!

Another reason to suspect that last night's readers were spam bots is that the comments they tried to leave involved World of Warcraft, Hispanic females, penis enlargement, and sure-fire real-estate schemes.
I have an intellectual interest in only one of those.

I've never written about any of them.

When I am well again, and can eat, I may consider World of Donuts, Hispanic females frying donuts, donut enlargement, and donut schemes.
Till then I shall whine in an unlovable manner.




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SMOKE PURE STUFF

Regular readers know me as a man who severely disapproves of aromatic pipe tobacco and flavoured cigars, and I am pleased that politicians in the great city of San Francisco now finally support my vision of hordes of straight white schoolkids smoking pure unsauced products, like our forerunners the Puritans.


Quote:
"My colleagues on the Public Safety Neighborhood Services committee just unanimously passed my landmark ordinance to ban the sale of flavored tobacco products in San Francisco. It was sent to the full Board of Supervisors with a positive recommendation. Restricting the sale of flavored tobacco is a forward-thinking, evidenced based policy. Children and young adults, African Americans, Asian Pacific Islanders, and LGBTQ people have been selectively profiled, targeted, and ultimately killed by lethal products for far too long. As we speak, the federal government is abdicating its responsibility to protect public health through its ongoing attempts to roll back health care access. It is the right and the duty of states and localities to ensure that our communities are healthy, solvent, and safe. That is what this legislation achieves. The buck stops here."

------Malia Cohen, 14 June at 14:19.


The three most popular aromatic tobaccos are 1-Q, RLP 6, and BCA.

1-Q [Lane Ltd.]
Cavendishes and Virginias, a Vanilla topping plus some added sugars.

RLP 6 [Lane Ltd.]
Virginias, Burleys, Cavendish, with Vanilla, Caramel, and Chocolate.

BCA [Lane Ltd.]
Green River Burley cooked till black with vanilla and syrup to augment the caramelization of whatever sugars occur in the leaf, this is a product that adds stability and coolness to a huge number of house blends.
Everybody has a version of this, even McClellands.

Together with imitations and knock-offs, these three are by far the largest segment of the market, available almost everywhere between here and Nova Scotia, in hundreds of charming old-fashioned emporia.

Malia Cohen is wise to object.


I likewise disapprove of flavoured tobacco, and while the three products are not "bad" bad, they are a gateway to ever more bizarre blends, even such horrors as something drenched in chocolate covered cherries with cherry liqueur, or peachy pecan brickle. No one should smoke these.
They are available in bulk, many tobacconists carry them.
You can also find them on the internet.

When mayor Edwin Lee signs this legislation, schoolchildren all over the city will have to find other products to smoke.


Excepting marijuana, which is made by little green men in the Amazon Rainforest, who recycle, they may wish to experiment with Quiet Nights (GLPease), Nightcap (Dunhill), Balkan Sasieni (Sasieni London & New York), Frog Morton (McClellands), Westminster (GLPease), Early Morning Pipe (Dunhill), and the gold standard of solid reliable English blends, My Mixture 965 (Dunhill).

All of these go well with a cup of tea and a good book, and college men through the ages have relied on the Dunhill products in particular when swatting for tests. Nicotine famously benefits late night study.


In the Virginia and Virginia-Perique category, many of the products of McClellands, Samuel Gawith, and Germain & Son are extremely rewarding. Tolkien smoked Virginias -- Capstan (by D. & H. O. Wills) was one of his favourites, and is guaranteed to put one in a Gandalfian mood -- as did Sir Bertrand Russel, famous philosopher, social critic, mathematician, author, historian, and life-long shit-disturber.

If you like any of these, you will probably like all of them: Peter Stokkebye Luxury Bullseye, Davidoff Flake Medallions, Dunhill Deluxe Navy Rolls, Three Nuns, Escudo. Several brands, but the same factory.

Dunhill produces some excellent Virginas too.
Flake, Dark Flake, Ready Rubbed.
Elizabethan, Ye Olde Signe.
Three Year Matured.


Again: tea, book, quiet time, academic success.


We need a tobacconist in the Chinatown-North Beach section of the city. One that sells nothing but quality merchandise. Pure unsullied tobacco, affordable pipes (the best briar that students can afford), and good inexpensive stogies for enjoyment outside bubble tea places with classmates and friends, of an afternoon.
It would be so wholesome!

I am so glad that Malia Cohen and the San Francisco Public Safety Neighborhood Services Committee are agreed on this crucial point.

Of course, shoppers could just take a bus.
Spend their money outside the city.
Buy in volume elsewhere.




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FOWL PLOTS

It struck me that regular readers are probably at ease with what they think they know about me, but probably don't know very much. Oh sure, the milk tea, the pipes and tobacco, the pigsty that has been my bed for the past seven years, the fondness for hot sauce, and the stuffed animals.
Did you know I have a large metal bird perched on the telly?

No, it's not a penguin from a Monty Python sketch.

And it isn't likely to explode.

It just is.


It is no more peculiar than the vicious little nursey christmas ornament, or the fat flat frog. Or the two racing nuns.


What IS peculiar is the calendar from over a decade ago on the wall, given to me by a grocery store which no longer exists. The picture is of a mama panda and a baby panda in a forest with a lot of bamboo. Two months, July and August, during which I lost interest in flipping the page. Which means that for at least six months prior to that I maintained chronicular correctitude.

There has been scant reason for calendars for a long time now. You just turn on your computer, and it will inform you what the day and date are.

I never bothered to take the thing down.

On the other hand, I did not endeavor to hang the picture that is leaning against the wall below it. Other than out-of-date calendars, there is absolutely nothing on these walls.

There are good luck scrolls on doors, however. Both on my apartment mate's bedroom door, and on mine. They're in Chinese, which she can't read, but I can. She's Chinese, I am not. They are eternally aplicable, in a sort of optimistic kind of way, meaning that they are near-meaningless.

I do have much better stuff to hang, if ever when.

One of these days I'll get organized.


I need an exploding penguin.




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WISH LISTS

Yesterday a republican politician got shot by a person who was upset at the republicans. While I acknowledge that this should disturb me, and that I should have something akin to sympathy for the victim, quite frankly it leaves me cold. Today's republicans are such a hateful destructive bunch that all I can really feel is that it's a pity the victim is such a nonentity.

My first thought when I heard was "who?"

Right off the top I can list nearly three dozen republican politicians, and several protestant preachers (mostly Southern Baptists and their fellow travellers, all of them loud and rich), whose lives would be immensely improved by a bullet in the back of the head.



No, I shan't mention names, because that would legally constitute a threat and would get the authorities down on me in no time. But it should disturb the republicans that in today's America so many people feel thoroughly disenfranchised, and threatened enough, that we keep mental lists.

Thanks to the NRA we have more access to weapons than ever before.

We don't have access to therapy, but we can get guns.

You can buy them at Walmart.

Think about that.



On a different note, I wonder how many republicans have a condom stuck to their shoe when the wife walks in. Probably a large number.



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STUPID WHITE CHILDREN

A few days ago, residents of Hong Kong demonstrated against sharkfin at a local restaurant. This would not interest me, except that several signs were in English, and many of the participants were white and juvenile.

There is something smarmy and unbearably superior about little white kids and their parents marching in Hong Kong against local food.

Don't these imperialists have anything better to do?

Where are the water cannons?


SPARSELY ATTENDED PEEVISHNESS

[SOURCE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd1C4wICA2g.]


No, it's not cute. Or good. A rancid bunch of pampered little shites telling the locals what they can eat never is.


Do you notice how many among that crowd are Caucasian? Far out of proportion to their miniscule percentage in the Hong Kong population.
Which sick entitled pricks thought this was a good idea?
Pissing on the locals is just rude.


It's typical of a certain class of middle class Caucasian that not only would they get their knickers in a bunch over what people they look down upon are doing, but they'd be so self-righteous that they would stage a happy little protest, complete with children acting precious and superior.
It's not too late to expel all of them.
Foreign twats.


For another example of dietary terrorism, see: Pub Owners Harassed.

If after reading that you feel like a nice bit of veal, or wish to viciously torment a Vegan, I really cannot blame you.


Veal, shark fin, and foie gras are delicious, by the way.
I know how to prepare all three.
Mmm, shark fin.



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BUT WHAT IS THERE TO EAT?

One of the Chinatown standards closed its doors at the beginning of this month, due to their lease ending. Now, whether it's a case of the new rent being too high, or the clientele fading and becoming poorer over the years, is immaterial. They are gone now, and some damned Szechuan concept restaurant is going in. Probably staffed by snippy barking Northerners.
Nothing ruins a Chinese neighborhood like Szechuan concept.
White folks, Mandarin speakers, idiotic food.
An insane excess of chilies.
Pig slop.

Same goes for Hunan.

Not that anyone can tell the difference. Instead of subtle flavours and an expression of culinary talent, what is highlighted is brash insecurity and a simplistic reliance on peppers and customer ignorance. It ain't fit for man nor beast, but the mainlanders and white yuppies think they're getting something special.


But no matter, back to the ABC Bakery & Cafe. The milk tea was stellar, the Hong Kong style western food was in a few cases extraordinary, they had Sriracha hot sauce on the premises, and the wait staff was calm and competent. Indeed, one had to select one's food and drink from a basis of knowledge, otherwise one would get surprised -- sometimes a little less than endearingly so -- but if you wanted French toast with peanut butter between and a drizzle of condensed milk on top, this was the place.

Their Baked Portuguese Chicken Rice wasn't that good, but the Black Pepper Pork Chops were 100% excellent.

Curry seafood fried rice, Amoy fried rice, fried chicken, spare ribs, baked seafood spaghetti, Singapore style fried rice noodle, Sampan congee, ...

Hainan Chicken: famous, fresh, and beautiful.


Two dishes that I regret not trying were Mixed Vegetables and Mushrooms Soup (田園雞菌魚湯泡米) and Tofu and Salted Egg with Seasonal Vegetables Soup (魚湯豆腐鹹蛋浸時菜). Both were offered among the Mother's Day Specials during the entire month of May.

Just the names alone sound scrumptious!

I do NOT regret avoiding the dish with "haslet". Haslet is defined as the heart, liver, and sometimes also lungs and pancreas, of the beast, whether pig or cow, and besides not being that fond or organ meats, these excite my gout. I shall eat haslet only with a 'short French bastard'.
A tribute to the Aubrey-Maturin books.



They had been in business on Jackson Street for 27 years. During the last five months of their existence I ate there more than a dozen times.

Yeah, I asked for the bottle of Sriracha nearly every time. I like hot, but not being insane and stupid, I avoid Szechuan concept. As I shall also do regarding the restaurant going into that location now.
湘川菜，成垃圾咁。



焗葡國雞飯

Yesterday I had the Baked Portuguese Chicken Rice at one of the few chachanteng that remain in the old neighborhood. It was very good (potato!), and I got to observe the other customers from my corner. Five single male diners, a family without electronic devices, a man with beautiful hair who took photos of his food with his cellphone, and a table of elderly worthies dawdling after their meal with more milk-tea than is healthy.
And a woman reading the newspaper.
十分之十好食。


Today I'll probably have bitter melon fish and rice (凉瓜蘢脷飯) at a curiously misnamed place up on Powell Street.
也好食。




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SCROLLING THROUGH 'NEXT BLOG'

Occassionally one wishes to know what the rest of the world is thinking. As good a way to go about finding out as anything is to hit the 'next blog' link on the top left hand side, under the banner.
This brings up another blog, chosen more or less because of the subject matter of the post you are reading, and often not at all related thereto.
A lot of people write about clothes or their kids; all of them boring.
Some don't, and aren't. Food and children.
Weird eats, little monsters.
Food horror.


Semi-random citing:

' "My name is Miranda", the raccoon presented herself. She was wearing a white blouse with a black skirt and had her hair fastened underneath a small hood.'

[from Viktor's All-purpose Blog, which is mostly about reading, and the books Viktor likes or not.]


"An unidentified woman in a video that has gone viral was seen rubbing the fruits she sells in between her legs before packing them for sale."
and:
"The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, gave indications on Wednesday that Nigerians of 30 years of age would soon be eligible to be President of the country."

[from Gistexpression, Nigerian stuff.]


'I remember when I was a kid, I asked my dad, "Dad, how come you never compliment us on anything?" He said, "Whenever I'm not saying anything, that's a compliment." '

[From Bitter Melon Girl, an illustrator from Toronto in San Francisco. It's mostly about food. She's Cantonese, which means, naturally, food.]


"在互網無孔不入的今天，楊舒平的演講並未隨著畢業禮結束而淡去，反而是在網上大爆發，中國網民（也包括海外的華人）指責之聲如驚濤駭浪般衝向楊舒平。"

[from 傳媒人心聲, mostly political, from the perspective of a Hong Kong person in the United States. Mainlanders may not like this.]


"Help! Help! The Globolinks may be a weird film, but it is also a weird film with a pedigree. Commissioned by the Hamburg State Opera, it’s a television film of a children’s opera written and directed by Gian Carlo Menotti, an Italian-American composer who was American composer Samuel Barber’s librettist of choice. Menotti’s most well known work is another children’s opera, Amahl and the Night Visitors, the filmed version of which, commissioned by NBC, became the first television Christmas special to be aired on American TV on an annual basis (this was obviously quite some time before the advent of Rudolph and Charlie Brown.) That it is not quite so well known is perhaps due to the fact that, while Amahl had clear biblical overtones, Globolinks is about psycho-surrealist space aliens whose spoken language sounds like Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music."

[from DIE, DANGER, DIE, DIE, KILL!, a text and illustration rich exploration of pop culture.]


These were the rewards for putting up with much else.

On the whole, scrolling through random blogs is like a roller coaster ride, albeit one with immensely long flat spaces. There is only so much yoga, personal exploration, natural living, and tortuous existential musing that a man can tolerate, and fashion, clothing, poetry, and pictures of lovely dresses and shoes, or pineapple upside-down cake, as put on the internet by "normal" people, can be painfully dreary, even excruciating.
Most people just aren't very interesting.

I am like Jesus; I suffered so that you don't have to.

Please worship my holy blog.

Thanks.




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JEFF SESSIONS IS A CROOK

Photo: Jeff Sessions, By Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

*         *         *         *

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A SONG FOR HALFWITS

The world has become a strange place. Underneath the calm placid exteriors of many people lurk the minds of madmen, which, if you but scratch their surfaces, come rupturing forth in foaming madness. Social media encourages this; just think of tweety retards with thousands of worshipful followers.
It's not just Gwyneth Paltrow and David Avocado Wolfe.
Full-blown batshit, with a herd of fans.
They know words.
Sad.


A certifiable human being of my ken recently posted this on his page:

"I have friends, intelligent, well-educated people, who honestly believe that Donald Trump paid Russian prostitutes to pee on him, and that this was recorded and is being used for blackmail against him by the Russian government. At the same time, these same people believe that his "pussy grabbing" statement, in all its glorious context, was a legally admissible admission of sexual assault.

These are not stupid people, nor are they poor people. I can only explain their cognitive dissonance as an actual poor person, sometimes stupid, who has at times had contact, for one reason or another, with the (as Kurt Vonnegut liked to call them) "fabulously well-to-do", and this is merely to assume that these friends of mine, gated communities, higher educations and all, have never actually met anyone truly filthy rich.

On the plus side of all of this, I am thoroughly chuffed that almost overnight, with no warning or explanation, it is now totally acceptable to say "pussy" in polite company, without even using air quotes. I hail this as a small step in the right direction."


Well, what can one say about that? He lives in Israel, and like many people there has a shit-eye view of the world. And he probably still believes that Barrack Obama was a Kenyan socialist hellbent on destroying Israel, whereas Donald is a friend, who will give Netanyahu everything.
AND move the American embassy to Jerusalem.

Oh, and he's a fan of the Grateful Dead.

That last item is reprehensible.

Reactionary potheads!


Now, I know this man, and he's genuinely decent. But he grew up in the hills of Kentucky shooting possum, and since moving to Israel he's started reading Caroline buggery Glick. He just doesn't understand that the last decent prime minister was Ariel Sharon. Everybody since then has been very far south of the scum line, Bibi is the rock bottom of the iceberg.
And judging by his recent writing he's a fan of Alex Jones.
As well as the spew of Messianics.


It is never acceptable to say "p*ssy" in polite company.


If you think it is, you're hanging with the wrong crowd.




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MOST USEFUL VOCABULARY

It struck me today that many people around me need remedial English. Clearly they are not dealing with a full deck of cards, linguistically speaking, and often benefit from translation / explication. And it is very irritating when people do not understand things which are clear and simple.
But I think I can help in some fashion.


These are the terms you NEED to know:

Milk Tea, Hong Kong Style Milk Tea: a strong cuppa with a globble of sweetened condensed milk added, very re-energizing right around mid-afternoon to early evening (tea time). Excellent with a snackipoo, but also good with breakfast. Spam or luncheon meat, fried eggs, rice, and a generous (厚啲) squirt of hot sauce.

Dim sum: very civilized, is what. You can now even find them in Europe; there's a fine dim sum restaurant in Eindhoven on the Grote Markt, right where Tong Ah used to be.

Young Lady: someone younger than myself, between teenage years and late thirties.

Young Woman: a young lady.

Young Man: a person of whom I disapprove.

Young Gentleman: what some of the more polite stuffed animals call me.

Womany Thing: my apartment mate.

Old Geezer: a man older than me.

Dirty Old Man: an old geezer dating someone young enough to be his daughter. Not me, I am not dating anyone at present.

Dessicated Old Fossil: not me.

Head Sheep: a roomie (stuffed animal) who is delusional about his own abilities.

Head Roomie: also known as 'the senior teddy bear', chief executive and head of government, whom you will respect. She is very wise.

She-sheep: the assistant head roomie, who is very perspicacious, and probably the nicest person in this apartment.

Dingo: someone who is not up to my high standards.

Legislative Council: the unicameral parliament, part of the government along with the chief executive and influential party members in an unofficial capacity who speak for Peking. Please don't ask too many questions.

Den Haag, 's Gravenhage: the third largest city, and seat of the parliament of the herring-eaters.

Herring: indisputably the best thing on the planet.

Washington: a dull morass in North America somewhere back east.

London: a very nice swamp in England. Sometimes they eat curry there.

English Cooking: bizarre and inedible. Spackle.

Boiled Baby: a spotted dick without spots.

Treacle Dowdy: a broken-crusted cooked fruit pudding with syrup.

Scone: a type of beaten biscuit.

Baked Portuguese Chicken Rice: a dish invented in Hong Kong before the war, consisting of a layer of egg-fried rice in a casserole, with chicken and potato chunks on top, covered with a very mild coconut curry sauce, sprinkled with cheese and heated under the broiler. Sometimes there are also pieces of green bell pepper in it, and it may be garnished with coconut shreds. Usually available at a chachanteng. It would be even better with one or two rashers of crispy greasy bacon, and someone to share it.
Perhaps with a side oyster sauce stalky brassica.
And a cup of milk tea each.


There are other terms it would probably be useful for you to know (many having to do with pipes and tobacco), but these are the basics.

Kindly memorize them.




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DON'T LOOK!

There was a naked woman wandering around the Wailing Wall plaza in Jerusalem yesterday. Which disconcerted a number of people, especially Othodox Jews, because her arms and her ankles were showing.
As well as her knees. Actually, everything.
Very naked. Very female.


Perhaps more than just the Orthodox Jews were disconcerted; public nudity has a time and a place, and at the Wailing Wall is neither.


Had I been there, I would have averted my eyes and walked away. Far away. The civilized man should take steps to not be seen with such things, or in their company, and should always strive to be unassociatably distant.
No, I do not know her, please don't think I do, and I had nothing to do with her temporary bout of nature-girl-ism.

I also look away when someone shows too much cleavage or crackage.
Please, fee free to be an exhibitionist, but our social exchange will be necessarily brief. Maybe not at all.

It's not that I am easily repulsed, or prudish. Just that I am a modest man. And that requires giving other people the privacy they need, even when they don't believe they need any.

I like titty as much as anyone, but NOT in public.

There's a time and a place for that.



Nudity is great good fun. Exhibitionism less so.

If it isn't in private with someone agreeable with whom I would love to be seen in public when both of us are fully clothed, I want no part of it.
I'm rather particular that way. As well as inflexible.
Spontaneous, OR planned in advance.
Either one of those.
Indoors.



80°

The other thing that I automatically think about is sunburn in places where there is never supposed to be any sunburn. Yesterday was a warm sunny day in Israel. All of this week consists of warm sunny days. And though I believe somebody covered her nakedness with a towel, she may have gotten a bit over-exposed anyway.
Painful.

If I ever visit Jerusalem, I must remember to bring a towel.




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A COUNTRY RUINED BY CORRUPT POLITICIANS

Be glad that you do not live in Pakistan. And as destinations go, it's down there at the bottom, along with places such as Texas and Mississippi.


From Reuters:

Pakistan sentences man to death for blasphemy on Facebook

A Pakistani counter-terrorism court has sentenced to death a man who allegedly committed blasphemy on Facebook, a government prosecutor said on Sunday, the first time someone has been handed the death penalty for blaspheming on social media.

The conviction of Taimoor Raza, 30, follows a high-profile crackdown against blasphemy on social media by the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

SOURCE: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-blasphemy-socialmedia-idUSKBN1920RN

This is fairly typical of Pakistan, a nation with no basis for existence. Nawaz Sharif, currently in charge, is a notoriously corrupt representative of a venal Punjabi clan, famous for collaborating with among others military strongman Zia Ul-Haq, whose kleptocracy came to an end none to soon in a plane crash in 1988. During the regime of that notorious friend of the United States, Nawaz Sharif built relations with the military, the American intelligence organizations actively destabilizing the entire region, and the Saudis, who were then funding a terror campaign in Russian-occupied Afghanistan, the fruits of which have since then served to enrich scores of Pakistani politicians and military officers via the heroin trade.

Nawaz Sharif has proven a capable technocrat.

Pakistan still remains a rancid hellhole.

A dog-turd of a country.


Many Pakistanis are odious swine, practicing the most primitive and superstition-ridden version of their religion, believers in witchcraft and conspiracy theories, irrational, and sexually profligate, even violent.
Pakistan is a nation of cowards, rapists, and thieves, where torture and kidnapping are commonplace, murder is casually committed (especially by or on behalf of powerful people), and equitable justice is non-existent.

When England quit India, they should have wrecked Pakistan on the way out. Left it nothing but smoldering ruins with wild pigs rooting around in what remained and vultures circling above.

Precisely as we should have done to Texas and Mississippi.



I am filled with 'Christian' love for all three places.



Peace out, you filthy bhainchoots.



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WHAT EVERY GIRL WANTS

This blogger doesn' not know what he would do if a young woman -- let us say a personable college graduate in her mid to late twenties -- were to come up to him and out of the blue give him a warm hug.
He'd probably exclaim "errp".
And start a bit.


In the real world, meaning most emphatically NOT the check out line at Walgreens, such things do not happen. And in the check out line they only happen in temporary fantasies, while speculating about the next available cashier. Who is probably already in a relationship with someone, perhaps a hipster with multiple piercings and bad boy tattoos. See, that's the problem with most chance-met female acquaintance: the actual face time is so short, and they're already mixed up with frightful company and in shallow relationships with other unsuitable types.


There are one or two Walgreens women who think I'm the bees knees.
They are both old enough to be a future girlfriend's mother.


See, I told you I was unsuitable.


If you knew me that is the one thing which you would find glaringly obvious. It's a life-style I mastered over many years.

Among my less than fabulous skill sets are taking long hot baths, dozing with stuffed animals under a fluffy down comforter, appreciating fine pipe tobacco and cups of Hong Kong style milk tea, ordering in Chinese restaurants, and disturbing other people's parents.

Especially the parent thing.

Bring me home, and they'll wonder what they did wrong.
That alone should make it all worthwhile.
You can't buy that kind effect.
Consternation!


Errp.



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RELAX, IT WAS ONLY A RUSSIAN CHILD

Probably the best piece about Comey and Trump since Thursday was a brief item on Gin and Tacos. And, as you would expect in these somewhat surreal times, it was believable.


"I CANNOT COMMENT ON WHETHER THE PRESIDENT ATE A CHILD" SAYS THE AIDE, HIS TREMBLING VOICE BARELY AUDIBLE OVER THE PRESIDENT NOISILY EATING A CHILD IMMEDIATELY NEXT TO HIM. THE AIDE REPEATS "ANY FURTHER QUESTIONS?" AN AWKWARD NUMBER OF TIMES IN AN ULTIMATELY FUTILE ATTEMPT TO DROWN OUT THE PRESIDENT'S EXAGGERATED AND UNNECESSARY "OM NOM NOM" SOUNDS AND THE CRACKING OF LOAD-BEARING BONES FOLLOWED BY MOANS OF "MMM, CHILD MARROW."
NO ONE DARES ASK WHY THE ACT OF THE 45th PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES SUCKING THE MARROW OUT OF A CHILD'S FEMUR PRODUCES A LOUD SLIDE WHISTLE SOUND. SENATE REPUBLICANS PRONOUNCE THE HEARING "SUCCESSFUL" AND "ODDLY AROUSING."


There are two questions:

1) Why is Sean Spicer in this scenario holding a press-conference in the presence of a ravenous president?

2) Why aren't the Senate Republicans touching their plates?


I for one find it perfectly reasonable that the President of the United States would act in this manner, and given what our Republicans have been doing since January, so would they.



There's probably ketchup in the room.




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LIFE AMONG THE DINGOES

An ocassional reader e-mailed that rather than sneering at the British Conservative Party as "a bunch of bitter whinging wreckers who hate everybody", I should have instead lamented that they did not decisively win. Because, as he offered, "that perfectly describes you and most of your blog posts these past two years".

Me, a bitter whinging wrecker who hates everybody?

Not so! I am the sunniest of people! Truly!

Sneering is a celebration of life.


There are in fact an overwhelming number of people and things I love.

A short list: chicken curry, milk tea, intelligent waitresses at bakeries and chachantengs, kittens, rats, elderly dogs, Hillary Clinton (she still pisses you lot off!), Dianne Feinstein, comedian and wise political commentator John Oliver, bad movies, Oolong, Suisin, Virginia pipe tobacco and Virginia - Perique mixtures, Latakia, stuffed animals, my apartment mate and her eccentric view of the world, Cantonese swear words, a nice bit of cheese, sambal, and that fellow who was refused entry to the number 70 by the bus driver because his luggage was too large.
He so very much wanted to have breakfast in Mill Valley!

It really sounded like he had been away from the heart of civilization (that being Northern California, precisely and approximately) for far too long, and that he was keen to rediscover stuff he fondly remembered from years ago.
He was utterly disappointed.


And breakfast in Mill Valley does sound splendid, provided it contains meaty products and gluten, and is served in the afternoon. With copious amounts of strong tea. Basically a proper British fry-up leavened by profound Mexican and Southwestern culinary influences, followed by a bowl of Samuel Gawith's Best Brown Flake, eaten indoors while a soft rain falls outside and the tourists huddle disconsolately in doorways.
Far from the bums and the crowd.
Splendid!


Unfortunately none of my friends live in Mill Valley. The task of bringing civilization to Outer Bunfudgistan is too much. They aren't masochists.


I hope he came up with an alternate plan. There are many places on Lombard where breakfasty stuffs may be enjoyed, and the Dim Sum Club is not too far a walk. Almost anywhere in San Francisco has hot sauce, even the tourist restaurants, and hashbrowns taste good with either Tabasco or Crystal. Frank's too, but Tapatio not so much.


A good strong cup of coffee with the meal, and a nice pipe after, and you'll be right as rain.


Did I mention Teddy Bears? They also add to joy to one's existence. Along with bitter melon, fish sauce, egg plant, Greg Pease's Regency Flake, and Scandinavian Tobacco's many fine Oriental blends. Soft comfy throwrugs, a warm cuppa, naughty business, antique post cards, and a stuffed penguin wearing a kippah overlooking the bed.

Other things that please me: little girls happily walking with their mommies, tiny fragrant flowers on bushes by the roadside, the smell of wild anise, parrots flocking in Sue Bierman Park, two-tone briar finishes.
Comoy did the two-tone finish better than anyone.
It really brings out the translucence.

I am a bright cheerful man.
Positively.




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THEY'VE GONE DAFT

In what should come as a surprise to no one, the party with the most hosetards won big in London, whereas the splitters carried the countryside.
And, remarkably, the Shankhill Road mafia (DUP) gets a decisive voice.
Once again we Americans are not the stupidest voters in the English-speaking world.

The glorious bright spot is that George Galloway got his donkey handed to him on a platter in Manchester Gorton, where, as was to be expected, smarty-pants legal-wallah mr. Afzal Khan carried.

Galloway thinking he was fit to represent anything in Manchester was of course sheer political opportunism. Can we now please look forward to that tosser fading into obscurity?

One can only hope so.


Unfortunately Afzal Khan represents Labour, which is basically Hamas in white-face. So the election was altogether a disaster, as they now still represent most urban areas, whereas the Conservatives - a bunch of bitter whinging wreckers who hate everybody -- pulled the rural chav vote out of their pale wrinkled behinds and have remained the biggest party.


So there you have it. Much of Britain voted for Spam Vindaloo, the country side is still doing bangers and mash (and frying-up last night's chicken tika leftovers, probably with drippings), a few barmy prats in the outlying regions are going with neeps, tatties, and sliced haggis from the last Bobby Burns night, Ulster is torn between the usual rancid grease fry-ups, and in Wales there was apathetic support for leeks with a side of soggy oatmeal.

They are more barmy than we are; they've proven it.
Basically trailertrash with accents.
A bunch of muppets.



The only tea worth drinking is still Yorkshire Tea, though.
So some things are mercifully constant.
Twinings is crap.




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ALCOHOLIC MISBEHAVIOUR

Underneath her calm, almost placid, Cantonese good girl exterior, there's a beast. A wild animal. A teenager who has never grown up.
After reacting aghast to rich bitches on television drinking champagne in the back of a limousine -- "do wealthy people REALLY swill alcohol that EARLY in the day?!" -- she thought for a moment, then said: "when I get rich, I'm gonna have a rootbeer float and a big-ass sloppy chili dog, in the back of a Rolls".

This is a good thing. Although I will confess that I am myself not really familiar with "big-ass sloppy chili dog', seeing as I never fully adapted to American fatty snacks when I returned to the States as a young adult.
It sounds deliciously depraved, yet innocent.


"When I get rich, I'm gonna have a rootbeer float and a big-ass sloppy chili dog ... "


My idea of suitable junkfood for the back of a Rolls consists of a Dutch-style unidentified fried object, with mustard and sambal.
And a small side of fries with peanut-sauce.

As for the drink, I am not at all decided.

Sodas with or without ice-cream aren't a thing in my world, and Dutch people didn't drink at the junkfood emporium when I was younger.
Though they may have been drunk by the time they got there.


I thoroughly appreciate an apartment mate who never touches liquor, and does not hang around with booze-hounds.

I myself disapprove somewhat of intoxicants before dinner time. In which concept (dinner time) we can also include the cocktail hour, assuming that there is a spot of cheese. The pre-dinner glass of wine may overlap the during-dinner glasses of wine, or, if it is a festive social occasion one has been pressured to attend, some modest Scotch and water.

Abstemiousness, but in moderation.

I do indeed drink at times.

Not during the day.



Champagne in the back of a limo seems so decadent and weak-willed, especially during normal hours and when there is no reason for bubbly.
Self-indulgent, and rather trashy.
Vulgar.



Okay, as regards drinking I am a puritan. Not when it comes to tobacco or food, or nice long baths, good heavens no, but definitely booze.




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MY HEART GOES OUT TO THE ANTARCTICANS

Sometimes an individual wishes to be pampered. Yesterday evening while walking back from Walgreen's a loony offered me a banana. World, listen up: if that's your idea of pampering me, you are failing. Big time.

Yeah, I know, those poor little orphans in Antarctica are crying themselves to sleep every night for want of a banana. "Oh", they will exclaim, "if I only had a banana, I would be so happy!"
Then they weep piteously.
I am not them.

Bananas give me the itchies.
Sort of a latex allergy.
Nix on bananas.


I am still not over my cold, and I've got a major sore throat. The other day my apartment mate roasted a chicken, the carcass of which would have made a splendid soup, but it was for her boyfriend and she took all of the pieces over to his place. Because I am the stubborn stoic and phlegmatic sort, I did not let her know that I was sick and needed a soft touch. And she, being more Asperger than I, didn't notice a damned thing thank g-d, and still has no clue that a bit of pamperish behaviour might not be taken entirely amiss.

None of the other women with whom I came in contact over my Tuesday-Wednesday weekend have wigged onto my state either, with the possible exception of the owner of the shop in Chinatown where I regularly get noodles and "breakfast fixings". But her face always looks winsome and slightly sad anyway, all kinds of poetic, so I can't read her at all.


But it wouldn't matter, because I am a gwailo, and therefore must be presumed to have relationships and health issues that are quite incomprehensible, and it is best not to get too close.


Besides, it is so hard to read a gwailo's face. Altogether baffling. We all have similarly incomprehensible thought patterns and emotions, and, though disturbingly we all look different, we grok identically queer, and one is likely to get flummoxed if too closely involved. It might be acid indigestion, or it might be existenzangst. Who can really know?

Gwailos are naturally grumpy.
Temperamental.

可能佢患有流感，上呼吸道感染，發燒，感冒，喉嚨痛，或只食過啦啲奇怪嘅嘢。

What is particularly frustrating is that what I wanted to do was huffle around the apartment smoking my pipes and reading interesting things, snacking, alertly wagging my tail, and, possibly, interacting with other humans.
Instead I had just two pipes all weekend long.
And I didn't eat much.
I slept a lot.

It feels like I've wasted my days off.




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