I can no longer be silent

This abominable trend really has to be quashed. For the sake of audiences and the appeal of the sport on worldwide television, it simply has to stop lest even more young people will take up sedentary activities with dire health consequences.
We are talking about the new Speedo costumes for competitive swimming. For a while now we have seen the traditional budgie smugglers being replaced by long johns and full body suits, and now Speedo has developed an even more slick swimsuit, the LZR Racer - look Ma, no seams! - that is making records tumble faster than any doping (or East German hormones) could in the past.

But at what cost - and we're not only talking the $800 retail price here?
Will boys no longer have to ensure their bodies are perfect to take part in competitive swimming, since the suit has "abdominal support"? Will swimming traditions such as lovingly shaving your (our your team mate's) body become redundant? (Nothing quite aides team bonding as much as having a razor sharp object wielded by your team mate hovering near your sensitive bits) Will gay contact ads no longer be able to sport the moniker "swimmer's body"?

I demand a return to the Olympic ideals of yore: naked, males only and no team sports. Western civilisation has never been the same since those principles were abandoned.

Of course, garments like that have perfectly valid place in society, and the new Speedo suits would be great attire to wear at non-vanilla sex clubs. But you can find less costly alternatives for that. It's dark there anyway and who wants to lick Speedo logos?

London to vote locally to act globally

Next month Londoners can again vote for mayor, and again the choice is as varied as the city itself. Ken "Red Ken" Livingstone is standing again. It pays to remind what he said after the 7 July bombings. And to imagine if any of the other candidates (especially Tory wankers) would be able to express the unity of a city as well as he did then.
The text is here.

Easter decadence

The longest weekend in the New Zealand calendar and what a scorcher it was. We spent most late afternoons on the beach admiring the many foreign pale backpackers gingerly taking all their clothes off, goofing around taking pictures of each other to prove to the folks back home it's still summer here. On top of that, of course, marvellous wining and dining and partying around the island. Waiheke is rapidly becoming the Ibiza of the South Pacific!
And in between, sleepily lying around, trying to keep an eye on a very bloody season on UKTV, which was screening all its detective fiction series back to back for the duration. The Brits do murder so well, in a far more entertaining way than series like CSI. But only keeping half an eye on the plot trying to figure out whodunit, it enabled my brain to explore other aspects of the televisual feast.
And the big thing that struck me was that in practically every series at least one of the actors has been or is in a comedy series too. Let's take an overview:

Whodunit series -- Actor -- Comedy series
Waking the Dead -- Sue Johnston -- The Royle Family
A Touch of Frost -- David Jason -- Only Fools And Horses
Foyle's War -- Gerard Kearns -- Shameless
Cracker -- Robbie Coltraine -- Blackadder
Midsomer Murders -- John Nettles -- The Liver Birds
Silent Witness -- Amanda Burton -- Boon
Inspector Morse -- Kevin Whately -- Auf Wiedersehen, Pet
Judge John Deed -- Martin Shaw -- Doctor in the House
Jericho -- Robert Lindsay -- My Family
Jonathan Creek -- Caroline Quentin -- Men Behaving Badly
Dalziel and Pascoe -- Warren Clarke -- Blackadder

All that blood and gore was made so much more watchable by treating it as comedy

When you turn 18, everything is fabulous

Inspired by Diamond Geezer's 18th birthday song chart, I was intrigued enough to go looking at what was #1 in the (UK) charts on my 18th birthday.
And guess what.
You are not going to believe this!
It was Abba's "Dancing Queen". Honestly!. (We shall ignore, as usual, the US Billboard chart where "You Should Be Dancing" by the Beegees was #1 then, blegh! On my actual day of birth "Volare" was #1, so much better!)
You surely know me not as an Abba queen, but I do remember seeing them win the Eurovision Song Contest in 1974. When you're sweet 16 you don't want anything else.

Of course there is only one more interesting entry in that 18th birthday week's chart - if Top 40 music can ever be called interesting - and this was before punk assaulted it: Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel "Here Comes The Sun". I presume that was a Beatles remake. Steve Harley has always been intriguing and probably the only artist I would buy still.

Barebacking on the BBC

One of the things I regretted most leaving behind when emigrating to New Zealand from the UK was BBC Two's Newsnight. This is simply the most terrific news programme and even alone worth the broadcasting licence fee. Hosted by Kirsty Wark and Jeremy "The Pax" Paxman (picture left) and a few others, all well-loved, well-respected, and above all, a joy to watch them make politicians and other interviewees squirm, it made some brief appearances on BBC World Service Television when it first started but was dropped when the station was re-branded as a 24/7 news channel.
But now it's back, in a weekly omnibus edition for world audiences. It's one news programme you should not miss.
Last night, a very topical issue was handled quite sensibly: gay bareback porn and its popularity, its money spinning niche market status and its lethality for performers. Watch the clip here.
I have blogged against bareback videos before. But the final interview on the clip with the infected porn performer who didn't give a shit because "got it already anyway" showed again what dumbasses some of those young queens are, and they shouldn't be too surprised if they get beaten up or worse by other dumbass bigots.

On getting old

Is it time to feel old when not only policemen look so young but Russian presidents are no longer twice your age?

But age is no excuse for failure.

UPDATE: A lovely Gabonese culture trait, mentioned in The Guardian, we should adopt ASAP:

"Gabonese culture dictates that you respect your elders. You can't say 'no' to somebody older than you."

Too clever for my shirt

There are some witty people out there. Have a look at the Songchart Meme where you can post references to songs expressed by graphics, database visuals, pie charts, flowcharts or anything else you find on your computer. Some are better than others but here are a few of my favourites:

2007 Durex Global Sex Survey

Durex released sparingly some of its annual results, so let's have a look at them:

The number of sexual partners varies considerably from person to person – the global averages are:
o heterosexual men – 13 female partners
o heterosexual women – 7 male partners
o homosexual men – 108 male partners
o homosexual women – 11 female partners
o bisexual men – 21 male & 14 female partners
o bisexual women – 13 male & 3 female partners

The Austrians top the league as the world's most experienced lovers - Austrian men have had 29 sexual partners and Austrian women 17. The Chinese have had the fewest sexual partners, with an average of four for men and two for women.
In almost every country, men have had more partners than women - the only exception is New Zealand where the women's average of 20 lovers is three more than the men's.

Did you get that? Some NZ guys get plenty of the ladies! Or do I read that wrong and some guys do plenty of overtime.
Gay guys having on average six times the number of partners straight guys have is not a surprise, surely.
New Zealand is surprisingly low on the percentage of people who have weekly sex 63%, on a par with the Netherlands but way below Greece at 87%.

I commented on the 2004 and 2005 survey results here.

My ecological footprint

You need for:
Food 1.2 global hectares
Mobility 1.3 global hectares
Shelter 0.3 global hectares
Goods/Services 1.2 global hectares

TOTAL FOOTPRINT: 4 global hectares

In comparison, the average ecological footprint in your country is 8.7 global hectares per person (1.8ha per person is currently available worldwide)
If everyone lived like you, we would need 2.2 planets.

Check your ecological footprint here.

I'm not surprised my footprint is about half the New Zealand average: I use full-time public transport for work and we have no reticulated water. Plus our home is quite small and we can grow some of our food ourselves.
Becoming more energy independent will be hard work: solar panels are still unaffordable and there is not much on the horizon that can replace ferry and bus diesel sustainably and without adding CO2.
I'll have to drink more Waiheke Island wine.

The 1970s are back

Remember those soppy posters made by Athena that went so well in your lounge before the Ikea furniture arrived?
How about a remake like this? Ben Cohen as daddy, hmmmm. Doesn't make heterosexuality look half as bad as it is. I'll sit on his lap too.

Picture via me-me-me.tv

More Ben Cohen if you click on the label link below.