Mange-Tout
November 16th, 2005 at 22:11

University angered me up today. Not in a bad way, either- I was angered up because I was enthusiastic about the course.

Hmm… Maybe it was bad in a way? I’ll explain why.

In my lecture (I won’t be more specific, I only had one!), we watched a video that’s a few years old now, about Tesco and the mange-tout growers in Zimbabwe. It was made before the world kicked up a fuss about Mugabe being a bit shit, but it was still horrible.

Incidentally, I also saw it during economics and business back in the days when I used to go to school, and it angered me up then, too.

The gist of it was that there’s this farm in Zimbabwe that grow it- not wanting to get into race issues, but the supervisor was a black guy, and the farm itself was owned by white guy with a British accent. He looked like what you’d imagine the people who colonised Zimbabwe 200 years ago looked like- he just needed one of those ivory-poacher hats to complete the “upper-middle-class twunt” look.

After a standard documentary vox-pop about “Do you know where Zimbabwe is?”… and the standard “Isn’t it the capital of Africa?” type responses, it went on to tell the story.

Tesco had sent out one of their buyers to check the farm- the bastard they sent out to check on them wasn’t happy with anything. He was complaining about a sprinkler not sprinkling enough water, how some of the mange-tout didn’t look perfect. That sort of thing. The reason I call him a “bastard” because he was saying how he wanted the poor farmers to be scared of the inspection, and he wanted them to constantly strive to do better. All this when presumably their standard of living ain’t great.

When this guy arrived at the farm, the buyer and his team were treated like Gods. It was sickening. Hundreds of children and employees were singing crudely written songs about Tesco being ace and being their friend. And they sat there enjoying it. The locals had bought him his team presents, and the narrator revealed that these poor farmers had in fact paid for Tesco, a company turning over billions of pounds a year, to fly out to them. All this because the contract Tesco has is what determines whether they live in great or only moderate poverty. Then more songs.

Whilst this was bad enough to watch, the documentary makers offset this god-like worship of our corporate overlords with something else.

They’d found the most sickeningly middle class, Daily Mail reading, awful woman who was having a dinner party. With some mange-tout being served, of course. She described how she was inviting round some equally middle class twunts, who work for a big insurer and something in financial services.

Cut to the dinner party in progress. I didn’t know you could fit so many cunts around one table.

I apologise for the strong language, but it’s appropiate.

They started discussing “issues”. More specifically, in keeping with the documentary, farming and the third world, and that. “They’re not advanced enough to drive cars”, “They’re not intelligent enough to use our technology”, “exploitation is vital and natural”, “I’m sure they’re much happier than we are because they’ve never had what we’ve got, so are probably happy in their mud hut”.

Cut to the farm’s “caterpillar examiner” explaining how she tried to kill herself.

It ended up saying that the growers earn a penny for every [amount] of mange-tout they pick- on which Tesco would make something like a 46p profit, and the exporter 30p ish.

It was sickening. Sickening that multinationals have such power over these people and are exploiting them so much. Mike made a good point: “It’s like slavery never ended”.

I was so sick I had a Coke.

Comments(9)

Is this irresponsible?
November 16th, 2005 at 16:06

Daily Mail mode… … … engaged.

Considering that they’re fixing the lamp post, do they really need to extend it to its maximum point?

I’m not going to refuse a go if they offer, though.

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Remembering an awful supply teacher
November 15th, 2005 at 18:58

I’ve just been reading through the B3ta question of the week about teachers and it reminded me of a terrible supply teacher I had.

When I was in year 8 or 9, the new IT teacher, after only two weeks in the job got almost the entire school year off because of stress. His long-term replacement supply teacher was awful.

I was the excellently behaved kid at or near the top of the class in my form (although I only got a C for modesty)- this tedious backstory is neccessary if you want to share in my pain.

For some reason, or more likely, a number of similar reasons, we were on “class report”, which essentially meant that at the end of every lesson, the teacher signed a piece of paper and commented on the class behaviour, noting down the naughty kids, who would then get detentions automatically.

This was an IT lesson – a subject that I knew more than the regular teacher in, let alone the supply. I had to show Mr Nameless how to crop an image in Microsoft Publisher, for example. It was very easy to “babble him with science”.

After working hard all lesson, no doubt doing something like “word processing and using Encarta”, the kids who had been misbehaving all lesson told Mr Nameless that I was “hacking the c:\ drive”, whatever that meant. The lunchtime detention I had because of it went on for so long that I missed any opportunity to get some lunch. He was an arse.

He must have enjoyed being treated like dirt, as he once took our form, who were notoriously dreadful, for English. The room the lesson took place in was actually a larger room divided by a plastic curtain, and was quite flexible, and could be opened when the head of English decided to “double up” as a “treat” for “not employing enough teachers”.

The same kid who, erm… grassed me up for my awful hacking crimes went into the classroom on the other side of the divide, and waited for Mr Nameless to stand behind it, before kicking it as hard as he possibly could. Needless to say, Mr Nameless flew a good few feet across the classroom. At the time, I acted shocked and/or indifferent, in order to not get in trouble, but in retrospect, he deserved it.

The “grass” was suspended for a day, and is probably now sitting in a ditch crying about where it all went wrong. Hooray!

Better still, when this supply teacher left the school at the end of the year, it was announced in the end of term assembly to everyone in the room cheering loudly. Mr Nameless was in the room at the time.

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Matt & Dundas Return (Briefly)
November 14th, 2005 at 15:28

My good friends Dundas and Matt came back from their respective Universities for the weekend, so I did the most logical thing possible: go to the pub again. If I drank alcohol, it’d sound a lot like I have some sort of horrible problem.

They havn’t changed much- although Dundas’ ridiculous hair now goes past his shoulders. And Matt has a new metal thing in his face.

Needless to say, I owned them at Pool.

In the evening, whilst Matt was off seeing Beth, JD and myself went to Dundas’ house to watch the League of Gentlemen film. Long story short: the LOG characters became real, and wern’t hilariously funny, but were amusing, and had a good plot.

I’m desperately trying to think of another anecdote or something of interest that happend, but it was just like it always was! Matt and Dundas are the same as they were before, so there’s no anecdote about me having an argument with them about some basic principle and winning against the neo-Hitlers.

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You’re the unluckiest person in the world, mate
November 12th, 2005 at 14:50

Being the binge drinker that I am, I’ve been to the pub two nights running- and I think my lungs are beginning to notice. Tonight I was with JD, Gina and Charlie, and we were doing the usual pool playing thing, and of course, I was winning.

After we’d finished one game, another pub patron came up to us and asked if we were playing “winner stays on”, and challenges the winner of the previous game. He looked like he was around thirty, and was accompanied by three other equally intimidating goons. After a lot of negotiation, we eventually decide to play me and JD Vs him and his mate.

“So what are we betting?”
“..?!”
“How about we bet our phones”

He then pulls out his mobile phone and places it on the table, as if to prove a point. We declined and decided to play “as friends”.

Funnily enough, after I broke, he proceeded to clear the table of almost every yellow ball on there- I can understand why he suggested such high stakes. In other words, I think we were hustled.

This wouldn’t have been so bad if his friend hadn’t chipped in and told me, “You’re the unluckiest person in the world, mate”. Thanks. That really boosts my self esteem- being told that by a complete and utter stranger in a public, who’s probably drunk and’s prospects in life are bleaker than an aborted fetus.

I think they were also planning to mug us- his friends were positioned around the table and near our possessions. JD had left his wallet on the windowsill, and Gina’s coat was hung up by the door- surely the pool was just a distraction so they could rifle through our belongings?

It was all very odd. Unsurprisingly, we left pretty swiftly afterwards.

Incidentally, since I’ve started going out in the evenings recently, when walking home in the dark, I’ve got into the habit of running through different sorts of mugging scenarios. Figuring out how to cope and get away unharmed. If someone tries to attack me, or steal my possessions through violence, I’m buggered. But then I get thinking: What if the mugger is an intellectual or wants to give me a sporting chance? What if rather than just punch me in the face, he decides to pose me three questions, where if I get them right he doesn’t harm me?

I then run through all the possible questions, thinking about my answers- can I describe what a proxy server is in a concise and accurate way? Do I know what the capital of Nigeria is off of the top of my head? Can I describe the trend in the petty-theft crime rate, and perhaps model the curve with a polynomial equation?

I don’t know why my mind thinks like this.

For a slightly more upbeat anecdote: JD was wearing a cowboy-style hat for some reason. He got no less than four different groups of people commenting on it- including one person who was did “Ye-har” and mimmicked throwing a lasso all the way down the road. Silly drunks.

Comments(2)

Mark Thomas… Live!
November 9th, 2005 at 20:58

If you were the ring up an arms dealer convention and say there’s a bomb in the building, would it be a crime?

Last night was great- I went to see Mark Thomas of comedian fame live in the Leicester “Y” theatre with Heather. He’s the bloke who dresses up as a giant bear and sneaks into Nestlé conventions and asks them difficult questions, that sort of thing.

The one concern I had was that because Mark (first name terms) is an entirely political comedian, who will reference the most obscure political figures and things (although I was watching episodes of his TV series from 1995), I was worried Heather wouldn’t “get” some of it, because she’s a woman of science and not a poncy arts student like myself. She didn’t have any trouble, and I’d underestimated her again. She too was laughing along at the most obscure references (“Is Paisley’s head shrinking?”). This didn’t stop me from asking her if she wanted me to explain anything during the interval. She didn’t.

This said, I’d made a point of explaining the export credit guarentee to her beforehand, knowing this has made up a large part of Mark’s act in the past. Long story short, the government underwrite any big arms sales to dodgy countries (Saddam’s Iraq, for example), so if the despots don’t pay up, the British government pay “our tax” to arm these nutters, and then add the debt to the national debt of the country.

Incidentally, this did come up when Mark was talking about when he had a bus full of arms dealers, and he made it funny.

I think the strangest thing was the venue- it was being held at the Leicester YMCA (hence “Y” Theatre)- and whilst we were waiting in the foyer, me and Heather were the only normal looking people there. Seriously.

There were two old women selling white poppies for rememberance day- they only strayed into “nutter” territory because one of the women was wearing a jumper with a big picture of duck on it- and it wasn’t tastefully done.

There were green party activists and socialists handing out their propaganda- the green party woman seeming particularly enthusiastic, explaining the every member of the public / fellow nutter the benefits of joining. For some reason there was someone in a martial arts costume, as well as the generic array of tramps and people who look like tramps.

I was half expecting to see a builder, a red indian and a policeman there, too.

Thankfully, most of these people were not there to see Mark Thomas. Who was excellent? Did I mention that? He was dead good. Ten on ten good. Hopefully Heather enjoyed it too.

Comments(7)

Is this the best job ever?
November 7th, 2005 at 22:19

He was using a big crane to decorate a big Christmas tree- it’s better than the time I saw a window cleaner using a long pole to reach sixth-floor windows!

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Fire…works!
November 6th, 2005 at 02:35

As I’ve previously hinted at, I went to a fireworks party tonight, and it was dead good.

Now, I know in the past I’ve ranted about how pirate themed things are in very poor taste, suggesting that it’s like people in the future glorifying terrorists- but we needn’t wait! We were celebrating an attempted attack by some “Catholist” (not Catholic) extremists on the British establishment, like we had no shame. I’m also aware that I’m a hypocrit.

Incidentally- my point about pirates was proved last night, when my sister Lucy went to a “pirate themed” party, organised by her school’s “social comittee“- only for there to have been a pirate incident that could have turned nasty today! Surely she could be arrested under the new anti-terror laws?

But anyway- we were celebrating a terrorist attacks in the best way we knew how – with fire and light explosives.

We had quite a lot of fireworks – and luckily, I’d bought with me a lot of lighters. Long story short: I bought 50 lighters from eBay for cheap long ago, and spent an evening sticking “James O’Malley Official Lighter” stickers on them.

All the fireworks went off with a bang – apart from the screaming ones, and the ones that stay on the ground and cause a bit of a fuss. Scarily, some of the fireworks that JD had bought with him were damp- meaning that when they detonated, they flew into the air a little bit, before falling back to earth, and exploding just before we hit the ground. We sort of hid inside, and watched with amazement as Heggs ran back to no-mans-land to extinguish whatever was left.

My fireworks, however, were slightly more disappointing- I had some minature rockets, which flew a few feet into the air and gave up. “Hooray!”, I cheered in vain.

It was all really good, though, and I had a lovely time drinking ice cold Coke through a straw. Oh, and seeing my friends and that.

Comments(3)

Triumph and Failure
November 5th, 2005 at 15:51

As is fast becoming regular, I went to my “local” with my friends last night. For the sake of backstory my friends are: JD, Gina, Heggs, Charlie and her (new?) boyfriend Will.

As usual, we decided to have a few games of my favourite sport, Pool.Unlike usual, I owned everyone. Even Will, who sort of sneered at me in a “I bet you’re rubbish” sort of way. I was on fire. Figuratively, I mean.

This was the high point of the evening. Last week, I was musing over why “pub” Coke tastes better than “normal” Coke- and this isn’t a subject I take lightly. As you may well know, I’m a big fan of Cola drinks, and I consider myself something of an expert. I was somewhat horrifed to discover that the so-called “Coke” The Greyhound was selling was in fact Pepsi! Does this mean that all along a superior soft drink has been quite literally right under my nose? Was this “blind” taste test essentially a rehash of the Pepsi Challenge? It’s this sort of thing that keeps me awake at night. That, and helicopters.

I used to pride myself on being able to identify colas of the world. Will I ever live this down?

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The O’Malley Effect?
November 3rd, 2005 at 22:24

After my fabulous seminar triumph earlier today, I went into “town” with Mickey, and noticed something slightly worrying.

You might remember a while back when I took photos of funny things in Leicester- walking past them again today, I noticed something really quite disturbing.

Both “CartridgeXpress” and the “Two ‘ats” shop have closed down! Walking past the shop that boasted, “Why pay more when you can pay less“, we noticed that it was now empty, desolate, an empty shell and a sad reminder of its former self. It looked as if a Micheal shed a tear, although it might have just been the light rain.

This was sad enough news- but the “Two ‘ats” shop as well! This made me worry that my blogging and/or taking photos of things might have an adverse effect on their well being. It made me worry – also in that blog post, I mentioned how Michael “donated” money to a monk… is the monk still alive?! Is he safe?! Has he had to sell up his assets to pay off his debts?! I’m actually vaguely concerned about his wellbeing!

Tomorrow, I will be taking many photographs and doing lots of blog entries about: Kilroy and Creationists.

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