Frankly, I Would Have Preferred The Sword

2009-10-19T13:37:00.002+02:00

In his quest to work under legendary game designer Tim Schafer, Craig "Dubious Couture" Duturbure brings out his ukulele:

2009-10-11T16:43:00.000+02:00

"Blogger's spam-prevention robots have detected that your blog has characteristics of a spam blog."

Where are these robots so that I may battle them? I've dreamed of this moment ever since I saw Linda Hamilton geared up with a rocket-launcher in Terminator 2.

If anyone wants to find me, I've been in the weights section of the Brunswick gym three times a week for a few months now. Uzis don't carry themselves, now do they.

2009-03-04T10:07:00.001+01:00

The other day I had one of those irritating experiences where some other entity is credited it with an idea of my own or that of my friends. Public credit for one's ideas isn't a terribly big deal I suppose, but the more mis-crediting that goes on in print and on the web sort of makes me look like a liar on my increasingly feeble-looking CV.

Some ideas I've had are very silly and therefore don't require me to claim them because they wouldn't in the the least help me to find work. But for edification and historical accuracy I will start documenting them here.

The Seduction of the Saucy Scrabble Player

My friend - let us call him Mr X - and I went away to the country for New Years' weekend with a group of friends and friends of friends. In a rented house we drank, ate and played a good deal of the Scrabble (for people under 25, Scrabble is the board game that Facebook's “Scrabulous” is based on).

One young woman was particularly successful at the Scrabble board, having been brought up in a keen Scrabble-playing family where two-letter words had been memorised as readily as hot dinners consumed.
On the last night of the holiday Mr X accidentally found himself having sex with this woman after downing a bottle of New Year's champagne. The next day we all went back to our homes in Melbourne but my friend was smitten by this new female acquaintance and he decided that he'd have to contrive some cunning way to get to see her again. Of course, loyal friend that I am, I was only too happy to apply myself to the task.

In these situations I take my inspiration from Jeeves, the large-brained gentleman's gentleman and logistical genius, the creation for which the comic writer P. G. Wodehouse was best known. Jeeves could invariably be relied upon to devise clever strategies by which his master might negotiate delicate personal matters.

Jeeves' strategies were based on a study of what he called “the psychology of the individual”. In my case the individual in question – let us call her “Angelica” - was an intelligent young woman with an undeniable penchant for Scrabble.

Based on this scant knowledge I decided upon the following plan of action, which my friend, Mr X, enacted:

Through a mutual friend, my friend obtained Angelica's postal address. Then every day for a period of eight days he sent her an anonymous postcard. Each postcard was cream-coloured and square-shaped with rounded corners. On the reverse side a stamp was affixed and nothing was written there except the young lady's name and address. The front of each card bore a large upper-case letter in the centre, and a smaller numeral in the bottom right-hand corner.

They were posted in this order in these alpha-numeric combinations:

L2, A3, I2, C6, N4, E1, A9, G8

The eighth postcard to arrive on the eighth day was the exception to the rest, bearing a short message on the reverse side where one is normally supposed to write nonsense such as “wish you were here” and the like. Mr X. simply wrote “call me”.

And on the ninth day she worked it out and called him.

We never let on that it wasn't Mr X's idea.

2008-12-13T18:22:00.002+01:00

I am back in Melbourne on Wednesday, a city in which I will be embarking on a grand experiment. The experiment is motivated by my sudden need for money - money that I need to buy my way into French residency.

So what is this experiment? It is this: I am finally going to do the unthinkable, and attempt to find work outside of the game industry.

I've never entertained the the notion before, because I have never needed to. But lack of funds is standing in between me and French residency and I'm damned if I'm going to be shut out of France for much longer.

My decision recalls to mind all those things friends and colleagues have tried to impress upon me over the years. Quite inadvertantly I am now taking their advice:

"If you want to be designing the kind of games you want to make, you have to leave the industry. Yeah, you could stick around to get more experience, but is that going to bring you any closer to your goals? No, it's not."

"The Australian game industry is no place for a woman. The only women who have gotten ahead are the ones who have left the industry or left the country. What makes you think you're any different? Leave!"

"I love my new job. The work is kind of interesting, but not too hard. I work 9 to 5. And the pay is good. Very good, actually."

"People think you're weird - a bit of a curiosity - and they don't take you seriously. In management meetings they brand you a trouble-maker. You have an image problem, and it's not doing you any favours."

"You get paid *how much*? Are you kidding me? So you've been doing this for ten years, right? And when do you expect to earn a decent wage - after another ten years?"

"Do you want me to see if I can get you a job on our IT help desk?"

2008-12-10T19:05:00.005+01:00

I am in Bangkok and now have internet access that occasionally works.

So I have just now created a Facebook group called "I consume internet porn and I have the balls to admit it". Please consider joining it here:

Here is the group's declaration:

NEWS FLASH: People have sex. And not just to make babies. If parents want to try to shield their children from that fact of life for as long as humanly possible that's their business. But it's not mine.
Yep, there are many reasons why the Australian government's plan to filter the internet is patently stupid:

* It will make internet speeds in Australia slower than they currently are. (Is that even possible? Apparently so.)

* It will make Australia -- a country that already boasts arguably the most censorious media classification regime of any country in the Western world -- an object of derision within the international community.

* Like most filtering systems before it designed to "protect children from inappropriate content" it will likely block culturally and socially worthy "appropriate" content by mistake, including the work of media artists, important information about sexual health, and so on.

* We could go on...

Luckily, plenty of people will be ready to come out and champion any of this "appropriate" content caught in the crossfire.

Safely vague statements will be made in defense of the principle of free speech.

Cultural pundits will say lofty, clever things about the right of artists and other creators of high culture to unfettered creative expression (being careful to implicitly distinguish their "Art" from that nasty low-brow commercial porn).

And many of these people, operating within an political atmosphere charged with fear and hysteria around this issue, will qualify their arguments by stating that "of course children should be better protected from pornography, but this system isn't the solution".

Well OK, whatever.

But let's hear from the millions of Australian residents who views or has ever viewed "inappropiate" content (not child porn, but sexually explicit material) and think that's fine.

Some of us are under 18 years of age (shock! horror!) and that's also fine, because the right of young people to explore the world around them should be respected too.

The Australian state, acting through the Office of Film and Literature Classification who's decisions are enforced by the Australian Federal Police, has done its best to quietly remove sex from magazines, cinemas, videogames, bookstores... ostensibly in an effort to protect Australian children - not from poverty, not from disease, not from violence - but from media.

Enough with the children already. Now, won't somebody *please* think of the porn?

I have invited some friends to the group and will be interested to see who's willing to lay their balls on the table, as it were.

2008-12-06T08:15:00.006+01:00

The Thai government has been dissolved. That's a good thing for me personally because it means that things have calmed down to the extent that the airports here are operational again, and I'll be able to leave Thailand before Christmas.

So on that positive note I thought I'd post a few photos I've taken recently that feature unfortunate signage.

First up, here is the charity box I encountered at Hanoi airport. It was soliciting money to help pay for the care of "especially difficult children", and I had to wonder what they'd spend my money on. I'm guessing things like handcuffs, Ritalin and flogging posts.

In Hoi An I was encouraged to spend my hard-earned on a hat that identified me as a tourist.

In restaurants in the south of Thailand customers often pay according to the size or weight of the fish they choose. At Bernie's, however, it's the customers that get sized up:

2008-12-02T07:00:00.003+01:00

An enterprisng crab did this.

This dog is obviously german, sent out by his master to reserve the best spot.

The view from my primitive "office".

So there are some photos.

And here's what I have to say about game sequels:

I often get my hands on a sequel to a beloved game thinking "I have mastered the core mechanic of game X. I'm in the mood for curling up with a warm X-like experience - something familiar, something I don't have to strain my brain over because I know and understand the paradigm that is X." So I buy X.2, start playing, and what do you know - I'm stuck in the first level. I try that first level for an hour or so, wondering what the hell has turned me from an X master into a developmentally disabled X n00b.

Notable examples that come to mind are Knights of the Old Republic 2 (stuck in the tutorial!) Thief 3 (hammered by the AI in the first level!) and a few days ago Lost in Blue 2 (my characters starve to death on the first day because I can't work out where the stove is!). Like I said, in previous incarnations of these franchises it was fairly smooth sailing - right from the beginning.

I assume this is because sequels are frequently outsourced to another team or rushed out quickly to cash in on the popularity of the first game(s). Less time was spent polishing the difficulty curve.

Alternatively, I'm just disastrously worse at everything.

Speaking of getting disastrously worse: the Australian dollar. Its continuing fall in value means that unless I earn bucketloads of money while I'm back in Australia my ability to convince the French embassy to give me a long stay visa is fatally diminished. So how am I to earn bucketloads of money? Ideas are most welcome.

2008-11-29T07:56:00.003+01:00

I am on an island in the south of Thailand called Koh Pipe. The internet is expensive. The food is expensive. The fish are colourful. And tasty.

Being on a deserted(ish) tropical island I thought it appropriate that I get out my DS and play Lost in Blue 2 (Lost in Blue was set on an island just like this). But I gave up when I got stuck near the start.

This experience confirms my theory about game sequels. (I'll explain my theory when the internet is cheaper.)

So mostly I'm just working. I wish there were some kind of desk in my bamboo hut.

We're all kind of wondering if civil war will break out here. Apparently the government has fled Bangkok to the northern city of Chiang Mai. Most of the airports in Thailand have been blockaded by the PAD (the pro-Monarchist People's Alliance for Democracy) and people are having trouble getting out. Getting a bus or a train is nigh on impossible. Damn. Not sure if I want to be stuck on this island forever. That'd be too much like my experience getting stuck in Lost in Blue 2.

2008-11-20T10:11:00.006+01:00

Today I had to wade through (pleasantly lukewarm but suspiciously opaque) water to get to my usual café. The bank of the river have overflowed and half the town is flooded.

In these trying circumstances the locals remain enterprising. Instead of being hassled by people wanting to sell me a ride on the back of their cyclos or motorbikes ("you want motorbike ride?") I was sidled up to by people in row boats ("you want boat ride?").

Hoi An is a very small town. One can walk (or wade) anywhere in less than fifteen minutes. And yet hurtling around everywhere are those blasted motorbikes - the Vespass of Death that I mentioned when I was in Hanoi.
This is because, as I was surprised to learn when I had dinner with some people from an NGO that runs an orphanage here, walking is seen as a low class thing to do.
"Think about it: have you ever seen a local walking on the street? They'll take a motorbike, even if it's only a few metres away. It's a status things. Only poor people walk, because they have to."

No wonder people think us Westerners are strange for wanting to walk intead of riding a motorbike for 100m back to our hotels, seeing as we can afford to ride.

When I was in Thailand several years ago my friend and I hitched a ride with some locals to a national park. We spent half a day talking with them in their car. When they asked us what we did for a living they were taken aback by our answers (me: a post-grad music student; my friend: a medical student).

"We don't mean to cause you any offence, it's just that we are very surprised because you are not dressed well enough to look like people with a university education."

Even on holiday, casual clothes like shorts, t-shirts and sandals - though comfortable and convenient - are only for "low class" people. Heaven forbid that "high class" people like us be mistaken for "low class" people! Our local friends, of course, were dressed in semi-formal western style suit jackets, despite being on holiday in the scorching heat like us. We found their outfits as strange as they found ours.

It's interesting how these ideas about what signals status is almost completely opposed to way the signs of privilege and affluence for my generation are defined in my own culture:

Cycling and walking walking... (you can afford to live close by to where you work and play)

Wearing casual clothes... (you're not just any old wage slave who's forced to dress formally, or perhaps because you don't need to work at all).

Eating brown rice... (you're educated about nutrition and you have the extra time to cook it)

2008-11-17T19:17:00.005+01:00

River outside the cafe.

Having an ultra-portable PC is like having a dog. It helps you make friends with strangers. They come up to your table in a cafe and start talking to you.

“Ooh your dog/computer is sooo cute! You know, my friend Bill has this breed/model of dog/mini PC too and he says these french poodles/EEE PCs are so good natured/convenient. I'm thinking of getting one too, actually.”

Shop that sells model boats

I have one of these conversations once every couple of days. They generally lead into conversations on more general topics, like: “Can you recommend a good tailor?”*. This evening it lead to:

“So what do you do for work, anyway?”

“Game development.”

“Wow that's so cool! Lots of money in that, I bet.”

“Er, no, actually. What do you do?”

“IT, corporate stuff. Kind of a boring industry to work in, huh.”

“No, not at all. I hear that in your industry they pay actual money in exchange for work. There's nothing boring about that – in fact I find the idea rather exciting. Revolutionary, even. So tell me, Flex applications vs Silverlight vs JavaFx...”

* which makes me feel like I'm in a P.G.Wodehouse novel, and I love that because I quite fancy the idea of spending time in a PGWodehouse novel

2008-11-13T15:10:00.006+01:00

As I alluded to previously, I am now a regular at Cafe Cargo in Hoi An. Anyone who wants to head down to Nguyen Thai Hoc street down near the river is most welcome to join me for breakfast. I'm generally seated outside, so I can steal the wifi from the (inferior) cafe across the road.

The downside of sitting on the terrace is that it exposes me to harrassment from the local hawkers. Small boys try to sell me clay bird whistles. Women in pointy hats try to sell me mandarins and guavas. I think I already mentioned that man with no legs who shuffles over with a copy of the Viet Nam News.

There's also this dog that comes sniffing around, dressed like Audrey Hepburn. I took a photo of it:

On the footpath people play the game pictured at the top of this post. Can anyone identify what the game is?

Note: Yesterday I was contacted by my correspondant to tell me that the problem of the silent flatmate has resolved itself. The flatmate has for some reason decided to
start speaking again, just like that.

2008-11-11T09:56:00.003+01:00

A cry for help in the form of an email crossed my desk yesterday.

My desk is currently a small table outside a french bakery in Hoi An where I am intermittently interrupted from my work by a cheerful man with no legs who tries to sell me a newspaper. I imagine his injury was acqured during what is known here as the American War. And now the poor man reduced to peddling newspapers to the very same kind of people who blew his legs off. That really sucks.

Below I reprint the missive that I received. My advice will appear in my next blog post.

A couple of months ago I moved into a new sharehouse, and about a week ago I discovered that one of my housemates is ignoring me. I don't know why they are ignoring me, and quite frankly I find it very immature, and would like to know what you think I should do about the situation.
I became aware of the situation when I arrived home late one night last week, and noticed on my way inside that the lock on my bike had been broken, and strangely the bike not stolen. I brought the bike in, carried the broken lock in to the loungeroom to discuss the odd event with whomever was about. The only person in the room was housemate X. He completely ignored my story, sitting arms crossed, staring at the TV screen. I repeated my story, tried to grab his attention a few times, even shook the broken lock in front of their face. Housemate X bluntly refused to look at me. I double checked and their eyes were open. They were totally ignoring me. "Riiiigght... " I said, comprehending the situation, and left the room. It's been a week now and they still have not said a word to me, leaving the room whenever I enter it. It's very peculiar, not at all the sort of behaviour you'd expect from a 29 year old.
So over the past week I've been thinking about when this person might have actually first developed an 'issue' with me. I remembered that there have actually been a few times over the previous couple of weeks when they had ignored me as well, which I had put down to grumpy hangoverness.
But there was actually an earlier event which occurred a few weeks ago when I was rolling a joint in the loungeroom. Out of no where, housemate X said "you're not fucking smoking that in here are you?". At first I thought they were joking, but they were not. They were actually being a rude cunt. I have no problem with not smoking a joint in the lounge room if this is a problem, and I duly smoked it in my bedroom. However I don't tolerate aggression of this sort, either abusive words, or passive-aggressive 'silent treatment'. Do you think I should move out, which I don't want to do for any other reason, the rest of the housemates are lovely. Should I humour myself by waiting and seeing how long this person is actually going to attempt to annoy me with their petty mind games? Or should I expose their issue in front of the other housemates? The obvious solution would be to ask them if they have a problem with me, however I can already see them ignoring my question yet again, and leaving the room.
I should note that I made sure to mention at the house interview that I enjoy the occassional joint, and should anyone have had a problem with this you think they might have brought it up then. It was also not the first time I'd smoked in the lounge room, with no complaints on earlier occassions.
Thanks ahead for your strategic reply...

2008-11-03T14:29:00.007+01:00

Everything in Vietnam is flooded, drenched, damp, or at least smelling of mildew*. It's disgusting. It's like growing up in New Zealand all over again.

We finally escaped Hanoi last night for Hue, a small city in the middle of Vietnam. Hue is Vietnam's imperial city; it is where the emperor used to live. We were feeling a bit miserable (for various reasons, including computer issues, and sharing a train compartment with a man who snored all night, but I suppose compared to the problems of the ordinary citizens of Hanoi right now we are very lucky) so we decided to splash out tonight, as it were, and buy ourselves an imperial banquet at a poncy restaurant.

The venue was well posh. My travelling companion phoned in a reservation ahead of time, and when we arrived we found they'd printed her name on a card for our table:

Then the first course came out (there were seven) and it was in the shape of a peacock. (I actually misunderstood the menu and thought that we were going to be served an actual peacock so in fact I was slightly disappointed.)

There was even live music.

Then the refined ambience was somewhat shattered when a large wet rat made a dash for it across the floor of the restaurant. I think he or she was seeking shelter from the rain outside.

It was at that point that my travelling companion expressed her desire to head back to sunny Thailand with the smallest possible delay.

* Anyone who wishes to accuse me of excessive whinging and reckless exageration (or who thinks my comparison with NZ was a little harsh) should cast their eyes over this article. 18 people died in the floods in Hanoi while we there.

2008-11-01T09:48:00.004+01:00

We are trapped in flooded, storm-ridden Hanoi with no means of escape. There are no trains out of here due to the weather.

And what's worse, we are stuck in a hotel near a supposedly famous and ancient Catholic cathedral, where the bells get played on the hour, every hour. I see absolutely no theological reason for this.*

If you were kept up all night by Catholics you'd have a black look in your eye too.

The hotel (our most expensive accomodation so far) appears to be run by an incompetent 17 year old son of rich parents, aided by motley a assortment of his less-talented high school chums.

We sometimes brave the torrential rain to go outside. My travelling companion (the one bitten by the dog), for example, has been going to hospital periodically to receive rabies injections - from a nurse who has difficulty locating an arm, let alone a vein. Occasionally we are obliged to go out to fetch food, which is either joyless or unforgivably expensive**. We can't wait to escape down south to Hue, the former imperial city where reputedly seven course meals (of peacock, among other things) are served on tree branches and cost 8 USD.

* when I was in Istanbul I got woken up at 4am when all the mosques broadcast the call-to-prayer. The reason for this was presumably that 4am was one of the scheduled prayer times, i.e."wake up people, it's time to point yourselves towards Mecca and kiss the carpet". Whereas the Catholic church just doesn't want people to sleep for more than an hour at a time, and we have to assume this is purely because the Vietnamese Catholic church is run by ill-mannered sadists.

** unlike in Thailand. Oh how I took you for granted, wonderful Thailand!

2008-10-30T05:38:00.001+01:00

Today my travelling companion and I feel like this Pony, pictured above.

(Many thanks to Moran for wrangling this Pony.)

2008-10-29T11:27:00.000+01:00

2008-10-29T11:19:00.000+01:00

We have arrived in Hanoi and are, frankly, terrified when we walk down the street.

Death (or serious injury) by Scooter is a common problem here, and one can see why. The scooter is a popular mode of transport everywhere in South-East Asia but the popularity of these machines must have surely reached its zenith in Hanoi. The scooters here are so numerous they swarm at you like hive-fulls of angry giant bees.

Unlike Laos, Hanoi is no place for chickens. In Laos there are many urban chickens that roam freely about town. Street chickens, I suppose you'd call them. They are quite bold (recall, if you will, the rooster that came begging for my steamed bun), and have no hesitation in crossing roads filled with trucks and scooters. (It is well known that The Other Side of the Road is a popular destination for chickens, and that their almost religious compulsion to reach it makes it a sort of Mecca for them.)

The only sign of chicken life I saw on the streets of Hanoi last night, however, was fried chicken feet being chowed down by people squatting between parked Vespas of Death on the footpath (scooters take precedence to pedestrians, even on footpaths!). They were no doubt the feet of pilgrims that had been struck down while on their dangerous pilgrimages.

But it is not merely the Vespas of Death that make the streets of this city more terrifying than a pissing contest in an electricity sub-station. Last night my travelling companion was bitten by a dog. It was one of those small, hairy white and yappy creatures one often sees in the handbags of Parisian bourgeois. The fact that there are so many of these running rabid around the streets of Hanoi sinking their teeth into people's tender calves is yet another terrible legacy of French colonisation in this region.

My poor companion was obliged to visit two hospitals and have injections in her derriere. She is reacting badly to the rabies vaccine (rabies is still common in Asia), and insult was added to injury when she was also attacked by a Chihuahua on the way back from the hospital today.

2008-10-17T16:22:00.006+02:00

I am in Laos, where everyone wants a piece of me.

The main street of Luang Prabang.

This afternoon I took a tuk-tuk to a waterfall, and it cost me 40,000 kip. Everyone else in the tuk-tuk had paid 30,000.

HAD!

I walked up a track alongside the waterfall. A girl nearby started screaming and hopping around on one foot and declared loudly to her boyfriend that she was being attacked by leeches. I rushed to assist and then found that I had several leeches of my own, stuck to my feet, all wanting a piece of me.

HAD!

I got away from the leech-infested track and fast as I could and then decided to cool off with a swim in the waterfall stream. I felt something on my legs and feet. When I got out of the water I looked down and realised that flesh-eating fish had wanted a piece of me. They had made a meal of some skin on my feet.

HAD!

I left the waterfall and walked to the park entrance to look for a meal of my own amongst the food stalls. I sat down on a rock by the side of the road with a couple of steamed buns. Two puppies and a rooster came up to me and crowded around. They wanted a piece of me and my steamed buns (since when did chickens eat steamed buns!).

HAD!

Then I got back to my solitary little room and I was relieved to get back to my computer and my work. Here is the view from my room:

2008-10-11T13:29:00.004+02:00

Travel is supposed confer an enriched understanding of cultures different to one's own, through a constant exposure to foreign peoples and their strange ways, which one greets at first with surprise or even dismay, and at last with acceptance, resignation or appreciation.

But it is the foreign-ness of Australians abroad (Australia being the place where I've spent most of my adult life) that makes me suffer the most from culture shock. Who are these strange-cultured people and why do they seem to think I'm their new best friend?

The Australians I meet outside of Australia make me wonder if I have ever actually lived in that country at all. They are very much unlike the sorts of people I have spent the last ten years associating with in the cafes and share-houses of Melbourne's inner city suburbs.

And the confronting thing for me is that being an Australian abroad (or in my case, simply having a mild Australian accent) seems to trigger an extraordinary sense of fellowship (“let's go for a drink!”) and trust (“could you mind my passport for me?” “let’s go for a drink!” “can I borrow your toothbrush” etc.) based simply on the commonality, presumably, of having lived in the same country. Fellowship between any humans is nice, I suppose, but this nationalism-tinged variety strikes me as rather false. Back in individualist Australia – a very large country, where strangers on public transport resolutely avoid eye-contact with eachother and social cliques rarely mix - there is rarely such a bond, but cross the border into foreign territory and it's Australians shoulder to shoulder together against the Hun.

2008-10-08T05:11:00.003+02:00

We are now in the north of Thailand, in a little place in the hills called Pai. It is so idyllic its main raison d'etre is tourism. My raison d'y etre* is to work in a relaxed setting, and hopefully I'll do a bit of that soon.

My new office. It's beautiful, but I wish my bungalow had a desk.

In modern South-East Asia “eco-” and “ethical” tourism seem to live side by side (or perhaps even hand-in-hand) with hidden and not-so-hidden exploitation. We foreign tourists are wealthy consumers in (and of) the Third World, and as such we enjoy a maximum of consumer choice. There's such a smörgåsbord of activities and companies providing those activities to choose from here it starts to look all a bit “same same, but different” (as they say here in Thailand in response to tourists forever wanting to know the difference between menu items at restaurant).

Thai street buffet

Do we want to play with tigers today? They'll drug the animals for us so we can touch their limp furry bodies safely. And tomorrow do we want to donate food to the local monks at dawn? Then they will sell us food to feed to the monks and take us to them. (Luckily there are no signs here saying “Don't feed the monks”).

On the next day, should we sign up for an eco-trekking of the hills we must be careful to choose one of the “ethical” tours, or else we may be taken to the Long Neck tribe, a society that still compels its womenfolk to elongate their necks (a practice akin to foot-binding) now purely to generate income from curious tourists.

We can ride elephants, some of which are reputed to be mistreated (here again, we can choose from ethical or non-ethical elephant cuddling experiences), but we can equally do our bit for the environment by helping make paper out from recycled elephant dung.

A man pimps his elephant to tourists

We have the option of taking a reiki course and or volunteering at an orphanage in the afternoon. Perhaps with our new reiki skills we could spiritually heal away the problems of these children. And no doubt we will be tired from the day's activities, and have a massage in the evening (with or without a “happy ending”).

An elephant, a motorbike, a young woman, a conscience – all these things can be rented for the day. All same same but different.

*"reason to be here"

2008-10-01T13:28:00.005+02:00

I have recently arrived in South East Asia, with a view to living cheaply here until the end of the year.

Hot and rainy Bangkok through a window.

It has been over ten years since I was last in Bangkok, and my first impression upon arrival is that it has modernised considerably.

Hazadous bus journeys (when I last tried take to public transport in Bangkok a single journey across town involved two bus breakdowns and a bus-on-car accident) have now become a pleasantly air-conditioned whizzing-about on a shiny overhead rail system; I stayed in a guest house last night where not a single rat assailed me in my sleep; and when I walked around yesterday evening I saw no giant cockroaches scuttling around the rubbish-strewn streets - possibly because the streets were rather rubbish-deprived than strewn.

In some ways being in Bangkok isn't as interesting as it was.

I once knew a young man (a young man from a wealthy background who moved in refined circles) with an unusual point of view when it came to the problems of the world: "don't solve them". That is to say, he didn't believe it was too difficult to achieve social and economic equality; he thought it was a bad idea all together. Wiping out the huge divide between rich and poor within the world would make living in it far less diverse and interesting, he told me, and that is why I was wrong to actively try to achieve it. His argument was basically that economic diversity is essential to maintaining cultural diversity.

Perhaps in some ways he was right. If we had universal prosperity numerous species of human creatures from our currently interesting world would become extinct. Gone would be those colourfully-dressed peasants doing back-breaking labour with intriguingly old fashioned tools in order to feed their diversely-diseased families, and we would no longer be blessed with little half-naked pokey-ribbed children sitting on footpaths selling toothpicks to passers-by.

Imagine the disappointment of Opera-goers if Puccini's La Bohème if Mimi had been able to afford warm clothes and central heating, thus destroying the pretext for Rudolfo's chat-up line regarding her "tiny frozen hand". Imagine if the concept of charity became redundant, and along with it all of its associated socialite busy-work; and if no wars, famines nor crimes were available for consumption by the listless and information-hungry. The prospect is terrifyingly ho-hum.

Hence a certain level and concentration of poverty and inequality must be maintained, in order that the bored rich of the world may keep their idle minds entertained by the picturesque misery of the world.

2008-09-27T01:39:00.003+02:00

This time it is I who seek counsel.

My forward slash key, otherwise known as my question mark key, is busted. The 'P' key is also threatening to pack it in.

This is added to the fact that I've been running in VGA mode for the last few months (yes I know, oh the horror!). It's because my motherboard's graphics chip is fried. That's also why I have vertical lines running down my screen. And the aspect ratio is wrong, making people look fat. (Yes, that includes you, if I've had your image on my screen at any time over the last few months.)

You may ask how I have managed to put up with all this for so long, and do Actual Work on this machine all the while. (See, I even had to rephrase that sentence in order to avoid having to use a question mark.) Well readers, that's a fucking good question.

I have, of course, my little Eee PC that I bought for traveling and working light in South-East Asia. But while it has it's decided benefits (its size and weight, the "wow" factor when I whip it out of my handbag in front of awe-struck companions) the mini keyboard isn't so great for long working stints. Also, the left side of the space bar has stopped working (already!). And it's kind of slower than I'm used to, even after all the optimising I've done to the system.

One might argue that I need a new computer. A proper one, that I can spend 8 hours a day doing work on. But that's easier said than done, given that I'm going to cheapest darkest Asia on Monday to live like an impoverished monk(ey) to save money. So if I were to buy a new machine it would a) use up money that I was tryng to save and b) no doubt be stolen by a wiley street urchin or trampled by a jungle elephant.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

2008-09-24T16:02:00.001+02:00

I am saved!!! I saw an electrician working in the stairwell and he tried the lock and then when it still didn't work he went and got a hammer and whacked the end of it and now it works!!

Vive la France!!

2008-09-24T15:21:00.002+02:00

I'm trapped in the apartment! Something is wrong with the lock and I can't lock the door behind me. So effectively I can't leave. I have no credit on my phone so I can't call anyone. I've tried using Skype but the internet connection seems to be too slow for it to work.

I used my last phone credit to text Dmitri (it's his flat) in Portugal and he called back but even with his advice I can't get the lock to work. I've tried asking the neighbours in the other apartments for help but nobody's home.

2008-09-24T12:52:00.005+02:00

Another letter arrived on my desk* this morning:

Dear Aunt Kipper,

I have recently moved into a new apartment and the old lady downstairs has left a note on my door complaining about my boyfriend and I making 'bedroom noises'. We try and keep it down and keep it to reasonable hours but the old bird will not be appeased. Now, said old lady has a very noisy dog who barks day and night. Should I leave a retaliatory note for the dog asking her to stop making 'kennel noises'?

Help!

A Not Particularly Oversexed Reader.

Dear ANPOR,

Have you considered trying Strychnine? Strychnine is a white, crystalline powder that can be taken by mouth, inhaled or mixed in a solution and given intravenously. I believe it could be useful for you and your boyfriend in relation to this problem.

In your case the easiest way to take it (unless you're accustomed to sticking needles in veins) would be mixed with food just before bed time. Strychnine has a slightly bitter taste, so I suggest adding it to a dish that is naturally a bit bitter in flavour anyway. You might want to try dark chocolate, for example.

Dog chocolates are readily available in most pet stores.

Alternatively, if you are one of these vinyl-shoe wearing, meat-is-murder types, you might go straight to the root of the problem and off the old lady herself. In that case you'll need a hypodermic syringe, a box of Lindt dark from the supermarket, and kind note saying something along the lines of:

"Dear Nosy Old Bat (or whatever her name is),

My young man and I were mortified to learn that our "bedroom noises" were disturbing you and your dog Yappy Fucking Little Mongrel's (or whatever it's name is) repose.

Please accept these handmade Belgian chocolates by way of apology.

Yours sincerely, etc"

Once the old lady is found (you might want to tip off the relevant authorities before the smell from the downstairs apartment starts to migrate upwards) the dog will no doubt be sent to a Dog Shelter, where somebody else will off it eventually anyway.

I hope this helps.

There is of course a Third Way, but it is not such a permanent solution because it doesn't involve death:

Make a recording of a barking dog (perhaps even this old lady's dog). Play this recording loudly on your stereo system (preferably a system with a sub-woofer, as it were) whenever you have sex. The recording will drown out your "bedroom noises", and you'll be free to make said noises far into the night without the lady daring to complain about your noisy "barking dog".

* in my new temporary abode on the rue Faubourg St. Martin, from which I enjoy a wonderful view of the rooftops of Paris.