flanerie.org

my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting

for,
my sister

Isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds)of socks not to
mention fleaproof earwarmers
etcetera wristers etcetera, my
mother hoped that

i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et

cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera)

The head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique has told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately.

Maputo Archbishop Francisco Chimoio claimed some anti-retroviral drugs were also infected "in order to finish quickly the African people".

The Catholic Church formally opposes any use of condoms, advising fidelity within marriage or sexual abstinence.

Aids activists have been angered by the remarks, one calling them "nonsense".

"We've been using condoms for years now, and we still find them safe," prominent Mozambican Aids activist Marcella Mahanjane told the BBC.

The UN says anti-retrovirals (ARVs) have proved very effective for treating people with Aids. The drugs are not a cure, but attack the virus on several fronts at once.

The BBC's Jose Tembe in the capital, Maputo, says it is estimated that 16.2% of Mozambique's 19m inhabitants are HIV positive.

About 500 people are infected every day.

Archbishop Chimoio told our reporter that abstention, not condoms, was the best way to fight HIV/Aids.

"Condoms are not sure because I know that there are two countries in Europe, they are making condoms with the virus on purpose," he alleged, refusing to name the countries.

"They want to finish with the African people. This is the programme. They want to colonise until up to now. If we are not careful we will finish in one century's time."

Aids activists in the country have been shocked by the archbishop's comments.

"Condoms are one of the best ways of getting protection against catching Aids," said Gabe Judas, who runs Tchivirika (Hard Work) - an theatre group that promotes HIV/Aids awareness.

"People must use condoms as it's a safe way of having sex without catching Aids," he told the BBC.

Archbishop Chimoio, who made the remarks at celebrations to mark 43 years of independence, said that fighting the disease was a serious matter.

"If we are joking with this sickness we will be finished as soon as possible.

"If we want to change the situation to face HIV/Aids it's necessary to have a new mentality, if we don't change mentality we'll be finished quickly," he said.

"It means marriage, people being faithful to their wives... (and) young people must be abstaining from sexual relations."

Our correspondent says the archbishop is well respected in the country and the Catholic Church played a leading role in sponsoring the 1992 peace deal that ended a 16-year civil war.

Some 17.5% of Mozambicans are Catholic.

I made a rare foray into London today to collect King Pickles from the Science Museum. He has been an exhibit there for four months and although I have missed him I am sure he has brought joy into the lives of many thousands of visitors.

It was an appropriate day of collect the rabbit since today is Easter Sunday. It is written in the bible that on Easter Sunday the three kings arrived to visit Jesus. "Too late your majesties," said a wandering peasant, "he's in that tomb over there."

The three kings went to the tomb and forced it open with a gemmy. Inside they found no sign of Jesus, although frankly how would they know what he looked like? Instead there was a large rabbit in the tomb, holding a basket of chocolate eggs.

"Thank Christ for that," said the rabbit, "I've been stuck in here since Friday."

And the three kings ate heartily of the chocolate and one of them was sick.

There are certain words that even cor blimey flanerie.org would not use, so I need you, dear reader, to do some of the legwork on this story.

The kid has a new word - crunch! She says this when someone bites an apple, or when she cracks open a boiled egg. She says it with great gusto.

Which would be fine except for two small problems.

First is that in her universe the letter R is pronounced only if it is the first letter of a word, in all other cases it is silent. 'Tree' is pronounced 'tee'.

Second is that 'ch' is pronouced 't'. 'Cheese' is 'tees'.

Now you have enough info to figure out how she says 'crunch'.

'Britain's unluckiest man' - who has suffered 16 major accidents - is laid up again after falling down a manhole.

John Lyne's misfortunes have included two lightning strikes, a rock-fall in a mine, nearly drowning and three car crashes.

Mr Lyne, 54, of Stainforth, near Doncaster, will be out of action for 32 weeks after his latest mishap, reports the Doncaster Free Press.

The accident damaged his back and injured his left leg and both knees - on top of a lifetime of broken bones.

Mr Lyne says he's not bitter - just glad to be alive.

"Everyone thinks it is just hilarious," he said. "My mates, family and wife Susan just laugh about it.

"I don't think there is any reason or explanation for it though, it has just happened really. I have to particularly be careful on the Friday 13ths, when a few accidents have fallen."

Mr Lyne's mishaps cover a lifetime. As a child, he fell off a horse and cart - only to be run over by a delivery van.

When he was a teenager, he broke his arm falling from a tree. On his way back from hospital, his bus crashed, breaking the same arm in another place. The date was Friday the 13th.

My Granddad died in the early hours of this morning after kidney failure.

The granddad that used to give me piggy-backs up the stairs, call me 'little chico' (my sister was 'big chico'), keep bees, tell awful jokes and drive badly. At Christmas he would take us to the panto, where we would sit in a box and feel like royalty.

His was the house where there were always treats to be had - ribena pop, sweets and hot milk at bedtime; a home office with its strict order, rubber stamps and an old typewriter too heavy to lift; slide shows of holidays; sugared almonds on nested tables; and a wooden rabbit, a blackbird called Peggy, a gall stone in a jar and an outside toilet.

Over the last few years Alzheimers has slowly taken his mind and it is some time since he was the granddad I remember so well. Then again it has been some time since I was the person that laid down those memories.

But my granddad, and my interactions with him as a child, are as much a part of the adult typing today as they ever were. He is gone now, but he lives on within me and I am a richer person and a better man for having been his grandson.

Happy Birthday Granddad

It is the Queen's 80th birthday today, gawd bless 'er

I don't know much about Gene Pitney, but he is dead now and there seems little point researching.

The BBC opened up their news site for people to leave comments, and amongst them was this:

*whistles innocently*

I hope that you are all well. I have emailed you today as I need your help.....

Last week has been particularly tough for me at both my projects -
Matili and Teso. Although every week is tough seeing very poor people
struggle for daily survival last week has been hard as we have seen
many new cases of extreme poverty. The other issue is that Omwabini
(the charity I am working for) is also currently struggling with
raising funds to reach out to these people. This is where I need help
from you guys.

I would like to raise GBP 300 so that I can make a difference to the
lives of these people. I have been working closely with Mary (the
project leader) and we have been assessing exactly what everyone
needs. Every case is genuine and heartbreaking and although we cannot
reach everyone we have identified the really critical ones that need
our help. They are 6 orphans in Teso who although have planted maize
and beans, will not see their harvest until the end of May. In the
meantime they have no food. These are children are as young as 13 who
have lost their parents to AIDS and who now head up the family. They
also need clothes, blankets and equipment (hoes) to help farm their
land.

I have also seen an 80 year old blind woman who sits every day on a
thin piece of mattress in the darkness of her mud hut. She desperately
needs a new mattress and clothes as well as food. This woman also has
6 grandchildren (all orphans) who have planted crops but again have
nothing to eat now.

The other family I saw this week that really needs help was a disabled
man, his wife and their 5 children. They have no money, their clothes
were literally falling off them and they had no way to feed their
children. We are organising to borrow a plough and help from the local
community so that his land can be ploughed - but in the meantime again
he needs food, blankets and clothes for both him and his family.

I am going to donate GBP 100 and would love to be able to make up the
other GBP 200 that I so desperately need. I would personally be taking
this money from the cash point and walking down Kimilili high street
and to the market to buy all the food, clothes, blankets, mattresses
etc needed. I can guarantee that every single penny that you give will
be spent on these people.

I would be really grateful if you can help - it doesn't matter how
small the amount - it will all help.

If you feel that you can - then please drop me an email as soon as
possible letting me know how much you wish to donate and how you want
to get the money to me. The 3 options for getting money to me are:

1. Transfer on line to either my Nationwide or HSBC account. I will
email you details
2. Pay in either cash or a cheque to my account at any Nationwide or
HSBC branch. Again I will send details.
3. Send a cheque to my parents address so that they can bank on my behalf.

Thank you so much - I will keep you all updated of what funds I manage
to raise and how this will help so many lives......:0)

elly xx

---

If you want to make a donation, the easiest way is through may paypal account.

I will:
- cover all paypal fees
- make a matching donation, so if I receive a total of £100 of donations, I will add another £100 myself

Just click this button and follow the instructions:

I will keep donations open for 10 days.

If you would like to pay in another way, contact me [admin@flanerie.org]. For further info on Elly and her trip, visit her blog.

Dan is my new friend. He works at Tesco Express at Eynsham. Tesco is the UK equivalent of Walmart and Express is their convenience store format, in this case attached to a gas station.

Dan has been there for three months, although the larger Tesco store at Witney is trying to poach him. The store in Swindon is also interested in his services. The hours of the Swindon job would mean him not being able to play football on Saturday afternoons, although he has been thinking about giving up the football anyway. He scored a goal last Saturday, and he only ever scores when his girlfriend isn't watching.

Dan became my friend, and divulged all this information, during five minutes at the cash register this evening, and throughout the encounter I didn't utter a single word.

I have been toying with the idea of learning sign language for the deaf, but in the meantime have adopted face language for the deaf quadruplegic. A frown here, a raised eyebrow there and the world is my oyster. Or at least Dan's world is my oyster.

Dan himself was highly animated, head bobbing from side to side, arms waving, even raising his leg to demonstrate football. I was his inverse, night to his day, yin to his yang, bishop to his actress. At my most demonstrative moment I pursed my lips and frowned while simultaneously tilting my head to the right. Quite extrovert, I'm sure you will agree.

'See you soon mate' he said as I left. I raised the left corner of my mouth and nodded.

After Soviet, my next and, for now, last cat was Billy.

Billy was acquired at the same time as Milly the chocolate labrador, on the premise that they would grow up to be best buddies. Half of them went along with this, Billy was in the other half.

He would hide behind a door and when Milly padded into the room would launch himself at her head and take hold like that nasty face-grabbing thing in Alien. She would play along by keeling over, and he would then use his back feet to pummel her nose while biting her ears and digging his claws in as far as possible, and all the time his face was a rictus of evil.

Milly would just lie there wagging her tail, which must have been pretty insulting as far as the cat was concerned.

Anyway, Billy was a retard. Here are two of his finest moments:

We stripped a section of wooden floor upstairs, stained it and then varnished it. In order to keep Billy from messing up what was a very lovely finish, we blocked the area off with a three foot wall of cardboard. Naturally he didn't see any great significance in the obstacle and hurdled it. Presumably he then stopped for a look around, because when we discovered him, mewing pitifully, he was stuck to the floor. He probably could have unstuck himself - I managed to by gently easing each paw up - but shit-for-brains decided he was welded fast.

Two houses away lived a man with a large collection of birds, mostly ducks and chickens. Billy the wannabe hunter found this fascinating and would spend many an hour watching them. Eventually he found the courage to embark on a mission into the chicken house. On arriving he discovered that the chickens were bigger than him and was scared witless, so he spent 24 hours hiding in some straw in the corner of the chicken house. We knew this because we could hear him whining, but it was muffled and we couldn't figure out which direction it was coming from. When we finally tracked him down, the chickens were going about their business, having realised he was about as deadly as a potato. He still wouldn't come out though and I had to contort my way into the henhouse to haul him out.

I lost Billy and Milly when I lost my girlfriend. I miss the dog...

I had a song dedicated to me this morning and, being a sentimental soul, it touched me to the very core.

It is possible that Lauren was delirious at the time, it being 3.24am EST, and she was probably still high on Benedryl (the drug of choice for the modern landscaper). But still, a dedication is a dedication.

I had just made what I believed to be a particularly witty comment and got no response. Not a lol or a hahaha. Not even a smiley. Like, wtf, that was *funny* damnit. Then she pasted the link to her blog, and I dissolved into a gelatinous puddle.

It's here, on the January 10th entry.

Check out the rest of the blog, it is way cool. And she is dating Jesus, which is double-cool, although bread and fish for dinner every night probably gets wearing.

Thank you LJ.

Firstly, I guess I should apologise to anyone who is reading this after searching on Google or its peers for information on, well, Soviet policy in matters of a foreign nature. Soviet Foreign Policy was the name of my cat. But hey, stay a while, this blog is okay and almost informative.

My friends moved out and so did his, so he moved into my place and brought the cat with him. I guess it was a kidnap.

I did have concerns that Trumpy might be in the family way (up the stick, up the duff, eating for ten) but I asked the opinion of a visiting friend who was (a) a police officer; and (b) female. By my reckoning only a vet would be in a better position to make an assessment. Jacqui said not pregnant.

The next day I returned from an afternoon out to find that the number of cats in the house had trebled - Trumpy and two little flea-ridden balls of fluff.

I did the obvious thing and panicked. After that I went out and bought a book about cats and some flea powder. "Do not use on kittens" it said on the side. Well shit, what else was I to do? They all got a good dusting and the fleas moved into the carpet. They are probably still there.

One of the kittens was mostly black and tortoise-shell with a white scarf around his neck, so he got called Biggles. The other was all tabby and had no obvious name, so we resorted to choosing numbers for page, column, paragraph, line and word from the newspaper. The result was Soviet Foreign Policy, or Soviet for short. A handsome cat and no mistake.

All three cats moved with us to another house, but once the kittens grew up Trumpy figured it was time for them to pack their bags and move out. They didn't, realising that they were onto a good deal, so after thrashing them repeatedly, and without success, she moved out herself and found new owners a few houses down the road. No great loss as the kittens were far more fun and tolerated games like 'kitten catch'. 'kitten in the bag' and 'kitten on the record turntable'.

One night I had an intense dream about being chased into a fish-processing factory. The smell was vivid and to get away from my invisible persuers I hid in some machiney. But then it was activated and I was caught in a huge press and was slowly being crushed to death. At that point I woke and discovered that Soviet was sitting on my chest, breathing into my face from very close range. Little shit.

By and by the kittens matured and settled into cathood. Biggles was run over and rebuilt, and I learned a valuable from that episode - chicks dig injured cats. All those years of trying to entice women into the house and all we needed to do was run over the cat!

To even up the score, Soviet lost half his tail. After close scrutiny of the crime scene (broken plant pot on floor, broken tail on cat) we deduced that Biggles had knocked the plant off the top of the fridge, and Sov was unlucky enough to be standing in the drop zone. His broken tail was lopped by the vet and he became a shorter version of his handsome self. It took him two weeks to get used to it and during that time he would jump from one chair to another and fall short. Oh, how we laughed.

He eventually ended up with one of his female admirers and served out his middle age in great comfort in a Birmingham suburb. Soviet is now in the great sheepskin cat bed in the sky. Gone but never forgotten.

I am not sure what reminded me of Simon Frost last week, but there was something that triggered a memory, and that memory triggered another, and then a whole flood.

Simon worked at Insignia Solutions when I was a humble bean-counter there. He was a software development manager, or something like that.

As techies go, and I am a closet techie so I am not being (intentionally) insulting here, Simon was very outgoing and articulate. Affable even. While the standard techie uniform was black tshirt and jeans, Simon managed to dress with, if not quite elegance, at least a semblance of smartness.

He also spent a lot of time in the accounting office because he had the horn for one of my team, Penny. So did I. So did everyone. Legs to die for, slim and a pretty face. What's not to like? Anyway, Penny was married, so it was a non-runner for all of us, although it all turned out differently, which is another story.

My two memories of Simon:
1. Simon crashed his company car due to driving too fast. But rather than fess up to toolish behaviour on the insurance claim form, he wrote: "I was driving around a roundabout when I sneezed and lost control of the vehicle." Genius!

2. For a while the accounts team were in a vaguely open plan area. Each night, over a period of several weeks, Simon would move the desks by a few millimetres. We only noticed when Penny could barely squeeze into her seat, by which time we had been moved a couple of feet. Genius again!

Simon is now at Citrix where I trust he is still causing trouble.