How uncool am I? Let me count the ways.

OK, full disclosure right off the bat: this is a direct rip-off from inspired by Alex Beam’s column in today’s International Herald Tribune, that NY Times of Europe newsthingy some say won’t be around in a few years because it’s made of paper, and paper is just so…uncool.

As I was reading his column I thought: separated at birth or joined at the demographic? Because my good Mr. Beam, we could be brothers.

How uncool am I? Let me count the ways.

1. Until a few months ago, I used to think Bluetooth was a disease and BluRay a sea creature.

2. A blackberry belongs in a bucket.

3. A treo is a misspelling.

4. I don’t own an iPhone, but I do have an iPod Mini. The blue one Borat says is for girls.

5. My organiser is made of paper. I input with a pen.

6. My cell phone is nearly as old as my 10-year-old kid, who calls me Daddy, not Ian.

7. Text messages are a pain in the ass.

8. Skype is for people who can’t find their phone.

9. MySpace should come with a health warning.

10. My profile on Facebook is set to: Block the World

11. Our TV is square, and bulges out the back. We don’t have a TiVo, a Slingbox, Pay TV, Satellite or Video on demand.

12. I’ve never downloaded music or movies.

13. The last CD I bought was in 2004.

14. If I want to watch a movie or listen to new music, I take it out of the library or go to the local video rental shop.

15. I’ve never seen The Sopranos.

16. I don’t own a car.

17. I get around everywhere by bicycle.

18. I don’t have a tattoo. I have no piercings.

19. I like living in Germany.

20. I think expatriates who bitch about life here should vote with their feet.

© 2007 lettershometoyou
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Shall we pop down to South Africa again this weekend, dear?

I must be in a really pissy mood lately, because all it took were two simple newspaper articles this past weekend to get me into another tizzy.  But I ask you – have we completely taken leave of our senses? Take a look at the following:

 

Fair enough.  Even the Financial Times reports on What We Must Do about the Environment. (Wring hands, furrow brow.)
But then we find this.

It’s from an article in a magazine tucked into the same paper which talks about properties for sale on a game reserve whose ecosystem is thriving after years of neglect and exhaustion.

Best of all, ownership entitles the occupant – after an awareness course – to play game warden and take guests on game drives in their 4x4s. 

The magazine is called How to Spend It.  Not time, but money.  Lots of money.  So much money, you not only have the cash to blow on a game lodge in South Africa, but are actually willing to be in the air nearly 24 hours total for the chance to be down there less than 48.  Probably a lot less when you factor in check-in time and just getting to and from the airport.

Environmentally impeccable? Am I the only one who finds the lifestyle of these so-called nature-loving Brits to be an environmental obscenity?

How can we report on one page about there being very little time left to do something about the billions of tons of carbon dioxide spewing into the atmosphere every month when we read on another about people willing to take a jaunt just for the weekend almost half-way round the world?

I took my own carbon footprint test.    Even though I don’t own a car, ride my bike to work, recycle my own toilet paper don’t smoke, and fly around 25 hours per year max, I still stomp around the planet as if I were King Kong on a rampage with a lifestyle that would require 2.5 earths just to sustain it.   Just imagine what these people are doing.

There are some out there for whom money is no object, who are sitting on such a huge pile they can’t spend what they earn in interest and dividends fast enough, who need a whole glossy magazine first weekend of every month just to figure out How to Spend It, but I ask you: how long can this go on?

If they truly want to call themselves nature lovers and own property in South Africa, they should move there and go about it full-time. Failing that, perhaps there should be a hefty surtax on long-haul return flights completed in fewer than three days, so maybe – just maybe – they’ll think twice about it.

Then again, I doubt if that would stop them.  A return flight for two London  -  Johannesburg will already set you back 2,800 euros give or take, but who are we kidding?  People with coin like this wouldn’t be caught dead in cattle class, so let’s see;  First Class is a mere snip of the wardrobe budget at 18,000 euros the pair, but if that’s just too many new boots to go without, you can always slum it in Business for €8,500.

I just hope they enjoy their game drives while they can, because all the efforts at conservation in the world won’t add up to squat if there’s no planet left for the wildlife to live in.

© 2007 lettershometoyou

 

Talking about pictures of naked girls in a newspaper

Dear all,

OK, full disclosure: in contrast to other “Talking” posts, this conversation hasn’t happened yet, but I think it will one day.

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Daddy, there sure are a lot of pictures in this newspaper, and the writing is so big!

Yeah, that’s what they call it Bild-Zeitung. Picture-Newspaper. Lots of pictures, not much writing. I guess they figure people are too busy to read much these days.

How come they always have a picture of a naked girl on the front page?

Ummm… I think it’s because they tried it once, and found that it started to sell more newspapers. Look through it and you’ll probably find another one or two as well.

But how can a picture of a naked girl sell newspapers? I thought there was supposed to be news in a newspaper, not pictures of naked girls.

Well, you’re right. But since there isn’t a law that says you can’t put a picture of a naked girl in a newspaper, someone figured they would try it out, and it worked. They sell more newspapers than any other paper in Europe. Eleven million people read it every day. All that for a paper with such a lousy reputation, a lot of us call it Blöd-Zeitung (Stupid paper).

But if that’s what people buy the paper for, why don’t they just buy a paper that has got lots and lots of pictures like that?

I can’t figure that out, either. The first time we came here, it was after living in Hong Kong, and there it’s really, really strict what you can show in a paper. The people are more conservative, and don’t think it’s right to show pictures like that all over the place. It’s the same in Canada and in the States. But here, it’s different. It’s more open. I was kind of surprised, though, that they would put those pictures on the front page.

Do the girls get money for doing that?

Yes, they do. I’m not sure how much, but they do. I guess they figure that if everyone sees them in a newspaper like that, then they will be better known and it will be easier for them to get work like modelling or something. I don’t think it’s a good idea, though.

Yeah, their moms and dads might see them!

Well, yeah, but it’s more than that, eh? Did you ever wonder what those people look like in real life?

What do you mean?

I bet if you saw one of those women on the street after seeing her photo in the paper, you wouldn’t recognise her. They do all sorts of things to make them look what everybody thinks a woman should look like. They put on all the right make-up, they get the lighting all perfect, they take hundreds of pictures, and then after choosing the one they want to print, they fix it up in the computer so that she looks as perfect as possible. They do that for advertisements, too. What you see in the picture isn’t real.

Sure it’s real. It’s a naked lady!

Well, yeah, but very, very few women actually look like that. And the problem with that is, people forget that and think that’s what a woman should look like. So women start to feel unhappy with themselves because they might be a bit overweight, or because they think they’re too short, or getting old, or their nose is crooked, or their bum is too wide, or their breasts aren’t big enough, or too flat, or too pointed, or too saggy, or whatever. They pay specialist doctors thousands and thousands of dollars to change themselves on the outside, just to make themselves feel better about themselves on the inside. Who told them there was something wrong that needed to be fixed in the first place?

All for now,

Ian

PS: I was going to put in a link to the newspaper showing a picture of a naked lady, but I don’t think there’s really a need…

PPS: The newspaper article behind the link is (gasp!) old, but it’s a good backgrounder.

PPPS: An award-winning blog keeps a watchful eye on Bild, helped by people like you. Even the venerable Economist had this to say in its praise.

© 2007 lettershometoyou