Donald Trump: Amalgamated Awfulness

Donald J. Trump. Described by John Oliver as "an old piece of luggage covered in cheese-wiz", and "a clown made of mummified foreskin and cotton candy", The Donald has now remarkably ensconced himself as the leading front-runner in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. This is in spite of the fact that he has little if any political experience, or that his personality can be most kindly described as "abrasive", or that before his latest crack at office he was most prominently known for being a bit flashy in the 80's and hosting a reality TV show. Donald is running a campaign against the odds, and he's winning? Who doesn't love an outsider?

Racism: A Flowchart

Racism: scourge of society, sport of the GOP, lifeblood of the ignorant. Of course, it's very easy to sort people into opposing camps. There are those who have basic human compassion and dignity, and those others whose fragile identity needs to be bolstered with bigotry and idiocy. But what of the tricky third group, best known for their catchphrase "I'm not racist, but..."? Confused in their beliefs, these people may need a little help in finding which side they are truly on. To that end, I've produced this handy flowchart. Be sure to keep it on hand for the next time you meet one of the "but..." people.

Social Media: A Guide

The social media landscape can be daunting prospect for the uninitiated. Fortunately, help is at hand in the form of these handy pie charts.

Facebook: Still the number one place to spy on former high school friends/exes/your college roommate’s friend’s cousin’s cat.

Phil's Alternative Thanksgiving History

Once upon a time (way back there. Like, sometime after Jesus but before WW1), there lived a group of people called the Pilgrims.

Waddup.

Exercise: An Internal Battle

[INTERIOR: PHIL'S BRAIN]

Cortex Commander: Alright men, we're going for a jog! Battle stations! This is a critical situation. He's barely suited to FIFA marathons, let alone actual running.

James Bond: Austerity Royale

M: Good morning Bond. Take a seat.
Bond: To what do I owe the pleasure, M?
M: Well Bond, as you know the current government has been counting the pennies. It's time to tighten our belts.

Apparently there was too much pork in the budget.

BREAKING: LOCAL MAN’S EMPATHY LIMITED TO 100 MILE RADIUS

Northampton - Researchers are confounded after finding a man seemingly unable to feel compassion for people located more than 100 miles away.

An Englishman's Home is his Castle: The Syrian Refugee Crisis

The refugee crisis that's been brewing over the past few years/months/weeks (depending on which media one's been following) has seemingly exploded into the wider public consciousness this week. Though this included the images of thousands of refugees leaving Hungary on a march to Austria, the crisis has largely become unignorable due to the press coverage of Aylan Kurdi, a Syrian toddler found drowned on a beach. The coverage of the tragedy is one of those incredibly rare moments where a single photograph can seemingly shift the entire public discourse.

31 Hours in Bangkok, Part Two

Part 2 of the sojourn in Bangkok.

31 Hours in Bangkok, Part One

I recently had some friends visit from England, and despite my better judgement I decided to travel down and greet them on arrival Bangkok. Here's how it went down.

The crack of dawn.

Game of Thrones, Season Five Finale

So. Season Five of Game of Thrones wrapped up on Sunday. I'll be sharing my thoughts on the episode and season five here, so naturally ***SPOILERS***

Premier League Autopsy (Part 2)

After a wrap-up last time of Man United's season, now it's time to turn my incisive footballing knowledge (read: scattered assortment of ramblings) to the other highs and lows of the 2014-2015 season.

"Another Wall Ruined" - In Praise of Witty Graffiti

Who doesn't love a bit of subversive graffiti? Well, besides the Daily Mail of course. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of six foot tags that barely legibly say EGGZY WAZ HERE, but a subversive bit of humour in an unexpected place is a reminder that life isn't always the predictably dull experience we often come to expect. It's a reclaiming of the public space where we replace the drab with something humorous. With that in mind, I'd like to present a round-up of some of the funniest scrawlings I've found around the inter webs.

Sage advice.

Watch This: Song of the Sea

Back to School

Recently we had our first week back at school for Thailand. We often think about what going back to school is like for kids, but I wanted to write a little about what it's like on the other side of the divide and give a teacher's perspective.

Stevie G-sus Christ, Enough Already

Steven Gerrard recently played his last game for Liverpool at Anfield. Given the general level of fawning adulation and lack of proportionality, I thought I'd give my own more cynical interpretation.

(Full disclosure, I'm a not entirely unbiased Manchester United fan)

Selected Satirical Stuff

You've probably gathered this after my recent write-up on the Bugle, but I'm a huge fan of satirical comedy. Besides being bloody funny, I find it soothes the frustration that you feel when you look at the massive amounts of dickery going on in the world. If you can't change it, you can at least laugh at it. In no particular order, I'd like to share some of my favourite satirical spots around the web.

Privilege, or Why White People Don't Need A Helping Hand

There was recently a story about a Hispanic owned restaurant that was hosting a White Appreciation Day for its more Caucasian customers.

For you, my friend, it's on the house.

General Election Blues

Oh dear. What a bloody mess that was.

The Bugle - Good Pod Almighty

In this post I'm going to be writing about perhaps my favourite podcast: The Bugle.

UKIP Are Awful (5th May)

Well, well. Sisters, misters, brothers, and mothers...we're almost there. I've not got a particular bee in my bonnet today; instead I'll be reflecting on the the UKIP General Election campaign, seeing as we're now only a few days away from the end.

UKIP Are Awful (1st May)

Hilarious news came out recently that UKIP have asked the police to investigate the BBC over comments made on a satirical panel show. It seems that they literally can't take a joke, and want actual policeman to take actual time out of their day solving actual crimes to look at a sarcastic remark made on a BBC comedy show. 

UKIP Are Awful (30th April)

Hello again, and welcome again to the cesspit of moral and ethical death that is UKIP Are Awful. Yesterday, "Man Of The People ©" Nigel Farage launched what was tastefully referred to as the Christian Manifesto. Because, yes white people, Christianity is under attack! I mean, there are no actual limitations and restrictions on worship, but still! PANIC!

"But how will I be able to watch Songs of Praise if the Communist Muslims at the BBC take it off the air?!"

Attempting to right a wrong that doesn't actually exist, UKIP launched a mini-manifesto specifically of policies aimed at Christians. Now a cynical person might call this pandering, but Nige knows better. He laments: "Sadly, I think UKIP is the only major political party left in Britain that still cherishes our Judaeo-Christian heritage". Of course, at this early stage we already see what the true aim of the manifesto is all about. Judeo-Christian? Because he wants to celebrate the Jewish contribution to British society and acknowledge the active and complicit anti-semitism targeted at the Jewish community going back centuries? Of bloody course not. The whole point of the manifesto seems to be "Don't worry, we'll stand up to the Muzzies!"

A most unfortunate coincidence.

Of course, it's not just Muslims who threaten Britain's future; there are also the homosexuals. "Traditional Christian views of marriage and family life have come under attack of late" Nige thunders, seemingly unaware that Christians are still perfectly free to marry in as Christianly a manner as they wish. Again, we return to the awkward truth that Christians and Christian views aren't being unfairly persecuted in Britain, merely that wider society itself is caring less and less about outdated religious dogma. The implicit message when defending 'traditional' marriage is actually "Don't worry, we'll stand up to the gays!", though presumably UKIPers reserve some of their ire for single parents also. After all, how dare we move away from "traditional Christian views of marriage", which presumably covers stoning wives who aren't virgins, or forcing unmarried rape victims to marry their rapist.

The issue of gay marriage is one that UKIP ties itself in knots over. Of course, they were actively opposed to the change in law which allowed for gay marriage: 

But then, in the very next sentence they go on to say:

No "buts", you were doing so well!

Which is basically their way of telling bigots/potential UKIP voters: "Look, we don't like gays getting married, and we're clear on that. You can trust us. We're 100% against it. But, seeing as it's 2015 and most of the British public don't have a problem with two loving adults being married, we can't really reverse it".

In perhaps the most obviously disgusting bit of small-mindedness in the entire document, UKIP go on to promise an extension of "reasonable accommodation" for those "expressing a religious conscience in the workplace".

Now, here UKIP have obviously been paying attention to the fabulously successful and totally uncontroversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act. They're basically saying that if you happen to be, say, a Christian, and you happen to, for example, be asked to bake a cake for a gay person, you could, theoretically, tell them to get out and never come back because their lifestyle is an ungodly abomination. Hooray! Of course legally allowing such discrimination would never stand up in British or European courts, which perhaps explains why the outline for such legislation is so atomically thin.

Look, here's the rub. Yes, a majority of people in Britain are technically Christians. But the current number is down 12% since the last census (over a space of ten years!), whilst those reporting no religion saw a 10% increase. And those are just results that people have self-reported; an older source shows that only 1 in 10 British people actually go to Church every week. The number now is likely to be even lower. The overwhelming fact is this: Britain is no longer currently a Christian nation. And that's a good thing. We're more diverse, rational, and scientifically literate than we have been at any time in our history. You can't tell the hetrosexual members of the Great British public that gay marriage is a threat because it harms Christian values, when many actual voters know one or two gay people and actually think they're decent human beings who deserve the same rights.

OH THE HUMANITY! WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN!

There are many sad things that come to mind when reading this manifesto. Perhaps the saddest thing is, they almost got it right! Right there near the start of their policy pledges:

Indeed they are. And that's why Christianity shouldn't specifically be promoted above all other beliefs (or non-beliefs). 

Chiang Mai Football Club (Part 3/3)

In my final post about Chiang Mai FC, I'm going to talk about the elephant in the room...the actual football.

Chiang Mai Football Club (Part 2/3)

Last time, I wrote about 700 Year Stadium, the unique home of Chiang Mai F.C.

Today, I'll be writing about the fans.

Leading the cheers.

Chiang Mai Football Club (Part 1/3)

Over the next three posts, I'll be sharing my appreciation and love for my adopted football team- the mighty Chiang Mai Football Club. This first post will be about their home ground, 700 Year Stadium. 

Thailand vs. North Korea, 2012

British vs American English

Shots fired, I repeat, shots fired!

Reading this article on Ajarn.com the other day got me thinking about British English and American English. Of course it's something we don't normally consider when we're at home and surrounded by people who speak exactly the same way as us, but it's something that you're constantly aware of when you live abroad (especially so when you're an English teacher). As soon as you open your mouth- or attempt to write something on a whiteboard, you instantly mark yourself out. Of course this can be true at home (whenever I went to Manchester, I always felt like a bit of an imposter), but when you're abroad the attention is magnified. After all, accents can play a big part in how people perceive us.

UKIP Are Awful (18th April)

With the UK General Election just a few short weeks away, there's been more and more press coverage of the UK Independence Party, and their leader Nigel Farage.

He looks exactly what you'd expect a man named Nigel would look like.

Now I don't want to waste all my ammunition on Nige and UKIP; after all, I anticipate that there will be many more editions of UKIP Are Awful before the election on 7th May. However, for the uninitiated...

Proust Questionnaire (Part 2 - Truth)

In my last post I talked about the Proust questionnaire, and how for the first question I decided that my favorite virtues were compassion and truth. For what it's worth, here are some thoughts on truth, and the relationship between truth and honesty. Incidentally, I wrote this earlier in the day when I was far less frazzled, so I hope it's slightly more readable than the last post...

Proust Questionnaire (Part 1 - Compassion)

Forgive me if this is a little rambling and self-indulgent (what's new, amIright?!), but it's 4 in the morning, I can't sleep, and I felt a burning need to write something. Without further ado:

Oh Proust, you old cad.

I recently bumped into the famous Proust questionnaire online, in which the renowned author famously answered some questions about his thoughts and beliefs. I got bogged down in the first question: "Your favourite virtue"? After a little introspection, I came up with two joint favorites; compassion and truth. Here, I'm going to write about compassion.

Songkran

Songkran has been and gone for another year, as three days of water based madness come to an end. 

To the unfamiliar, Songkran is a holiday celebrating the Thai new year (and also lines up with Buddhist new years in other countries too). In the olden days, it was traditional to pour water on people to absolve them of sin committed in the previous year. 

As you may have gathered, this nugget of tradition has transmuted itself into an annual watery riot from 13th-15th April. The undisputed centre of festivities is the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, where the central moat around the old city becomes the focal point for all forms of liquid-based frivolity. 

Pro-tip: Always aim at trucks. They're like getting five or six birds with one stone.

In my humble opinion, Songkran acts in much the same way as The Purge; it's a limited-time opportunity for people to go crazy, let off some steam, break normal rules and taboos and have a bloody good time doing so. You want to douse a policeman? You want to crack open a Chang tower at noon? You're a guy who doesn't feel like wearing a shirt, or a lady who wants to wear an outfit revealing your shoulders (both ordinarily scandalous)? You want to drive a pick-up truck full of your friends after drinking a bottle of whisky? Sure, sure, sure, and (sadly) sure. Drink driving aside, Songkran remains a fantastic occasion and one of the highlights of the year for many people.


With that in mind, here's a check-list of some of the sights, sounds, and other assorted assaults on the senses that you might find at Songkran next year:

☐ Slag wagons/hunk trucks: never ones to miss an opportunity for exploitative advertising, many of the country's top brands have branded pick-up trucks drive around the moat with scantily clad models perched precariously on top. These inevitably attract a great deal of attention, and watery ammunition.

☐ The look of pure evil on a little girl's face: Of all the people playing with water at Songkran, I swear that little girls are the most conivingly evil souls of all. There was one little girl this year (probably no older than 7) who hit me with an ice cold bucket, laughed as I cleared my eyes, and then hit me with a second bucket whilst cackling. Beware! 

☐ The bro-tastic foreigner who takes things too far: He's got a super-soaker, and he's aiming directly for the eyes. Impervious to the confused, disapproving looks of those around him, he's rather missed the point of a playful water fight. I'd love to do a cautionary PSA for this next year: Don't be a bro, aim for the torso.


☐ Go-Pro douche: a slight variant on the above bro, this one has fitted a $200 camera onto his $3 water gun. It'll no doubt make a great segment in the compilation video of his "Amazing Gap Year". I definitely saw at least three of these guys (and they were all guys), though there were probably many more. As you can probably tell, though I hate this kind of person I'd also really like to have their camera too. I suppose I'm part of the problem here.

☐ The middle-aged tourist who had no idea it'd be this crazy: typically Chinese, but occasionally farang, this person wanders around in far-too-nice clothes with a dazed, shell-shocked expression on their face. They had heard what Songkran was about, but sadly they hadn't quite prepared themselves for the more modern experience of throbbing techno and wall-to-wall watery carnage.

☐ Free Red Bulls: We came upon a truck with people dispensing free little bottles of Red Bull. Sure, they only cost 10 Baht, and we could have easily just walked into 7/11 and bought one, but these were free, dammit. We joined a crowd of about 20 people following the truck, with arms outstretched like starving refugees or zombies hunting for braaaaaaiiiiins.

☐ Corporate stages: a slight variation of the aforementioned slag wagon/hunk truck, these huge corporate stages pump out awful electronic music at volumes loud enough to vibrate the windows of the car next to you. In these situations, the sartorially challenged sexy people are typically manning hoses. They share the stage with a DJ and a man who's probably on steroids imploring the crowd to once more "PUT CHA HANDS UP!". It is unclear how long this has been going on for by the time you arrive, but it's probably several hours.

Pictures lovingly swiped from BBC and Wikipedia, all depicting Songkran in Chiang Mai.

So, that was part of my Songkran. I like to be snarky and cynical, but it really was a fantasticly joyous event. If you haven't yet been, I implore you to come- you won't regret it. See you next year!

Kiva - Making things slightly less awful, $25 at a time

Hello again! 

I originally posted this on my old Tumblr blog, but neglected to transfer it over. I decided to post it here because I got an email the other day updating me about the loan I made to a Palestinian guy (a picture of him is in the post below). His loan was funded, and he made his first repayment of 70¢. It was a timely reminder of how important the loans can be to people, regardless of the amount borrowed or repaid. 

The problem with 'beauty' (and Dove)

Dove recently launched the latest in their campaign of patronising messages designed to advertise/flog flog their products.

In this particular piece of tawdry crap, they label two doorways into a building with "Beautiful" and "Average". They film women choosing a particular doorway and then interview them about why they chose it. The message (supposedly) is that 'beautiful' is simply a state of mind that women can choose...and therefore they should buy Dove products? It's a mind-blowingly annoying advert, for a number of reasons.

At the risk of mansplaining and missing the point, I can't help but feel that this is a toxic conception of beauty; not least because it's linked to selling beauty products to people who might at some level feel that doing so would improve their self-worth somehow. I mean, at the very least, I'd argue it's exploitative to co-opt a message of empowerment and self-respect in order to flog your skin moisturiser. I mean, look at this sponsored piece of feel-good crap:

Which is a lovely message (though misguided, as I'll argue later). It would be an even lovelier message if Dove weren't owned by Unilever, who also own Axe. You know, the company which makes adverts like this:

and perpetuates misogynistic attitudes like this:

I'd include more examples, but I'm starting to feel slightly disgusting.

Anyway, besides the ridiculousness of Dove's advertising, I feel that the idea of 'beauty' is something which is equally damaging. The fact is that no matter what culture we happen to be living in, there are certain ideals of beauty. 'Beauty' in these cultural terms is judged on outward physical appearance (so in Western societies, being skinny, tanned, long hair). It's something we should be wary when using because it's an exclusionary term. In defining what is seen as 'beautiful' we are also saying what is not. Too often, I feel that we use the phrase 'beautiful' when it's in fact being patronising or applied incorrectly.

The conception of beauty (of course) takes many different forms in many different places. For example, here in Thailand white skin is seen as a beauty ideal. Obviously, because of racial connotations it's something that makes Westerners feel uncomfortable, but that's beside the point. All over the country there are clinics that will whiten your skin for you, and there are of course many creams and products you can buy in stores that will lighten your skin tone. I would argue that this demonstrates the harmful concept of beauty; by saying that light coloured skin is beautiful (and promoting it as a cultural norm), you're implicitly stating that those with darker coloured skin are non-beautiful. How would this feel if you fell into the latter category?

Now, what some people attempt to do is to reclaim the word 'beauty' (as Dove are claiming to do in their advert), and point out that beauty is merely a word. If you choose to be beautiful then you are. Your height, weight, skin-tone, hair etc doesn't matter, so long as you feel beautiful and seize the label. Now that's all very well, but I feel that it's perpetuating a falsehood- beauty is subjective, yes. Absolutely. But it's a concept which is created by society, and attempting to subvert the label by claiming it will not change the wider social perception of beauty. In any case, we're chasing something that might never be reachable.

(see, by trying to promote curviness and reclaiming it as a beautiful/desirable trait, we're also skinny-shaming petite women)

In any case, beauty is not only a construct of society, but it's influenced by media and the 'beauty industry'. Every day, we see messages which reinforce a single (or at least, incredibly limited) conception of what is beautiful or what is not. And yet, when we resist these attempts to subvert our opinion, we still do it on their terms- by trying to claim the word 'beauty'.

Now I'm going to get all sincere/idealistic here, but what I would like to see is a world that doesn't try to change the mainstream conceptions of what is considered 'beautiful', but instead rejects it altogether. Screw 'beauty'! Screw trying to change your appearance into something that is not you. Screw trying to broaden a prescriptive and discriminatory term. Screw the 'beauty' industry, which profiteers from telling women that are somehow not good enough.

I have little constructive to say here, but since I'm on my soapbox anyway: forget being 'beautiful'- be something better. Be fierce. Be strong. Be vivacious, intriguing, amusing. Be something that cannot be commodified and sold by the bottle. Be as true an embodiment of yourself as you can.

Most importantly though, be somebody who doesn't buy Dove.

The Wire (Part Two)

Welcome!

Part two of some reflections about The Wire. Again, there'll be plenty of spoilers. If you haven't seen the show yet (like I had), I'd highly recommend getting around to it ASAP!

The Wire (Part One)

Seeing as how I spent most of the last post snidely complaining about something terrible that I watched, I thought that this time I would instead write about something that was pretty great. 

I recently finished watching The Wire. Yes, I know I'm about 10 years behind the time- but I was about 13 when the show first aired, back in the dark and distant days where HBO was something the average British person hadn't heard of, and if you were lucky you could download the latest Red Hot Chili Peppers song from Limewire in a mere single hour. What I'm trying to say is that watching/downloading the latest American TV shows was just not possible, so it was pretty much The Bill or nothing. However, I'd always been interested in watching it after seeing it crop up on various Best TV Shows of the 00's lists and being lavished with praise by critics, so whilst my Mrs was on a three-week vacation to the States, I decided to occupy my evenings (and occasionally mornings and afternoons) with watching all five season of The Wire.

Fast & Furious 7

A few selected thoughts. Spoilers, but who are we kidding...the story doesn't matter anyway.

Books, iceburgs, and the meaning of blue curtains

Have you ever read something incredibly and profoundly dumb that you felt obliged to say "NO" out loud to your monitor? I saw this floating around a few months back:

Here's the thing though...your English teacher was probably right! 

Thailand, England, Crabs, and Cricket

Thailand is a wonderful place to live. I often take it for granted, or fail to appreciate the good fortune that plonked me here. Every so often though, I'll have a small and often unexpected experience which will make me realise how thankful I am to be here.

For example, yesterday I was riding my motorbike on my way to get some dinner. Dusk had fallen, and I was driving through a nearby university as a shortcut. The roads were dimly lit, and I was mostly guided by the faint glow of my headlight. As I pulled round a bend I noticed a small black object in the road; slightly larger than a tennis ball. I couldn't make out what it was, but I was certain it was a live animal; I could just about make out some spindly legs and could see it inching across to the other side of the street. So I passed it before turning around for a closer inspection, my curiosity piqued. This was too slow and steady to be a rat, too fat to be a spider, and too short to be a lizard. 

It was a crab.

Meninism...just no.

Ugh. Sit down, guys. We need to talk.

It's this whole meninism/Men's Rights Activists thing. How can I put it? At the very least, I'll say it's silly and embarrassing.
 
Stupid as it is, it seems like the whole MRA movement in general is growing. I recently read a good (if slightly lengthy) article challenging some of the preconceptions and ideas held by meninists, and it served to remind me just how much this sort of mentality needs to be challenged. 

Decisions, Decisions

(picture borrowed from here)

Here's an interesting article about behaviour, choice, and inertia in human decision making. We’ve all been there. Maybe you were in line at Starbucks, or trying to choose a new phone plan. For me, I faced the problem of choice when I went shopping for cereal when I lived in the States a few years back. You’re confronted by an entire aisle (sometimes more) just for cereal, and you think…does anybody need this much choice? I mean seriously, with their being so much hunger and poverty in the world, how many varieties of corn flakes does the average Western consumer need? Or Cheez-its, for that matter. Now don’t get me wrong, I love me some Cheez-its. All day, son. They’re a solid, incredibly unhealthy yet satisfying junk food. But the last time I looked on the box, I noticed there were almost a dozen different varieties! And for what? 

Trevor Noah

So, it's just been confirmed that Trevor Noah is going to be the new host of the Daily Show, and in all the midst of the #whothefuckistrevornoah idiocy that's already reared it's head, I've got to say it's not that bad of a choice.

“Kids today…”

“Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers.”

Ah, yes. The youth of today. Vain, badly mannered, and utterly feckless. Of course, a lot of you will probably recognise this as a quote attributed to…Socrates. Also known as the clever guy in the bed-sheet, who died almost two and half millennia ago. These attitudes are nothing new, but they continue unabated today.