SheBah

2007-08-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

Food for thought

Just thought I'd share this with you!

"Beijing's penis emporium by By Andrew Harding, BBC News, Beijing

There are many thousands of Chinese restaurants around in the UK and everyone has their favourite dish, but only in China itself do chefs specialise in a range of slightly more unusual delicacies.
Many of the restaurant's guests are wealthy businessmen
The dish in front of me is grey and shiny.
"Russian dog," says my waitress Nancy.
"Big dog," I reply.
"Yes," she says. "Big dog's penis..."
We are in a cosy restaurant in a dark street in Beijing but my appetite seems to have gone for a stroll outside.
Nancy has brought out a whole selection of delicacies.
They are draped awkwardly across a huge platter, with a crocodile carved out of a carrot as the centrepiece.
Nestling beside the dog's penis are its clammy testicles, and beside that a giant salami-shaped object.
"Donkey," says Nancy. "Good for the skin..."
She guides me round the penis platter.
"Snake. Very potent. They have two penises each."
I did not know that.
Deer-blood cocktail
"Sheep... horse... ox... seal - excellent for the circulation."
She points to three dark, shrivelled lumps which look like liquorice allsorts - a special treat apparently - reindeer, from Manchuria.
Government officials... two of them... they're having the penis hotpot
The Guolizhuang restaurant claims to be China's only speciality penis emporium, and no, it is not a joke.
The atmosphere is more exotic spa than boozy night-out.
Nancy describes herself as a nutritionist. "Not long ago, a particularly rich real estate mogul came in with four friends. All men. Women don't come here so often, and they shouldn't eat testicles," says Nancy solemnly.
The men spent $5,700 (£3,000) on a particularly rare dish, something that needed to be ordered months in advance.
"Tiger penis," says Nancy.
Bull's perineum is also a delicacy
The illegal trade in tiger parts is a big problem in China.
Campaigners say the species is being driven towards extinction because of its popularity as a source of traditional medicine.
I mention this, delicately, to Nancy, but she insists that all her tiger supplies come from animals that have died of old age.
"Anyway, we only have one or two orders a year," she says.
"So what does it taste like?" I ask.
"Oh, the same as all the others," she says blithely.
And does it have any particular potency? "No. People just like to order tiger to show off how much money they have."
Welcome to the People's Republic of China - tigers beware.
Sliced and pickled
"Oh yes," she adds, "the same group also ate an aborted reindeer foetus.
"That is very good for your skin. And here it is..."
Another "nutritionist" walks in bearing something small and red wrapped in cling film.
My appetite is heading for the airport.
Still, I think, it would be rude not to try something. I am normally OK about this sort of thing. I have had fried cockroaches and sheep's eyes, so...
There is a small bowl of sliced and pickled ox penis on the table.
I pick up a piece with my chopsticks and start to chew. It is cold and bland and rubbery.
Nancy gives me a matronly smile.
"This one," she says, "should be eaten every day."

2007-04-11T08:56:00.000-07:00

Balls!

I am living with a man who is obsessed with balls. Cricket balls, footballs, tennis balls, golf balls, snooker balls. When he’s not out playing with balls with his mates, he’s watching anything with a ball on TV. Jeez. For an otherwise very intelligent human being I’m astonished at his total concentration on such asinine stuff. He was incommunicado for days last week when the Masters was on - he spent about five, FIVE hours in front of the TV on Sunday watching adult men hitting small balls into holes. And yelling with glee when they got one in in less than the recommended number of hits. I ask ya, is that sane? The house could have burned down and he wouldn’t have noticed. What is it with men and sports?

2007-03-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

God's own second best country.

I have just returned from a trip to Australia. It's somewhere I have never wanted to visit as I figured there are so many Aussies in London, there must be something wrong with their own country that makes them want to leave it at the first opportunity. Having at first been a bit snooty about "parochial" Aus, it grew and grew on me and the beaches at Jervis Bay are the finest talcum powder white in the world, Robinson Crusoe land. God's own second country (after England, naturally!). There were green and red parrots in the beachside trees, and little grey kangaroos on some of the beaches - exotic or what? And a new drink - lemon, lime and bitters - cool! The beer was pretty bad though, perhaps that's why the locals leave!

2007-03-07T06:14:00.000-08:00

Wet Rooms

Whoever invented wet rooms should be shot at dawn. What is nice about getting out of a nice hot shower and standing on wet floors? Horrible! Give me an old fashioned ordinary shower, either freestanding or in a bath where I can step out onto a nice, fat, fluffy bath mat. Communal wet rooms in gyms are even worse - instant foot rot. Sheer misery. Ugh!

2006-10-12T08:14:00.000-07:00

Bush Meat - Not for veggies

Sheep's head meat from Iran, dried pork pot noodles from Japan and yoghurt balls from Lebanon. These are just some of the illegal culinary delights seized by environmental health officers in recent months.
Councillor Will Brooks, cabinet member for environment and transport, said: "Sheep's head meat from Iran may be a delicacy for some, but it's illegal to bring it into the country for consumption on British dinner tables.
Many specialty shops may not know they are breaking the law by bringing in food from countries outside the EU to provide their customers with a taste of home.
Despite border controls, some illegal imports find their way onto the shelves as a result of deliberate smuggling.

Har, har – bush tucker, anyone?

2006-09-27T02:37:00.000-07:00

Pause for thought

I read blogs for fun and diversion, and it is mostly flippant comments and clever ways with words that provide lots of laughs and keep me coming back for more. Dr Maroon, Fatmammycat and Gorilla Bananas regularly make me laugh out loud with their unique slants on life. The Blunt Cogs crew feel almost like family, and the clever posts of Randall, Dr. Jo McC, Stephenesque and SamPCB are always a joy to read.

I have recently come to realise what a terrific support system having a “virtual” circle of friends can be. On Kim Ayres blog, he was lately talking of his problems with depression, and the sheer kindness and support from other bloggers was humbling. Many had themselves experienced the “black cloud” and were able to offer support and encouragement, and to share their own bad moments. And Binty’s recent post about male rape has given me pause for thought. I didn’t really take it seriously until I asked a group of male friends about it, and after the usual jokey asides, a few of them had some experience of women as predators when they were teenagers. They admitted they were too embarrassed to discuss it with anyone at the time, as they did not want to be considered a wuss. One said he kept quiet because it was a family friend. I was shocked. For teenage girls, the randy uncle/older brother or dad of neighbour, the parents’ friend driving you home after babysitting his kid, are all hazards a teenage girls contends with – and keeps silent about in order to keep family friendships intact; and because girls share these experiences, they are perhaps better prepared to defend themselves against the creeps. Boys don’t have the same support – if they want to be considered macho, the attitude seems to be sex anyway you get it is the goods. However, I can think of nothing more disgusting than being intimate with somebody I don’t want to be intimate with, and I can see how it could colour a person’s experience of something that should be beautiful and memorable. We all remember our first sexual experiences, and for the majority of us it is with a stomach tumbling, bittersweet joy for a younger, innocent self and a past that can never be retrieved.

2006-08-23T04:33:00.000-07:00

Something old, something new....

I have discovered the love interest is good with wood! He is bustling about, replacing panels in doors, sawing bits off things and generally being a carpenter. I like it!
We spent the weekend trawling through architectural salvage yards looking for a Victorian door, and discovered that there are no two doors the same size, so when we found something suitable, bits had to be sawn off to make it fit. Isn’t it funny that what one generation regard as unspeakably naff is the absolute epitome of fashion to the next. We are busy restoring what the previous lot removed – doors, fireplaces, floorboards, windows – and it costs serious dosh to put back what was there before and thrown out in a skip. We can’t understand why anyone would get rid of Victorian box sash windows, fireplaces, nice doors and replace them with aluminium etc. but I can imagine they probably thought their choices were much better. Vive le difference. Anyway, I am over the top delighted with some new shelves the love interest put up – I now have all my books out of boxes and visible again. It was like discovering old friends again. The love interest thinks my delighted reaction to his carpentry efforts is totally out of proportion. “Just a few shelves”. DIY is a whole new language to me. I am fast becoming an expert on vintage knobs and knockers, rather than vintage lace and silk.

2006-07-28T02:35:00.000-07:00

Builder Bums

The house we have moved to is a “fixer upper”. We decided to make the bathroom our first job – big mistake! The love interest fell for the patter of a very slick Sikh builder who gave us a medium quote. He promised the bathroom would be replaced in seven days, and only one of those days would be without a shower and loo! Ha! 16 days later and the main builder went home to India yesterday – for a month’s vacation, and his mate disappeared with him. The mate couldn’t speak any English, only Punjabi, and he was the hard worker, with the slick Sikh giving the orders. They fortunately left the old loo connected, but no shower, bath or basin, and cold water only in the kitchen. No electrics either, as they removed the fittings in preparation for the new downlighters. They have also left all their tools – are they expecting us to wait a month til they return? The love interest has also paid them two thirds of the money, as he is a trusting, easy going type of chap, but only about a third of the work is done. So we are falling on the mercy of friends for showering facilities, plus the local tennis and golf clubs, as the love interest needs several showers a day in this humid weather. At least I am in an air conditioned office!

If this is our very first experience with builders, how are we going to cope with the rest. We need new windows, new floors, new kitchen, doors moved, new cloakroom, new shower room off the bedroom, electrics – dystopia looms! And I thought this was going to be fun! I said so! I got the love interest all enthused when we viewed this place! It’s all my fault. Builders are the pits.

2006-07-10T03:08:00.000-07:00

I moved last Friday, to a smaller place and my sense of displacement is horrendous. Everything has a slightly surreal feel to it, like my brain is filled with cotton wool. None of the furniture fits the new place, as we have an eclectic ragbag of junk shop finds and inherited bits, all of which will have to go as they are too large for the space. IKEA here we come!
There are packing boxes everywhere, filled with goodness knows what, but mostly stuff the love interest can’t throw out. Who needs five tennis racquets, three golf club sets? What is it with us humans that we need to surround ourselves with clutter.
On the plus side our new neighbours invited us in for a drink and they seem like nice potential friends, – everything else is minus at present, it’s like living a nightmare. I have always liked change, and I guess in a few weeks everything will be fine, but my old rut was just far too comfortable.

2006-06-28T03:45:00.000-07:00

Erotic Dreams

I had the most unspeakably erotic dream last night, involving someone I work with. He is much older than me, very formal, very married and, when awake, someone I would not fancy in a million years. Yet last night in my dream we had a very passionate fling – it’s amazing how creative one can be in dreams - so much so that when I saw him this morning I actually blushed, as though there was some way he might have detected my brainwaves! Is it possible that there are parallel universes where we have other lives? He has been looking at me a bit funny this morning

2006-06-06T04:01:00.000-07:00

Serendipity!

Have you ever had one of those days when everything goes right? You are used to endless hassle and inconvenience every day, whether on the tube, in the supermarket, the banks 'endless options' phone system or some tosser cutting you up in traffic to gain an extra kilometre of road. Then, a different day - you get a cheque in the post, a good job offer and effortlessly exchange contracts on a new pad, with NO hitches! And the sun is shining! Isn't life bloody marvellous sometimes!

2006-05-24T01:45:00.000-07:00

Inspiration limited

I always thought having a weekly column on a newspaper would be a nice cushy number, but I have changed my mind. I now have the greatest admiration for anyone who can produce topical, well written interesting pieces on a regular basis without losing momentum. Blogs have changed my mind. I can see fellow bloggers with real talent struggling to meet expectations and giving up the ghost when they feel they are falling short of their previous high standard. Commenting is so much easier than writing a blog piece. I have to take my hat off to bloggers like Gorilla Bananas who writes great pieces and never seem to lose momentum.

2006-04-28T02:48:00.000-07:00

Movie Clichés

Before I go to a movie now, I ask

A) Does it have car/motorbike/boat/plane chase in it?"

B) Does it have a heroine/hero living in a house in the wilds, who is being chased by some baddie, hears noises in the middle of the night, turns on lights and goes OUTSIDE, leaving the doors open, to investigate?

I hate movie clichés. It fair does me head in, so it does!

We have become used to lots of fast furious action, special effects and gadgetry in our theatre, movies and tv, to the extent that we find it difficult to watch something where we have to concentrate on nuances to elicit enjoyment. I do like gadgetry, but I expect it to work first time! I watched a James Bond movie on tv the other night (the one with Halle Berry) and with all the state of the art equipment Bond kept shooting the same baddie over and over and missing – if the gadgetry is that technologically perfect why didn’t it work first time, eh? I guess it would make the movie shorter! (My lust interest thinks I'm a total philistine!)

If Shakespeare, Dickens, Beckett were submitting their work to-day, I don’t believe they would get published, without sticking in all the clichés to make the work “marketable”, if indeed at all.

2006-04-26T04:37:00.000-07:00

Ageing disgracefully

Over at Andraste (http://horsesasspub.blogspot.com/) she talks about ageing gracefully. No, no, no! I believe we should age as disgracefully as possible. Not for me genteel acceptance of crinkles, wrinkles, grey hair, grey clothes, rocking chairs and walking frames. I want to paraglide when I’m 80. I want to wear satin, bright colours, silly shoes, lipstick, perfume and mascara – and if I ever have to get a walking frame, I want it to be a Ferrari designer brand. (Hey, there’s a gap in the market there!). I want every cream, pill, potion and surgical help available to delay the inevitable – I want spare part surgery to replace the failing bits – there is nothing more beautiful than a well kept vintage Rolls Royce! I want to max out my credit cards on luxury and die owing millions!

2006-04-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

Evocative Smells

More than any of my other senses, smells can conjure up a whole chunk of the past. My whole Dublin childhood is a history of smells.
The smell of pencil shavings, and new text books takes me right back to junior school.
The smell of the perfume ‘Poison’ is one of my mother’s do gooder friends, a right old interfering harridan who always shopped me to my parents. (Where I lived as a child everybody knew everybody else and gossiped, which is why I love the anonymity of London)
The smell of cowslips zooms me right pack to picnics with my parents when a very small child, in the pine forest area in the Dublin mountains where my father brewed smoky tea on a makeshift barbecue. No booze, just cups of tea with barbeque – makes me laugh now. The smell of fresh tar is school holidays; roses takes me back to white dresses at the local church May processions. The resiny smell of pine trees and the scent of lilies, that most popular of flower, always remind me of Irish wakes and funerals. And nicest of all, leather and horse manure - the local stables, and riding at my grandfather's farm. I can be walking along a London street and get a whiff of something that transports me back in time to 7 years old.

2006-04-13T09:25:00.000-07:00

The Man, the Chief, The Maestro

"The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new."

Ahhhh, the wonderful Samuel Beckett .........he knew how to say it in the fewest words.

2006-04-07T04:38:00.000-07:00

Cut to the chase

This is going to be a serious post and maybe a bit of a rant. First I’m giving you a bit of background.
It’s virtually impossible to make a living as an artist. There are thousands of talented artists who will end up doing it only as a hobby, or horror, teaching. If a painting is on sale in a gallery for, say £3000, when sold the artist gets about 40 or 50%. It may have taken anything from two months to a year to produce the piece – so most of us do all sorts of odd jobs to make a living, while producing work to show in the hope that one day we too will be like Lucien Freud. As well as sometimes being fun and glamorous, the art world is harsh and hard, lots of nepotism and sometimes lots of undeserved success to the untalented by virtue of the right connections. Anyway, that’s the background. (And maybe another post one day!)

I have done lots of different jobs, bar work, restaurant work, but the most lucrative, and the most boring, is office work – which I am doing at present and I have been in this job for several months. I have become very fond of some of my colleagues. Now for the serious part.

One of my colleagues has just been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. It is apparently one of the worst you can get, with a 2% survival rate after one year. He is being offered little help from the medics other than palliative care, as current treatments are not only expensive but have uncertain survival rates. I have been helping him trawl the internet for every scrap of information available and have come with up with some potentially very exciting new treatments and trials, in France, Italy, and America – the American one is having a 90% success rate with previously hopeless and inoperable pancreatic cancer cases - and the more I look the more stuff I find. All seem to provide part solutions, so a combination of several could not only provide increased lifespan, but perhaps a cure.
I find it enormously frustrating that all these disparate researchers can’t get their information and treatments in a central base for the greater good of mankind – instead of which each one wants to be THE person to get the credit, to get the most cash from a drug company, to get the Nobel or whatever. I do know similar things occur in all aspects of medicine, and in the cosmeceuticals industry, but surely for dread diseases they could cut out the shit and pool their research. They could still get recognition for their individual efforts. I realise that I would stop at nothing to get through all this red tape if it meant a chance for one of my loved ones. Rant over!

UPDATE:

He has had the first stage, i.e. they have put "markers" (proper name is something like fiducals?) into the area, he goes back to San Francisco this weekend for next stage - the actual cyber or gamma knife which is a robotic device that zaps the tumours. He was a very large bloke last August, but is now losing weight steadily, has lost about 40 kilos in total, which would be a good thing if it wasn't through illness. Everybody keeps telling him how well he looks with the weight loss, if only they knew. I am keeping all my fingers crossed, but I think at this stage he needs a miracle.

2006-04-03T04:42:00.000-07:00

Officials with Clipboards

Doorbell rang early Saturday morning, am not at my best in the mornings, and especially not Saturdays, so rather rattily answered the door. An official looking gent with clipboard. After verifying my name as lawful occupant, he said that a new rail link for the Olympic games would be running directly beneath my street and it would be necessary for me to vacate my property within 24 hours as an engineer and workman would be arriving first thing Monday morning to remove floorboards and do some drilling into the soil beneath my property. I naturally went slightly ballistic, and had a big rant and rave as he droned on about officially informing me etc. etc. He then pushed his clipboard under my nose and to sign a document. Just above the signature space was the message in large green letters “Jessica wishes you Happy 1st April”……………………I’m gonna kill her.

2006-03-29T02:45:00.000-08:00

Hiccups of fate - words with resonance

Sometimes I read something that seems so apt to life at a particular time.

"Little things--the tiniest things--could catapult you towards a good life, but you had to be open and you had to be paying attention. Love wasn't purely destined, it relied on hiccups of fate." -- "A Black Dog," by Davy Rothbart

2006-03-24T03:15:00.000-08:00

Bi-Polar Bargain Hunter

I love luxury big time – posh food, designer clothes etc. but I hate to pay full retail price for anything – so have partly inherited a thrift gene. I say partly, because the swing from thrift to major extravagance is a finely balanced tightrope. I am first in the queue at designer sales and at factory outlets, looking for that great undiscovered bargain. I can’t resist the “Two for the price of one” items in my local supermarket, though I usually have to chuck the second one out as it’s gone off. I have great bargains hanging unworn in my wardrobe, unwearable but beautiful shoes still in their box. Every so often I have a massive clear out and then start all over again.

In my student days I scoured car boot sales and charity shops for exciting finds and still do it occasionally, but it’s not so much fun since Oxfam took the pleasure out of it by having a designer rail. After a week or so of this thrifty shopping, I’ll then go completely to the other extreme and shell out a shedload of dosh on a pair of sunglasses or a ridiculously expensive cosmetic. Intellectually I know this is ridiculous and meaningless, shallow etc. There must be a dollop of madness in the family genes.

2006-03-14T03:19:00.000-08:00

Living in the Present

Kim Ayres explores the longings of the human condition over on his blog (kimayres.blogspot.com).
I believe you should always live as much as possible in the now, with a weather eye for the future. Some people spend their whole lives looking for something just over a hill (until they are over the hill, full of regrets – and longing to go back in time!). You frequently see people on tv shows going to live abroad to find that special happiness which is eluding them, but wherever you go you are taking yourself, the same person with the same problems and faults. At the risk of sounding like an American self-help book, I believe you can only find satisfaction and peace by being happy with yourself as you are, not putting life on hold and always waiting for that better job, better partner, lottery win or whatever. It doesn’t mean you can’t strive to attain those things, fuck no, go for it big time, just don’t forget to enjoy and wallow in the present. Take a long hard look at yourself, and be glad for your own uniqueness, you are a one off, the only model (unless you’re an identical twin!) Seriously though, if you don’t like yourself, you need to get a bit of outside help. Most people associate success and achievement with money and fame – and I wouldn’t turn it down, but I wouldn’t sacrifice my family and friends for it – at least I don’t think so! I am totally into constant rewards and instant gratification – those daily small pleasures make for a much more satisfying life. Fuck everything else, and fuck feeling guilty. Feeling guilty is for catholics - (I’m lapsed – so that’s ok). Gimme, gimme, gimme….that stunning dress, those fab. shoes, the next episode of Dr Maroon’s story…………….

2006-03-13T02:01:00.000-08:00

Send in the Clones

Once upon a time only seagulls scavenged on rubbish tips. Then gypsies, travellers and the dirt poor discovered recycling. Old tyres, bits of lead, jam jars, old household items could be cleaned up and sold for a bit of ready cash. Now in the UK, “seagulls” scavenge in people’s bins and on rubbish tips for bank statements and documents that can be cloned and turned into a large amount of cash. Bulgaria is the current hot spot for cash drawn out on cloned cards. After it happened to several friends of mine, I went out last week and bought the current ‘must have’, a heavy duty cross shredder. The current lust-interest and I spent a whole evening of great hilarity shredding every bit of paper in sight. Next day I got home to find the shredder blocked, and spent about half an hour picking out the remnants of an old sock – hmmm… beginning to fall out of lust, methinks.

2006-03-10T02:53:00.000-08:00

I commented on Dr E's site about his regular references to peeing and pooing - I am envious of how relaxed men are about their bodily functions. After tanking up at a pub, they have absolutely no qualms about peeing publicly up against any available wall. In France, men peeing by the roadside is a common sight. A female friend of mind recently went to China, and they had a public loo in Beijing out in the open, where everyone just had a large umbrella propped in front of them to preserve their privacy - it covered the lower body from the waist down. She was so desperate she used it, but for me it would be instant constipation. I can swear like a docker when required, but I still find myself using euphanisms when talking about peeing and pooing - a coward's cop out. If I go into a loo in a hotel, club or restaurant and there is somebody else in there, I will either try to do a silent trickle near the edge of the bowl to be as silent as possible and if I need to poo I will wait til there is nobody else in there. Men seem to find farting publicly not just funny, but will take the piss out of each other about how loud, smelly etc. whereas women will smother giggles and pretend nothing happened. One day when I am old I am going to turn into an uninhibited, noisy, farting, pissing, shitting female.

2006-01-30T04:10:00.000-08:00

To make the lovely Dr Maroon happy!

7 Movies

One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
Withnail and I
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2001 - Space Odyssey
The Godfather
The Deerhunter
Harry Potter and The Philosophers Stone

7 books

After you’d Gone
Cannery Row
The Curious Incident of the Dog ……
The Time Travellers Wife
The Prophet
Wasp Factory
Trainspotting

7 attractive city things

The Gherkin
Harvey Nichols
Covent Garden
Petronus Tower
Temple of the Emerald Buddha
Via Condotti

7 things to do before I die

Drink champagne at sunset by the statues on Easter Island
Snorkel in Hawaii
Drive a Harley Davidson
Eat a prawn curry in Kerala
Buy Manolos in New York
Get a solo exhibition in the Royal Academy
Drive around the US in a Winnebago

7 things I cannot do

Eat jellied eels
Swallow
Fly in a helicopter
Say no
Resist temptation
Take it up the bum

7 things I say

Oh Jeez, I can’t have spent that much!
Oh fuck, the deadline can’t be to-day! It is? Fuck!
Champagne, for me? Thank you so much, darling
Chocolate? After a Chilli chicken masala? Oh, alright then!
Who is that beautiful man? Does he belong to a mate or can I nick him?
C’mon, get off your lazy arse, let’s go for a power walk.