Wednesday 7 March 2007

My favourite jumper

As soon as I woke up, I knew that the previous night had been overly indulgent, even by my standards. My throat was so dry that I couldn’t swallow without grating off bits of it; my eyes rejected the aggressive daylight streaming through the skylight with such a vengeance that you’d have thought a transplant had gone wrong; the thud in my head was like that of an onboard motor.

Thankfully, I was alone in my bed.
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Monday 5 March 2007

Image map hiding text

Unusually for me, I decided to tag myself with something that minge has been touting:

Please take a photograph of whatever you see before you, this Sunday (4th February 2007) at 5pm/17:00 (local time) and email it to me. Feel free to add any information you like, what the picture shows, what you were doing at the time, where you are, whether it's typical or atypical of where you are or what you do at 17:00 on a Sunday afternoon. Anything. It's up to you.

I hibernated this weekend, spending most of the time indoors, only venturing out twice to get a few groceries and an English Sunday newspaper so my contribution reflects that. And being an indecisive sort, rather than send him just one picture, I've sent a collage. That's cheating, I know, but I cheated more than just that - none of the pictures were taken at 5pm today and some were even taken yesterday. Ok, so I'm a cheat, but here you have a window on my world.

If you click on an individual picture, you'll get a bigger version of it. And if you want a bigger version of the collage, click here.



Wednesday 14 February 2007

image map

Unusually for me, I decided to tag myself with something that minge has been touting:

Please take a photograph of whatever you see before you, this Sunday (4th February 2007) at 5pm/17:00 (local time) and email it to me. Feel free to add any information you like, what the picture shows, what you were doing at the time, where you are, whether it's typical or atypical of where you are or what you do at 17:00 on a Sunday afternoon. Anything. It's up to you. helpful.

I hibernated this weekend, spending most of the time indoors, only venturing out twice to get a few groceries and an English Sunday newspaper so my contribution reflects that. And being an indecisive sort, rather than send him just one picture, I've sent a collage. That's cheating, I know, but I cheated more than just that - none of the pictures were taken at 5pm today and some were even taken yesterday. Ok, so I'm a cheat, but here you have a window on my world.

If you click on an individual picture, you'll get a bigger version of it. And if you want a bigger version of the collage, click here.



/17:00 (local time) and email it to me. Feel free to add any information you like, what the picture shows, what you were doing at the time, where you are, whether it's typical or atypical of where you are or what you do at 17:00 on a Sunday afternoon. Anything. It's up to you.

Tuesday 13 February 2007

Font test

Lets type in Arial for a this bit is bold change

And now in Times New Roman with a bit in bold

Razaq

Like most of the rest of you, I get my fair share of offers to buy viagra at hugely discounted prices and offers to increase my penis to huge proportions. Along with offers of loans, university degrees and requests to check my bank details (phishing) for banks that I’ve never banked with. Unlike many of you, including Rob, I’ve been spared the various scams (419 fraud) that promise untold riches if you’re stupid enough to provide them with your bank details.

Until a few days ago, that is.

From: aj.meutgeert@home.nl
Subject: Email from Samiu
Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 19:42:54 +0100

Dear Sir/Madam,

This letter may come to you as a surprise due to the fact that we have not yet met. I have to say that I have no intentions of causing you any pains so i decided to contact you through this medium.

As you read this, I don't want you to feel sorry for me, because, I believe everyone will die someday. My name is Razaq Samiu, a merchant in Dubai, in the U.A.E. I have been diagnosed with prostate and esophageal Cancer that was discovered very late due to my laxity in caring for my health. It has defiled all form of medicine and right now, I have only about a few months to live according to medical experts.

I have not particularly lived my life so well, as I never really cared for anyone not even myself but my business. Though I am very rich, I was never generous, I was always hostile to people and only focus on my business as that was the only thing I cared for. But now I regret all this as I now know that there is more to life than just wanting to have or make all the money in the world. I believe when God gives me a second chance to come to this world I would live my life a different way from how I have lived it. Now that I know my time is near, I have willed and given most of my properties and assets to my immediate and extended family members and as well as a few close friends and Schools in the UAE. I have decided to give alms to charity organizations, as I want this to be one of the last good deeds I do on earth. So far, I have distributed money to some charity organizations in the U.A.E, England and Ireland. Now that my health has deteriorated so badly, I cannot do this myself any more. I once asked members of my family to close one of my accounts and donate the money, which I have there to charity organization in Bulgaria, they refused and kept the money to themselves. Hence, I do not trust them anymore, as they seem not to be contended with what I have left for them. The last of my money which is the huge cash that I deposit in a bank in England Uk.

I want you to help me collect this deposit and dispatched it to charity organizations and let them know that it is I Razaq Samiu that is making this generous donation.

I am writing this from my laptop computer in my hospital bed in England where I wait for my time to come. If you are interested to help me i will give you more information about this like the amount that i deposited in the bank and Contact of the bank so you can contact them. I will also send you a picture of myself when i am on my laptop in the hospital.

Note that you will take 20% out of the funds and give 80% to the charity organizations. I pray that God uses you to support and assist me with good heart God be with you.

If you can help respond back to me on my private email:
razaqsamiu2@yahoo.es

Razaq Samiu


Between receiving Razaq's heart-rending email and now, I've received a couple of 'romance-scams' on a gay chat site. Obviously, my time of innocence when it comes to being the target of scammers has come to an end.

Do you think I should reply and see what happens next? It would be interesting to see his picture, don’t you think? But, while it would be interesting, it’s definitely not original. Some people have elevated the activity of ‘scam baiting’into a fine art.

Whole websites are devoted to it.

I remembered reading about a particular scam-baiting website that specialises in hoodwinking the ‘scamsters’ into doing the most ridiculous things: posing for pics with hilarious signs, making elaborate carvings, actually get tattoed, etc. You can see some of the results below.

Another one is called 'Bait a Mugu'. According to them, a mugu is a 'term used by the scammers among themselves to describe their intended victims. Roughly translated this term mean "big fool"'. Now hang on, that word sounds suspiciously like the Afrikaans word, 'moegoe'. According to Wiktionary, 'moegoe' is a South African pejorative word meaning an idiot or a mampara. It suggests that the word may be derived from 'moeg ou', the Afrikaans term for 'tired person'. If that's the case, the word has travelled all the way up to West Africa. Alternatively, like many other Afrikaans words, it's a truly African word that has been adopted by Afrikaans.

Here's a selection of 'trophies' from '419 eater'.

up the arsemu6ueggnog 1eggnog 2eggnog 3
felch mecarved joystickcarved keyboardfancy dressstargate
semencocky suckycocky suckyfish and breaddeppen girl

You know, while finding those pics really amusing, I started to feel sorry for these people. Poor, ignorant people, trying to make money by any which way. There even seemed something racist about the whole thing.

Hang on, Nomad, don't be such a wet, bleeding-heart liberal! These guys are responsible for pilfering nearly $200 million from Americans annually and costing the UK economy £150m a year. Ok, so people are stupid to fall for this sort of thing but these scammers aren't people one should be feeling sorry for.

Phew, bleeding-heart moment over. Here are some more pics:

tattoo 1tattoo 2prostate girlsgladiatorpissed his bed
tossers and slappersfill my crackwankerchilledpornstar

Ok, while I won’t go into a whole scam-baiting exercise, I’d still like to see Razaq’s pic. Watch this space for further developments.

machel

samora machelUnlike the assassination of Verwoerd, the death of Samora Machel wasn’t a JFK moment for me. I remember the shock of it but not where I was and what I was doing at the time. The first post-colonial leader of the country of my birth had died and it was suspected that South Africa, my adopted country, was responsible for the aeroplane crash that killed him along with 24 other passengers.

It was twenty years ago today.

samora addressing crowd
machel statue
machel statue
machel mural
o morte de samora machel
1986 was the year when my wife and I decided to leave South Africa. We’d been feeling very uncomfortable about the political situation for many years but P W Botha’s infamous 'Crossing the Rubicon speech' on 15 August 1985 was the tipping point. The country was beset with violence and was in a constant state of emergency. In Pik Botha’s words at the TRC hearings:

‘1985 stands out as a dark year in our history. The South West Africa (Namibia) issue was far from being resolved. South African troops were fighting in Angola. The high hopes raised by the 1984 Nkomati Accord between Mozambique and South Africa had dissipated.‘

We entered 1986 knowing that we’d be leaving the country (we left in February 1987), unlike previous years where we’d just talked about it. Apart from the effect that had on our minds, there is so much else that I remember from that year including two ‘JFK moments’ of mine, the disintegration of Challenger and the disaster at Chernobyl. It was also the year that Imelda Marcos became synonymous with an obsession with shoes. And it was the year of two political deaths rumoured to have been at the hands of the South Africans, Olof Palme and Samora Machel.

At that stage, Machel had been in power in Mozambique since independence from Portugal in June 1975. In his first few years of power, his revolutionary, Marxist zeal contributed towards massive strides in education and primary health care. These improvements were, however, accompanied by the abolition of all private property, suppression of free speech and huge relocations of the population, often to ‘re-education camps’ (quite a number of my friends from Maxixe were sent to re-education camps far in the north of the country because they smoked dope). Not that any of this affected his populist appeal which seemed to increase in proportion to the ever-increasing loathing from the white-minority regimes next door. Once the country descended into civil war with Renamo, an enemy first backed by Rhodesia, then by South Africa, the progress of earlier years was rapidly reversed.

Even in 1976, my last year at school, and still an enthusiastic communist, I felt very uncomfortable with some of the things that were being done in Mozambique in the name of ‘freedom and progress’. They were the things that South African racists loved to have as ammunition in arguments against democracy in South Africa. A joke with serious intent about the motives of the Soviets and its allies was doing the rounds at the time: Samora’s name stood for (SA)frica, (MO)zambique, (R)hodesia, (A)ngola.

mandela and machelBy the time of his death, the civil war in Mozambique had rendered most of the country ungovernable so the changes that came afterwards may have happened when they did had he remained alive although his successor, Joaquim Chissano, was a much more urbane, sophisticated man with much less of the stubborn, battle-hardened, freedom-fighter that characterised Machel. But, one thing that would probably not have happened if he were still alive today, is the romance between his widow, Graça Machel, and Nelson Mandela. Graça Machel is the only woman to have been the ‘first lady’ of two different countries.

A solemn ceremony will be held today on an isolated hillside outside Mbuzini, a South African hamlet, near South Africa's borders with Mozambique and Swaziland, the site of the plane crash that killed Samora Machel. South African President Thabo Mbeki and Mozambiquan President Armando Guebuza will be there. Graça Machel and Machel's children are expected to attend.

Whatever your opinions of Samora Machel, opinions that are bound to be clouded by your political beliefs, Mozambiquans still refer to him as 'o Pai da Nação', the father of the nation.

Update: BBC report on fresh probe into the cause of Machel's death.