More about Life

There is some controversy about Marriott hotels that I did not know about. Apparently the owners are Mormon. In theory you'd think they'd then not allow alcohol or porn. Mormons I know even look down on tea and coffee as stimulants. But no, you can get tea, coffee, alcohol AND porn in Marriott hotels. What would be the ultimate in hypocrisy would be if they then did not let you check in because you arrived with two wives. I've yet to try them out on this.

Obviously the controversy is that as 10% of the earnings of these top people goes to their church (by holy decree) and a % of this comes from porn, it means part of the splendour of the headquarters of Mormonism in Salt Lake City is paid for by alcohol and porn sales. But I assume it is okay if the porn has a Mormon flavour. I didn't look, but I assume the titles available are things like "The Book of Mammon", "The Story of Bring'em Young", "Seven Brides for One Brother", "Latter-Lay Saints" and "Salt Lake Titties."

The second and final day of Cath's conference. In posh hotels such as this, checking out is easy and can even be done over the phone. So Cath went off to the conference and left me with the luggage. Footballers' entourages include WAGS – wives and girlfriends; Internet Marketers' have BAHS – boyfriends and husbands. Although I found no others like me to form a club, so I had to go shoe-shopping on my own.

At home having to walk (or in fact cycle) over to the bank seems a chore and is met with apathy or even recalcitrance. But when you are on holiday, you will happily walk the few blocks to the bank. It's mainly to do with the fact the route is new to you.

Having done my research, I knew almost exactly where the Barnes and Noble was and how to get there from the bank. Even this wasn't enough to locate it first go. Normally these bookstores are visible from miles away - sometimes even from space - this one was more subtle and I really only stumbled upon it. The book store was mostly in the very large basement, see tomorrow for a history of that.

It took a while but eventually I arrived back at Pike Market and found a place to have breakfast. It was a French-style bakery. I ordered a pain au chocolat. Now the nice thing about pains aux chocolats is that they have this thin line of chocolate running through them which gives them a sweet kick. Obviously in America this isn't enough. This one had three thick strips of chocolate which totally took over the flavour of the thing. I didn't enjoy it. One of the school-kids on a trip to learn French (it being cheaper to take the kids to a bakery than to France) declared it as the greatest thing he's ever had. One day he'll go to France an have a real pain au chocolat and be disappointed. But by that time he'll be as fat as a house and the painier will just sneer at him.

I also ordered a coffee, but it took a while to get to me owing to the dishwasher suddenly flooding the place. I was on the outskirts of the water and quick enough to save my laptop bag from getting damp and threatening my new writing laptop, but the confusion consumed the whole of the staff for many minutes. I read and watched the good-natured mayhem.

Eventually the teacher of the kids came over and spoke to them in French. She had such a strong American accent that I could barely understand her. These poor kids are so going to get sneered at when they go to French. But I expect they are prepared for Canada.

I wandered along the piers and found myself outside of Ye Olde Curiosity Shop. It's THE place to buy shrunken heads, mummified bodies, stuffed Siamese-twin calves and random Native American memorabilia. They had totem poles for every occasion as well as jokes, t-shirts and dead creepy crawly paper weights. One favourite was a sign of a pirate saying "all ye who enter here, surrender the booty." Even the patrons had great gift ideas. The most Seattle gift I saw was a coffee holder that fits onto your pram or push chair. Just because you are walking your kids doesn't mean you don't want coffee. Sure coffee suspended above the feet of young children presents some health risks, but they should have thought of that when they asked to be born.

Labels: Anthropology, Books, Drink, Food, Language, Sex, Shopping, Transport, Travel, US

Now we all know nothing sells things like sex. It is the natural choice for advertising anything phallic (such as chocolate bars) or compensatory (such as cars or alcohol and indeed chocolate bars). But there really is no excuse to use it for IT recruitment. But that is definitely a trend I'm seeing in the Netherlands in the last couple of years, and no doubt world-wide.
This is a case in point for Peak IT, a name which in itself is practically a single entendre. The girl depicted looks unlike any programmer or system administrator I ever met. Most people doing such jobs are men, so the ad must be saying "this is what you could get if you let us find you an IT job." Because it ain't saying, "this is what most of our clients look like." At its most accurate, the statement would be, "this is what the PA to the CEO of the company you work in the basement for looks like. If you're lucky, you might get to install something on her computer, but she'll leave the room as soon as you enter it. Placing your memory stick in her laptop will never be anything more than innuendo."

This ad is for a careers event and features someone far too young to be wearing that much makeup and with a strangely distant look in her eye, giving the impression not of IT or other office work, but of child prostitution.

Even the company I work for has started a campaign to recruit young graduates featuring a "sample" of employees looking far more attractive than anyone I've seen working there. It's only going to lead to disappointment, resentment, frustration and ultimately to someone going postal one day. Fortunately the people with guns in this world are not IT professionals. People with guns work in the illegal drugs or sex industry where the money's even better and ironically it's not too difficult to score yourself a teenage girl wearing far too much make-up and a vacant stare.

Labels: Anthropology, Computers, Netherlands, Sex

The Fifth of February is what in future generations could well be hailed as More Day. Obviously the great thing for which I am to be remembered, has not occurred yet. Or if it has, it certainly didn't seem great at the time.

My exact age is still a big debate amongst leading archeologists who put it at somewhere between the Big Bang and the ten year anniversary of the making of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

And my birthday was a somewhere between the Big Bang and a viewing of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. And one thing it certainly was is full of girls. I had not planned it this way - I invited pretty much everyone I knew here who I thought would go. Just as many boys as girls, I thought. It just happened that when the group reached its peak (volume-wise), in an Irish bar on the Leidseplein, there were 13 people (by my calculations), three of whom were male.

It was drawn to my attention especially when we got up to move on (then 3 girls down), and a little feller comes up to me as the instigator and implores me not to leave and declares it to be a crime that one guy can get up and have so many women follow him. Trust me, it doesn't happen every day. Not even every birthday.

So I led my band of Disney-named Dames (Hanna, Anna, Joanna, Claartje, Claire) headed off out into the dizzy night of Amsterdam. It all starts to get very hazy after that. But a good time was had by all.

Well by me, at least, and everyone else said they enjoyed it. But who cares? It wasn't their birthday.

Labels: Anthropology, Netherlands, Sex

Labels: Anthropology, Netherlands, Politics, Religion, Sex