From the ‘No shit, Sherlock’ news department: Serial Killers Crave Power, Experts Say. We are told that “Killers such as the Kansas man who called himself BTK are ‘basically losers’ who never distinguished themselves except through brutality.”
From the ‘No shit, Sherlock’ news department: Serial Killers Crave Power, Experts Say. We are told that “Killers such as the Kansas man who called himself BTK are ‘basically losers’ who never distinguished themselves except through brutality.”
When Neil and I returned from Singapore, and I plugged my Chinese SIM card back into my mobile, I received the following text: Drinks at 8pm at The House in memory of Peter. Being immediately mystified by this cryptic message, I rang the originator of the text and found out that an Australian bloke we barely knew had passed away in Xiamen upon his return from holidays in the Philippines.
He was only 31. And he was an alcoholic.
So perhaps it was fitting, maybe ironic, that we were gathering at a bar one week later. Peter had been working in Xiamen for less than a year, and had made a number of friends. Three of them chose to speak, reminiscing about great times with Peter, which all seemed to revolve around the themes:
Hey, remember that time Peter drunkenly head butted a complete stranger because this stranger happened to tell Peter off for insulting and harassing his wife? What a kidder!
It is, naturally, a great shame that someone so young passed away. But there’s no gentle, diplomatic way to say this — romanticising his excessive drinking is bad. Treating his alcoholism as a charming personality quirk instead of an addiction that most probably killed him is not, in my humble opinion, a fitting send-off for someone who was supposed to be a friend. The sad thing is, the only memories people have of him are that he was a drunk who managed to get away with extremely bad behaviour.
The Starwood Preferred Guest is apparently a Singaporean woman who shags Western men because she thinks they represent a road to a better life — and provide foreign passports, too (tip: the URL should tell you everything you need to know).
This may come as a surprise to my legions of loyal fans, but I’ve been hiding something from the Internets.
For over a decade, I’ve lived with the knowledge that I have a kidney condition known as minimal glomerulonephritis*. I’ve sought no help for this disease, I’ve spoken with no doctors since it was detected+. I have to live with the fact that hardly anyone with this illness will progress to renal failure#. Beating all odds, where the greatest majority (80%) of cases are detected prior to the age of six, and the average age of adult onset is 40, I was found to be suffering from this racist disease (‘Asians may be at increased risk’) at the age of 16.
I must protest that I did not receive an eight-week course of steroids to battle this illness that has not prevented me from doing absolutely anything over the intervening years. I can only imagine the incompetence of the medical staff who first advised that my lifestyle was not going to have to change in any way in order to cope.
Suffering indignities as only the truly elegant could under the circumstances, I allowed myself to be confined to the premises once every couple of years, in order to relieve my bladder into a cheap plastic bottle. Why, you ask, why is such a humiliation necessary? My dear friends and adoring fans, that was the only way they could determine if my ailment had improved or worsened. But like a trooper, I accepted that some things in life will not be able to live up to my high expectations.
Through nothing but my own diligence and strict dietary regimen, I can now claim to be free of the debilitation that has dogged me for more than ten years.
* Try saying that three times quickly after a couple of G&Ts.
+ Except for my mum.
# Also called minimal change glomerulonephritis or minimal-change disease, “Glomerular disease causing heavy proteinuria characterized by absence of obvious histologic glomerular changes on light microscopy.” That is, I have protein in my pee. I was assured that it would likely clear up on its own, as long as I was somewhat careful with my diet. My latest test results (via e-mail from Mum) tell me that it’s gone, wahey!
Via Terry, Shakeskin – a gallery of shaken faces is ample proof that people are very peculiar indeed.
How to fix China’s banking system, from The McKinsey Quarterly (bugmenot).
Felt (synthetic, no wool), craft glue (I need my ventilation), and random wooden and plastic bits and bobs (ooh, fancy sparkles!) were purchased while in Singapore. As you can imagine, random wooden and plastic bits and bobs (ooh, fancy sparkles!) will be attached to various things with craft glue. Hopefully the various things don’t include accidental attachment to my body parts.
Hooray for Spotlight!