Author: Kim du Toit

Expensive Indulgence

Two-Minute Hate

So you’re flying to Dubai (a Muslim country) on Emirates Airlines (owned by a Muslim government) with your child on a vacation, but decide you just have to have a glass of free wine (despite the fact that, as everyone knows, Muslims get all bent out of shape about booze).

Then you arrive in Dubai, only to discover that your visa isn’t valid, and you have to return to the U.K. on the next flight.  You refuse and get all truculent, whereupon the Arab fuzz — a breed not known for their gentleness and kindness to foreign Christians — throw you and your daughter into a manky jail cell because you have booze on your breath and that’s A Bad Thing in Dubai.  Even better, your husband has to fly out to rescue your daughter and you’ll be in jail for a year while the Muzzies decide to bring your case to court.  Result:

“So far this situation has cost me around £30,000 in legal fees, expenses and missed work. My practice is closed. All our savings have gone.”

Hope the free glass of wine was worth it, that and your bad attitude.  (And yes, I know the silly bint has since been set free through the intervention of Sheik Mohamed because clearly, he saw how poorly this was reflecting on his pisspot city.)

However, Readers will be amazed to learn that this is not the main reason for my ire.   The woman is an idiot, and deserved to get spanked.  This is my point.  The fucking British government was going to do nothing, repeat nothing to help this moron.  Let’s look at the whole picture here.

In days of yore, this would have been settled toute de suite by the Royal Navy sending a gunship into the poxy Arab harbor, whereupon the fuzzies would be suitably cowed and would release the British citizen.  Nowadays, of course, this is Just Not Done (and in any event, the Royal Navy nowadays seems incapable of sailing as much as a dinghy without a year’s preparation).

So here’s what I would do in a situation like this one, were I in charge of the BritGov, and it’s the modern-day equivalent of sending in HMS Warspite:

  • Suspend all Emirates flights in and out of the U.K. for the time that this woman is kept locked up.
  • In the future, confiscate or otherwise forbid all liquor on Emirates airliners before they take off from Heathrow, on the basis that serving liquor on these flights can put passengers in legal peril when they arrive in Dubai.
  • When any Dubai citizens in the U.K. are arrested and accused of breaking British law (e.g. speeding up and down Sloan Street in their gold Ferraris), hold them in jail for a year before allowing them to stand trial (just as in Dubai — they should be used to it, after all).

If this sounds like overkill, it is.  All gunboat diplomacy is over the top, but what it does is serve to remind these little shithole countries that petty actions can have serious consequences — just as Brits traveling abroad should be aware of same.

The problem is that nation-states used to have a duty to look after their citizens when traveling abroad — even when said citizens had screwed up — but nowadays, governments seem to have forgotten this, one of the most basic of their responsibilities.

And for the Daily Mail, a correction is in order.  This broad wasn’t imprisoned for smelling of booze;  that was simply the pretext.  Her original misdeed was refusing to obey the immigration laws of the foreign country she was traveling to, by traveling on an expired visa, and then getting uppity and refusing to return on the next flight — which she would have to do by international law.

I have never understood the arrogance of people when traveling.  Outside your native country, you are a guest, and you need to be respectful of that fact that you are there on sufferance, not by right.  If you want to act all bolshie, save it for when you are at home.

This time, the stupid woman was saved.  The next one may not be so lucky.

Good Question

Food & Drink

A while ago, the Daily Mail raised an interesting point:

How much pain would YOU tolerate for booze?
Heavy drinkers will put up with uncomfortable electric shocks to get their alcohol fix, study finds

Granted, I’m not a “heavy drinker” (I’m fat and I like a drink, but that’s the extent of it), so I’m not really in the target demographic, but it is nevertheless an interesting topic for conjecture.

Let’s change the methodology a tad (ignoring that violent electric shock nonsense), and ask instead:  how much inconvenience and/or discomfort would you put up with in order to get your favorite booze down your throat?

Myself:  quite a bit.  I have been known to walk a considerable distance to get a decent pint of ale into me:  I dimly recall once trudging across The Englishman’s muddy fields in the rain towards The King’s Arms at All Cannings (or maybe I was trudging back — Wadworth’s 6X has a way of affecting the memory), which was both uncomfortable and inconvenient.  Don’t even ask how much I’ve trodden the sidewalks of e.g. Edinburgh, London, Johannesburg, Vienna, Paris etc. just to have some beer, wine, gin or Scotch, as the locale warranted.

And because Plano is lamentably bereft of pubs that serve good British ale, I have to drive nearly to Dallas —  all the way south to Addison’s The Londoner — just for a pint of Fuller’s London Pride:  a fair amount of inconvenience, I think you’ll agree.

But forget pain.  Anyone who’s ever experienced chronic gout — the effects of which are exacerbated by booze — would probably join me in saying “Fuck, no!” if offered a gin while suffering a gout attack.  I suppose that’s what differentiates me from being a heavy drinker to being a simple (and occasional) drunk.

Your thoughts in Comments, as usual…

5 Worst Things You Can Say In A Business Email

Friday Feature, The Worst

In ascending order of “you’re gonna get fired”:

  • “Screw what H.R. says.”
  • “When I was in San Quentin…”
  • “My project will come in well over budget and a year late.”  (unless you’re a liberal politician, in which case you’ll be just fine;  you might even get a promotion)
  • “I’m sorry about the affair with your wife, but…”  (bonus points if you’re a woman)
  • “On our next business trip together, bring some edible panties… again.”

Your contributions in Comments.  Bonus points if your contribution ever got you actually fired.

Stopping Violence With Violence

Righteous Shootings

This happened in Florida recently:

A man involved in a fight with another person at Isaac Campbell Park left the scene and returned several minutes later, around 5:20 p.m., with a gun and opened fire on the crowd.
A bystander, who was licensed to carry a firearm, shot the suspect and waited for authorities to arrive. [emphasis added]
The gunman, whose firearm was recovered from the scene, was airlifted to a hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Pardon me for being bloodthirsty, but I hope the fucker dies.

[waits for applause and hoots of approval to die down]

Yeah, let’s hear it for the fools who think that only the cops should be carrying guns.  And the media fails, as usual, by not informing the public what Our Hero used to shoot the choirboy: the gun, the bullet caliber / type, single shot or double tap — you know, the useful stuff.  Idiots.

Make Up Your Fucking Minds

Crime

As we saw earlier, people in Britishland are being told to arrest petty criminals rather than waiting for the cops to show up and do their job.  (In the local parlance, this is known as a “have a go” action.)

So these two yoofs steal a scooter and after injuring a cop, speed off into the sunset.  All seems to be going well until a delivery truck driver sees what’s happening and “has a go” by swerving his truck into the path of the criminals, with predictable results:  they crash, and the pursuing rozzers are able to arrest one (age:  15!).

[pause to let cheering and applause die down]

Here’s the good part:

The lorry and driver were inspected by officers and the driver was not reported for any offences after [he] fully cooperated with the investigation.

I should bloody well hope not, even in Britishland.  And here’s the bad part (from a clueless bystander):

The person who took the footage was critical of the truck driver’s decision to take the law into their own hands.  [She] said: ‘We are a nation who prides ourselves to the preservation of life and we must allow the police to do their jobs and not take other people’s lives into our hands.’

Shut-up-shut-up-shut-up just shut the fuck up.  The cops were trying to do their job, except that the little sociopath rammed the cop and crushed his leg.

Just one last thought — and it’s as true in Britishland as it is in Murka (no matter how much the Britcops have tried to suppress it):  the law has never left our hands.  We deputize the police to enforce the law on our behalf, but if they are unable to do so (e.g. because they’ve just had their leg crushed) then We The People are perfectly entitled to take said enforcement back into our own hands.

And if that’s too much for some people to handle, then I have but one piece of advice:  get the fuck out of our way while we perform our public duty.

I just hope that Our Hero isn’t fired by his employer for doing just that.