After a plethora of problems and glitches, I have finally moved the blog to a different home.
qhris.squarespace.com
is the new address, and all the archives and comments have been carried over.
Hope you follow me, and many thanks for the support….be there, or be square.
I completed my powered hundredth length of the pool and slid my energised body out of the water, into the blister of harsh sun.
Cool water droplets dripped from the contours of my muscles and splashed onto the hot tiles, no clouds in the sky to balm the searing rays. My body being kissed a gentle brown all over by the sun, I padded to the changing rooms, pausing only to lift a bicep and ruffle the water from my hair.
Splashed outlines of my feet echoed me, as a woman in a bikini paused from reading as I caused the gentlest breeze in a still, hot afternoon. Her eyes poured over my body, and being as handsome as I am, she lingered her gaze for a fraction longer than politeness would allow…
Heading straight to the shower with only a locker key, goggles, and a swimsuit to my name, I ignited the tap and ice cold water refreshed my skin and flooded away the chlorine. I peeled my swimsuit down over my thighs, and soaped all over my adrenaline filled body. Allowing a final gush of water to cleanse the suds, I left the shower, water streaking down my stomach, down…..
I imagined the woman with the book, what her eyes would make of this sight. She would probably think….
…. That this scene isn’t in the least bit sexual.
Because it isn’t. It was just me, finishing a swim, and going to the locker room to get re-dressed.
Which is odd, because the male gym-employee seemed to think it was quite erotic indeed, and with a glare that could have decapitated Satan himself, told me ‘YOU ARE NOT ALLOWED TO BE NAKED IN HERE’.
Now, perhaps owing to the fact that I was naked, or maybe because I swim to the limits of my consciousness, I was initially stunned. But after recovering, I replied, incredulously “But this is a Male changing room”.
When I was growing up, and swimming for teams, there would always be a post-gala ridicule of the guy who cowered behind his towel and executed a spider-like dance to take off his swim shorts and keep his towel in place. ‘Got something to hide have you?’.
Worse venom was reserved for the loser who went a step further, and locked himself in a cubicle to get changed. This cemented his weakness as man.
After all, we’d all ‘got one’. It wasn’t anything you hadn’t seen before. This was in the days before camera phones and youtube but still, what is there to be ashamed of? We were all boys, and it was nothing you couldn’t see if you looked in the mirror.
Embarassment was reserved for talking to girls, or feeling her breast through 3 layers of a cardigan on a lunch break behind the bike sheds. Embarassment at being naked in the changing rooms? Get real!
So here I was, stark naked in 2011, being given a dressing down by some pool attendant and an accompanying chorus of changing-men (all safely behind the fortresses of their towels, of course).
I was told lots of reasons by this empowered pool-Hitler, ranging from it being ‘offensive to families’, not being a ‘place of sexuality’, and it being ‘against religion’. How much credence I will allot to any of those explanations I am not sure, but the fact remains that in this place, there are only 3 cubicles, and an open floor plan.
Plus, the added salt of it, you know, being a changing room? Shuffling around in a towel, being careful not to allow any of my supposedly sacred bits to escape seems slightly over cautious in a room full of men that have their own ‘thing’ to look after.
There is a distinct lack of sexuality about a changing room, believe me. I defy anyone to admit that they have ever had a tingling feeling watching guys trowel on talcum powder and talk about the football they saw at the weekend. Football is a great example actually, because look back at most of the Cup-Final photos after the game and what do you see? The entire team in a huge bath, holding the cup aloft.
And no, they aren’t wearing swimming costumes.
Still, I considered the whole episode to be daft and wrote it off as ‘Welcome to Qatar, Home Of The Bizarre’, Chapter 347.
Then, I read this article http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1374664/Male-pill-Well-trust-hell-forget-say-women.html and realised that it is men the entire world over that are turning into over-sensitive idiots.
Now, setting aside the blatant sexism that women polled
“say they wouldn’t rely on a male Pill as contraception – because they didn’t trust their partners to remember to take it”
the best bit was
“Many men felt it would challenge their masculinity….
Dr Walker also found that about one in six of the men felt that taking a contraceptive Pill was culturally associated with women and would make them feel less masculine”.
Now, I am all for embracing my feminine side. Hell, half of the entries of this blog have been loaded with symbolism of flowers and kisses. Changing room bullying aside, I have always considered myself to be respectful, courteous and a gentleman, traits not usually associated with the breed of ‘blokes’ that treat women like meat.
So for that reason, I can’t for the life of me understand how the decision, between a couple, upon which contraception to use, can somehow emasculate a man.
If nothing else, men should be parading the streets (okay, that isn’t very masculine), rioting the streets in elation that finally, their domain of the bedroom has been reclaimed and they no longer have to rely on a piece of flimsy rubber to act as their last line of defence.
This gives us the chance to wrestle the control and be a man and say ‘Hunny, I’ve got this. Don’t mess up your hormones and stifle your cycle just for us, let me take responsibility and let’s keep your mood swings confined to when you are actually having the baby’. And here, in a trial to see how marketable the pill is, we get these buffoons stuffing it up by saying it makes them feel ‘more womanly’.
By taking a pill?
Women have so many choices in birth control, and yes some of the evil ones have a stranglehold over your destiny and can entrap you if you spiral into a situation of perceived trust. This concretes your own confidence, that even if she chooses to continue her course of pill popping, you can take charge of your own decisions.
Yet there still exist these idiots who somehow see that as a woman’s responsibility, and that if their task is to bring anything more than a bottle of wine to proceedings, that they have somehow entered into a same-sex female relationship and neither partner will be able to tell which of them was the man at the start of the evening.
‘Gentlemen’, please leave the gene pool.
I suspect the only by-product of those responses is that it will be marketed in adverts as some ‘Real American Hero’ hunk in a tank top, or plugged by a suave James Bond type actor to assure the male ego that you are no less of a man. As it stands today though, it only begs the question, where did all the real men go? As a potential metro-sexual myself, I wouldn’t dare have considered myself a ‘real man’; at least not while the Die Hard movies are still within living memory of 90% of the planet.
But here I am, getting lambasted for being naked in a Male-only area, and for wearing a metaphorical skirt because I think the male contraceptive pill is actually quite liberating.
Or to translate for any men reading; if you’re in Qatar, keep your towel on and if you’re in the bedroom, keep your condom on.
Because it seems a long way until we’re going to be allowed to remove either of them.
“Who has ever fallen in love without a kiss!
An insult to love without the crescendo,
the stars aligning, the craving for a second purge.
If one call fall in love with mere words….
…one can fall in love with a dictionary”
Qhris, April 2011
In a pioneering ascent into potential insanity, this thread is going to combine a real-time event and will stray awfully close to breaking my policy of not naming my subject matter.
Of course, being close to the epicentre is usually a recipe for disaster when writing, if not editorially, then historically when you look back and cringe.
I say when ‘you’ look back, because I never re-read these things, so you can be the judge, jury and executioner when the time arrives…
I famously, or infamously, cultivate a crop of intimate friendships. By that I insinuate that my coterie is very small, and not being one of the fledgling social net-workers, I do not feel the urge to project my ’status’ into the sky like the Bat-Signal every time my self-importance engine overheats.
I shall get to the point as succinctly as possible here, for therapeutic reasons and to finally get it out in black and white;
this week, 2 of my closest friends went into hospital, for various non-threatening ailments.
And neither of them called me to tell me.
Not only did they not call at the time, but I also found out in a space/time continuum that was not even vaguely close enough for me to provide any kind of emotional support.
Now, a few disclaimers, as are necessary with all the scribble that I pour onto these pages;
I am not one of most contactable people in the world, this I shall concede. My phone is not tied to my wrist, and I am not treating it like a delicious dessert and turning it over, waiting for some kind of technological orgasm at the sight of a text.
I discovered this ‘news’, which was horrendously out of date, by stumbling across the revelations by accident.
It really really stings me though.
I know, that in the heat of the moment, when in a flurry of pain and veins loaded with morphine, that logic and straight thinking aren’t the most active of the senses.
Which makes thing 1,000 times worse for me.
Let us take a step back, into the cultivation. I am sounding like the Glenfiddich distillery here, and it hints that I place all my friends in isolated caskets and wait for them to mature at the right age before achieving a perfect vintage.
That analogy is not far off though. When something is told to you, and you witness consistent behaviours, those things become learned, a second nature, almost sub-conscious. At the least, Pavlovian.
I try desperately hard to infuse everyone close to me that I love (on the rainbow spectrum of that emotion) deeply, with the confidence that any time they need me, I will be there.
With the added twist that these are not just pretty foie gras words sitting atop a beautiful crisp green salad, but actual real succulent dishes that can be gorged on without feeling indigestion.
There are no strings, no reciprocal demands in an invisible contract that I bind them into. Just the pure and warm assurance that if something happens, I will be there, come hell or high water.
So where did it all go wrong?.
Why did I end up having my nervous system shocked to the core by reading that 2 people, out of an elite that I carefully hand picked above all the cretins who are cloning and breeding, neglected to turn to me when they had no-where else to go?
It takes a certain strength of character to move to Doha. Most of us migrate here alone, have a ’single’ mindset, and generally have a swashbuckling bravado that we are alone, and anything that we run into will be dealt with by us….and us alone.
I am also guilty of having, like any man, a superman complex, that I want to ride in on a steed and bayonet the challenge to a bloody death. I might add that this is whole-heartedly altruistic, and I am not seeking some kind of ethereal halo from the episode. I have just been raised to fight to the death and defend those whom you love. And this is why I am so meticulous about who I do, and do not, encircle in my friendships. I don’t want to spread my resources too thinly, so I ensure I manage enough to volcanically erupt and have enough lava to circle and protect the people I adore.
Here was the crux of both of their reasons for not picking up the cell and dialling my 8 digits; ” I didn’t want you to worry” and “I didn’t want to disturb you”.
Total, blasphemous insults to my integrity.
In anticipation of such an event, I repeated like a mantra how no time with them is wasted time, and that if something is serious, I will drop anything to be there….setting aside these minor details;
What the hell is wrong with people?
What is it that people want from one another, exactly?
With the death of social cohesion, and the rise of virtual friends I am here, a living breathing monolith to the virtue of something substantial, something real that can be relied upon not for a quip about a holiday picture posted on your ‘wall’, but an actual “Qhris, I need your help” arrow of dependence.
I’m doing everything I was raised to do, displaying every correct droplet of caring, and actually do give a damn when someone I care about is in pain….and I get told that “I thought you would worry”, told after the event that when I was listening to the Smiths or reading a book, I could have been by your bedside exploding the fireworks of dedication that were lit for this very scenario.
It throws the entire camber of the friendship out after that.
Because words just become words.
It is in the blast furnace of a situation that you find out the colour of your blood. Do they run or do they stand their ground? Do they fight, or flight?
I can’t imagine a scenario where i would have done the same.
Maybe that makes me a bad person. Maybe I would be ‘bothering’ someone, though I really want to say that I am not expecting people to be like me….I am just harking what I ‘offer’ as a friend.
In these cases, I would have stood outside, or inside a hospital for hours for anyone I adore. There is no such thing as a wasted journey, or ‘bothering me’, or that I have something more important to do.
Passion and caring is about doing anything….and it is hard to offer it like a chalice…and for it to be passed over like it is a slur on the theory of evolution, that it is weird that someone would possess that kind of steel.
I was wasted, surplus to requirements.
I understand the ‘weakness’ complex believe me.
During my broken ankle, it took a real adjustment to the thought of meeting someone new and their first, everlasting, impression of me being ‘the one on the crutches’ was sinew breaking.
But to tell you the truth, it is because I know that when my ankle had disintegrated, and the tendons snapped, if my Dad had been in Doha he would have carried me every step that my body could not have propelled me. He is my rock, and so anyone that tries to replace that seems….inadequate. It drives me to carry myself, and makes me determined to be that person that anyone can turn to. When you have someone in your life that you know, unequivocally, you can turn to, it takes all the fear away.
And I guess, on a scaled down, bite size level, I want to be that person to everyone that is close to me. I want to be that first speed dial, the lighthouse in the storm.
At 25, I am probably not even close to knowing everything I should, and have a huge distance left to run before I know the best thing to do in most situations.
I might get it wrong, but I will get it wrong beside you…..
I can’t do that if you keep me in the dark, and don’t care that I care so much.
And that was my week, and theirs.
In one night, they have had life altering illness, but the x-ray machine has been turned off, and the sore limbs will heal, thankfully on a road to recovery.
However in that one night, the true colours of the relationship refracted through a prism, and perhaps put both relationships on a road not to recovery……
….but to ruin.
Freedom of speech is the supposed sociological advancement of our generation, but the trouble is, with the rise of political correctness matching its arc, you are only allowed to say what you like if it agrees with what everyone else thinks.
Something that infuriated me on my return to the alleged ‘free speech capital’ of the globe, England, was politician’s voicing a public opinion, and then reneging the very next day because the media had either blown it out of proportion, or labelled them as a particular zealot of a school of thought.
In a couple of instances I actually admired their original stance, when confronted with the single brain-celled policy that had been put forward by their peers….
…and that admiration I held evaporated when the next day he was back in his ‘box’, apologising that his words had been ‘taken out of context’ or that they ‘spoke in the moment’.
Truth is, one of them even had the comment recorded in private and then leaked to the press. It was captured in private and so was, basically, his actual opinion.
Establishments think that political correctness is working. But really, all it does is stop you spilling your guts out in public. There is a protocol; rightly so, the world would fall apart if everyone went around telling each other what we really thought. Naively though, governments think that the masking of these opinions on religion, or race, or anything….means they are no longer being thought, that the world is somehow more tolerant and accepting.
People tolerate things, but do not necessarily accept them as normal.
These issues are being stifled, kept behind closed doors with like-minded people for prejudices to fester, not be openly discussed for the myths to be dispelled.
I really didn’t want this to be my ‘twenty twenty screwed, part 2’ zenith post, but from the sheer volume of response that I got, it sent my mind onto another tangent.
I appreciated all the constructive opposition; although of course it didn’t change my own stance one bit.
What I did find odd about the reaction to my Qatar 2022 comments lingered in my subconscious until I read an article from a major column writer this week. Don’t worry, it isn’t the World Cup revisited.
It was the second article I had read about Elton John and his gay partner adopting a child. Not a particularly interesting subject to me really but, as someone who keeps up with news, an unavoidable topic during the Christmas freeze of stories.
Regardless of what I think about the rights and wrongs of Elton’s ‘baby’, the two articles were opposing, questioning, whether in his instance the gay adoption should have been allowed. They were not articles about whether it should be allowed in general, just about whether it should be allowed in his circumstance of jetting around the world on tour, his age and other similar issues.
They weren’t vitriolic hate pieces, they were well thought out arguments that any writer, or reader, could see harboured zero hidden agenda or sensationalism.
However.
Both news articles are on major websites which allow reader comments to be submitted. And those certainly were hate filled and hurtful….but only towards one writer.
Why?
One of the columnists opposing the gay adoption….was a gay man himself.
Which, according to the general public and their comments….gives him the ‘right’ to comment on the issue. What of the straight author? He received verbal abuse, got told he was homophobic, that he had issues with sexuality, that he should be banned from writing….and those are the comments I can print without the air turning blue around my laptop.
So here we are; to talk about an issue freely, you have to be granted immunity by your ‘category’, your ‘label’.
“You’re a Church Minister? Oh, good, you can say whatever you wish about Church doctrine and hypocrisy of child abuse scandals”.
If you are not encircled as being part of the group; keep your mouth shut about anything that isn’t your territory.
Really?
To talk about Islam, you have to be Muslim. Or to talk about disability, you have to be disabled. Free speech is only for those within that group….. I was accused of being jealous of Qatar 2022 because my own country, a bidding nation, lost it.
So all my well thought out opinion, backed up and formulated in just 3 hours after the announcement, was disregarded by some because I was, apparently, jealous.
This is where freedom of speech has gotten us I guess.
I had a friend once, who, when asked a particularly sticky question or conversational hot potato, would say conveniently “I don’t have an opinion because I am not in possession of all the facts”. A cheeky get out clause.
Interesting though.
He had his opinion, knew his stance, but wouldn’t voice it because he knew that there is no real freedom of speech unless everyone in the room is a racist, homophobe, or even something trivial like a rock or country music fan, a fan of Apple products….anything.
Recently I was told by a beautiful someone that they say ‘Happy Holidays’ in America so as not to offend those who do not celebrate Qhristmas. That is a lovely sentiment but America has failed, because I am offended by that.
I am offended because they are taking away my right to be offended.
We are being bubble wrapped. If you don’t hear things you don’t like, then how in hell do you discover what you do like? If you have been closed off for life, are they your opinions? Or are they opinions given to you by your parents?
Generationally we are such a confrontation-avoiding state. Someone wants to have a healthy debate that gets heated….you get ‘blocked’, or deleted, or someone walks away, hands over ears, so as not to hear the ugly truth.
We are turning into wimps, and then, when our plain sailing waters are disrupted by someone saying ‘Merry Christmas’, we are , gosh offended. How dare somebody offend my beliefs?
I am not thin-skinned, and I am certainly not offended by some of the blood-lust comments that landed in my inbox followed my last blog entry.
I am just puzzled that some think they conquer an argument by saying I am jealous. I am sure those same people will miss the point of this thread and sneer ‘so you just want to be able to adopt with your boyfriend hahaha?!!!’
Maybe they are just picking out the only words of the article that they understand.
Yes, that is saying I am better than you. And no, I am not apologising.
It is omnipresent; people think of a witty retort, then shut down their laptop thinking ‘I have won that battle!’. A real argument is a back-and –forward right to reply…..only then will you know if you out-witted your opponent.
Turning off your phone? Sorry, you’re not superior to anyone.
Talking of linguistics, something I found when I went home, or should I say, I realised I have lost, is my sense of humour.
My mental sharpness in Doha is declining, because in England you can literally add a quip, or sarcasm, into everything you ask….
‘I’ll order a healthy bowl of Ice Cream please’…..
Or waiting for a table in a restaurant on New Years Eve….
’sorry to keep you waiting Sir’ ‘Don’t worry, I have the rest of the year to wait!’
These things aren’t funny per se, but they keep your mind sharp. It’s where that movie-script written charm and suave resonates from. I envy the people in Doha; they speak a second language at a far greater ability than I speak theirs (if I even speak theirs at all). I am becoming a step behind….it is not on the tip of my tongue any more, it is becoming a compromise, it is becoming humour for only one person to laugh at; me. I am the only one who can hear it.
I’m sure you are laughing at me, saying I am crazy for talking to myself, for making myself laugh.
I was purely forlorn at the realisation that 15 days with my Dad, who I used to joke-spar with to stomach aching laughter level, is ebbing away in Qatar. I am losing my identity, to conform to an English Language that people understand…ditching the humour for bland, yet instructive, emotionless comebacks while my brain rots and the vultures circle for the remains.
Oh, what a Shangri –la…
In half of the world, people cannot understand my opinion, even if I voiced it.
And in the other half, they would understand the words….but call for my head on a spike to take it back if they didn’t agree.
You know, you should envy the people in society that you laugh at, those souls who talk to themselves, or claim to hear voices in their head.
Because apart from yourself, who else is there left to talk to that will understand?
Have any of you ever tried online dating?
You know, those websites full of profiles with a picture taken 10 years ago, from above to hide the triple chin. Those promises of long walks on the beach, ‘likes quiet nights in’ (is a lazy shit), ‘likes a drink’ (recovering alcoholic) and ‘want you to love me for who I am’ (a neurotic, clingy stalker who will probably cut the sleeves off your clothes, and accuse you of sleeping with your sister). They rate themselves as ‘fairly attractive’, which really means ‘has a face like the surface of the moon’.
They all portray such a wonderful image, and I can only imagine that once you embark on the first date, all the romantic deflation and shortcomings just pour out of the woman’s face like the pus from her acne.
Which segues neatly onto the sham that is, and will become, Qatar 2022, the ugly woman whose ‘profile’ looked beautiful.
Let me proffer some emotions for you; disgusted, sickened, violated, dumbfounded, angry and disgusted, twice for good measure.
I cannot prove any corruption, as much as one may naively suspect that in the year that 2 FIFA officials were suspended of wrong-doing, FIFA failed to indulge us in any kind of enquiry, most probably for fear of opening a Pandora’s box of hell. I know my libel laws; there is no proof of World Cup corruption.
I can tell you what I do know, and what there is living, breathing evidence to support.
Where shall we begin…racism? Human trafficking? Money laundering? Slavery? Oppression? Peel back the face mask of the gleaming towers and there is an infestation of rats, gnawing away at the carcasses of the labourers that gave their souls, literally, to the construction of a world in which their faces are deemed not to belong.
For the record, I am happy for Qatar. I am happy for the 1.2 million people who are waving adopted flags, and telling doubters like me “‘i told you so”.
It is the other 5 billion people on earth that I mourn for.
So just how did the country that was voted ‘highest risk’ on the Fifa reports land the coveted event of the free world? A region which cannot ever be described as ‘free’?
Personally, a line which no-one in mainstream media has dared cross, but is my personal belief, is that this was not a vote for Qatar. It was a vote for Islam. This ’success’ throws up so many conflicts of interest. What if France qualify? The country that sensationally, and some may say (because they have freedom of speech) correctly, banned the Burka. What if Switzerland make it to 2022? They passed a law banning the building of minarets.
Already there is a sour taste, and I can imagine that I am not the only one across the globe that cringed at the announcement.
You see, I can see the World Cup working here. Qatar just has to abandon, I don’t know, let’s say all of its principles.
Freedom of expression, freedom of speech. Freedom to wear what you like.
They have said that drinking will be available in fan zones. Currently, if you are caught drunk in Doha, you will be jailed. If you are indecently exposing yourself (think Brazillian football fans in bikinis) you will be jailed.
A World Cup is supposed to promote the region. So you can drink in a fan zone (currently you can only drink at 5 star hotels, or with a liquor license). Excellent news. So let’s play devil’s advocate, and the game is over. You choose to explore the malls. Will you be allowed a beer with your burger at Applebees? A glass of wine with your pasta or pizza?
You see, these aren’t governmental ideals, implemented by a bunch of fun-hating zealots. They are Islamic ideals; a movement that rightly or wrongly issues fatwas and burns effigies of those who insult Islam. How are you going to police a real concern which is Islamaphobia? With terrorists hiding under the umbrella of the religion, and so much mis-information about what is, and isn’t, Islamic, you think that everyone is open minded, and will embrace whatever literature or education is offered? They have another word for that out West; it is called ‘propaganda’.
It is cute to think this will break down doors, but we are in a world where certain sections of the USA wanted to kill President Obama for his skin colour. Sorry, but you cannot choose who does and doesn’t like football. It’s not all corporate boxes. It may sicken that a Nazi, or redneck, or member of the KKK watches the World Cup Final, but it is probably true.
We (assuming you live and work in Qatar reading this) chose to come here. We button up our mouths, keep our prejudices to one side, and swallow our pride if confronted with racism, or mistreatment, or have our human rights infringed.
As of today, Qatar is going to be forcing millions of people to comply, to conform and to behave.
‘What?!….You don’t expect people to behave?’. Of course I do. But this is the real world. It is not utopia. An abaya, given its mystery and allure, is probably going to only entice an Englishman into flirting with the woman, for the ‘challenge’ to see if he can pull.
Outrageous? Yes. Some men stare at women in malls. Some have the balls to approach women, and try to charm them. You have been warned.
The heat.
The World Cup is for young and old, not just fit 20-40 somethings who keep a proper check of their hydration levels. We already see the stupidity of parenting in normal countries, so do you really think they are going to be in tune with tipping litres of water down infantile throats? Heart attacks, heat stroke, sun-burn….the list is endless. 2022 might just break the record for most deaths at a World Cup.
The worst victims will be the labourers.
Extra work for them? More earning opportunity? Yes. But hold that thought…
…they are already treated so so poorly, not just in monetary compensation. They are subjected to the blistering heat, poorly hydrated, have no rights or health and safety treatment (hard hats? boots? You must be kidding).
One may argue ‘Yes, but they are given breaks at the hottest part of the day in Summer’.
Really? That is true. Do you know where they spend those breaks? On the roadside. Sitting in a shade that is probably 47 degrees to the direct 52 of the sun.
The people on tv celebrating the ‘hard’ work they did to bring the World Cup to Qatar know nothing , i repeat nothing about hard work. They will be sitting in air conditioned offices with smug satisfaction, while the labourers are whipped and punished into a gruelling deadline. If they die on the job, their family back home gets compensation right?
Don’t make me laugh.
It is all a facade. And there is still so much that I haven’t even scratched the surface of.
Homosexuality. Are you going to allow gay/lesbians to attend the World Cup? And let them stay together?
Living with a girl you are not married to?
Public displays of affection?
Swearing in road rage? All of these will get you into serious trouble in 2010.
How about disability access?
Transport on roads that are already chocka block of cars?
Only one international airport?
It’s exhausting isn’t it? Of course the other bidding nations had issues to resolve if they had won, but not issues about human rights, and freedom.
It is also exhausting because this post is just a damn list, there is no journalistic flair involved because all I am doing is asking rhetorical questions. If I attempted to answer them, bloody hell, I’d be bordering on a War and Peace epic which would take the 12 years between now and then to read.
What has made me angry, disgusted (just cut and paste the all the synonyms for fury and displeasure I indulged in above) is that clearly, the truth of this country has been hidden. A glitzy presentation and some promises of good behaviour.
I am starting to believe that in this global recession, Fifa was just scared about choosing a country that will be bankrupt, and not be able to actually build the things they promised. Bottomless pockets of gas money.
Oh, and don’t think Qatar is happy just hosting. They will be handing out citizenships and passports to football stars, enabling them to play as ‘Qataris’. Money makes the World (Cup) go round.
It is all frightening, and hopefully I have offered a reality check before everyone sobers up tomorrow and realises the monster that is about to rear its ugly head. Oh, did I say sobers up? Only raspberry beer available people, 0% alcohol in that.
A puzzling choice by Fifa, and one which I am sure they will wish they could renege on as time passes.
My England, the country known as the ’3 Lions’, played poorly in South Africa 2010. If they can orchestrate their talent and harness their confidence to qualify for Qatar 2022….
….Well, they will be pussycats, entering the real Lions den.
“As I continue down this hurtful path
each step a silent scream,
a ‘thank you’ to the shoe that comforts
Air Jordan XIV”
Qhris
I guess it is expected, like the tide, that I will walk again, but when you live with a fractured ankle every day, it is the small victories that cause the purest elation.
You would think that with the sheer number of seconds I have seen sweep by on my clock, that I would have been more prolific on here, especially as vitriol and a drenching melancholic tidal wave is, while semi-depressing, literary gold-dust.
When my ankle snapped seemingly beyond repair 8 weeks ago, I did wistfully think that I would at least have reams of tales to regale. But then an odd thing happened;
Nothing happened.
When my lateral malleolus went on a vacation, sorry, break from co-operation, every day became a blended mush of the same events re-hashed with different numbers attached, and I was deafened by the sonic boom of everyone else’s lives accelerating.
Remember that fable, of the tortoise and the hare? I was suddenly cast, mis-cast, as the lumbering green one with a cast for a shell.
That wasn’t the only adjustment to my ‘exit stage left’ from a life I had commanded the lead role in.
Today I am so blissfully, and pathetically delighted that I can do something that, currently, 3 billion people are doing as I type;
Walk.
Like a badly drawn animation of a robot, with missing pages so the flicker seems disjointed. But still, walking, one foot in front of the other.
It took me 18 days post-cast, which is, I am assured by my Physiotherapist, something that should have taken weeks. This does not make me super-human, I have just been very determined and strict with myself, so there are no miracles here. And my success is beside the point. Or is the point, but from this angle:
While I am not expecting a ticker-tape parade and a JFK open top car, it is not hard to see why people really do not give a damn. Even my most ardent supporters are lukewarm at this news.
As I opened with, I am expected to walk again, so why should people care?
Forget other people…..
Why should I even care?!
Pre September, I had won writing awards, been part of one of the most successful swimming teams in my regions history, excelled at basketball, scored countless last second shots, bent it like Beckham more times than I can remember, and held my arms aloft with every trophy, or ripple of net that my dominance, and missile-like accuracy, had crushed an opponent with.
I could go on with the accolades, but the crux of the matter is this; I know what success is. I know the distinction of when I have swam the 2nd best, or clanged a ball off the rim.
In 8 weeks, my nerves have been shredded, and my goals have been realigned. I know there are people worse than I. Or at least, I did know that.
My clarity is really blurred recently, and my grip on reality is consigned to waking, soaking my foot, rotating my ankle countless times, and trying to find some kind of joy in-between plunging my foot on the ground and praying that today is the day that I lose the sensation of Thor stabbing me in glee.
Breaking my ankle has made me self-absorbed (more so), moody, and yet strangely serene. I haven’t reflected on myself, or my life, but I did look at myself with such scorn when I caught a glance in the gym mirror after taking my first steps unaided.
I saw myself on the podium, laden with a gold medal inscribed ‘Backstroke, 100m Champion’ and snarled at how the mighty have fallen. How taking 2 steps conjured some sort of emotional volcano to erupt. Disgusting.
I have scratched around to give some credence, and humour, to my looping lifestyle. Especially in the gym, a place that I abhor and glance at my watch every 5 minutes and sigh as time creaks by. Such as….
And so on, with all the apparatus. Okay, actually that was all made up, basically because I realised that this entry was getting darker and more self pitying by the paragraph.
Returning to the topic though, anyone with a slow healing breakage can attest to is that the one thing that is unvarying is motivation, specifically the times it ebbs away.
Harking back to my performance athlete phase, it was of the greatest ease to become motivated for a race, or a huge championship game. In the week leading up to the event, daydreaming of the winning play, your adrenaline starting to fizzle…
It has been a level far exceeding ridiculous to muster the same heartbeat day after day, for 60 days. Motivation is the crushing thing, because progress is incremental, and noticeable changes are vast distances, and days, apart.
Today was a watershed moment.
You may be wondering,what has fuelled my above-average recovery, and steeled my grit and determination.
Truthfully, after all my sports babble, of course, it is my heart, and romance that stirs me. You can acclimatise to success, craving another pressure game, or crafting a writing style, or free-kick, that becomes the envy of those around you.
You will always be soft, and your heart will always skip for a kiss from someone you deeply love.
That has been my motivation.
“I will not give up and I will not give in, and I will not give up and I will not give in”
Oh, in the fable, you may recall, the tortoise, however slow he was, actually won the race.
So, if you are my motivation, someone that I am chasing, or even taking a snooze, assuming that after 25 years you are finally ahead of me….. then you had better wake up.
Because I am coming, ready or not.
When you turn the number 8 on its side, its transforms from a serviceable member of the numeric table to the symbol for….infinity.
Similarly, when I am upright,I also exist as a constructive cog in the wheel of society.
But fracture my ankle and put me on my side and it feels like an infinity too.
This will not be a return drenched in self 8-red, nor is my downfall (literally) comparable to that of Caesar, so I won’t be indulging that.
He was stabbed on the Ides of March, before you unfurl your encyclopedia. Are you really so uneducated on your history, you bloody idiot?
As your mind turns to vitriol for the disrespect I just showed, here is my hatred;
There is something sinister about the recession, and not because we are cocooned by the ’shhh….don’t mention the economy’ Middle Eastern Ostrich approach.
The have-nots still seem to have, and the haves are punishing the middle to ensure that they don’t have not. Follow?
Okay okay….
There are people in England not working, yet still receiving government given benefits that eclipse the salaries of a working couple, enabling them to build up savings, and to buy all the things they have ever desired.
Without working.
I am not an economist, but when the recession is slammed in my face, then yes, other peoples business becomes my business.
I would love to return to the entries of yesteryear, er….last year, when I could be a hippy-child discussing the conversational merits of cloud shapes, or the fusion of two words to make, gasp, a new word…but the 21st Century is breathing down my neck, and concerns change.
I wanted to make this a channel of escapism, and of relief, and butterflies and chocolate and other things you’d love to read about, but it doesn’t quite fit.
What incensed me was recently stumbling across a Blog where people post ‘Fails’; clips and pictures of other people making idiots of themselves. So basically, the general public, acting normally on camera.
Really? Let me tell you about failure, and what we should really be creating websites to expose, and create an online movement to get incensed about.
There is a U.K banker, who despite running a failed financial giant that was bailed out by the taxpayer (and therefore publicly owned) is still going to get a pay-off when he voluntarily retires. The sum? Equivalent to £13.6 million.
Or, at the current rate, QR 74 million. For running a FAILED company.
Of course, this is mainly because he owns shares. So, a maths lesson. What are, for example, 20,000 shares of a company in debt worth? Take your time…
I cannot collate all of the stories of inequality in here, clearly, but when the banks are refusing to lend to the very people that own them there is something clearly wrong.
As always, pain begins at home in a sense.
My Dad ran a business, for over 20 years, and successfully I might add. The reasons for him stopping are too complex to navigate on here, but eventually it was down to needing to finish on his terms, rather than being driven into the ground and doing projects for less money than he would make on them. Yes, profits do matter to some companies, this isn’t football you know.
If I am biased in his favour about why he wound the company up, I am unbiased in this next stanza; that man got up every single morning, rain, shine, snow, hurricane, everything, to go to work. He worked all the hours under the sun, and most of the hours shrouded in darkness too.
After 20 years of hard grafting that is rarely seen in the internet-tied punks of todays ‘me’ generation, who came to my Dad and said ‘Well done, thanks for all your hard work, here is £13 million’?.
No-one.
And the banker ran a company into DEBT, and crashed the economy for an encore.
Things, I am afraid, don’t look much good for the Middle East either, under the surface.
Concrete knowledge in this region is hard to acquire, but it doesn’t take much to work out how many people are in Qatar, and how many huge banks there are operating in the Peninsula. Does the supply meet the demand? And have they been injected with gas money to give the quarterly figures a nice boost?
I am hoping that Qatar learns the lessons of recession proof-Dubai, because I sincerely think that Qatar isn’t so greedy, and that they will be more sensible with their projects.
My country is bankrupt. Generations will be affected, but the one I care about the most is the last one; my parents.
Nobody gets anything for working anymore. There are supposed to be no shortcuts.
I would have loved to press one button, and post an update for you to read every single day, brimming with panache and charisma. Guess what? You have to sit down and let it pour from your fingertips, no-one will do it for you.
So why is money now different? Why are there handouts, and freebies? Why is money, the only thing with actual value, not something to be earned?
One of the best Quotes I have ever read is
“If I owe you a riyal, I have a problem; but if I owe you a million, the problem is yours”.
Thank you, J.M Keynes.
Try this one;
“Though… individually the State was exceedingly economical and careful in the management of their private property, the state as such was extravagant and careless with the state revenue. It was found impossible to protect the public property from being plundered by private individuals, and the feeling of powerlessness resulted in reckless indifference”
Sound familiar?
From 2009? Or 2005?
No.
It is about the Senate under Caesar, and the Roman Empire.
So seems that really…. we are all bloody idiots and none of us, educated or otherwise, knows our history.
So, ‘All hail Caesar!’.
The way things are going, you should probably ‘hail Mary’ a few times too.
Once upon a time, in a land far away (the other day, on the Corniche) a young squire (my best friend) posed a conundrum that even the most theological of minds would grapple with, like a mighty Kraken tangled with a Galleon (‘a simple question’).
“Describe yourself in two words” he said.
As you can imagine, carnage ensued.
The problem is not only finding 2 appropriate words, but also finding a couplet that doesn’t contradict one another, which proves more difficult than you first imagine….
I settled upon my words fairly quickly, having such a wonderful self awareness, and promptly chose ‘passiocurial’ and ’caughtful’
Hey! Those are words!
Okay clearly not. They are a fusion of ‘passionate’ and ‘mercurial’, and ‘comedic’ and ‘thoughtful’ but maybe ‘inventive’ should have been in there somewhere. And besides, my thoughts are only about myself.
It’s a task which my Dad, an Electrician and no-nonsense leader of men would pull a face at. ‘Sitting thinking of words?….’ and, for the record, he also cannot see the point of driving around with no destination just for the sake of going for a drive, nor can he see faces and shapes in the clouds.
Nevertheless, seeing yourself and branding your whole existence with a double-barrrel of words makes you envious of those in advertising, who have to condense the ethos and meaning of a brand into a short, sharp impact, ‘Just Do It’ et al.
Anyway my best friend proffered, for his first two (he used about 100 words in the end, and they were all true) ’sensible & romantic’.
This sent me into raptures, I was screaming down the Corniche and into the skyline of Doha that it is impossible to be both those things…. Romance being a swirling mass of adrenaline and blood rushing, and Sense is being calculated and pre-meditated. I mean he is both (and at the time of writing, ladies, is still single), but really would his epitaph read that way?
I mean, it doesn’t even scratch the surface of the depth and morality of him, nor does it hint at the hours of heartache he has poured out to me about the love that he has, not being matched by someone he propels his heart and soul into loving. I am not saying this girl uses him, but lets just say she doesn’t know how lucky she is.
‘Romantic’ sounds ditzy and happy-go-lucky, but he also has the shadows to darken that sunshine and be upset about being used. Yes, I have decided in that space of words he is being used.
I am only over-analysing his words, and not my own, because it is hard to see what is intrinsic about you. This ‘game’ (although it takes on such a thoughtful tone, and becomes an imaginative burden) is akin to giving yourself a nickname. You can go around calling yourself ‘The Messiah’ all you want to, but it won’t stop other people from calling you ‘The Mistake ’…..
So where have I been, in my month long hiatus?
Well today I kissed the top of the Himalayas, whose snow reflected the golden sun an eye-scorching white, Manila in the Phillipines where my head was dumbfounded by Christmas decorations and 30 degree heat,because to me Yuletide is freezing cold and my mind couldn’t understand the conflict.
And lastly to Vienna, a stunning clean city which oozes efficiency and class, and embodies what Europe is revered for, unlike the cesspit and misery of my London, which still has an outdated reputation of ’streets paved with Gold’ that most of my colleagues want to flock to. Tell me, has anywhere other than England ever had the word ‘quaint’ used to paint the atmosphere of it’s streets and fields? That’s not Gold on the streets, it is a flood of urine from the Friday night binge-drinking.
Which nicely parlays into something I noticed in Vienna, which was drinking.
Depending on your origin, that word, ‘drinking’ will either embody a mountain filtered mineral water or a frosty ice-cold beer.
In this instance it is the beer, and its acceptance in Europe, that I am embracing.
I went for cake in a quaint (yes, I am a pioneer) little pastry shop, and after choosing my ‘Shokobombe’ chocolate cake, was offered coffee, coca cola, or a beer.
And, let me say, i was offered ‘coffee, coca cola or a beer’, not ‘coffee, coca cola OR A BEER’.
There was no perceived difference that at 2 p.m in the afternoon, I was being offered something with 5.4% alcohol. This took the taboo out of the decision; I wasn’t having to sneak stolen gulps of ‘amber nectar’ and so it takes on a boring ‘just another beverage’ quality.
I have only ever lived in two cultures; the ‘top shelf’ ‘alcohol is an issue’ of the U.K, and the ‘alcohol is evil’ of the Middle East, though the latter is for religious purposes and the Kingdom is just because they love drama and sensationalism.
My ’streets of Gold…urine’ comment may have been repulsive but it flirts very close to the truth, as when something is forbidden, people have no idea how to respect or treat it when they have it.
Hence the ‘it is Friday, work has finished, let the liver destruction begin’ race that ensues every weekend.
When you line up the cans of beer alongside Coca Cola, Fanta and Water, it removes the cloud hovering over the consumption of it.
An interesting adaptation I found, no finger pointing and staring because I was drinking in the afternoon…..the finger pointing was because of the skirt and high heels I was wearing instead.
I am joking, promise.
So…has this quenched your thirst? I do miss writing frequently but then I got shell-shocked when I read other blogs that seem to update just for the sake of updating, I would certainly lose my passion if I had to be held at gunpoint to let the words drip from my fingertips.
I’ll round this entry off with my favourite quotes of the month;
Nepal, Kathmandu (Cabin Senior) “Do they have wireless internet here?” (Qhris) “Yes, but they don’t use Google, just Yak-hoo”
Manila, Philippines (to taxi driver) “Does Robinson’s Mall open on Friday, man?”
City Centre (Joyce) “It smells like Pollution here” (Qhris) ‘Calvin Klein really need to put more work into naming their perfumes”.
Text; “To Mum and Dad, arrived to France safe. Spending the night with at Paris Hilton. Love you”
I say ‘favourite’ quotes, but in honesty they are just taken from the last week. I use so many throwaway quips it would be impossible to document them all.
If anyone wants to remind me of anything they feel is integrally amusing that we have been through, please do use the comment section to remind me of the things that have made you smile about the time we have spent together. And of course, you can post the stupid things I have said too.
I’ll just moderate it to delete those.
Every time I post a thread on here, it is a total gamble.
But like in Poker remember, eventually, the house always wins.
Finally, the only 2 haunts in Qatar open at insane o’clock are Starbucks. As a non caffeine consumer, well…..okay, I drink excesses of Red Bull, but as someone who doesn’t intake coffee, I went to Starbucks tonight with the love of my life and have to say I was surprised at their array of food and other drinks. So this is just a note to say that even if you don’t drink Coffee, don’t judge a (Star)Buck by its cover; there are other things too.
Has my collection of friends over-thinking of every detail of life, and the re-counting of such events driven you to insanity yet?
We have this place surrounded…..
….we’ll make you act the same.
