Mecha-Rudhraigh vs the WTO!!

Well, as you know everybody's favourite trade regulator, the good old WTO is in town having a meeting that's apparently aimed at solving the burning trade issues that cripple the poor and molest the rich of their god given dignity. They surely are a bunch of good Samaritans at the WTO, kind, considerate and truely concerned for the fortunes of their fellow man. Sadly, not all agree with this righteous point of view and a few of these malicious minded thieves thought it proper and appropriate to litter the streets of Hong Kong with their maloderous presence today.
I, thinking it an interesting situation, tagged along for the ride. To start with, it was pretty sedate although some of the walking bands and megaphone shouting was pretty cool. They closed off a long part of Wan Chai, there were representetives from every conceivable anti-globalisation organisation around, if Hong Kong is anything it's a mish mash of people from everywhere around the world so pretty much everyone has access to protesting here. Indians, Brits, Germans, Chinese, Koreans, French, Brazilians and of course the Irish. When I first got there it was pretty standard protest stuff, hundreds of people all walking in the same direction trying to make it look as though it represented something, even though the something in question was slightly different depending on which banner you were walking behind.
Some people wanted genuine fair trade, others wanted fair trade strictly for homosexuals, yet others wanted fair trade as a part of international communism and thene there was me, who wanted to take photos. Then there were the Korean farmers, who wanted to have the right to sell their products at the same prices as the multinational corporations who are edging them out of the market with mass production. Those pesky Koreans have a habit of dying of starvation and making everyone look bad as a result.
While I was walking next to the Oxfam group, I noticed that I was beside the dude from Amorres Peros and the Motorcycle Diaries. He was small, hairy and had a camera.
When we finally got to the ground outside the conference center, all the groups stopped by the seaside and took out the megaphones. An hour of shouting in Chinese and heavily accented English, nothing much had happened. The problem with these sorts of protests is that at the core of your mind, you're always a little bored and you hope there will be a little action. Luckily, I was not dissapointed. I was lucky enough to be beside some railings that overlooked the main poiint of entry to the conference when the Korean farmers attacked the Hong Kong police barricade. They tried to dump a burning funeral pyre on the police, but luckily they didn't achieve it. The cops were replaced by a forty person deep line of police officers, all of whom seemed to be about ten, in full riot gear with shields, pepper spray and batons. It was a crazy thing, people were getting sprayed, cops were getting hit, it's weird to see someone hit a cop and know that they won't get arrested cause there are just too many of them. It really drives it home how much the police rely on the support of the people to do their job.
When the Koreans started getting out of hand, they got pepper sprayed like crazy, I was about four meters away from this one guy who got a load of it straight in the eyes. He was on the ground writhing in pain, the kind of pain you don;t really see first person these days. I was on top of the railings taking photos for about an hour and a half whilst a full on riot was going down less than two meters below me. The photos I took were pretty unbelievable, you really can't beleive the craziness of see a guy get beaten with a baton, especially when you know he kinda deserves it for trying to smash a policeman in the face with a piece of wood.
Eventually things calmed down somewhat, the Koreans had all been peppersprayed and beaten so there wad no-one left to go crazy. It was odd, you could see loads of crusty Europeans in the mix, giving a lot of shit. Very weird to see that, kind of wanted them to get arrested. After a while I decided to leave and went off. As I walked home, I kept looking at all the people, amazed by the fact that no-one was fighting.
So all in all, my first riot was a glorious success, except that nothing actually got acheived. Some people got smacked around and yet others couldn't see yet, thank god, the WTO conference goes on and we can all go to bed safe knowing that the world is an ordered place. Apparently Saturday is going to be the hardcore day because 600 more Korean farmes are arriving so I may go again if I get time. I'll post the pictures I take then too..

30 things that I have learned in Hong Kong

1] Chinese People love money, work hard and will be all of our masters in a short time. Our Kids will be naming their kids "Fung" and sending them to Chinese schools to learn accentless Mandarin.
2] Living in a big city can actually be a very small experience.
3] People on cocaine are not as much fun as you might think.
4] Chinese people tend towards being unimaginative.
5] Chinese girls love to date Europeans but want to marry Chinese.
6] Advertising is not as easy as you might think.
7] I like living in a place where things work properly.
8] Living in a different time zone to everyone you love is both good because you can pick when you're going to talk to people and shit because sometimes you can't when you want to.
9] Long distance relationships are extremely hard when you're in love.
10] Reno 911 is a great show in bits.
11] Paying full price for DVD's is stupid.
12] Meeting new and interesting people is hard in aplace where everyone is remarkably similar.
13] Living in a small flat can be a lot of fun if you have a good flatmate.
14] The internet is a small place.
15] The fact that every conception of the future in film looks like a mall in LA is depressing.
16] There are places on this Earth for everyone, even the fuckers have their own place where they can do exactly what they want.
17] I hate the word "Expat"
18] Blogs are a diamond mine of shit and excellent music.
19] I have a distinct interest in particular parts of the internet.
20] Being white and the much debated minority is not easy when you're trying to blend in.
21] You don't need Cantonese to live in Hong Kong, you just need Cantonese to talk to anyone worht talking to.
22] Within ten years, Hong Kong will rival any city in the world in terms of popular culture and celebrity.
23] Cantopop is crap, but popluar in mainland China.
24] Deadwood is a good TV show, in fact everything by HBO is great.
25] Rocky is a good game until you get good at it, then it's just boring and repetetive.
26] The music scene here is progressing well, but still shit and underdeveloped.
27] I like being able to buy cheap beer whenever I want in 7-11, but it makes me feel poor.
28] I like to live in a warm climate, but constant air conditioning is mind sappingly tiring.
29] Life is not an easy thing to predict.
30] I'd come back to Hong Kong, but I couldn't live here.

30 things thatI have learned in Hong Kong

1] Chinese People love money, work hard and will be all of our masters in a short time. Our Kids will be naming their kids "Fung" and sending them to Chinese schools to learn accentless Mandarin.
2] Living in a big city can actually be a very small experience.
3] People on cocaine are not as much fun as you might think.
4] Chinese people tend towards being unimaginative.
5] Chinese girls love to date Europeans but want to marry Chinese.
6] Advertising is not as easy as you might think.
7] I like living in a place where things work properly.
8] Living in a different time zone to everyone you love is both good because you can pick when you're going to talk to people and shit because sometimes you can't when you want to.
9] Long distance relationships are extremely hard when you're in love.
10] Reno 911 is a great show in bits.
11] Paying full price for DVD's is stupid.
12] Meeting new and interesting people is hard in aplace where everyone is remarkably similar.
13] Living in a small flat can be a lot of fun if you have a good flatmate.
14] The internet is a small place.
15] The fact that every conception of the future in film looks like a mall in LA is depressing.
16] There are places on this Earth for everyone, even the fuckers have their own place where they can do exactly what they want.
17] I hate the word "Expat"
18] Blogs are a diamond mine of shit and excellent music.
19] I have a distinct interest in particular parts of the internet.
20] Being white and the much debated minority is not easy when you're trying to blend in.
21] You don't need Cantonese to live in Hong Kong, you just need Cantonese to talk to anyone worht talking to.
22] Within ten years, Hong Kong will rival any city in the world in terms of popular culture and celebrity.
23] Cantopop is crap, but popluar in mainland China.
24] Deadwood is a good TV show, in fact everything by HBO is great.
25] Rocky is a good game until you get good at it, then it's just boring and repetetive.
26] The music scene here is progressing well, but still shit and underdeveloped.
27] I like being able to buy cheap beer whenever I want in 7-11, but it makes me feel poor.
28] I like to live in a warm climate, but constant air conditioning is mind sappingly tiring.
29] Life is not an easy thing to predict.
30] I'd come back to Hong Kong, but I couldn't live here.

20 Things that have changed in the last 2 months

1) I quit my job.
2) I moved out of the Sykes’ into a closet. But it’s a closet with a PS2 and an ashtray, so it was okay.
3) I’ve been writing a lot more.
4) I’ve started smoking.
5) I’m now smoking Menthols.
6) I don’t think I can go back to regular cigarettes.
7) I’ve become radically unfit but I’ve lost a load more weight and look more fit than when I was going to the gym twice a day, how hilarious is that?
8) I’m now on my natural “go to sleep at six in the morning and get up at three in the afternoon” sleep cycle.
9) I’ve been watching a lot more TV/movies
10) I eat out at almost every meal.
11) I now have to do my own washing.
12) I go out drinking a lot less now that I live thirty seconds away from all the bars.
13) I’ve started going into work solely because they let me use the internet. This means that hilariously enough, there are days when I sit on the net for hours, browsing and downloading, exactly what I did when I actually worked here.
14) I stopped playing the PS2 as playing Rocky for two days straight made me hit someone.
15) I’m planning on either coming home early to do some research for my book or going to Malaysia.
16) I finally saw “The Talented Mr. Ripley”, very good, although I was surprised by all the gay stuff. Not because I have a problem with including homosexuality as a narrative device but because I hate the gays.
17) I’ve been buying up small bankrupt corporations, amalgamating them into single corporate entities and selling them on to the US government at a vast profit.
18) I’ve started lying in this entry.
19) I discovered to my simultaneous glee and anger that the couch in my flat is actually a sofa bed. I have been sitting on that couch for days on end and my flatmate didn't think to tell me that it pulled out into a bed. That enrages me What's worse is that I didn't think to check.
20) I’ll be home for and after Christmas, this place is dead anyway.

My Day In: Air Conditioning

04:40 AM
I wake up at with a comprehensive motherfucker of a sore throat because the air con always dries me out like I've been French kissing a sponge. After a few seconds of staring into the dark, I realise that reason I'm awake is because the fan has popped back on, making a loud "CLick" noise, it does this every fifteen minutes or so. Most times I'm able to ignore it but every sixth or seventh time it builds to a crescendo of sudden scary night noising, one of those "CLICK"'s makes me sit up in bed grasping for the light switch as I ready myself for the mortal struggle with the house sized cricket who seems to be trying to eat me. Of course I could just sleep without the air con on, but I have this thing about having to wash gallons of sweat out of my one set of sheets three times every day because my washing machine doesn't work very well. So, instead, I sleep badly and have a sore throat, it seems like a fair trade.

09:00 AM
Phone goes of and then goes back to sleep so that I can too. Room is freezing, yet somehow I am still sweating. Pull covers over half of me as compromise. Uncovered half now far too cold whilst covered half far too hot.

09:10 AM
Snooze mode # 1 kicks in, switch covered/uncovered sides. For brief moment am comfortable enough to escape back to sleep.

09:20 AM
Snooze mode # 2 kicks in, merely a transititory stage, perhaps change sides/hug pillow. On occasion if I'm feeling active I might turn off the air con and open my door a little at this point so that I can enjoy the next half an hour of cool air mixing with the war form the living room.

09:30 AM
Snooze mode # 3 kicks in and is ignored as I sleep. Room is pleasantly temperatured if I opened the door, or freezing if I didn't.

09:40 AM
Snooze mode # 4 kicks in , I debate whether to get up and instead go back to sleep. Throat is beginning to smart.

09:50 AM
Snooze Mode # 5 kicks in. I usually get up about now as I have to be in work for ten. I go out into the sweltering furnace of the living room, take a three minute shower, brush my teeth get dressed and am out the door and at my desk by 10:05 AM.

10:05 AM
Sitting at the desk, the office is freezing if one of the Chinese staff has had to walk to work, or pleasant enough if they didn't. The problem with Air con is that most people only really think about it when they're either too hot or too cold. So they end up turning it on or off and you have to just put up with the adjustment to your ambient temperature, you just have to take it.
It's not like you can for example, stand up and bellow in their face " Hey! Fuckwad! I realise you may be overly hot but for Christ's sake why don't you stand in the corridor where the building AC makes it Sub Artic for five minutes instead of making me sit here with goosebumps for the next twenty until I finally awkwardly ask if you mid if I turn the AC down a bit?" You can't do it cause your throat is far too sore.

12:30 PM
Lunch time means going outside, outside means a variety of ambient temperatures ranging from teeth chattering to sweltering. I walk from the relatively comfortable office, into the Artic wasteland of the corridor. I actually have a jacket that I wear just for when I'm standing in the corridor, it's that cold. Someone once told me that apparently in New York, more people die of pneumonia in the Summer than the Winter because they just live in the vast extremes of Outside Hot and Inside Cold. I can believe it. I tell that story at least once a week. I find it comforting in a "Generation X'er continuous appreciation of the vague sarcastic irony of our existence" kind of way.
Going outside right now is actually okay, it's like a really warm day in a temperate country, but coupled with massive humidity and even worse pollution it ain't doing your sore throat any favours. The Air conditioning units of Hong Kong are the single biggest drain on the power grid, massively outclassing their nearest rival. This also means they're the main contributors to the worsening pollution problem here. It's funny, in other places I would feel genuinely bad to be adding to this problem, here I don't even think about it as I reach for the AC. It's just too fucking hot.

In terms of AC, Walking through places in Hong Kong is a bit of an international tableau of differing climates. People here have actually figured out a way to make the kind of AC you subscribe to be a kind of social stratification. For example to many Hong Kong Chinese people, temperatures just short of freezing are the only acceptable standard, whilst Europeans with their added layers of fat prefer a more temperate option. So if you go into a Hong Kong Chinese business here and they favour a temperate AC, you can immediately tell that they're trying to cater to the Europeans, and vice versa. It's an odd little thing.

Also, to a certain extent climate control is another form of wealth classification, since more expensive air con units run into hundreds of thousands of HK Dollars, if you only have one of the window boxes {as I have had since I moved out of the Sykes's} you're doomed to half-measured air con. So if you have da money you can be comfy, tis as simple as that. The theft of air conditioning units from apartments here is apparently pretty massive, an interesting fact if you throw in the "bling" factor of having good air conditioning in your flat. Some people actually refer to each other's Air con units by model name. "Hey Yao lets go back to yours and crank up that sweet AC-1050 Beeatch!" "Fan, your Zannusi 55k is tricked out Muthafucka!"

17:00 PM
Been sitting at desk all day, throat even worse, feel like germs have spore colonies in the spongy air con filters and are busily invading my body. I have never had so many colds and flus in my life. It's like uin the office we all have one glass that we all drink out of, except every time we do it's always the backwashed bit at the end that's thirty percent spit.
I sneeze, everyone else here immeditaely covers their mouths. If someone coughs, I immediatelty cover mine. Germs and air con go hand in hand, the little buggers just love to get into the filters and go mental. Because it's all recirculated air, you get this weird stale smell, a kind of "diet-smell" of everything. For example if someone’s having a smoke, you get a kind of "Fresh-air Smoke" smell all over the place. When we get food in, you can smell the tinge of it everywhere. Because the air is cold, you're constantly taking deep breaths, I have yet to see a place where it's so cold you can see your breath, even though it's definitely been cold enough for that to happen. as far as I can figure that's largely because air conditioned air doesn't conduct vapour the same way as normal air, presumably because it's so devoid of moisture or some such other pertinent scientific fact.
I'm looking forward to going home, usually at around 18:30 PM, so that I can go and regulate my own air con and stop putting my jacket on and off every twenty minutes. Living in air conditioning is pretty much all about the five minutes after you've taken off an article of clothing or walked inside from the heat. All the other times, it's pretty shitty.

02:00 AM
I turn on the AC in my bedroom before taking a shower, the room has to be cool before I go to bed, it's just a pain in the ass trying to sleep otherwise. It begins to "CLick" as I leave the room. I hate that "CLick". More than I hate Osama Bin Laden, at least he lets me sleep.

Elaine.

I found out on Saturday that Elaine, one of the two staff writers from BC magazine where I used to work, tragically committed suicide last Friday.

When I heard, I really didn't know what to do, I didn't know what to say, I didn't know how I felt other than I knew I felt insensibly bad. Since then, thinking about it I have to admit that I didn't know Elaine terribly well, we worked together in an office where we never really talked, but sometimes, even all you have with another person is a shared awareness that you're both alive, that they will share in part of your own life's memory and as such the death of that person is inexpressibly tragic, woefully all encompassing, personally devastating.

It's funny, now that I want to try and describe her I find I can't, or maybe it's that I don't want to try because now that she's not here to disprove my inevitably innacurate description of her, my insipid simplification of her life, I don't want to confine her to words like "a good person" and "sweet" because they're not who she was. She was so much more than that. She was a living, breathing person with all the millions of unique traits both good and bad that we all have and that's the tragedy, the world is a little less special now that she's gone. It's selfish for the rest of us who are still here and who knew her, but we can't help it, I know I can't. I miss her. Even though I didn't know her very well.

It's funny, for the most part we really do live in a culture of denial when it comes to death. Anti-aging this and plastic Beyonce that, death is really not something that we like to acknowledge. It's just something we genuinely wish wasn't there at all and the denial is so huge that it dwarves any ability on our part to compare it to something in our lives that we understand, something ordinary. Death, it seems, is an emotional trigger we can't stand being pulled.

Our denial is mostly made easy by the fact that for the most part, all the people who are reading this, ie. people with computers, treat death as a rather unnatural part of their lives because the seldom experience it in others and never in themselves and when it does happen to others it's usually to people that you can kind of tell are going to die. So, when we are confronted with sudden death, the very rapidity of it means that it's something that we can't ignore because the absence of that person, combined with the total lack of solid dependable knowledge as to what has really happened to them means that we are confronted by a reality much realer than the one we've been living in. We find ourselves stumped as to how to deal with this new reality, we wish that we could go back to living in the old one because it was a lot less complicated and it didn't hurt as much. Death brings desperation. In response to this problem some turn to religion, others to addiction, many just shut down from the all encompassing nature of the pain, living for the rest of their lives in quiet, unassailable agony. I wonder, is there another option?

I am one of the luckier ones in that with regards to Elaine's death, I was on the emotional periphery because I didn't know her very well. Sadly enough, I can deal with it, apparently this event is not large enough for me to really learn anything really real about death. My sadness aside I can fall back into my life and this merely ends the chapter marked "Elaine" in my head, in the story of my life. I think the real tragedy of suicide is for the people who are closer to the dead, those who cannot escape or evade the pain. Elaine impacted on many people throughout her life, more than she knew, more than any of us knew.

The saddest thing of all is that if suicides knew how many people will genuinely miss them after they are gone, they'd probably never do it in the first place..

Written this morning in work "Jesus II - Payback Time!"

VO
Two thousand years ago the world was changed forever when our lord God sent his only son to Earth to die for our sins. Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace sacrificed himself so that we, the filthy sinners of the world, could be forgiven for all time. Since then many bad and evil things have happened, World Wars, Plagues, The Spice Girls, Terrorism. Looking around the world today you could be forgiven for thinking that the Dark Lord Satan has won the war for Earth’s soul, but you would be wrong. It’s not a question of if Jesus is coming back; it’s just a question of when. It’s not a question of why Jesus takes all Satan’s evil, it’s a question of just how much he can take, and what will it be that pushes Jesus over the edge of heaven and back down to Earth.

EXT – The United Nations Building in New York City-New York, it is a busy and baking hot day in New York. SAIED, a confident and good looking looking young Arab man walks towards the building carrying a rucksack, you can tell he’s an Arab because he’s wearing a turban, has a long beard and robes and is continually muttering “Allah U Ackbar” in an Oxford accent under his breath every couple of seconds. He meets another obviously Arabic man with a massive beard in front of the fountain JAFFAR who is holding a briefcase

SAIED
Greetings Jaffar, is it not a fine day to bring the fiery wrath of god to the infidels?

JAFFAR
Indeed Saied, today the whole world shall know that there is but one god and Allah is his name.

SAIED
Is everything in place?

JAFFAR
It is brother.

SAIED
So, sha..

His is interrupted by a man dressed in a shirt and tie wearing a badge that identifies him as a Mormon

MORMON [Loud and friendly]
Hello there gentlemen, my name is Elder Johnson from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints! Have you heard the good work about Jesus Christ?

SAIED [Maliciously]
Hey, why don’t you go fuck yourself?


MORMON
Well, there’s no need for that, I’m just trying to save your eternal souls.

JAFFAR
Well go save somewhere else you diseased patch of camel urine!

The MORMON walks away, shaking his head, he immediately accosts a pair of suited types with the same schpiel as they pass by.

SAIED
God, I hate the fucking Mormons.

JAFFAR
Yeah, the fucking bastards they’re always calling to the apartment during dinner, really pisses my second wife off. If it was up to me they’d all roast in fiery pits for eternity.

SAIED
Anyway, shall we do this thing?

JAFFAR
Indeed. Let’s get our bomb on.

SAIED and JAFFAR walk towards the back of the building.
CUT to EXT an unguarded service entrance where a shuttered grate has been left open to allow a nearby truck to unload it’s cargo of coffee beans and fresh tomatoes. They sidle up the truck, grab sacks and enter the building unnoticed amongst the workers.

Cut To INT Security office – A security camera screen clearly shows the two men entering the building, but MOHAMMAD THE SECURITY GUARD at the desk is also of Arabic extraction, you can tell this because he is wearing full Arabic robes, a turban has a long black beard and a little badge that says
“Security – Mohommad Smith”

SECURITY GUARD [Whispering to himself]
Allah U Akbar Saied! Allah U Ackbar Jaffar!

CUT TO INT Un Building – SAEID and JAFFAR are standing amongst a tour group consisting of an OLD MAN FROM TEXAS, a few young people and a group of small Catholic school children including a cute little blond girl called JENNY who are being chaperoned by FATHER MCGETTIGAN, an old Irish priest who looks as if he might have a drinking problem. The attractive female TOUR GUIDE is standing by to lead them through different areas of interest.

TOUR GUIDE
Now, if you’d like to move along, we’ll start the tour.

JENNY
Father?


FATHER MCGETTIGAN
Yes Jenny?

JENNY
Billy Batson just asked me if he could touch my heiny but I said no cause Jesus says heiny touching before marriage is evil.

FATHER MCGETTIGAN [shouting]
Indeed it is. Well Jenny, if that’s that case don’t you worry because then Billy is going STRAIGHT TO HELL!! Aren’t you Billy? Where you will be forced to eat liquid hot lava for all of time and burn in everlasting turmoil and torment, right Billy?

BILLY [Quietly, looking like he’s about to cry]
Yes father.

FATHER MCGETTIGAN [Shouting]
That’s right, now all of you little bloodsucking cretins, come on! There’re millions of starving black babies right now in Africa who aren’t as lucky as ye who are getting to swan about on school trips to the United Nation s Building!

The tour Group begins to walk through the building

TOUR GUIDE
The United Nations headquarters building was constructed in New York City in 1949 and 1950 beside the East River on land purchased by an 8.5 million dollar donation from John D. Rockefeller, Jr. The building, which consists of

Whilst the speech is going on, JAFFAR is reaching into his briefcase and subtly assembling a submachine gun under his robes. The gun is completed as they reach a small room with only one entrance which has a number of posters that are relevant to the building’s history. He looks over at SAIED and nods, as soon as SAIED nods back JAFFAR grabs the TOUR GUIDE and points the fully assembled MP5 Hechler and Koch at her head. SAIED pulls out a massive Mini-Gun that he had secreted under his voluminous robes and points it directly at the children

JAFFAR
No body fucking move!

The room erupts, all the children are going crazy and trying to run away. The TOUR GUIDE is going absolutely hysterical. JAFFAR and SAIED are trying to keep the whole group together by pushing them together and screaming mindlessly in Arabic but somehow JENNY manages to break away and make a run for the door, she is about to make it when suddenly MOHAMMED THE SECURITY GUARD appears in the door with what looks like a Scud missile launcher.

MOHAMMED THE SECURITY GUARD
And where do you think you are you going little girl?

JENNY
AHHHHHHHHHHHH!

MOHAMMED THE SECURITY GUARD pushes JENNY back into the room and closes the door behind him, locking it with a key from his belt. He walks towards the still crazy crowd.

MOHAMMED THE SECURITY GUARD [Screaming]
Shut up!!

MOHAMMED THE SECURITY GUARD points the Scud launcher at JENNY and the room quietens down. Once they are calm, SAIED pushes Jenny back into the crowd

MOHAMMED THE SECURITY GUARD
Having trouble Saied?

SAIED
Don’t give me any of that backtalk! Is everything on schedule?

MOHAMMED THE SECURITY GUARD
Yes, Thank Allah for equal opportunity employers. Stupid Christians won’t know what hit them. By now videotapes have been given to all the major news networks explaining what we do here today.

JAFFAR
Shall I set the explosives?

SAIED
Yes Jaffar.

JAFFAR pushes the petrified TOUR GUIDE back into the mass of people and walks over to a certain wall, pulls off the posters and opens his briefcase which is full of explosives, he begins setting them up. Meanwhil,the OLD MAN FROM TEXAS and FATHER MCGETTIGAN are having a heated whispered debate.

OLD MAN FROM TEXAS [Whispering]
I’m telling you father, I’m not going out without a fight.

FATHER MCGETTIGAN [Whispering]
But what can you do?

OLD MAN FROM TEXAS [Whispering]
I can take them down.

OLD MAN FROM TEXAS surreptitiously pulls out a small knife from his boot and puts it up his sleeve.

OLD MAN FROM TEXAS [Whispering]
I’m a cop. I know what to do.

FATHER MCGETTIGAN [Whispering]
But there are three of them, they might hurt the children!

OLD MAN FROM TEXAS [Whispering]
I can get them.

SAIED [SHOUTING]
You two! Come here!

OLD MAN FROM TEXAS and FATHER MCGETTIGAN look at each other and then walk out.

SAIED
You were talking?

FATHER MCGETTIGAN
No

SAIED
It wasn’t a question.

SAIED shoots OLD MAN FROM TEXAS in the face, he falls back and hits the ground, everyone screams.

SAIED
No talking.

CUT TO – EXT An infinite cloud of purest white, in the middle there is a hole through which the hostage room can be seen. As OLD MAN FROM TEXAS is shot a beautiful, soft and gentle voice can be heard to say

VO
NO!

CUT TO – INT Hostage room – SAIED is now pointing his gun at FATHER MCGETTTIGAN, the room is in pandemonium.

SAIED [Shouting]
SHUT UP!!

The room quietens down.

SAIED
You [points at FATHER MCGETTIGAN] you are a Christian priest yes?

FATHER MCGETTIGAN
I am.

SAIED
And what do you think of what we are doing?

FATHER MCGETTIGAN
I think it is an abomination before God.

SAIED [laughing]
That is very funny, because I think it is God’s Will and since there is no God but Allah, surely you are wrong?

FATHER MCGETTIGAN
There is one true God and Jesus Christ was his son.

SAIED
Well, that’s a good point, I too am a priest and since I represent the Will of God if I were to say, shoot this girl here in the head to teach you not to talk, what would you say?

SAIED points his mini-gun at JENNY who cowers in fear. SAID starts the barrel of his gun spinning. JAFFAR and MOHAMMAD THE SECURITY GUARD look on with sniggering laughter.

CUT TO – EXT An infinite cloud of purest white

VO [very strongly]
NO! This is it, I can watch no longer my children suffer, now is the time for action!

CUT TO – INT Hostage room,

SAIED [Shouting]
You! [pointing at Jenny] Come here!

FATHER MCGETTIGAN [Shouting]
No Jenny! You stay there!

SAIED
Talking again? Maybe this will teach you.

SAIED begins to fire at Jenny and into the crowd of children, he laughs maniacally as the mini-gun blazes away, the small room quickly fills with smoke from the gun’s cordite until the children are obscured. Screams are heard under the whine of the gun’s motor. Eventually SAIED stops firing, but keeps laughing. FATHER MCGETTIGAN falls to his knees in abject despair, crying and sobbing. SAIED’s face is maniacal as he turns to FATHER MCGETTIGAN and starts the gun spinning again.

SAIED
The lesson is over.

Suddenly, magically, the room clears of smoke and the children are revealed to all be standing there, not knowing what has happened. On the ground about three feet in front of them there are thousands of bullets and there is also a man with long brown hair and a short brown beard. He is wearing a pure white robe.

JESUS CHRIST
No, the lesson is just beginning.

SAIED is absolutely shocked, JAFFAR and MOHAMMAD THE SECURITY GUARD are lying dead on the ground. FATHER MCGETTIGAN looks up at SAIED and smiles. JESUS CHRIST waves and SAIED is suddenly totally frozen in a stance of absoulte terror, only his eyes are moving.

JESUS CHRIST
Enjoy the eternally tormenting lava, tell Satan I’ll see him soon.

JESUS CHRIST waves his hand again and SAIED bursts into flames, he writhes in agony as the flames consume his body. Eventually he stops moving and the ashes turn into a disgusting blood coloured goo, as do the bodies of JAFFAR and MOHAMMAD THE SECURITY GUARD

FATHER MCGETTIGAN
My Lord? You’re back?

JESUS CHRIST
Yes I’m back, and now it’s Payback time.

One part of every sentence here is a lie. Guess which!

Two weeks ago I went through a Machiavellian plan to secretly surprise my family by coming home for my brother’s birthday but they were still to be unaware of my other, more savage secret, that since moving to Hong Kong I had joined the CIA as the international assassin and part-time spam-monger Fanciful D Delphiniu!


I surprised my brother on the morning of his birthday by lying my way into his flat but once I had pushed past the third naked male prostitute dressed in a sexy Klingon outfit I realised that I was not the only one in our family who had secrets.


Later that day, I surprised the rest of my family at a restaurant which was lovely because my mother cried, of course I was unaware that she was crying because she realised that she’d have to pay for my dinner.

For the next few days, I mostly spent my time in Wicklow, playing computer games, talking to my mum, enjoying the fresh air and killing would-be Israeli assassins.


Later that week I attended Charlie Slevin’s Pirate-Themed 21st Birthday in Mayo which was totally not full of Charlie’s rough attempts to put his “pork sword” in everyone’s ear while they slept.


I saw all the guys I hadn’t seen in a while, Mano, Eddie, Dave Wall, Johnny Illan, Skec, Ben Ullman which was great.


Once home again, my friend Paul came over from Hong Kong for two days for some drinking, some chatting and to keep me up to date on an upcoming job in Russia regarding a certain corrupt Irish TD who needed “retirement”

For the next few days I wasn’t looking forward to leaving Ireland, my family and paying six euro for a watered down pint of piss.

Of course the day eventually came, I said goodbye to my loved ones, said goodbye to my father, hugged my older brother and my younger sister, kissed my girlfriend, garrotted my traitorous informant for not telling me about the second kill-team in Bangladesh.

When I was on the plane on the way back to Hong Kong I was sitting next to this guy, an Arab guy.

He claimed he was a police officer in Hong Kong, soon to join the Police Tactical Unit we had a nice conversation but thanks to my extensive CIA training I noticed that he kept drawing in a scrapbook which featured large pictures of what seemed to be exploding planes full of dying, screaming white people, one of which looked just like me.


He was very interested in my lifestyle in Hong Kong but I think he was somewhat put off by the fact that I kept openly readjusting the Glock 45 in my Leg Holster so that it pointed in his direction.

When the food service arrived he seemed to be unable to make the decision between the chicken and the beef lasagne, but it didn’t matter which he chose as I had poisoned both.

Later he slept for most of the journey, the poison was a fast acting neural toxin that gradually paralysed his breathing making it look like deep vein thrombosis.

I didn’t sleep as I wanted to try and normalise my sleep patterns as quickly as possible, plus I didn’t know if there were any more terrorists on the plane.

Landing in Hong Kong I was glad to be back but I had extremely mixed feelings, I missed Ireland, I missed my family, I missed my girlfriend, I missed my target when a stupid fucking bodyguard got in the way.

Now that I’m back, I’m back working away in advertising; good cover stories are hard to come by.

Ass Piracy on the Extremely High Seas

Bueno
Originally uploaded by buen0.

Whilst back, I went to Charlie Slevin's 21st birthday party, I think this is the photo of the evening.

Well done Bueno! Two Gold stars!