A very Happy Christmas to all my readers

This year, I managed to get away on holiday with boyfriend T for Christmas :-). However, it turned out that although the weather at our holiday destination was warm, it was also gray, overcast and a bit rainy :-(! Below are a couple of pics taken over the last couple of days, in case anyone wants to hazard a guess as to where we are.



In any case, I hope all my readers have a very Merry Christmas, wherever they may be :-).

GB xxx

UK referendum on the Alternative Vote system

The arguments for "Yes" in the UK referendum on the Alternative Vote system are much less stupid and the arguments for "No", which frankly insult my intelligence :-(. Even worse are the hypocritical arguments of the conservative and labour parties for a No vote, when they use the Alternative Vote system to elect their own leaders!

Religion

The pros and cons of religion have been on my mind recently. As I travelled through Perú with boyfriend T, I've learned how the Spanish conquistadors forced the Incas to convert to Christianity. Religion has also been in my mind because the Pope is currently visiting the UK.

There are a lot of good aspects to religion. Focussing on Christianity which is the religion that I know best, religions rules such as the ten commandments must have helped people live together. We all achieve much more when we work together so that aspect is surely a good thing. The Golden Rule that one should treat others according to how one would like others to treat one's self is another very beneficial concept which appears in many religions.

However, religion is also a huge source of conflict, and that is surely a bad thing. It seems amazing to me that throughout history and still today, armies go to war with both believing that "God is on their side", even though war goes against the widespread religious concept that killing other people is wrong. This just emphasises how religion has always been used by a country's rulers to control their lower classes. The message "behave well in this life and your next life will be better" helps to stop poorer people from rebelling against their masters.

Another big problem is that a lot of religious ideas and rules are stuck in the past. For example, it's easy to find lots of out of date rules in the Jewish religion, as this famous response to an orthodox Jew's criticism of gay people shows. The Catholic Church still insists that contraception is not allowed, even though the world's population growth is probably out of control. It's easy to find out-of-date laws in Islam too, for example, as a banker I'm familiar with the fact Islam prohibits interest payments. The result is that a huge amount of energy is wasted in finding ways of getting round those rules and effectively paying interest anyway.

With all the different religions in the world, in terms of their spiritual component it seems very arrogant to me that anyone should believe that the religion that they were brought up with is the "right" one. Even more arrogant are the Christian missionaries, or the priests who came to South America with the conquistadors, with the aim of converting people to Christianity. If someone wants a religious aspect to their life, it strikes me that the logical thing to do would be to examine all the world's religions and then make a choice. Or better still, take the best bits from each religion :-). But of course logic and religion have never mixed, particularly in connection with religion's spiritual aspects.

I noted with a bit of pride how one of the Pope's cardinals, Walter Kasper, apparently told a German magazine that the UK was marked by "a new and aggressive atheism". To me, this means that a lot of people in the UK realise how flawed the existing religions are. As people everywhere in the world become more educated, my guess is that this trend will continue. In my recent holiday to Perú with boyfriend T, I was surprised to learn from one of our guides that Catholicism was even on the decline there. Stories about Catholic priests sexually abusing children can only make that decline faster.

Wandering through Arequipa with boyfriend T a couple of weeks ago, he spots a traditional picture of Jesus in a shop window.

"Do you find that image attractive?" he asks.

"What??" I reply, barely able to believe what he's asking, "are you asking whether I'd have sex with a guy who looks like that?"

"Yes of course :-). Why not!"

"Having been brought up in a Christian family," I respond, "I find it impossible to think of Jesus like that!"

"OK fair enough. But I quite like that look :-). As far as I'm concerned, he's more than do-able!"

Although the laws in civilised countries now enforce a lot of the basic religious rules like those found in the ten commandments, important ideas like The Golden Rule are likely to remain in the religious domain. Furthermore, the spiritual aspect of religions is entirely missing from secular societies. However, unless religions can find a way to update themselves and discard their historical baggage, their ultimate fate may just be to provide some eye candy for a perverse few!

Joke

One day, Kai is at school and the teacher asks all the boys in the class what their fathers do for a living.

The boys shout out lawyer, banker, member of parliament etc, but Kai keeps his mouth shut. So the teacher asks him, "Kai, does your father have a job"?

"Yes," answers Kai sheepishly, "My dad dances in a gay club and takes all his clothes off for the men. If they pay enough, he'll go out with a man, rent a hotel room and sleep with them."

The teacher quickly sends the other boys out to lunch and takes Kai aside to ask him if that was true.

"No," replies Kai, "the truth is that he plays football for England, but I was too embarrassed to say!"

I know that there's a mild homophobic reference in the joke, because it expects people to think that being gay is embarrassing. None the less, after England's performance in the World Cup last month, it made me laugh!

The right result

I can't help thinking that all the political parties got what they deserved in the recent UK election. The Labour party lost lots of seats because they've been in power for too long so a change is needed, and because they didn't save any of the taxes that they collected during the good years before the financial crisis. The Liberal Democrat party also lost a few seats, in spite of expectations of a big breakthrough for them, because when people started looking at their policies in detail they were realised how bad some of them were. And although the Conservative party gained lots of seats, they didn't get an outright majority because their leader David Cameron isn't convincing enough!

In spite of boyfriend T's comment he couldn't be boyfriends with someone who wants to get into bed with Brown, in the end I had to vote Labour. However it was mostly a tactical vote. There was a danger that I could have ended up with a Liberal Democrat MP, and given that some of their policies are very much against bankers, that would have felt like a disaster for me.

The only downside is that the result leaves the country with a hung parliament. At the moment, it looks as though David Cameron is going to get into bed with Nick Clegg. I think they'll make a lovely couple :-).

Do a lot of Londoners have an inferiority complex?

"I've lived in South Ken for almost twenty years now," said the elderly woman, "although it's quite stressful because there are so many people around. Before that, I lived in Hampstead village, but I think South Ken is better because Hampstead is a bit remote."

"But Hampstead was on the tube twenty years ago," I reply, "so how can you say it's remote?"

"I know," answers the woman, "but it's on the Northern line. So it goes to places like Camden and Tottenham Court Road. They're certainly not the sort of places that I want to go."

I'm with boyfriend T in a smart restaurant, and we've accidently got chatting to one of the diners on the table next to ours. We chat to her for a while, but after ten minutes or so, she and her dining companion pay the bill and leave us on our own.

"That woman was hilarious," I say after she's gone, "saying that South Ken is 'stressful' and that Hampstead is 'remote'!"

"I didn't like her!" replies boyfriend T decisively. "Actually I've noticed that lots of Londoners talk like that :-(. They give unnecessary information when they're describing some pretend hardship or other, but in fact they're just showing off. With her, she lets us know that she's lived in two of the best neighbourhoods in London, but that it's either 'stressful' or 'too remote'. Poor her."

I hadn't expected this response, because I'd just found it amusing listening to the way that the woman described the places that she's lived.

"Do a lot of Londoners really talk like that then?" I ask. I'm not an impartial witness because I sometimes describe myself as a Londoner, so it's interesting to get boyfriend T's perspective.

"Yes! For example, I went to that conference a few months ago, and one of the guys that I got chatting to there said that he was late arriving at the conference because he was having to 'stay in a 5 star hotel while his house was being renovated'. Why didn't he just say 'hotel'! I don't need to know that he can afford to stay in a '5 star hotel'."

"And other people will say things like 'my Mercedes is in the garage at the moment'," continues boyfriend T, "Just saying that their 'car' is being repaired would be sufficient, I don't need to know that they can afford an expensive car."

"I hope I don't do that kind of thing," I say, realising that boyfriend T has a valid point.

"No you don't, not when you're with me anyway!"

"I guess people who say things like that have some kind of inferiority complex," I suggest, "because they're just trying to make themselves sound more wealthy and important."

"Maybe, but if so, why do so many Londoners do it? Is there something in the water? Anyway, I hope that by living in London I don't end up suffering from that affliction!"

I'm not sure whether the way of talking that boyfriend T doesn't like is a trait of Londoners, or if it's used more widely? If any readers have any thoughts on this, it would be interesting to get further perspectives :-).

Some more Thai Buddhist wisdom

Just after I visited Thailand last January, I posted some photos of sayings that I found in a Buddhist temple. Yesterday, I found a few more at a different Buddhist temple, which I also think are worth posting :-).

Noisy sex

When I read this BBC news article a couple of days ago, I burst out laughing. Although it's about straight sex, I still think it's worth posting here. Basically, a straight couple called Caroline and Steve Cartwright have been banned from making loud noises during sex following complaints from neighbours, the local postman, and a woman taking her child to school:

The noise sounds like they are both in considerable pain. I cannot describe the noise. I have never ever heard anything like it.

It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration - this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time. It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode, virtually every night.

I guess I'm in awe of such a performance! Or perhaps they've been using some kind of drugs? If so, I want to know where I can get hold of some!

A cow, a chicken, and some grass

"I want to do a little test on you GB," says boyfriend T, while we were on holiday in Greece recently, and eating our evening meal in one of the local restaurants.

"Uh huh?" I ask, taking a sip of wine, "it's not going to hurt is it??"

"No," laughs boyfriend T, "it's quite painless! There's a cow, a chicken and some grass. You just have to tell me, if you were to partition them so that two of them are in one group and the other is on its own, what's your first instinct on how to do it?"

[If anyone wants to play, make your choice now before reading on!]


"Um, cow with chicken, and the grass on its own I guess," I reply, without giving it too much thought.

"WOW, so he's right!" exclaims boyfriend T in a very excitable voice, "I didn't believe it when I read it but he's right!"

"What on earth are you talking about," I ask him, feeling a bit like some laboratory rat who's just confirmed some elaborate behavioural science theory for their researcher, "and what's your answer anyway?"

"First tell me why you chose cow with chicken?"

"Well because they're both animals," I reply, now mildly curious at what's behind boyfriend T's reaction, "and grass is a plant. So what's your answer?"

"Well, cow with grass, so the chicken is the odd one out. The cow's got to go with the grass because cows eat grass."

"Sure, that's another way of looking at it I guess!" I reply, with a sceptical tone in my voice, "but there's no 'right' answer is there?"

"No, not really," admits boyfriend T.

"I read about this professor who claims that Western people and Asian people think about things differently," he continues, " and this is one of his examples. Westerners tend to think about the categorisation, whereas Asian people think about the relationships and the harmony. I was so sure that cow with grass is the 'right' answer that it was almost shocking for me to hear your answer!"

"Interesting!" I reply. "Let's try it on someone else, I know, let's ask our Greek waiter."

The next time our waiter comes to our table, we ask him the same question that boyfriend T asked me.

"OK," replies the waiter, "so I choose grass and chicken together."

We both burst out laughing.

"Why you laugh?" asks the waiter, feeling a little vulnerable.

"Only because we didn't expect that answer," I reply, "what made you choose that?"

"Well, cows eat grass," explains the waiter, "so if I put the cow with the grass, I won't have any grass. So I put the chicken with the grass instead :-)."

Later, when I get back to the hotel, I do a bit of research online to find out more. The guy that boyfriend T was talking about must be Richard Nesbitt who wrote The Geography of Thought.

The next week when I'm back at work in the bank, I ask one or two of my colleagues, to test out the theory a bit more. My Chinese colleague replies as expected, that cows have to go with grass, but then all my other colleagues hear the subsequent discussion and end up answering the same way!

Do any readers have any views on this?

Computer problems :-(

I guess I should get a new laptop. My current one is about four and half years old, and a hard disk failure a couple of days ago is causing me lots of problems :-(. Perhaps it happened because I took it on holiday with me, so it was subjected to much more shaking and moving that usual.

Luckily I can still post to this blog from work, but I don't want to be caught blogging at work so I can't write too much. I guess I'm also lucky that I've got a boyfriend again. Online cruising as a route to satisfying one's natural urges is a bit difficult without a computer!

So at the moment I'm wondering what the most reliable laptop brand is, whether I should accept Vista or wait for Windows 7 (NB: I hate Apple!), the advantages of the new Solid State Drives versus traditional hard disk drives, etc. If any readers have any thoughts on these crucial matters then please leave comments!

One of my pet hates

Most of the time I'm a pretty rational guy. I usually analyse situations with a cool head, make reasonable decisions, and generally behave in quite a sensible manner. None the less, I have a small number of pet hates which can produce an irrational response in me!

A couple of weeks ago on Saturday night, myself and T went to Floridita in London for a late meal. I'd never been before, but I'd had a good time in the original when I visited Cuba a few years ago, so I was interested to see what the London version was like.

We arrive around 11pm and when the waiter asks us what we want to drink, I can't help remembering a two line poem attributed to Ernest Hemingway which I'd seen up on the wall in the tiny Bodeguita bar in Havana:

My mojitos at La Bodeguita
My daiquiris at El Floridita

Although drinking cocktails can be a bit dangerous, it seems churlish not to drink daiquiris, so we ask the waiter to bring us a couple.

"But which ones sir?" replies the waiter, with a tone in his voice that seems to suggest that it was stupid of me to assume that there was only one type.

When I look at the cocktail list I realise that there are five daquiries available, imaginatively named "Daquiri No. 1", "Daquiri No. 2", and so on. So we start with Daquiri No. 1, and proceed through No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4, by which time I need to visit the toilets.

Having used the urinal, I go to the sink and start washing my hands when I notice a toilet attendant approaching. I can see that without asking me, the attendant intends to pour some liquid soap on my hands. I really hate that kind of behaviour because it's trying to force a service on me which I don't want, don't need, and which I'm perfectly capable of doing for myself! I could simply have said "No", but instead I get mildly abusive and tell him to "piss off" in quite an aggressive tone. Even though I didn't want his help, I know my behaviour was uncalled for. The amount of alcohol that I'd drunk probably had something to do with my reaction, coupled with the fact that toilet attendants are one of my pet hates! Am I the only person who gets wound up by this situation?

Chelsea Flower Show 2009

As I said last year, I've visited the Chelsea Flower Show every year since the early 1990's. This year, even though ex-boyfriend S isn't my boyfriend any more, I still went along with him to the show. As usual we had a good time there.

Without doubt, the poor economic climate has had its effect on Chelsea 2009. Last year there were 21 show gardens, of which 8 got gold medals. This year there were only 13 show gardens, and only 3 got gold medals. No doubt companies have cut back on sponsorship, and if they haven't pulled out completely, they've reduced the budgets!

A couple of gardens caught my eye as being unusual. One garden in the small urban garden category wasn't a proper garden at all. Instead it's a sculpted art installation called Paradise in Plasticine, i.e. a garden made entirely from plasticine! Another unusual garden was The Quilted Velvet Garden, which was one of the main show gardens. Quilted Velvet is a brand of toilet paper in the UK. The garden's aim was to bring to life Quilted Velvet’s message of "a little bit of luxury every day", so indeed, the garden was basically a huge advert for toilet paper complete with a huge flower layout depicting a toilet seat which was filled with velvet cushions! As another sign of the times there was also a set of three "Credit crunch" gardens, one of which was called "The banker's garden", featuring a few objects from the game of monopoly.

My favourite show garden this year was the Laurent Perrier garden, which was one of the gold medal winners. It had a simplistic elegance that appealed to me. However I also liked the garden which won the award for being the best in show, which this year was The Daily Telegraph garden. As usual, although the show goes on until next Saturday, it's been completely sold out for ages. But there'll be another next year, so I'd advise any readers who want to go along to book early!

The Laurent Perrier garden was my favourite :-).

The Daily Telegraph garden, which won 'best in show'.

Paradise in Plasticine

The Quilted Velvet Garden is basically a huge advert for toilet paper. Note the plants arranged into a toilet seat shape on the left at the back!

The Banker's garden from the set of three "Credit crunch" gardens. Objects from the game of monopoly are clearly visible!

Protestors demonstrate near the Bank of England

Earlier today, I couldn't resist walking down to see the G20 demo outside the Bank of England. Risking life and limb, your intrepid correspondent managed to climb onto a traffic light and snap the picture above. Sorry to say, not much happening at the moment I took the pic, but I'm pretty sure that the RBS branch that got attacked is the one visible on the near right hand side of the pic!

It's a bit chilly here

When I woke up this morning it was suspiciously quiet outside, and when I looked out of the window I found out why. There'd been a huge snowfall! Apparently there hasn't been this much snow in London since 1991. Some readers may recall that I usually sleep naked, but since they're forecasting another huge snowfall within the next few hours, I'm wearing a vest in bed tonight :-).

Some Thai Buddhist wisdom

Chelsea Flower Show 2008

Every year since the early 1990's I've visited the Chelsea Flower Show with boyfriend S, and this year was no exception. When the weather is good like it has been this year, it's a perfect day out. It's also a quintessentially English day out, with people drinking pimms, eating strawberries and cream, listening to the brass band in the bandstand, men wearing straw boaters, and with everyone being exceptionally civilised :-). Along with Royal Ascot and the Henley Royal Regatta, the Chelsea Flower Show is one of the events of The English Season. None the less, as long as one is a member of the Royal Horticultural Society it's easy to get tickets!

At Chelsea, all the exhibitors and designers who create the show gardens go to extraordinary lengths to implement their ideas. Everything in the show gardens is built just for the five days that the show lasts for, and then torn down immediately afterwards. For example, look at the stone arch in the top picture below, which was the central feature in a courtyard carden titled Mist-placed. In its broken down state, the arch with its moss looks like it's been there for many decades. No doubt the moss is real but it's all only been there for about a week! The aim is always to win a Gold Medal, to establish the designer's horticultural credentials. Although quite a few gardens do get Gold Medals, others have to make do with Silver-Gilt, Silver or even Bronze medals, and in rare cases no medal at all.

This year, I was amused to see that garden designer and TV presenter Diarmuid Gavin failed to get a gold medal for the third year running! In the first year that he designed a show garden for Chelsea he got a Silver Medal, then almost made it to Gold the following year with a Silver-Gilt, but crashed back to a Bronze this year. I can't say I disagree either. His designs always seem to incorporate some grand but absurdly inelegant features, which always strike me as failed attempts to make positive artistic impressions. This year there were huge umbrella sized metal daisies, as shown in the second picture below, but although some people might like them they didn't impress me. I think he may have been embarrassed by the fact that he only got a Bronze medal because when I visited the garden it wasn't on display!

The other two pictures below show my two favourite show gardens this year. One was a tribute to George Harrison, the former Beatle who died a few years ago. The other was called The Reflective Garden.

As usual, myself and boyfriend S spotted lots of other gay couples at the event. But of course, although I suppose there's a weak link between flowers and effeminate gay men, this event has nothing whatsoever to do with being gay. None the less, I always enjoy it so I do recommend it, especially for any readers who enjoy gardens and horticulture :-).

A courtyard garden: Mist-placed

Diarmuid Gavin only gets Bronze with The Café Garden

From Life to Life: A garden for George

The Reflective Garden

Update 26-May-2008: Just for Monty, here's my picture of Jamie Durie's Australian Garden for Fleming’s and Trailfinder’s :-). The hole in the pond, visible on the bottom left hand side of the picture, was most curious!