Thank the Lord for Gays! (or "It's the Poofs, Stupid!")

The UK parliament is currently enacting a law that, amongst other things, would make it unlawful for adoption agencies to discriminate against prospective adoptive or fostering gay parents. This seems to me to be a classic case of bad law, as how the hell can it be policed? Laws that can’t be enforced are simply bad laws. But I digress.

The Catholic church (which apparently loves us all) runs a number of adoption agencies in the UK. Good luck to them, and I don’t mind that they’re funded by the state (and thus by own queer taxes). I’m sure that they do good work and improve lives. This is just the sort of thing that religions should do, instead of peevishly mumbling in cold buildings and spreading fear and hate.

Should the new law be passed, the Catholic church is fearful that they might have to place a child with Sodomites (or whatever lesbians do). Rather than face the possibility of delivering a child into the hands of Ellen DeGeneres rather than Fred and Rosemary West, they are saying that they’ll close their children’s homes, presumably producing a new generation of Oliver Twist-esque street urchins. Better eat from bins and mug old women for drug money than be given a loving home with a couple of dykes, eh?

It’s always worth pointing out that the Jesus was completely silent on the issue of homosexuality, which I conclude means He thought it unimportant. Homophobes have to delve into the otherwise ignored madder parts of the Old Testament to find something that might be construed as a backdoor eleventh commandment against poofterdom. Anybody who hates poofs in the name of God, but fails to stone raped women is a hypocrite. Read the Bible and check. I have.

The truth here is that preaching homophobia is good for market share. The Catholic and Anglican churches compete fiercely for share of developing markets such as Africa. It’s just business. Rather than take a meaningful stance on Christian-Muslim-Jewish reconciliation (which would stop no end of suffering) and a million other things that could make the world a happier place, they prefer to indulge in a spot of queerbashing. In a move which I see as the very zenith of cynicism, they invoke that old chestnut of an idea that poofs are a danger to children. Unlike priests, presumably.

It’s just the sort of thing that makes me and many others despise organised religion. Rowan Williams (head honcho Anglican) has predictably sat on the fence on this issue once more, as he can’t afford to lose the homophones himself. Rowan, you’re a bloody coward. This sort of stuff doesn’t just mean right thinking people stop going to church, it makes them actively dislike those that do. I feel sure that Jesus of Nazareth would not have been impressed.

Cool at last!

Yes dear blogees, after what seems like an eternity I have finally finished my flight training and taken my pilot skill test. What makes this a happy blog is that I passed first time, with the result that I am now a qualified pilot. Well, I’m properly qualified to fly a single engine piston aircraft with passengers, as long as I pay my fair share of the costs of flying the aircraft. Flying professionally requires an upgrade to a commercial licence and, understandably, a fair amount of experience.

I have no idea how I passed, since I flew worse than I think I’ve flown for a long time. Indeed, I think I answered the examiner’s question of how I thought it had gone with the un-PC answer “let’s face it, I flew like a spaz.” It takes nearly three hours of flying before getting the news of pass or spaz, which can feel like dragging out the agony if you're convinced you've already messed up. Apparently what saved me was my own recognition of spazzy behaviour and timely correction of errors (one of which was kind of the equivalent of driving on the wrong side of the road). Hell, I was nervous. Give me a break. Who could have imagined that muttering "arse" under one's breath could have such positive results? Apparently it made it clear that I'd spotted errors and could correct them. A positive side of my quasi-Tourettes manners!

As one “friend” recently told me, I’m not exactly a geek, because geeks have a certain odd anti-charismatic charm. No, I am one level below geekiness ; languishing in the nadir of social existence that is nerddom. Well, I’m now a nerd with wings, which I think makes me passably cool and might even drag me up to geek status. To support the nerd diagnosis however, immediately I got home, I laminated the pass certificate and put it on my fridge before celebrating with a coffee but no champagne. OK, I’m a nerd and I should stop trying.

Travelblog part 2

I’ve not written a travelblog for some days as I was actually quite busy in the Caribbean with work, but particularly with travel. In summary form, here are some stories and things I learned over the last week. Sorry this is really long, but there’s a lot to catch up on.

• Trinidad is a rather charming place with smiley people the norm. It’s also sporadically dangerous but overall quite fun. Don’t walk around carrying anything you’d be tempted to fight to keep from a mugger and you’ll be fine.
• “To lime” is Trinidad and Tobago dialect for any sort of social interaction with others.
• Trinidad carnival is an enormous “lime” that is more than traditional fun costumes and steel bands. When I arrived at my hotel at 2am, the very structure of the building was shaking from a carnival event at the nearby stadium. The “music” was hip hop, which (being far from ABBA) doesn’t do it for me the best of times but particularly unwelcome after a long journey that had been made very long indeed by American Airlines.
• American Airlines are OK (but no more) internationally but domestically they make Ryanair look good. You get $25 compensation for a five hour delay due to aircraft technical problems and your bag not turning up when you eventually get there, I now know. This is if you’re in first class. I suspect that you get nothing in “coach” class, which is more like a school bus than a coach. Also if you find yourself sitting on an aircraft for four hours while people try to fix the starboard engine, in first class you get a couple of glasses of orange juice. In coach, you get to drink from the toilet if you become truly desperate.
• Seemingly every aircraft flying domestically in the States was bought 15 years ago and has never been refitted. Each flight crew seems to have some yin and yan balance in that half of them are lovely and the other half gratuitously rude.
• If you’re flying through the USA in transit you have to complete immigration as if you’re going there for 3 months, pick up your bag and re-check it at a rather chaotic drop-off point that provides an unwelcome sight into the workings of baggage handling. You will also have to go through security time and time again, which is a tawdry affair with much shouting of weird instructions about having to have your boarding pass in your hand at all times. This is despite you not actually leaving the terminal building. I’m always intrigued by having to declare that I’m not seeking entry to the USA for “immoral purposes” and have been tempted to ask for clarification. IS taking opportunities for casual sex immoral? If on the borderline, how far can I go? I’ve also had my fingerprints taken repeatedly, presumably in case I changed them from the week before when I last entered the country. The staff doing this seem to recognise that it’s all a bit of a nonsense and they’re pleasant enough. How would fingerprints have helped on 9/11?
• If you forget to take your US to UK adapter for your laptop, American Airlines front desks at the enormous business lounges at either Miami or Boston will not be able to loan you any sort of adapter. The fact that the world doesn’t all use US style plugs will genuinely be news to the very cordial but clueless person on the front desk.
• If you pay to fly first class within the US or Caribbean, you will not get access to the business class lounge unless you also buy a day pass for $45, payable only in Dollars. This means that you can leave Jamaica in first class at 0750 in transit to the UK (so with no US Dollars expected to be needed), not be given breakfast and be denied access to the lounge and its weak coffee during your four hour stopover. A certain amount of stink making becomes necessary upon the discovery that only one ATM is actually working and that one maddeningly refuses to accept the validity of any non-US issued bank card. You may mention in passing that your onward flight is to Europe, upon which the staff will scold you for not mentioning this previously as this “obviously” is different. Apparently if you’re a connecting long haul passenger on business class ticket, you can use the lounge. This key piece of information will not have been asked of you, despite handing them a British passport when you first met. You will be told this policy is the same as for domestic flights in Europe for all European airlines. You will not want to waste time informing them that this is total crap as you will then be in sight of a glass of water, a cup of coffee and a chair that’s not made of PVC and steel.
• The people who are on the governing council of the Institutes of Chartered Accountants in Trinidad and Tobago and in Jamaica are lovely people. I want to do a good job for them.
• Exchanging horror stories of taking connecting flights through Miami is a common way to bond with strangers in the Caribbean. Colleagues whose middle name is “Mohammed” will have the best (ie worst) stories to share. These stories will make it abundantly clear that the Department of Homeland Security has only one response to perceived terrorist threat: Muslims are threats, everybody else is probably OK but best hassle all foreigners a bit for the sake of appearances.
• Taking a flight from Trinidad to Jamaica is a pleasing experience indeed. Barbados looked to really be rather a paradise from my very brief flight in and out of there. For flying geeks such as myself it’s also real fun to be on a 737 that they fly on low level approaches as if it were a four seater aircraft, complete with kids waving at you as you pass alarmingly close above their heads. Caribbean Airlines is curiously referred to by one and all as “Bee wee” and it’s an altogether more pleasant experience than American Airlines.
• There are some very nice people in Kingston, Jamaica but it’s clear that one would not have to go far to get mugged. A five minute walk outside the hotel one evening to the neighbouring branch of KFC in supposedly safe New Kingston is not an experience I’m going to repeat. The advice is generally to take taxis everywhere, but I was ripped off even then on the way back to the airport.
• Prince William was staying at the neighbouring hotel to mine in Kingston when we were there. I’m pretty certain that I saw him mingling at an evening business do but one of my colleagues disputes this. He certainly was there though and this means that he doesn’t mind roughing it as it wasn’t a great hotel.
• £50 buys you a rather faded but enormous suite in New Kingston. Presumably the fact that it doesn’t feel safe to leave the hotel has something to do with this bargain.

I promise that I’m not anti-American, although I realise this sounds it. The USA enthrals and appals me in approximately equal measure. Weirdly, there’s almost never a moment of indifference. As a country, it just feels like a teenager; thinking it has all the answers but actually laughably naïve. Misplaced efforts at preventing “terror” can make travel to or through the USA simply more trouble than it’s worth. If they didn’t act like an imperial power with all the arrogance and error that implies, it would be a nice enough place to visit. It would also be good if they could get a perspective on how the damage being done by global warming is greater than Islamist terrorism.

So the Caribbean is fine, but frankly most of it doesn’t seem to be as pleasant as much of Spain or Greece. If you’re going to fly long haul on holiday, go to Asia. If you want class, go to Italy. If you’re going to go anywhere at all, avoid American Airlines. I think we imagine it’s so exotic because of the inadvertent US influence over us, given that it’s their equivalent of the Costa del Sol.

I just love this video

This is an odd blog entry to post during a trip to Trinidad and Jamaica, but time's tight and I can't do the trip justice with a quick blog entry. But I thought I'd suggest that you look at this video on utube. It's completely great. It cheers me up each time I see it. Have a click through to utube and tell me what you think. The song's from Jerry Springer the Opera, I believe.

Travelblog part 1

I am currently on the first leg of a long journey to Trinidad for a business meeting. I don’t much see the need for this meeting but the client is paying me my daily charge rate to go and to fly business class, so I’m not complaining.

As BA seemed likely to go on strike, I decided to fly with American Airlines, which is a first. My life is thus existing in an odd parallel to Timorous Beastie’s.

You find me in the business lounge at Heathrow, which is a place that’s trying so hard to be plutocratic. Plutocratic doesn’t describe it though and as I don’t know of any word that combines plutocratic, kitch, bogus and snooty I’m not sure there is a word to describe describe it pithily. Imagine some very snotty country club in California; a place where the urge to conform has persisted into late middle age instead of dying out with adolescence. Deck all the walls with lots of dark redwood panelling in the presumed manner of a Pall Mall gentleman’s club. Create lots of recessed little backlit alcoves, into which incongruously place fake bronze busts and little statues of Greek and Roman gods. Picture a few servile members of staff silently removing used plates from their sahibs’ tables in return for no eye contact and no thanks. You’re getting close. I just took a picture of the place with my camera phone to the obvious disapproval of the guy in Polo Ralph Lauren weekend gear next to me. His reproachful glance told me instantly that I have been categorised at white trash. Which, to be fair, I sort of am.

This is the up-itself world of “posh” America; for which read America with money. Those at the front of the plane have a very different experience to those at the back. The gulf in the plane mirrors the gulf in American society. Sure, business class on Virgin Atlantic is vastly better (and I really do mean much better) than economy but it’s understood to be a business transaction, not that one is simply better.

American airlines (lower case helpfully denoting the generic rather than the particular brand: grammar does matter) are generally a disappointment, with Continental the only US airline I’ve ever liked. In a society famed for customer service, I’ve generally found them to be uncomfortable and generally pretty shoddy. Their puritanical attitude to alcohol is irksome.

America entrances me and appals me in approximately equal measure. It is the land that gave us Bush but it also gave us “South Park” and “the Simpsons”. It is a land of extraordinary clashes and contradictions. Americans treat their Bill of Rights with religious reverence and are smug in how they dreamed it up; ignoring the little known fact that it largely plagiarises the English Bill of Rights of 1688. Despite treating freedom as a word that denotes all things good, half of America is none too keen on the freedom of others (viz abortion, gay marriage). I find exposure to American society surprisingly tiring. The paperwork I was given at check-in is wearisome in its earnestness and officiousness. A European airline wouldn’t behave in such a way and I’m pleased about that. Get me to my bed at the other end and then get me back to Manchester.