The Sousse Massacre

BBC news: scene of the horror

Our thoughts go out to the innocent victims of shootings in Sousse, Tunisia. As I write, the death toll is 39 where nationals from Tunisia, Britain, Germany, Ireland and Belgium were shot while they were relaxing on the beach.

This is a follow attack from march where 22 were shot while visiting the Bardo Museum in Tunis.

While obviously terrible for the victims, this is a disaster for Tunisian tourism and possibly other countries in the middle East. The Daily Telegraph article “lessons were not learnt from Bardo museum attack” explains the Port el-Kantaoui resort would have been easy to secure as it was self contained and purpose built resort.

The culprits behind both attacks are the scourge known as ISIS. On the same day, they attacked an Air-Liquide factory in Lyon and bombed a Shi’ite mosque in Kuwait.

What is the world waiting for? Wipe them out. 

TSA Stockholm syndrome

While coming back through Detroit airport, I got to experience the fun of the TSA at their finest.

I am not sure if they have new equipment of what, but in the line I went through they required you NOT to remove anything from your backpacks. Nor did they want you to remove your belt. Shoes were to stay on.

This confused a lot of passengers including me.

The response to puzzled looks and questions about this procedure, got the same old bored tone response “Do NOT to remove laptops from your bags. LEAVE shoes on. LEAVE your belts on. HOLD you keys or coins in your hands.  I SAID DO NOT REMOVE anything from bags”.

Going through Hobby airport today, the TSA is the old style TSA. I heard the refreshing bored orders of “REMOVE your laptops from your bags. TAKE your shoes off. TAKE your belts off. Coins in the bins”.

Oh, back to normality. Treat me like the filthy naughty passenger I am. Screen me. Wand me. It is for my own benefit.

Cutting corners

Stupid hotel bed attacking my shins..

“OUCH, that hurt” I said to myself after I smacked my shin on the corner of the hotel bed. If you look carefully, you’ll see The frame juts out quite a bit  from the mattress.

As soon as I saw what caused it, I suddenly remembered the SAME THING happened three times during my prior stay at this hotel: First time was not long after checking in (like now);  second time while getting up in the night to use restroom without turning on the light; a third time was before checking out. My shin was pretty bruised after it all.

Curse you ultra comfortable but evil bed. You are from the dark side.

I have now placed a carrier bag over the corner to warn me which will work while it is light.

As for getting up in the night, perhaps I shall just pee the bed. For my own safety of course..

Kill Bill

The Caesar family is about to go on vacation to North Carolina from Houston.

Not too far from where we intend to be go in NC, they are having shark attacks. “We’re gonna need a bigger boat..”

Should we stay at home? Don’t think so since Texas is undergoing a different kind of aquatic attack – Tropical Storm Bill which is now a Tropical Depression. Whatever. It is a lot of rain either way.

“Bill” missed Houston by hitting land southest but I am heading to Dallas on Business to pick it up again.

This is the view from my window seat.

Nero’s “Kate Moss” music compilation

Cleopatra’s post and her visual joke implying Kate Moss looks like Brian Jones from the Rolling Stones (I kind of agree) had me thinking of a “Kate Moss” Compilation.

So Roamans and without much ado, let’s start the top 10 in reverse order. Hope you enjoy them as much as I did.  Click the “+” item to drop down the music video.

Model Behaviour. Not so Super.

Not Kate but he gathered no moss. She somewhat looks like him…

Dahlings, Have you heard the scandal about Kate, the model aboard an EasyJet flight?

I refer not to Kim K’s new step mom who graced Vanity Fair, but Kate Moss the super model who according to the Daily Mail, was met by Bedfordshire Constabulary upon landing in Luton Airport. Apparently Ms Moss was reported as being rather ‘excitable’ on the EasyJet flight where she was rumored to have been swigging vodka from her own personal supply. Calling out the Old Bill for drunk passengers sampling their BYOA is a standard practice for UK bound aircraft.

I was horrified reading this. Afterall, isn’t a top model supposed to be drinking Champagne?

By the way, what  is she doing flying EasyJet? I guess EasyJet let’s anybody on these days. Still if it good enough for Brad and Angelina, and  HRH Prince Billy to fly with the plebs, who am I to criticize ?

Apparently, as Kate was being led away, she called the Pilot the double barreled B Word. OOOHHHH !! She called the pilot a “Basic Bitch”.

Huh you say? “Basic Bitch” is a trendy US put down line for “riff raff”.

Oh, Kate Dahling, you shouldn’t have. Such witty repartee is wasted on the EasyJet crowd – they were going to Luton afterall – You should have reserved this for your cultured “in” crowd.

The best laugh to this story was a Grauniad feminarticle by Suzanne Moore titled “If your idea of hell is sitting next to Kate Moss on an easyJet flight, you must be dead inside”. The gist of it was:

Women cannot enjoy themselves, especially charming and tipsy ones, without provoking outrage and moralising.

One of Ms Moore’s argument was that she wasn’t as bad as some other Male stars – Ian Brown of the Stone Roses, REM’s Peter Buck, Conrad Hilton of “Fucking Peasant’s quote, or our favorite wizman, Gerard Depardeu which Trajan talked about previously. Thus Moore’s logic being that anybody who didn’t like women behaving badly in public, hated women. QED, Easyjet flight attendents , who are also likely to be female, are also haters. Uh ok, Suzzy.

As usual, the best thing as usual about any Guardian pieces are the educated comments. One wag picked up on the men hating theme and termed it “Moss-ogyny”.

Now THAT is what I call wit. It’s Basic. Bitches.

Ciao for Now,
Cleo.

Bluntly speaking

Goodbye, Ruby Tuesday. Who could get a knife from you..

I’m at Detroit airport restaurant and am attempting to eat the pork chop that I ordered from “Ruby Tuesday” restuarant.

The knife they gave me was a butter knife and I’m not making much progress, in cutting my food.

I ask the waiter for a sharper knife. “Sorry but all our knives are blunt”.

WHAT?

Then I realize why..Airport. Dammit.

What am I to do now – eat like a Celt?

Beware : the Hello Peril

Ah, how cute….

EVA Airways has a new service going from IAH to Taipai where the ENTIRE plane is an “Hello Kitty” theme.

The jet exterior: “Hello Kitty”. The cabin : “Hello Kitty”. The seats: “Hello Kitty”. The food : “Hello Kitty”.

It goes without saying that their EVA website is all “Hello Kitty” where it even gives biography’s of the lovely cuddly characters. How cute.

My ARSE it is. I’ve got uncontrolled air rage just thinking ’bout this and I haven’t even stepped foot on the aircraft.

Being stuck on this stupid fecking aircraft sitting on stupid seats, eating stupid cutey food is my worst nightmare.Even the toilet is: “Hello Kitty” so you can’t even take a crap to get away from this crap.

What is more is you’ll stupid fecking price premium to fly this.You’d be crazy to book this and I should blood well know !

Oi EVA,  I’d rather jump off the Tarpeian Rock than fly this shite.

The Hello Kitty experience -ADULT WARNING NOT FOR THOSE EASILY OFFENDED BY SHITE

The plane..

The seats, pillows, toilets..

The food..

No playing matter on the Texas Rivers

If you look at many Texas Hill country tourist brochures, you’ll see much promotion of tubing. Basically it is sitting in an inflatable tube and having a lazy river take you slowly downstream while you watch the world go by. For the adult crowd, it is usually accompanied by a beer where some even take a cooler with them.

June 6 Water flow rate in Guadelupe river, New Braunfels. 100-500 cfs is safe recreational flow. It is now > 5000 cfs!

The recent flood conditions are playing havoc with this. Some municipalities such as New Braunsfels, have banned tubing on the Guadalupe River due to speed of the river where upstream water releases from Canyon Lake Dam, is needed. The slower Comal river which is spring fed, is however open but even this can be a problem. Earlier this week a woman was rescued after she missed the last public exit from the Comal and drifted into the dangerous Guadalupe river. According to the New Braunsfels Herald Zeitung report, she was in critical condition.

Further north in San Marcos, one tubing company has opened for business only to have it’s customers experience serious trouble on the Blanco River. They have since re-closed after a public backlash- see the facebook screen capture.

If you were thinking of tubing in Hill Country, think again. It is too early where the rivers are too fast.

Similarly, if you trip involves anything on other Texas rivers such as Trinity, Brazos or Colorado, think again. They are all horribly swollen.

It’s tough to love Marie’s Muff

An interpretation of Marie Antoniette’s bits in the Versailles palace

Dahlings, as it the poor Parisians haven’t suffered enough for the art, someone decides to place a sculpture of Marie Antoniette’s hooty hoo (source Daily Mail) in the middle of Versailles Palace.

Not surprisingly, some locals are not impressed.

The British artist, Anish Kapoors, appartently said that his giant, 60-metre long rusty metal funnel represents ‘a queen’s vagina’ taking power.

It is thought that he is referring to Marie Antoinette – the wife of Louis XVI famed for telling starving peasants in France ‘Let them eat cake.’

Kapoor admits his work is provocative and praised the head of the Palace of Versailles as being ‘brave and generous’ to display his work.

Last christmas, I wrote that Paris had another public naughty exhibit of “Tree” which resembled an inflatable butt plug. That lasted all of one night until someone punctured it. This time, I can’t see how someone could vandalize this one.

This will make some interesting explaining to the kids.

Ciao for now,
Cleo.