The rise of Homo Chavien

(Homo Chavien : Biological definition of Chav's)

(Chav : ignorant, illiterate, working-class English folk with a penchant for designer sports ware, normally found in inner-city areas)

It was 300,000 years ago when Homo Sapien (modern man) wiped out his close cousin Neanderthal man in the forests of Europe. Since then the human lineage has not branched off…until now that is. In modern Britain, we are now witnessing a major upheaval in human evolution. Visit any major inner-city area in Britain today, and you will encounter the ‘rot’ to which I refer. An underbelly in the social strata; an underclass has been maliciously growing since the late 80’s. Worming its way into the very fabric of our society. The growth has been a self sustaining, autocatalytic process fueled by the vices of illiteracy, ignorance, unemployment, social dysfunction and negative genetic traits. Yes, i am referring to the rise of Chav scum in Britain.

Through a decade of interbreeding, alcohol and drug abuse, the gene pool of ‘Chavs’ (see definition above) has undergone major irreversible changes, and we have now reached a critical juncture where Chavs can no longer copulate with the wider population and bear healthy offspring. The genetic tree of Chavs has finally branched off; on its own doomed voyage of extinction.

Let’s now examine Homo Chavien in its natural habitat: Not far, from the once prosperous coal mines and soot covered dilapidated factories of northern England (that once served as the engine of the Industrial Revolution) lies ‘Leeds’. Or ‘Chav Central’, as it is commonly known. As you approach the outskirts of this festering boil on the English landscape, don’t be fooled by the sign that reads ‘Welcome to Leeds’ – there’s no welcome here trust me. This is the town that even the ‘great plague’ cowered from. When the Black Death swept across the English countryside in the 16th century, leaving behind in its wake the stench of death, it cast a petulant cursory glance upon this wreckage of a place, and then indignantly strolled off:
“There’s no work here for me” it said grimly. “For death has already come and gone”

As you take a sniff of the malodorous air on the outskirts of Leeds, you may catch a whiff of something oddly familiar, something omnipresent throughout the city, yes it is the rank odour of fake ‘Burberry’ Eau De Toilette (aftershave) – that universal of Chav fragrances. The odour gathers in strength as you further enter the bowels of this city, luckily though it is 3am, and the majority of Chavs are in bed, after a hard night of bibulous revelry, followed by pointless mayhem and thievery.

However, a few die hard and particularly hardcore chavs can be seen loitering about the grimey bus station, pretending to wait for a bus (at 3am), when actually they’re just waiting for the right moment to kick-in the ticket machine for loose change - presumably to feed their skunk weed addictions. That’s it mate! Get in there my son!

When the Chav is not busy mugging ticket machines and beating up old grannies, it can be seen wandering the city centre in search of a quick fix; which is where we are headed next.
As you enter the heart of the city, marvel at the abundance of sports shops with their gravitti covered shutters, that make up a disproportionate percentage of the total shopping space. Do not be alarmed, this is totally in line with the Chav penchant for sporty tracky bottoms and tops. Also, notice the dearth of security cameras, strategically placed around the city centre, on a perpetual look-out for some particularly nasty and persistent Chavs out on a late night shopping spree. There’s always a few die hards even amongst the filth.

The next point in our guided tour of Chav Central is the 24 hour off-license, run by a Mr Patel. For safety reasons, it is customary practice for Mr Patel to serve customers through a narrow hatchet attached to a heavily fortified shop window at this time of night. Notice the hardened hooded Chavs hanging outside the store, like stubborn shit stains, shivering in the wet cold; hands in pockets; one eye on a spliff and Longbow cider, and the other eye looking out for the Coppers. It’s either that or their reconnoitering for unfortunate victims. Bloody wank***!

Our final tourist stop is the local school; recruiting ground and factory for mass production of the latest models of highly efficient, fully functional and pretty nasty little Chav’s - to add to the cities already burgeoning population. Obviously, birth control is not widely practiced by Chavettes (female Chavs), presumably so that they can get child support benefits from the government.
This concludes our little tour of Chav Central.

It is quite clear from this study of the natural Chav habitat, that it is in stark contrast to other parts of the country. In addition, the anti social behaviour displayed by Chavs in their natural environment has driven out the majority of the resident ‘normal’ population. This has resulted in a reinforcing of the Chav genotype. i.e. an increase in 'Chavness'.

We are now witnessing a major branching of the evolutionary tree and the birth of a new species: Homo Chavien, in the inner cities of modern Great Britain. Social commentators may baulk at the findings of this social study, but they cannot ignore the facts; that Chav's have taken-over huge swaithes of the inner city landscape. The only pertinent question now is: What are we gonna do about it?

Chasing Photons

(Chinese proverb: "May you be born in better times")

Scene 1

(Eyes Open)
As you approach the city, heading down into the valley, you see lush green vegetation nestling beside the road, clinging desperately onto scraps of soil at impossible angles. Tree trunks potrude from the cliff edge, menacingly like coiled vipers, with dry barks and leaves that look like giraffes ears. The road meanders through rich farm pastures; cut like verandas on the hills, sectioned like an irregular chess board and in a motley of every conceivable shade of green; an idyllic mosaic patchwork slicing through the unforgiving landscape.

The dark, melancholy clouds; tempestuous and brooding in the background, hover above the sprawling city that now stands below you and stretches into the distant horizon. Black vultures circle above adding an eerie menace and foreboding to the proceedings. When you enter the city, as if to underscore the above, the rain starts. Tit-tat, Tit-tat, at first and then pelting. It softens the red ochre earth of the roads so that the wheels of cars and tractors can bite and churn up huge clumps of it in turd-like mounds all over the surface. The roads have the consistency of melted chocolate that has been freeze dried in liquid nitrogen. Puddles form here and there. Some the size of footballs others the size of a bus. The vehicles navigate through this treacherous assault course of boulders, misshapes and unsightly angles.

The sides of the road are lined with people, walking in the rain like an army of displacees, carrying bags, children and those universal ‘made in China’ wheeled luggage cases that are all the rage now. The people hold bright brollys with one hand and with the other, hold their trousers up to their knees, allowing the soft, squishy mud to seep into their shoes. Where it settles all right; content like a cat that has found a warm rug for the night.

The constant barking of horns, chatter of trade, clutter of mercantilism and the skidding wheels spraying mud onto the poor people on the sidewalk; cakeing them in fist sized clumps of road, only serves to heighten the scene of abject misery. Then there’s the smell; the smell of rain that has not fallen for many months on a scorched and dry surface. The smell of fresh rain is everywhere. You can smell the damp earth as it seeps into your nostrils and lingers. The people, the squalor, the dirt, the mud, the roads, the horns, where is this going? Yet nobody gives up and says: ‘I’ve had enough. What’s the point?’ As Sisyphus almost did.

The trudging continues, through thick mud. The sight is both depressing and yet simultaneously a testament to the tenacity of people. People plod on, through thick and thin. Through life. Like drudges, lambs to the slaughter, eventually.
(Eyes close)


Scene 2

(Eyes open)
You are greeted by a mob of smiling tungsten’s. Tungsten yellows that have been filtered through a custard factory. You find yourself bathed in sweet, hazy sunshine with the intensity of twilight day. The tree under which you sit, glistens and shimmers lazily with the breeze; almost sighing contentedly. The sand, coarse between your toes, feels warm and characteristically gets everywhere.

Beyond, in the distant horizon the sun hovers pensively as if reluctant to let go of the day, but is yanked down, like a stringed prop on a stage show. Its colors changing like a chameleon. Citrus lemon followed by Del Monte orange with hints of marmalade. In the foreground, the blue ocean, sparkles with calm yoga-esqe serenity, waiting to close the curtains on the day.
The clouds, wispy and careless, loaf about waiting for something to happen, but not knowing quite what. They playfully meddle, basking in the warmth, forming magnificent rays that seem to pierce the heavens like skyscrapers of light.

The scene is brimming with a tableau of wavelengths. Reds, oranges and purples; as if conspired by a Photoshop fiend. The shadows get longer and longer, until they are shadows no more and have morphed with everything. The wind glides above the lapping waves as the sun finally disappears behind the horizon, exposing the sky that has now turned pink. Pink like marshmallows.

Eventually, the sky turns purple and then velvety black inviting the stars to come out to play. A few at first, and then finally an orchestra. You can almost hear the swan song of a great opera, as the final photons of daylight flicker out in style, replaced by the artificial, up-start and spunky neon babies of mankind.
(Eyes close)

Indlish (English - Indian style)

The bastardization of English begins as you set foot in this kaleidoscopic land: Buses demanding “Silence please” and trucks saying “Horn Ok Please”. My favourite is a car sticker that says: “Blow your horn / pay a fine”

India has a population of almost a billion souls, majority of whom live out their miserable lives below the poverty threshold in shit infested suburbs where the sickly aroma of cow dung infuses the air and dances with the sweet spices of evening meals. The aroma of Paprika powder may be a welcome respite from the filth infatuated air but the eyes don’t lie. This is how the majority of mankind lives. Scant attention to birth control and runaway libidos have led to ant-hills of human settlement in squalid city dwellings. It's a most desperate scene made more vivid with a mob of sun-dried reds and Del Monte oranges - the brush strokes of a colour fiend. The signs that litter the landscape provide a strange back-drop to the squalor: “No parking. If found guilty, all tyres will be deflated with extreme prejudice” reads one that is almost comical.
The local English newspapers have interesting classified sections that have many gems:
“We make you big boss in English conversation. Hypnotize people with your impressive talks”

Then there’s the sing-song nature of this bastardization. You can just imagine an Indian lolling his head from side to side whilst saying: “Lane driving is sane driving” or “reckless drivers kill and die / leaving all behind to cry” – then there’s the matrimonial sections that offer fine brides and read as if they’re selling a family heirloom: “our daughter is artful, homely, presentable and wheat-coloured”

The condiments that are served with English are not unlike the extras one gets in a curry house. They serve to spice up what is already a spicy offering and add much hue to an already colourful dish. The only problem is, how much of this can the brain take before morbid thoughts enter the arena. It’s enough to drive you crazy. Better get out quick before somebody asks you: “what is your good name?” – F**K do I hate that!

Cayman Islands

(Left)/(Below left) - Taken with a Canon 5D, Full Frame, 13Megapixel, digital SLR. lens used was a 24-105L (f4.0) with attached polarizer and a 2-stop neutral density grad filter. The camera was hand held at iso 200, shutter speed of 60 and aperture wide open at f4.0. The shots were taken in RAW and later adjusted for White Balance.

(Right) - All shots taken with a Canon 20D with various lens selections: 10-22mm, 28-135mm, 70-200mm, 30mm prime (f1.4) and 2x focal multiplier.

George Town Harbour (Grand Cayman)

This filthy earth, this filthy life, life-a-dirt, pile a shite

A list of the 10 most filthiest things in existence (in no particular order):

1) Toilet handles – a thorough microscopic examination would probably reveal a teeming hive of the most virulent strains of bacteria known to microbiology. Next time you decide to flush, use a surgeons glove.

2) Ear wax – not only is earwax a nasty thing in itself, but due to its absorbent nature and chemical composition (rich in essential oils and carbohydrates), it acts as a gourmet meal for all manner of airborne nasties. Next time you decide to pick your ear, think about how you’ll be handling your sandwich.

3) The air you breathe – our eyes are incapable of distinguishing anything smaller then 100th mm. Yet most disagreeable agents of disease are smaller. You'll be horrified at what roams the airwaves my friends; there’s squirmy larvae with wriggly bottoms, hairy ticks with huge proboscis and a 'pick a mix' variety of dollops of dung. Next time you open your mouth, try breathing through a filter.

4) Food – you think food is clean? Think again. That chicken breast you enjoyed last night with the tasty zingy zesty sauce was home to a plethora of little nitkins and their by-products. Nutritional information is for food eaten in the sterile environment of a space station. It hardly tells you what you’re ‘actually’ eating here on planet earth.

5) Popcorn – next time you share popcorn with someone. Think about where they’re fingers had been before they were rummaging through that sticky toffee yummy ness.

6) Airport Departure lounges – obviously!

7) Mouths – next time you smooch your loved one…ask yourself how much you ‘really’ love them.

8) Pens – next time you borrow a pen from a colleague…ask them to show you their dental records first.

9) Restaurants – it’s a well known and well documented fact that you are 100 times more likely to die of food poisoning in your local ‘house of India’ curry house then at home. Next time you order that Chicken Tikka Masala, ask yourself how much your dying for it.

10) Remote controls - the surface layer of bacterial crust and dead skin cells is so ingrained that it can only be removed with a blast furnace. Next time your dying to change the channel, do some knitting instead...

The Art of Travel - Caribbean Style!

Today, I find myself seated in a squeaky, Styrofoam seat in the gaudy and somewhat stuffy departure lounge of Grand Caymans International airport, reading Alain De Bottom’s brilliant book; ‘the art of travel’ whilst waiting for my 5:05pm Island-hop flight to Cayman Brac. It’s 5:40, I’m hungry, we’re late, but most worryingly of all nobody seems to be overly bothered. Apparently, these island hop flights are not unlike a Caribbean bus service; i.e. you leave when the pilot decides to show up. Adherence to timetables was never part of the passengers charter - it’s the Caymans maan – get over it!

In a heroic attempt to try and get the plane to take-off, short of trying to lift it off the ground, I walk towards a female attendant at the boarding gate. Before I’ve even opened my mouth, the weary look in her eyes, and the chewing gum in her mouth zapping from one end of her palette to the other like a fly swatter, tells me that this may be a dumb ass idea. But it’s too late:

‘Hi, Good afternoon Mam, I was just wondering when the flight to Cayman Brac will be leaving?’

The attendant, who is from Jamaica and has peroxide hair with an extra dollop of gel with the consistency of tarmac, gives me a look that has her whole life emblazened on it in neon lettering ; i.e. I never wanted this job in the first place, I’m only here cos I have to support the kids, whose father has incidentally decided to set up shop with another women etc…

‘The flight will leave when the plane is on the runway’ she says in a thick Jamaican accent.
Nah! You don’t say…needless to say, I decide to duck out of any further probing forays into this particular women’s mind.

The spare time allows me to treat myself to a spot of sightseeing. Ah yes, the Duty Free departure lounge. I’m sure when this particular departure lounge was built in the 60’s it was art nouvea – post modernism incarnate. But for everybody the 60’s came and went, and the new millennium was ushered forth in spectacular pomp and jizz. But a few stubborn departure lounges still cling to the past. A past that was never kind to them in the first place. I mean look around, and you see garish dark mahogany wood paneling straight out of a colonial Gentleman’s club. The seats are painted yellow; a ghastly, fluorescent yellow like parking lines.

The general consensus amongst my senses is that this particular departure lounge resembles a run-down, ravaged, community centre in some back water of the Mongolian desert bowl…barren, skimpy and containing not a single item worth spending your dollars on; unless you have a fetish for Tortuga Rum cake – The Islands perennial favourite export.
The departure lounge is also devoid of any intelligent life forms, unless you include the usual loud and jovial American tourists with the complementary fat child nagging behind. But I don’t think they qualify.

I find departure lounges curious places; for here, within these little bubbles, lies a microcosm of humanity. People from all over the globe mingling, talking and soiling the floral upholstery. Departure lounges should also carry a health warning for they are amongst the unhealthiest places on earth; for apart from the Duty Free trade, there is another form of trade that occurs here. The trade of germs and nasty bugs. For where else can you say hello to both the scabby flesh eating bug of the Congo and the intestinal ringworm of the lower Amazon basin.
It is my theory, and I hope to prove it one day, that most lethal diseases are contracted in airport departure lounges.

Finally, just when I was rather enjoying watching fat American tourists and calculating which part of the departure lounge would be the least likely place to catch Lower Nile dysentery, we are ushered towards our plane. It soon transpires that the ‘vessel’ that will transport us across a narrow strip of the Caribbean sea is a 15-seater, twin propeller, Otter – straight out of Indiana Jones’ Raiders of the Lost Ark… Or, as I would like to call it; A flying coffin. It’s small, it’s tight, and I’ve got a window seat…er…actually everybody has a window seat!
I’m disappointed to discover that there’s no lovely cabin crew to serve refreshments, no in-flight entertainment, no duty free selection. I was hoping to purchase a Cartier…This us no-frills ultimatere – Easy Jet eat your heart out!

I strap myself in securely, expecting a bumpy ride and some serious turbulence. Disappointingly the ride is silky smooth. Grand Cayman disappears beneath us. The swampy marshlands and golden coral outcrops give way to a rich azure sea. As we climb higher to a cruising altitude of 1,800 ft, looking out the window you can see the clouds forming shadows over the water with the last remnants of the sun dancing merrily on their canopies.

The flight takes 45 minutes to traverse a distance of roughly 90 miles (at an average cruising speed of 150 mph), before we finally land at Cayman Brac ‘airport’ – there’s no livestock roaming around in this one, but there is a football net on one side of the runway…Mmmm

Cayman Brac is small. 1,500 people small. It is so amazingly titchy that when you eventually see someone they wave at you and local protocol is to wave back. Let me make this clear. Everybody says Hi to everybody. If you’re driving, you say hi to the car approaching. If you’re walking you say hi to the cars passing. It takes a bit of getting used to, but very soon I’m flaffin my arms around like a deranged idiot and saying hi to all manner of strangers and anything that moves…looks like I’m settling in just fine…as a great Jamiacan Philosopher and advocate of Ganja once sang: every little ting, iz gonna be awite.

In the evening, I’m sitting outside at the ‘Captains Table’ restaurant and bar. Sitting on my left is Vincent, a local retired elderly Caymanian who can trace his ancestry back to the 1800’s and who is half Portuguese and half Jewish. He used to be a seafarer, has travelled the world, and is a repository of all that is wise. To my right is Wayne who’s from Haiti and has some Jamaican genes juggling inside as well. The barman serving me is from Mexico (Meckico). I order my food; the cook turns out to be from Honduras. The gravity of this suddenly hits me and leaves me reeling…I’m in a daze trying to fathom what it all means…But I’ll leave it for another time…I think I better have my steak before it gets cold…