Yeah, fuck you, too, Richard!

It all started because I have a terrible deadline looming that I am struggling to meet. Spending four hours on the internet searching looking for good mobile phone deals was therefore inevitable. I have always been a pre-paid kinda gal, but I do love a gadget so, and there was these lovely ones, all shiny and lovely. All I had to do was sign up to a little teensy weensy little 18 month contract and pay them a little bit of money up front. Just £8.50 a month and a new Lovely Shiny Shiny would be mine. Delivered straight to my door. Easy. Nice. Shiny.

Besides, if I actually purchased a phone, it meant that the four hours that I had just spent tooling around on the internet was not time-wasting, but responsible, well thought out consumer research. I was good, not bad.

I filled in all the little boxes on the screen, and they said they Lovely Shiny would arrive the next day. I would have a new Lovely Shiny and a phone contract, just like a grown-up. I was excited. Then, a couple of hours later, they sent me another one saying that I wasn't allowed to give them my money. Not this week. Last week, of course, Virgin Media was happy to sign me up and install cable internet, TV and telephone for about three times the amount we were talking about now. This week, nada. They were kind enough to offer me the opportunity to pay some credit check agency in Essex twelve quid for the priviledge of telling me why I was no longer worthy, but apart from that, I could fuck off.

I was a little hurt.

Resilient little bunny that I am, I found another deal with another company the next day. In fact, this one was WAY cheaper, so the day before's events seemed like a little caress of luck(so much for my consumer research of the day before). All went well. They asked me more questions, which I found encouraging. The address bit took some time,because they wanted three year's worth. I decided to gloss over the Sydney flat and the brief soujourn in Morningside and stick to just three addresses for the last year. After that,there was just the Elwood Hibiscus Palace.

This time I got two e-mails. First, telling me that they got the form. Secondly, telling me my order had been lodged and I could expect my Lovely Shiny forthwith. Gadget greedy, I dreamed of all the things I could do with my new gadget. I couldn't actually think of any that would be particularly useful, but whatever they were I would be able to do them in style.

Having run out of distractions, I actually did some work. Then another email arrived. And a text. They didn't want me either. A double-barelled rejection from this lot, just in case I was in any doubt. The odd little episode of rejection I can handle. The mini-series, however, I was finding unpleasant. To give them their due, though, they at least had the good grace to tell me that the problem was not having lived in the UK for three years. And they didn't try and charge me twelve quid for the knowledge.

Then another e-mail arrived. Right back at the start, I had sent Verging Meanier an e-mail to ask if I could just add a phone to my already purchased bundle. Yesterday, they hadn't replied. Today, 24 hours after Virgin Mobile had told me to fuck off and take my business elsewhere, they replied. They advised, in that annoying Virgin chirpy-chappy prose that makes you want to slap the little fuckers, that they would absolutely LOVE to help me. Was I aware they had a deal for as little as £8.50? All I had to do was call their Sales Department and they would sort it all out. They would have rung me, they said, except I hadn't given them a phone number, i.e. the phone number that they had provided me with the week before.

I toyed with the idea of writing back to tell them that I was aware of their £8.50 a month deal, having tried to purchase that very deal the day before, but by this time I was half convinced a balaclava-clad swat team was downstairs in an unmarked van preparing to storm the flat and take my internet away.

A minor aside. I was allowed to VOTE here from the moment I arrived.

To cut a long story short, I therefore remain a pre-paid girl, and by all accounts am doomed to remain so for another two years. No Lovely Lovely Shiny for me.

Fuck you, too, Mr Branson.

Make Love Not War

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the CIA or some some other spooky U.S. agency (all cats are grey...) have had to get inventive with incentives.

They found themselves in need of a new kind of bribe to get the local warlords on side and chatty. Apparently, they had been relying on the well-tested approach of money. This not only left them with a very low score for imagination and creativity, it also had the problem of rendering itself ineffective in a relatively short period of time.

You see, the thing about money is that it has no inherent value. It is a medium of exchange; nothing more, nothing less. If you are rendered unable to exchange it for anything, you are completely stuffed. Like dead, for example. No shopping opportunities in the after-life, hence the expression 'you can't take it with you'. Example 2: You are an Afghan warlord in a small community whose expenditure of large amounts of money, whether it be on land or livestock, cows or clothes, bongs or bling, will be instantly noticed by your compatriots and peers. In this situation, experience has shown, the prominent display of a new gold watch a month after that mysterious Western fellow has passed through town is so instantly recognised as an 'Example-2-type-situation' that you very quickly find yourself in an 'example-1-type-situation' i.e. dead. Either that, or your mates decide you are a dirty dobbing dog in which case you become 1) very lonely, and 2) cut off from the very source of information that you were hoping to make a nice little earner selling in the first place.

What to do? Create a pay-packet they can consume, use and abuse to their heart's content without anyone complaining. Better still, if someone does see the change in behaviour, suddenly you are not only a warlord, but a stud.

Seems life is hard for an ageing warlord who is into polygamy. Or, more accurately, making life hard gets harder and harder all the time, especially with a stressful war to stay alive in, foreign agents to talk to, etc. Last thing you want is for word to go around the market-place that you are not up to (excuse the pun) meeting your conjugal obligations. The guys might start thinking you are a wuss or something.

The answer? Viagra. The warlord looks south and is proud of what he sees. With any luck the wives benefit as well. No-one beyond the boudoir need ever know, and if they hear anything, its likely to make your macho reputation go up, rather than down. That's the plan, anyway. Suddenly half the village is walking around grinning like idiots. With just a smidge of swagger. And maybe, just maybe, the little kids grow up, surrounded by a little less frustration and anger and a little more satisfaction, and a little more belief in humans' ability to bring each other joy, every now and again.

I know, I know. I am being flippant. One can't assume that your average middle-aged warlord will spend their new-found 'wealth' either wisely or kindly. By the same token, I am sure that the women in question are perfectly capable of generating their own joy if and when they need to, one way or another. In the scheme of things, though, its gotta beat trafficking in narcotics, weapons, or nuclear isotopes.

I like to think they include a complimentary Barry White CD.