George allowed me to reproduce this post of his here.

I was just browsing the BBC Feed and came upon this article about a controversial RyanAir ad. It’s pretty obvious what they’re trying to pull here, but frankly, it’s not all that offensive or anything. I’ve always wondered about people who get offended by stuff like this - what are they thinking? Perhaps, Oh my god, teenage girls will think they’ll get low fares if they dress like that! or maybe They’re insulting the dignity of the young women of the country. They are against British culture.. I can just imagine what would happen if those ads were displayed here. Actually, I don’t have to, I just know there’ll be more car accidents.

We have a strange dichotomy, there’ll be women in wet saris running around trees and wrapping themselves provocatively around the male leads of the movies but the slightest word about anything and cultures will suddenly become offended, women will become insulted and the world will go wrong. What a pathetic bunch of desperate people, here’s a point for you sociologists - this is what happens to people who can’t get any and really really want some. Face it, sex sells, and you like it that way. It’s like those little kids who do something and then act all sanctimonious about the whole thing in the hope that they’ll be the last person suspected.

Of course no one’s falling for RyanAir’s hilarious story explaining just why they aren’t going to be withdrawing the ad. If anyone goes out into the London streets dressed like that they’ll get frostbite, and pneumonia, and just die of exposure.

Here’s the offending ad.

For some reason I find this song completely irresistible after having seen it in that Sony commercial, I have the ringtone you can get from Sony and I’ve gone to great lengths to find this song. I wish Celestial were available on Amie Street, I wouldn’t hesitate before buying them. I’m not usually a fan of this electronic genre, but this song just has me hooked to it completely. I don’t know what it is, but I’m stuck to listening to this over and over again.

Here’s a link to the song: Electric Road - Celestial. I’ll take it down if there’s a problem. Please buy the album if you can.

I think I should admit this now, I’m addicted to tobacco. I should quit, but when I’m feeling down, it gives me a pick-me-up where people aren’t willing to. Tonight I got up from my seat and walked up to my bag and nearly rummaged around for a cigarette. That’s where I knew I’d lost it.

Sometimes I’ve tried denial. I don’t do drugs (pot doesn’t count, but PCP does) I tell myself, this is not me. I don’t commit crimes I tell myself, that’s not who I am. But that’s not really true, is it. If I look back far enough, I’ve been doing it for ages now, and all the time not realised. Just that recently I’ve let my ambition overleap itself and that makes it all very easy to see the bullshit I pulled. Guilt. Loads of it, and nowhere to put it.

If it’s any consolation, nothing I’m doing now holds a candle to what I have done.

If you let yourself go, allow every single sensation to pass right through to your brain, you can feel yourself the way you are. I do that sometimes, and I know myself in that instant, physically at least, every bone, every vein. And if you close your eyes when you do that, you aren’t here any more, you’re in that other place of peace. It can’t be the inner peace that everyone talks about, but it certainly is one hell of a feeling, knowing just every bit of you. Knowing it.

No movement, yet it’s some of the most trippy things I’ve ever done, and without any substance abuse involved. Give it a shot some time.

I’ve kept some all my life, and the ones I still hold are worse than the stuff that I have told. Even worse than the one that only one other person not involved knows, and that person doesn’t know it isn’t the worst, or that it never actually bothered me though it was a convenient excuse. I’m not really sorry, of course, of everything I did then, or what I’m doing now. I apologise without regret, recidivism evident in my past and in my present. That’s why I can’t sometimes handle it, you know, and that’s what bothers me: I sometimes feel guilty, and that makes some things not happen.

Guilt is a horrible thing, it’s probably the worst thing you’ll have to live with.

While some people have the luxury of choice, the rest of us must make do with nothing whatsoever when our computers fail. As did mine. So I was out of action for a little while. Now I am back, and I will make it count.

You know it isn’t too hard to buy a new computer for cheap? One with a Core 2 Duo and a discrete graphics card even. The question, of course, is whether the AMD processors are better than the Intel Core 2 series at the same price point; I’ve heard rumours that the higher end Athlon 64 X2 can hold its own against similarly priced processors from the Intel line. That’s a lot to check on, and compatibility for ports. I still can’t believe I bought a computer with only an AGP port just when PCI-e was catching on. Very well, that machine is showing its age now, and I can make a difference this time. Must be careful, don’t let the dad do the buying.

They’re like eyes ¨, you’re looking at them and they’re looking at you. Not really, they’re an attempt at looking Teutonic. I suppose if they wanted to be Norse they’d go and stick an ø everywhere they could. Then you’d get a band that looked like this Mötørhead or something, which makes no sense because that’s not the name. That isn’t even pronounceable by any sane person. But it still looks cool.

Can you? Do things just pop into your head when you’re just sitting there wondering what to do? Are you seized by the passion to put some words to paper and make them spin through other peoples’ heads? I’m not. It doesn’t drive me, creation powers my soul but words don’t flow like other things do — unfinished thoughts that spiral into meaningless little whorls of nonsense. If only I could make another think what I think without a flawed medium to prism my ideas through, there are impurities, defects and downright inaccuracies. Whose fault is an improperly understood sentence? It’s not mine, I cannot speak. Language was never something I was good at. Fit electrodes in my head, let them shock my brain, read my thoughts…

…because they’re beautiful and I want to share.

You live in constant fear of an enemy that your very cowardice has created. Face other people like men, stand up and show that you can see them as an equal without fear of being shown up. Haven’t done that so far, and now everyone looks down on you for your ignorance and your arrogance, typical of a ‘fly on a cartwheel’ as a popular politician/cricketer/commentator/clobberer of the aged would have said. You kill the women and children and the young men who want nothing but a bright future and you drive them to their doom. And yours. I hope you enjoy yourself, scared of LEDs, of wires, oppressing yourself in the quest for liberation. You’ve created your own Atlas’ load, and you bear it with little fortitude. You’re useless in every form, violent kids yelling for attention. Go away.

And if you ask me to do something for you, I will snap at you, and then you’ll get upset and I get the couch. How is that fair? I was the one who wanted to sleep in the first place. Never mind, I’m the one who cares, and I’ll make it up to you and apologise. You have it easy. Well, maybe I’m a sucker for punishment, because I know I can’t believe my luck, little as it is.

You know, the bears are on the wing now. They’re coming round the mountain as they come, and they like the white of your flags and the sun you bear on your banners.

It’s harvest season and I don’t want any produce, but the taxmen are out and they’re watching the alleys. Take care, comrades, ’tis a dangerous time when even the rails where you smoke a cigarette may not be safe. They’ll want their cut of your stash, of course, and if you look a bit well off, they’ll want money, and maybe they’ll take you in even then. Even the old man with the pipe sitting on the edge of the pavement must pay, it’s summer time you know, if it’s hot they’ll tax your … tobacco . Greed, my dear friends, ’tis a horrible thing.

We aren’t like them, of course. Sharing comes naturally to us, but sharing forced isn’t sharing at all and sharing inequitably is synonymous with robbery, and ’tis the state that does it, or its enforcers anyway. They’re as bad us anyway, except we’re the nice black musicians in the car in Back to the Future and they’re… them, thieves sanctioned by the government. How tragic. But then, c’est la vie.

You know the kind, when you don’t actually have to say something for the other person to understand what you mean. This happens all the time, especially in situations that could turn troublesome. Other times you say one thing which would mean something innocuous but which means more to one person. Can any artificial intelligence really understand this? The words are the same but the meaning is different. What if the words are never said? What if it is simply a nod of the head or the scrape of a boot on the ground? Do we follow any real method when we choose what signals are signals and what are really just movements of no importance?

It’s interesting really, people have written huge tomes on body language and how to find out if people are interested in what you’re saying. I wonder, really, because very often all I’m doing when I stand with a shoe pointing in one direction is getting a comfortable position, not showing interest in a person in that direction. Can there be any such tome which is accurate? Surely people don’t always put their fingers on their cheeks if they’re opinionated or imitate the mannerisms of someone who they like. That sounds so ridiculous.

I call bullshit.