What’s The World Coming To ?

Last week I posted a blog which was a bit tongue in cheek but I still got some stick for it, predictably from females, who thought it was a bit sexist. It was about females and football (an oxymoron ?) and I finished with some statements about an assistant referee in a Premier League football match, to whom some commentators were making disparaging remarks, off the record.

Well, this turned out to be a bit of a ‘scoop’ on my part because the story blew up big time and both commentators are now looking for new jobs!   

Well, just to balance things out a bit, this blog is about men, so you girls can have a bit of a laugh and I’m sure the boys will have a titter as well.

Look at the picture on the left. Quite pretty aren’t they? Well, pretty for models. They’re usually so skinny and gaunt (there I go again) but the one on the right appears to have quite a nice body if you like that sort of thing.

Well, I’m sorry to inform you that the models in the picture are one and the same person and ‘she’ is a male!

I’ve lost the original article in one of the papers but for some reason, the guy is in huge demand to model female couture. And it’s not some obscure fashion house using ‘him’. The major couture houses are using ‘him’ and he’s probably raking it in. Maybe it’s because he’s tall and has no boobs (there I go again!).

What's the world coming to ?

And then there’s the story about PC Air in Thailand, which has yet to take to the skies, and which selected three "Ladyboys" in its first round of hiring  to act (perform?) as ‘stewardesses’ for the new airline (see picture below - I'm sure I know one of them!).

In an act to promote equal opportunities for what is dubbed the "third sex" in Thailand, Peter Chan, the new airline's boss, was enthusiastic about his groundbreaking move because of the opportunities it would afford transsexuals.

One of the successful candidates was Thanyarat "Film" Jiraphatpakorn, who won the annual Miss Tiffany "katoey" beauty pageant in 2007. "At first I thought they would just take applications but not actually recruit us, as happened at other places before," said the 23-year-old, adding that ‘she’ was delighted to have been chosen.

Thailand has the largest number of "katoeys" – as they are called in Thai – in the world, with the country's surgeons pioneering cheaper and quicker sex change operations because of the sky-high demand from men wishing to become women.

PC Air did not make proof of sexual reassignment a criteria for the job, merely that the applicants possessed the necessary oral skills and the potential to provide a good service.

The mind boggles.

And finally, a male shop assistant in London is claiming sex discrimination after a 68-year-old woman colleague allegedly slapped his bottom three times while working at the flagship John Lewis department store.

Konstantinos Kalomoiris, 40, says Bianca Revrenna (you couldn’t get two better names could you?) tapped his bottom in the locker room and twice on the shop floor of the Oxford Street shop.

Furniture department worker Mr Kalomoiris, who says he quit his job as a result, told an employment tribunal that when he told her to stop, she replied: "I do that to all the boys."

What’s the world coming to?

La Turbie

La Turbie

The village of La Turbie is one of those places which you only visit if you happen to be passing through it. Positioned on the high road just east of Monaco, it is a lovely little village with a rich Roman history.

In our part of the country La Turbie is never out of the news however, as when the single-lane road heading down into Monaco is closed because of the volume of vehicles, all the motorway traffic is routed through the village, hence it makes the radio traffic bulletins  seemingly on a daily basis!

I had to go to La Turbie twice last week, firstly, to negotiate the purchase (successful I’m pleased to say) of a car I quite liked the look of and secondly on the Friday, to pick the car up and bring it home, which was an adventure in itself given that its brakes were shot!

On the day I was to view the car I got to La Turbie an hour early. Sitting on a very slow moving motorway beside Nice Airport, an overhead gantry sign said I would be in La Turbie in 15 minutes which was scarcely believable. ‘They’ve got this one wrong’, I said but 15 minutes later I was parking in the village!

With an hour to spend, I walked around looking at it’s small area of shops and restaurants, the views down to Cap Ferrat and the quaint alleyways, most of which led up to La Tropheé des Alpes which was constructed in 5BC in honour of the emperor Augustus to commemorate the conquest of the Alps and the submission of 44 Ligurian tribes during Augustus' campaigns in 25, 16 and 15 BC.  An inscription dedicates the ‘temple’ to the son of Ceasar thus:

TO THE EMPEROR AUGUSTUS CAESAR, SON OF THE DIVINE (JULIUS CAESAR)
SOVEREIGN PONTIFF, EMPEROR FOR THE XIVTH TIME, TRIBUNE FOR THE XVIITH TIME
THE SENATE AND THE ROMAN PEOPLE

The picture to the left shows the building as it was when it was constructed some 2,016 years ago. The picture above shows it as it is today.

But that’s enough of La Turbie, now the car.

Even since Guy and Kitty have outgrown the miniscule rear compartment in the Alfa, I’ve been looking for a 4-seater convertible. I’d always fancied a BMW, an Audi or a Saab and it was the other evening when I spotted an advert for a 1996 BMW 328i convertible (yes – in Angloinfo) that my pulse started racing. Despite being almost 15 years old, having 90,000 miles on the clock and having a few bashes and scrapes, I was sold – or rather it was. And when I test drove it and put my foot on the throttle rather too firmly and the car shot off (with Cindy its owner and her two young kids covering their eyes), I was determined to have it.

A quick negotiation, a shake of the hands and it was mine. A gleaming (parts of it!) BMW which is so quick it frightens me. Cindy, informed me that she’d already had a call that morning from a guy who was prepared to drive over with his cheque book and pay her the full price on the spot, so the fact that I got a decent reduction can only be put down to the fact that her kids loved the ‘scary’ ride I gave them!

It’ll be off the road for a few weeks whilst I completely replace the braking system (hubs and all) but then it’ll be ready for the spring and summer months. I can’t wait.