Post-postmodernism

So the free-enterprise US government and Republican administration is borrowing (yet more) money from Communist China in order to (partially) nationalise the nation's formerly wholly privately-held (for-profit) banking industry.

Anyone else find just a trace of irony in that?

The 21st century is shaping up to be some very interesting times indeed.

Credit to the analyst

The McCain/Palin team post a weekly "fireside chat" to enthuse their supporters (as I doubt anyone not already voting for them listens).

It is no longer out of hyperbole when I say that the man (and the woman) is mentally ill. He wants to further reduce taxation (and "spending") but also wants to "build more nuclear power plants", "develop clean coal technology" and "increase use of wind, tide, solar and natural gas"? Where is the money going to come from?

You want to freeze all government spending, except the military? At this point, that's like saying I'm quitting drinking. except for beer. and wine. and spirits. The amount of money used in national "security" is mind-boggling. Even accounting for entirely pointless crap like US bases in Japan, Germany and until recently Iceland, where the hell does it all go? Especially considering the poor provisions our troops can face. How exactly do you freeze spending on things like education, the court and transportation, anyway?

Sorry, McCain, you can't type "imacheat" for a free $500,000 in funds with which build 5 new power plants à la SimCity 2000. This is real life. I really hope this is inane enough that no one actually believes the proposed "rationality" any more. You ever played Shadow President? If your answer is yes, you are probably more qualified to be president than McCain. Yes, you have to maintain your approval rating, but you also need to balance the stupid fucking budget... and if you can't, say goodbye to your rating anyway. Bread and Circuses only work so long as you can afford to keep giving it to them.


On a related note, I watched the Thursday Vice Presidential debate and Biden shows a firm grasp on the topics and formed intellectual responses to questions. Too intellectual, actually: I love how Biden is against redefining marriage, acknowledging that it is up to "the faiths" to "determine what constitutes" a marriage, while still stating support for extending civil protections of same-sex partnerships. When Palin is prompted to state her position, she simply blurts out that she does not support gay marriage. She always seems to talk a lot-- until she's needed to say something concrete.

I'm just afraid that Obama and Biden are way too smart. It's controversial because it's true.

The Very Last Notes from the Right-Wing

I'm Joeverkill, and I quit.

I have better things to do with my time than argue on the internet with a mental patient with poor grammar who can't do simple division.

Analyst, Minotauromachy, Rupert Murder: we've had some good back-and-forth on some important issues. For that I thank you guys. I also thank anyone who's read this blog.

It's been real, guys.

Random Retard, it brings me great pleasure to know that you will die, starving, unsatisfied, and alone.

Sowing Discontent with a Garnishing of Panic

http://www.energybulletin.net/node/23259

It's apocalyptic, but it doesn't sound implausible. The facts are true; why can't the conclusion be?

Beginner's Economics

I think in times like this we should all refresh ourselves of tried-and-true, uncontroversial economic principles which make the core of modern economic theory. I can't find good sources to cite, and don't want to delve into JSTOR or anything actually entailing a degree of effort, so someone point me out some good sources if it becomes apparent.

There exist (at least) three indisputable sectors:

The primary sector, comprising the procurement of "raw materials"-- mining, agriculture, oil drilling, etc. This is a sector generally highly-dependent on immediate location and environment, for obvious reasons.

The secondary sector, comprising general "production"-- heavy industry such as construction, oil refining, steelworks, etc and light industry such as manufacturing electronics, clothes and other consumer goods. This is less dependent on the environment in which it is based

The tertiary sector pretty much is everything else-- retail, services and information/knowledge. Some people split these up into further sectors, others lump them together. This is generally the end of the production line (unless you count recycling, reuse etc as part of a production-consumption cycle).

They're called primary, secondary and tertiary because the tertiary entails the secondary and the secondary entails the primary.

The largest sector of the US economy is retail. Granted, the US has lots of agriculture, lots of mining, lots of construction, but percentage-wise, retail is king. Wal-Mart is the fourth-largest employer in the world, beaten only by public institutions. Granted, Wal-Mart is integrated to a point, but its target product is retail sales.

When people haven't got money to buy things, the retail business suffers. When the retail business suffers, they cut costs. The #1 biggest expense of any business, any businessman will tell you, is personnel. People get laid off. Profits will not drop much if there are 2 people working the till at the supermarket as opposed to 6: If you really want your groceries, you'll wait in the queue like everyone else, or just go to another supermarket where you'll have to wait anyway.

Except that, when the average American most likely works in retail than any other sector, what if he got laid off? He's not going to be buying any retail products.

See the correlation?

Necessary products of primary and secondary industry such as paving roads, repairing bridges, replacing trains, do not suffer as much-- unless your country is as fucked as the US. There is NOT always a demand for plasma-screen TVs-- compared to tarmac or refined petroleum.

Chevrolets and Fords are made in Mexico. Most every consumer products is made in China. High-end products are made in Japan (Your Infiniti), Germany (VW-- though ones in America are made in Mexico now too), France, Korea etc.

Retail in the US is comprised of mainly selling products made in another country for a profit-- thus, a certain portion of the US's wealth nevertheless leaves the US. The amount of money in China at the moment (albeit not in the hands of the common man) is staggering.

Moving on to the non-material tertiary sector, your computer game was likely developed in India. Your graphics card was engineered in Japan. Your energy-efficient washing machine was tested in a German laboratory. Your anti-depressants were likely designed (and manufactured) in Taiwan.

Most of your products are NOT American. They are not necessarily purely foreign, but they are definitely not 100% corn-fed American. When I see something "Made in America" that statement is conspicuous for a reason-- because it's so strange to see.

The service-oriented parts of the tertiary sector which are more necessary like healthcare and education have been neglected. If you disagree that American schools could be vastly improved, you were a sheltered upper-class suburban winner of the class lottery. If you disagree that the healthcare system is inefficient, what about when the US spends more on healthcare both privately and publicly than any other nation? If a country like Finland spent that much on healthcare per capita there'd be more doctors and hospital beds than people to utilise them, and people would be getting radiotherapy for kicks.

On the other side, what about all the useless jobs that are going the way of the dinosaur because they're too expensive?-- the longer waits on hold for a telephone representative of Bank of America, no one to bag your groceries, no one paid to say "Good Morning" when you walk into your yuppie Whole Foods.

The only jobs uniquely American are in our much-loved financial sector. Yes, the shark who processed your second mortgage lives in the same Bushville as you do.

You say that globalisation means that American corporations own the industry in many of these "cheap" countries and so the wealth flows back into the American economy. Yeah, I can really see how the money from Mr Seven-Figure Income Executive's new Murcielago bought at Beverly Hills Lamborghini helps me prosper. Oh, and all that corporate wealth generated? It's likely stored in a low-tax haven like Barbados, Liechtenstein or the Isle of Man: Not a penny of it will ever come into contact with the US economy.

The US's current "high" unemployment rate of 5.7% pales in comparison to stereotypical France 7.5% (2007). But you know what? France has a higher-rate of multiple-income households than the USA, meaning more people register for unemployment: You're only "unemployed" if:

a) you're looking for work, and
b) you can claim unemployment benefits/status.

It's also impossible to buy a television at 2am in France from a 24-hour Wal-Mart/Costco/Cheapo Imperium hypermarket. You can't eat a three-course meal at 2am at Denny's/Fat Joe's/Cottaging Diner. There's no poor sod to bag your groceries for your fat ass for minimum wage. In fact, in the UK, for example, instead of your late-night Blockbuster, there are little ATM-like machines that dispense videos past regular business hours when the shop itself closes. In France in 2000, no one could force you to work over 35 hours per week, and any time after that was overtime. Virtually all shops close at 5-5:30pm.

If the USA adopted such strict labour laws and reduced its "luxury" services to the level of France, unemployment would explode FAR beyond France's 7.5%. What would happen if every single 24-hour Wal-Mart in the USA was forced to only operate from 9 to 5? It would lay off over half its workforce, which would be over a million people. That's one company out of legions.

For the US to have worker's protection approaching that of other first-world countries, the US would have imploded upon implementation as opposed to sinking (un)gracefully into world recession.

As more people lose their jobs, the economy continues to go down and the dollar weakens. The raw materials used from other foreign countries become more expensive, our China-made goods become more expensive, and Wal-Mart's sales continue to plummet, forcing them to lay off yet more people. The economy is on a one-way trip to Hell.

When you become unemployed and have a nervous breakdown, you won't be able to afford your fancy Ativan made in a foreign country because the USA hasn't even got any sort of state-funded universal healthcare. So Biovail Pharmecuticals and every other medical company will suffer too. Who knows? Maybe the US will regress into a bona fide undeveloped country, without things like sanitation and hospital treatment!

So many unemployed leaves a great workforce to be exploited! ...but, wait, where's the money for enterprise? Oh yeah that's right-- both we and our government are drowning in debt. Foreign investment? Why invest in unskilled American labour when you can do business in e.g. Turkey, Chile, China or India for 1/20 the cost? Skilled, high-end labour? That's too expensive for what it offers compared to e.g. Finland or Denmark where there are untapped legions of skilled workers doing jobs under their education level. Forget about places like Taiwan or South Korea which combine the best of both worlds. Would I rather pay a nanotech engineer $150,000/yr with private healthcare benefits and nominal corporate taxation in the US, or €36,000 (~$50,000)/yr without a bloated private benefits package albeit with slightly more taxation in Finland? You do the maths-- if your education was good enough to give it to you, that is. The US is the only developed third-world country-- too expensive for cheap work, too stupid for brilliant innovation. Too privatised too withstand recession, but already developed, precluding expansion.

The only way out of this hole is to either schmooze our way even deeper into the red or nationalise. Yep, it's time for the New New Deal, friends. Deficit spending and speculation really worked well. Cheers.

You know who else had low unemployment? The Soviet Union-- at a spectacular 0%. We'll forget that they didn't play by the rules of mainstream economics (of course the US follows economic principles-- what, are you crazy? [Quiet! don't scare off the investors])

However, unlike the USA, there was no inflation (as virtually all prices were regulated, of course). They also railroaded themselves into being a powerhouse of research and innovation without the benefits of a free market, nearly beating us to the moon with a fraction of the money we had. They also had universal healthcare, more hospital beds per capita than any other nation and free education at all levels. There were more doctorates per capita in the USSR than in the USA. The US has the biggest economy of the world and still can't accomplish that.

America's employment miracle is because America is full of shit, unnecessary jobs which are all going away anyway. In North Korea, people serve as traffic signals-- doesn't mean it's efficient. Of course, if Americans were used as traffic signals, they'd have been laid off by now.

If you still believe in trickle-down economics in 2008, you've got a hole in your head where your brain should be.

I'm Random Retard, and this has been notes from the anti-right.

Dear Columbia,

I am angry. Deal with it.

None of you believed me; well, sadly, now that you do, the pleasure I feel tastes of that stuff you burp up when you've eaten too much.

Some say that society's lowest members are its barometer. Well, I suppose I'm society's lowest member because I felt it long before you did.

The fact that a living wage in southern California for a young person was in the realm of $19,440 before taxes in 2004 wasn't an issue to you because you've never lived as a 19-year-old in 2004 California. The idea that the cost of living increases with youth and inexperience at the same time that wages decrease because no one gives a shit about teenage Target workers who've not got a degree was perfectly rational, because your experienced driving record and skilled job with health benefits meant that you did just fine. You try living in Chula Vista and getting to Linda Vista to work every day at 8am sharp by bus to earn $7.50/hr. You try finding a place to sleep for under $600 pcm that's not also got four wheels and fits nicely in a compact parking space.

The fact that it's impossible to live a life of modesty, with a small place near where you work without luxuries like a car never seemed a problem because you could always afford it. The fact that keeping up with the Joneses isn't an option but rather a requirement didn't cross your mind because you never had to try to do otherwise yourself.

You think that health insurance is an option you needn't take out if you can't afford it; well what about those who can't afford not to? Oh, hospital bills are scary. But you know what's even scarier?-- having a medical issue that goes on for months or even years that costs hundreds of dollars a month just to maintain your own life. How would that knowledge affect you? That if you couldn't pay the bills, you might die? Untold numbers of Americans live with that every day. It's not their fault they had health trouble. "...but it's they chose not to have health insurance". Well what if their health insurance refused to pay out? What if the cost of treatment is greater than the maximum covered? What if they're denied coverage due to actually trying to maintain their health by utilising medical services? What if they can't afford an individual plan, but they can't get company coverage because they're worthless... because they can't afford to get skills for a full-time job... because they're having to pay for healthcare in lieu of college? What about the claims of type-1 diabetics that "employers will do everything they [legally] can not to hire you if they find out you have diabetes"? Is that just paranoia?-- or is it company fiscal policy to hire the most cost-effective worker in a world of consumption-driven, deregulated privatised healthcare? How would you deal with being in that situation?

You think the crisis is now; the crisis will be here for a long time. This was 60+ years in the coming, and consequentially won't be finished a week after elections. I was eligible for full federal & state educational funding and it was still cheaper to study in a foreign fucking country that had national healthcare, public transportation, student housing and higher minimum wage and more relaxed hiring standards (probably due to no need to supply private health insurance to full-time workers). Nevertheless I am $100,000+ in debt immune to bankruptcy for a degree which is honestly fucking worthless in what it really taught me to do. I am no more skilled at planning a rota or balancing a budget or doing anything I will probably do than I was before finishing high school-- but oh yeah, everyone worth anything gets a degree so you should too. But I couldn't do a degree in something useful because I had to work during university instead of studying something intensive like radiography or architecture or computer science.

Everyone knows the education bubble: it's more lucrative to be a plumber than to get most degrees. Well it's not that easy to become a plumber either... probably more difficult, because just an equivalent of a degree to plumbing (i.e. a bullshit piece of paper you gave your life without debt away for) isn't enough.

I am in a lifetime of debt for a degree I don't really want which I have nevertheless worked relentlessly for for three years to the point of ill health, working a shit job instead of sleeping just to survive despite my surmounting debt, having virtually no hobbies or social life or anything which gosh might maintain one's well-being in a world where Americans have the worst record for mental health in the developed world and still being thrown into chaos by lending meltdown, the stress of which has made me lose the love of my life, the one thing I've ever had that made me truly happy. As of now I am waiting for my wondrous student loan cheques to be processed before Sallie Mae becomes bankrupt as well, hoping I can at least finish my final year instead of shooting myself in the head.

I'm the lowest rung, but everyone else has to go through the same system. If they're lucky, their parents paid for their education. They're the emancipated ones. The rest, well...

University is not the best time of your life. It is an indoctrination; pounding in that you can never escape the system, life is about work and not fun. Youth, vitality, optimism, ingenuity, confidence, security, adventure, entertainment-- those are all things to be sneered at because they don't mesh well with white picket fences and $2 million homes in La Jolla made of cardboard on the edge of a cliff with an H3 and a Boxter in the drive. I've got the most bleak outlook of the world of anyone on this island, and people on this blighted island have got the bleakest outlook of anyone on this continent. That is an impressive achievement. I've also probably got the highest inverted unsecured debt-to-age ratio of anyone on this continent. Because I'm American. Stereotypes exist for a reason.

Every man is not born equal; everyone does not have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The American Dream is just that. Why am I the luckiest person in the world to be born American? What has America given me? Oh, that's right-- a chance to become a slave just to survive. Give me one good reason why I should pay back my loans: Emancipated Russian serfs had to pay back "debts" for their freedom, but those Russians got angry and so the Tsar got a little afraid. Maybe Russians back then were maybe smarter than Americans are now.

Christians? You're not Christian: I know that America is an abomination to everything the Bible teaches. What about being meek and humble? What about if you've got two coats, you should give one to someone who's got none? What about forgiving unbearable debt? (keep in mind that Jewish law was divided over whether any debt for anything was ever cancellable or not). If America is the most Christian nation then God must be the Antichrist. You're certainly marching to the tune of some other "God".

I've been to the Statue of Liberty and was angered by the sight of it. Fuck you, America.

anyone here still a reagan republican?

if the answer to the above question is "yes", then YOU'RE A FUCKING RETARD.

in case you have been under a rock for the last few days, or too busy paying attention to that ignorant running mate that reminds you of every obnoxious hockey/soccer/abortion-clinic-bombing mother you've ever met, the american economy is finally falling the fuck apart. the house of cards, with cards given clever names such as 'credit default swap,' 'option-ARM,' and 'eviscerate the proletariat' is crumbling, and 2008 is becoming the new 1929. i hate to say we told you so, but

but WE TOLD YOU SO.

so here's the basics of what's up as far as i can ascertain. thanks to decades of deregulation (one of the modern gop's golden calves, along with bastardized christianity and closeted homosexuality), we've stripped away all the fancy rules that we passed post-great-depression to keep our money sound. among the nice little regulations that we stripped away: the glass-steagall act of 1933, which separated consumer banks from investment banks and so forth. i'm no economist, but those who apparently are economists are saying that was a really bad idea. go ahead and thank a republican majority in congress and business-friendly democrat (read: lobbyist crony) bill clinton, who passed the 1999 bill that replaced glass-steagall. if anyone can provide a little more insight, please let me know.

so yeah, a couple of major investment banks of collapsed. merrill lynch is owned by bofa, aig is supposedly owned by you and i, washington mutual is courting suitors, and best of all, morgan stanley wants to sell just under half of itself to CHINA. what's wrong with selling to a chinese business, you say? it's not "a chinese business". it's a sovereign wealth fund. the people's republic of china might buy morgan stanley.

apparently all the rest of this bailout goes to we the people, to the tune of $900b or so. too bad we're already fucking broke. we listened to all of you when you said stupid bullshit like GO SHOPPING OR THE TERRORISTS WIN LULZ and NO SRSLY THE RICH DON'T NEED TO PAY TAXES. guess we'll just put it on the national credit card, right? sure. it's only another NINE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS OR SO, bringing our national debt to roughly $10 TRILLION or so. thank god you guys are all watching out for each other with our money, right?

minotauromachy has suggested i write some about how this relates to social security. that'll come later. if you can't tell, i'm a little too freaked out still to write rationally. instead, i'll leave you with this:

"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.

He said the mujahedeen fighters did the same thing to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980s, "using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers."

"We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden said.

He also said al Qaeda has found it "easy for us to provoke and bait this administration."

that's from an osama bin laden tape released FOUR YEARS AGO, to coincide with the last presidential election.

i think bin laden might be winning.

getting back into it

it's been a while since i've done this, so i might as well start slowly by sharing something amusing i spotted.



that is all.

Notes from the Other Camp

"That Palin-- I like her; she's smart as a whip".

To those who know me, this will not be surprising: My mother is voting for McCain & Co.

Left- vs Right-wing posturing aside, the interesting thing about this revelation is that Palin, while really making no changes to the Republican/McCain platform, is rallying support through her sheer... shall we say, "personality".

Keep in mind that white, middle-aged women (usually married ones) are oft-considered the most important demographic in this election, and considering how they went for Clinton, it is apparent and uncontroversial at least in some fashion that sex and race are huge factors in this election.

However, what is strange is that hearing Palin's oratory and realising she said a whole lot of (albeit slightly-witty) nothing (not surprising for a politican), I realise she is just what she is-- a small-town conservative Alaskan wife who also happens to be a politician.

We all thought that having a pregnant teenage daughter getting shacked up would be a negative-- wrong. This is a plus in the eyes of the likes of my mother (who are, as crazy as she is, not uncommon). The shacked-up part is what makes it redeeming-- as long as you get married, it's admirable. If not, it's an atrocity.

The point is that the McCain team was smart in picking a sharp-tongued, former beauty-queen religious poly-child country wife as a running mate, because the American public has proven itself to consistently vote for that which is most like their self-image, regardless of the candidate's qualification for office-- Kerry was eschewed for being not as "average-Joe" as Bush (despite Bush being heir to a lavish estate and personal trust). Apparently Kerry's fluency in French was a bad thing. Kerry was a douchebag, but his douchebaggery paled in comparison to the bloody whore of Babylon that is Bush. Nevertheless, Bush was often said to be someone you could "have a beer with" (or something to that effect).

I don't hire employees because I like them; I hire people because they can do the job well. I don't know about you, but I personally wouldn't vote for just any 24-year-old angry left-wing university student, just because he's that and so am I. Actually, being a 24-year-old angry university student would detract from a candidate's appeal to me. I am not qualified to be VP, and neither is Palin.

Sarah Palin is the image of the perfect conservative succer mom. She is what they all look up to, the equivalent of boy racers looking up to Kimi Raikkonen for inspiration. Obama and his cohorts have to battle an old, rich "straight-talking" war hero and his equally unabashed former sexpot churchgoing WASP homemaker. He has all the bases covered. The only way Obama can win now is with a home run.

Remember, folks, this is a woman who asked Alaskans to pray for God's will in building an oil pipeline. But my mother would say that's a good thing too.

Pray that soccer mums can be defeated.

Two encounters

Between Class, downtime, nothing to do, sitting outside Taper Hall. Tossing back some pages of a novel. Sitting by the self. Occasionally glancing up to track the movement of girls, putting my head down, putting it up again if a second look is warranted. Sometimes sniffing the smoke of a passing cigarette and wondering why feel no need for one anymore after 8 years of religious smoking. Not even a tinge of desire, just a curious sniffle. Then settle into rhythm of book, the post hour bustle dies down as the clock hits the ten minutes past the hour mark.

Two girls approach my periphery. I hear a bright 'Hello', look up startled. Who are these people? Survivors of the past, old acquaintances. Who else would have the gall to approach me cold like this?

"I am Janice and this is Marjorie(place holder names for I barely registered their names in the weird panic of encounter). We are from the Student Christian Association. " Right, its those kindly evangelists. Who else wants to talk to you, you fool? Who is always there for you? Who has a Conversion Manual handily available for quick readings of your true spiritual state.

"Hello" I say politely, unsure whether I should introduce myself to these lambs of God. I thought better of it. "We were just walking around campus talking to people about their relationship to the saviour." Yes, they just happened to be walking around checking spiritual meters in their spare time. This must be a form of relaxation therapy.

"Well what do you think, are you interested in the role of our saviour in your life?"(Or something to that effect, my memory is all sieve, no netting). Hmm, so kind of him to take a special interest in my particular case, especially during the lonely afternoon hours of youth. " So I said "Not really" Big "Oh" from the lead lamb "That's just like my father. He would walk past the scene of the nativity and was never aware of it or anything like that." Well maybe I hadn't convinced her properly the first time so I said - "Well I don't really believe in a God, or anything like that." At which she says -"Yes, yes, my father too." Guess I had something in common with her daddy. That is the great thing about humanity, our shared history and origins.

How aware are these girls, I thought to myself, of the baggage they are shouldering, proselytising their 'forgiving God' to the subject of an ex colonial outpost(I was born and brought up in India, where people in some parts like Goa were subjected to forced conversions and other missionary excesses). A lone student must be just a lone student to them. Hell, just weeks ago, a white Hare Krishna devotee had passed me by without proffering me a Bhagvad Gita. Wonder what he was thinking when he quickly adjusted his stride to walk past me.

The second lamb felt the need to quickly pry open her reality focusing device and read out a line from Isiah (I think) "If you ever feel the need for the presence of the living God then you may reach out and call for him to present himself"(paraphrase). I thanked them and told them I' d think about it. They walked on by.

A few minutes later I looked to my right to see a lumbering student walking toward me. As she approached me on huge, jogging rolls of her thighs a girl on a cycle cut off her colossal figure and suddenly screeched to a halt a few feet ahead of me. She padded back on her feet, balancing her bicycle between her thighs. The two passed each other and I plunged back into my book thinking the new arrival was going to park her bike. "Hey there" I heard. What the hell? Roving gangs of lambs out on the prowl today, I thought. "I have a question for you?" Doesn't everyone. "Sure" I replied.

"I am a student at the school of cinematic arts and I was going to do a shoot this Friday. Its a short and will only take me 45 minutes or so. Tell me, would you or anyone you know be interested in starring in my movie?" Would I?Hmm. "I don't think so" I said, "I am camera shy" Now the girl felt the need to unburden her difficulties to me - "You know, its so hard to find actors, in the school, there are 1 maybe 2 actors of Middle eastern or Indian descent. I have to shoot the film by the end of this weekend and then edit it and so I am just cycling around and stopping anyone I see who looks the part and asking them if they want to act." Right, right, here she is, making a singlehanded attempt to address the problems of minority representation in Hollywood.

She then asks me - "What about the people you know?" Sure, sure, I probably know a whole secret community of Indian/Middle eastern people. I hang out with them and we cook falafels and some sort of odd smelling curries together, very ambiguously. Shit, how authentic would my accent be? Would I have to emphasise it on screen? That vague, tongue rolling, lickety splickety, roll about of the vowels that Americans can't get enough of in comedic scenes. What if it was one of those days when my voice magically sounds completely unaccented?

"I am sorry I don't know anyone really." Then I sympathise with her about her film student woes. It is a rough business, I would not have the courage to do what she is trying to do. I tell her to try a bribe, 10 bucks or something, it is an hour's work after all.