Debriefing at Dawn

The latest tale of political correctness gone mad involves an associate lawyer at London firm Shearman and Sterling who went out drinking with a bunch of mates. He took a female intern with him and she later went on with him to a strip club where he tried it on and was rebuffed. The next day the intern filed a complaint, claiming he'd made suggestive remarks and tried to touch her. The lawyer was subsequently fired for something that happened after hours.

The intern claimed that she did not realise she was entering a strip club [didn't the nude gyrating women tick her off?] and that she told the associate that she should leave, but that he responded that he had already paid for the entrance fee and they should stay a while longer.

The firm confirmed that the associate paid for the entrance fee to the strip club on the firm’s credit card.

“This guy’s an associate and I’m an intern,” the intern told the press later, “I didn’t want to piss him off.”

To which I say to the intern unless you were brought up in an Amish community you should not have gone into a strip club with a drunken lecherous lawyer unless you wished to er, take things further. I mean, surely the girl should take some responsibility? What did she think they were going to discuss in there, the finer parts of a brief, rather than be the recipient of an attempted debriefing?

All I can say is this story is the start of a slippery slope and may mean that many workers get in trouble at work for what they do off the clock, which is wrong.

On the other side of the coin, there's Russia where sexual harassment seems to be a bit of a gray area and where only two women have ever successfully sued for sexual harassment. In a survey, 100 per cent of female professionals said they had been subjected to sexual harassment by their bosses, 32 per cent said they had had intercourse with them at least once and another seven per cent claimed to have been raped.

Eighty per cent of those who participated in the survey said they did not believe it possible to win promotion without engaging in sexual relations with their male superiors.

Surely there's a middle ground here somewhere?

New for Latex Lovers

Is it a bird, is it a plane?



No! It's the new spray on condom.

Yes! Researchers at the German Institute for Condom Consultancy are planning to launch a spray-on condom. They are currently conducting tests in which the man 'inserts the erect penis into the spray condom apparatus'. The penis is then sprayed with latex from all sides.

Here is the video, which is funnier in Italian:


Is it just me or do you think that after you 'insert the penis into the spray condom apparatus' you could run into a heap of problems? My first thought is, what if you get the latex on your pubes?

At the moment the invention is having teething problems in that it is taking too long to dry.

Where's the fun if after inserting your penis into the spray condom apparatus you have to say, "Sorry darling, I'll be with you in a minute I'm just blow drying this condom with your hairdryer."

By the way, testers are still still needed. Let me know how you get on.

Michael Phelps wart plaster up for grabs

Right now Phelpsmania is sweeping Baltimore like the Bubonic Plague. Since Phelps is a famous Baltimorean or as the locals call it, a 'Baltimoron', the conversation in every cafe, restroom and shop is as follows:

"Did I tell you that my daughter once babysat Michael Phelp's sister?"

"Yeah, about fifty times. But did you know that my son actually sat behind Phelps once in Math?"

"Actually, my daughter once French kissed Phelps and spat the saliva into a vial which she wears around her neck."

Etcetera etcetera

Oh yes, Phelps is the first great thing that's happened to Baltimore since, er, well, since Baltimore had the top homicide rate in the country. That honor now belongs to Detroit, which now boasts 47.3 murders per every 100,000 residents.


Since I myself am an honorary Baltimoron, I am now offering you an opportunity to get a piece of the action. Now, I know some of you are smart enough to spot a bargain when you see it and this empty condom packet plus tart's knickers (above), which belonged to a bitter wife's husband's mistress actually sold on Ebay for $303 (update, Ebay has since informed this seller that the sale of actual used underwear violates the service's sales policy, so the 'Tart's knickers' have now been replaced by a photo of the 'Tart's knickers') but I digress. As far as I know there is no rule against selling used wart plasters and so, in a similar vein I now offer you a piece of American Olympic History that you can treasure forever. Yes, it's Michael Phelp's wart plaster.


Michael Phelp's wart plaster (posed by model)

I kid you not: I actually swim at the Meadowbrook pool, the pool Michael Phelps trains in and recently after I saw him get out of the pool I saw a corn plaster peeling off his foot and dropping into the water. I did what anyone who had learnt a lesson from Monica Lewinsky would do, I picked up the plaster and had it mounted in a clear perspex frame. And now you too can share in this little piece of Michael Phelps (has fragments of skin on it!).

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to share in a piece of history. Can I start the bidding at $200?

STOP PRESS! Check out my new column at Offsprung where I talk about mothers who breast feed four year olds.

Peaches is the cat that got the cream

Today on Salon I read an excerpt from Marrying Anita: A Quest For Love In The New India, a book by Anita Jain. Ms. Jain, who lives in New York, had got tired of pretending that dating was fun and had turned her back on the traditonal pick and mix of penises and STDs, of burst condoms, drunkenly scribbled phone numbers on match boxes, she didn't want an affair with a married man, had no interest in being a fuckbuddy to anyone and didn't want a friends with benefits non-committal relationship either. She wanted to fall in love and get married and said that admitting that made her run the risk of seeming like a freak.

"To admit to others that I yearned for a long-term commitment or marriage… sounded regressive as soon as it emerged from my mouth," she writes. "It was atavistic in nature, a throwback to a time when women couldn't financially support themselves. It was a piece of treacherous anathema in the age of strong, independent working women." Ms. Jain came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with her: There was something wrong with the system.

"We are told that it's best to meet friends of friends," Ms. Jain writes. "We all think this is a brilliant idea, until we realize that we've already met all of our friends' friends ... two years ago." She lays the blame on Western culture, specifically the American pride in being the best:

"For a decidedly unmystical society that seems to have the answer for everything else — the best medical care, cutting-edge technology, superhighways, and space shuttles — it seems odd that people are left to their own resources, casting around for another lonely soul, for what is arguably the most important decision of their lives."

I really think she has a point. So much emphasis is put on how once women get hitched we have somehow signed on to some old-style ball and chain prison sentence and have forgone our independence, but let's face it, love makes the world go round and can you really say you're not happiest when you're in love? I think most people become a lot less neurotic when they're in a good healthy love relationship rather than whizzing around on the dating merry go round like headless chickens.

Anyway, since Ms. Jain couldn't find the right guy in New York she made a decision: She'd go to India, where men actually want to get married. "People commonly go to India to find themselves or to find god, but I went to India to find a husband," she writes.

Good on her, I say. She was tired of feeling that wanting a commitment was a sign of weakness in the West. And okay, some women like living alone but many don't and why not admit you're desperately lonely and want to be in a long term relationship or marriage? It's almost like admitting defeat, like saying that the Sex and the City lifestyle is fun at first but soon feels like drinking flat Coke and eating stale crisps.

Even Peaches Geldof has just got married rather than dipping her wick with every Tom Dick and Harry by marrying some ginger rocker. Good on ya Peaches!

So what do you say? Is dating like eating a bag of bad nuts or would you rather be married?

Hard Working Degenerates

When I heard that the foppish Brit Sebastian Horsely had, hilariously, been banned from entering the US for a book tour promoting Dandy of the Underworld because of his "moral turpitude" I immediately had to read it, and what fun it is.

Dandy in the Underworld by Sebastian Horsley

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars



Sebastian is a hard working degenerate. He's done it all with bells on, including rolling in his own excrement and dating psychotic Scottish ex-murderers, as well as the more mundane quaffing of heroin and crack. Also, at some point he realized he was useless at sleeping with 'normal' women so started using prostitutes up to four times a week. Next he dabbled in being a rent boy, but had to give it up when a woman as fat as a whale wanted him to do her and he ran into the night screaming. How the hell does he look reasonably healthy after all that?



The thing about degenerates that's always puzzled me is, how the heck do they keep going? In Horsley's case the simple answer was a trust fund, but even if you have the cash, doesn't taking huge amounts of drugs make you feel like total shit? Plus, meaningless degenerate sex is only a novelty the first few hundred times, surely? After that it's probably as repetitive as well, monogamy. So good on ya Sebastian, for keeping going!

Actually, this form of British individualist/degenerate is pretty prevalent. I would argue that is is because in the UK everything has to do with class and if you are born upper middle class (like Sebastian) it matters not a whit what you do with yourself after that, you simply consider yourself a 'somebody'. You can be idle and still middle class. It is totally different in the US where you are granted a certain class status solely based on the amount you earn or because of your profession. Certain professions make you middle class.

In this way the UK is the total opposite to the US and I think it will stay like that for many a moon. The reason the US is such a successful economy is mostly because the people work like absolute dogs as opposed to the Brits who don't have quite such a strong work ethic. Now, I for one applaud the British system, which, while not exactly good for the economy means that it will always produce nut cases like Horsely to amuse and delight our sensibilities.

Disadvantaged kids get second chance

Amanda after surgery...no longer disadvantaged

It's not often that I am moved by a story but this one really did it for me (watch clip here).

Imagine if you will, the torture of being 15 year old Amanda, who had DD breasts. She was teased mercilessly. "Some of my friends thought I was making intentional cleavage when I wasn't," she says. I cried, I actually cried when I heard her say that.

The situation was obviously desperate. Amanda suffered the indignity of large breasts. It was time to find someone who cared about her fate. That person turned out to be the lovely Dr Reed, who was more than happy to reduce her breasts down to an acceptable size, and who explains in this interview how "I am giving children who are disadvantaged a chance to be happy." Could any sentiment be sweeter?

But Dr Reed's good work didn't stop there. Oh no. There was an even bigger problem. Yes, you guessed it, Amanda had a centimeter of fat around her waist. As her mom, a very caring lady, explained, everyone in their family has belly fat, so she knew that even though her daughter was "eating less and less" it would never go away. In order to prevent an eating disorder, it was obvious to her mom that Amanda needed lipo.

Once again Dr Reed stepped up to the plate and suctioned off Amanda's belly fat. And while other surgeons might have had ethical qualms about doing this, Dr Reed (thank goodness!) had no problem with doing the surgery, since, as he explains, "not everyone is blessed with the right looks."

God bless you Dr Reed and may you do many more such life saving operations on disadvantaged children! Thanks to caring surgeons like you, more than a quarter of a million teens will get plastic surgery every year and no longer be disadvantaged.

Martha Stewart's origami underwear

While I was at a book shop, flicking through the five volume set of
History of Men's Magazines, the first thing I wondered was, would anyone find these images erotic today? Fifties and sixties porn is amazingly unerotic because it is so artificial, coy and staged, and seventies porn is just, well, too hairy for today's tastes. But I did enjoy thinking about the discussions that the editors must have had to create these covers:


Editor 1: "So we have this intern, I think she's called Martha Stewart."
Editor 2: "Is she well built? Can we use her?"
Editor 1: "She is a fox, but I don't think she's up for it. But the thing is, she has this amazing way of folding napkins."
Editor 2: "You've been smoking too much weed mate. What's that got to do with this month's cover?"
Passes joint to Editor 1: "No listen man, listen, we get her to fold these napkins, except they are maybe like dollar bills, we fold them! A protest against capitalism man, you know? Ya dig?"
Editor 2: "I do dig. Send in this Martha girl and let's see her make some underpants out of dollar bills."


Editor 1: "I am totally like out of ideas for this month's cover."
Editor 2: "I've got it! You seen the Wicker Man?"
Editor 1: "No I haven't. What's it about?"
Editor 2: "Mainly Britt Ekland writhing naked against a wall but basically it's a flick about this Hebridean island where the entire population follows a neo-pagan cult under the island's owner Lord Summerisle, believing in re-incarnation, worshipping the sun and engaging in fertility rituals and sexual magic in order to appease immanent natural forces."
Editor 1: "That sounds like something I can dig. You're a genius Clive!"


Editor 1: "I am so hung over. What the heck are we going to put on the cover of Mermaid, or for that matter 711?"
Editor 2: "For Mermaid, I was like thinking ....I have like this huge shark that I caught on the weekend. It's stinking out the trunk of my car."
Editor 1: "Do you really think I care about the fact that you caught a shark? I've got Pansy in a very revealing bathing suit all ready to go but we need ideas man, you know?"
Editor 2: "I just meant, you know, have Pansy hugging the shark."
Editor 1: "Hugging the shark? What in the name of God?"
Editor 2: "It would get the fishermen going."
Editor 1: "Yeah, what the heck. I'm desperate. Okay. And what about Sally riding on a domino horse for the cover of 711?"
Editor 2: "Yeah, that's far out. Got any ludes?"

Also, go here if you want to find starling new evidence that there is Viagra in the water!