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Left-over Rice Pudding

Mon, 19 Dec 2011 09:43:16 +0000

No-one makes the correct amount of rice. Perhaps only spaghetti is more difficult to judge by eye; not once have I cooked rice and had the perfect amount, there’s always spare which often ends up in the bin. If you’re the same, don’t throw away your rice! Spare rice can easily be turned into a delicious dessert in the time it takes you to finish your main.

The 10 Weirdest Ways to Celebrate Christmas

Sun, 11 Dec 2011 19:11:00 +0000

10. Krampus (Austria)

In Anglophile countries the worst that might befall naughty children is a lump of coal in their stocking (a consolation prize which, in these times of economic struggle, is starting to look a lot more attractive). In Austria however, things are a considerably more hardcore. Whilst St Nicholas spreads joy and Christmas cheer to all the good kids; Krampus stalks behind him, scaring the living hell out of those on the naughty list. If a child is particularly bad, Krampus hauls them away to his lair, never to be seen again; presumably they are devoured in a twisted pastiche of the traditional Christmas feast. Be thankful grouchy old men are our most fearsome Christmas baddies.

9. Caga Tio (Spain)

Technically called the Tio de Nadal (Christmas Log), this festive piece of wood is commonly referred to as the Caga Tio (Shit Log). In the run up to Christmas in traditional Catalonian homes, the family feeds the tio every night and covers him with a blanket to keep him warm. On Christmas day itself, the log is placed into the fireplace and ordered to shit. In order to help the log’s digestive system along the family gathers together to literally beat the crap out of it with sticks, all the while singing festive Christmas log-beating songs. The tio’s expulsions (ranging from sweets and nuts to an onion or salt herring) are then shared amongst the family in the true spirit of Christmas.

8. KFC (Japan)

With less than one percent of Japanese classing themselves as Christians, it’s something of a surprise that Christmas is celebrated in Japan at all. However, where religion has failed, capitalism is triumphed. Despite having no tangible connection to the holiday, Christmas decorations frequently adorn Japanese cities and many families exchange gifts and eat a traditional Christmas cake. The strangest thing about Japanese Christmas however is that it’s central overweight-bearded-figure isn’t St Nicholas, but Colonel Sanders. On Christmas Day families all around the country flock to KFC (where reservations will have been made weeks in advance) to enjoy the traditional Christmas blend of herbs and spices.

7. Zwarte Piet (Netherlands)

Many Western European countries have embarrassing racist traditions from our days as colonial powers that we’d rather not mention: the Black and White Minstrel Show, Golliwoggs, that Tintin book where he teaches some Congolese kids that they belong to Belgium. Mostly these traditions are quietly phased out, pushed into the background and only come-out when your near-dead, bigoted aunt calls Brazil nuts ‘nigger-toes’. However, what if you made racism and colonial oppression part of your traditional Christmas celebration? Well then you get the dilemma of Zwarte Piet, a liberated slave companion of Sinterklaas who passes out sweets to children… as portrayed by a white guy in blackface, afro-wig and gold jewellery.

6. Christmas Mummers (Latvia)

Moving away from weirdly racist traditions back to just plain weird: in Latvia traditional ‘mummers’ march through the street in the days leading up to Christmas, playing music and spreading festive cheer… while dressed up as living corpses, haystacks, bears and goats. However, Latvian Father Christmas (Ziemmassve’tku Veci’tis) does bring presents for all twelve days of Christmas, so maybe they’re on to something.

5. Broom Aversion (Norway)

Staying with evil Christmas, in Norway superstitious families must hide any brooms they have in the house, lest an evil witch get her hands on it and take it for a ride (like a toddler pretending it’s a horse, terrifying). In more rural areas (or just more heavily armed) the patriarch of the family will stand outside the door and fire off shotgun blasts to scare the evil spirits away.

4. Caganer (France/Portugal/Spain)

As if a depiction of a bunch of men gathering to watch a woman give birth surrounded by livestock wasn’t strange enough already, in many European countries a traditional nativity scene will include the Caganer. The Caganer is a man, squatting, trousers down, taking a shit, while Jesus is being born. The exact origin of the figure is uncertain (a popular theory is that he represents fertilization) but this author likes to imagine that the Caganer represents a much older practice, of shitting on other people’s traditions for one’s own amusement.

3. Pere Fouettard (France)

Like Anglo-American Santa Claus, Pere Fouettard dishes out lumps of coal to the naughty children of France… unless they’ve been really bad, in which case he flogs them with a bundle of sticks. Also known as ‘The Whipping Father’, Pere Fouettard is depicted as something of a homeless Father Christmas, covered in soot from the chimneys and occasionally (like Krampus) with a wicker back pack to steal away truly evil children.

2. Mari Lwyd (Wales)

In rural Wales it is traditional in midwinter to attach a horse’s skull to a pole and drape it in a white sheet. The Mari Lwyd is then marched around villages and towns whilst its followers demand entry to houses and pubs by singing; like terrifying, less annoying carollers. The Mari is sometimes accompanied by Punch and Judy in blackface, because what every terrifying horse creature needs is some casual racism.

1. Roller Skate Christmas (Venezuela)

Just to show that not every weird tradition is necessarily an old one, in Caracas in Venezuela it is customary for occupants to roller-skate to Early Morning Mass. Before going to sleep children tie a piece of string to their big toe and dangle the other end out of their bedroom window, the next morning skating revellers pull any strings they see because what nicer way to start Christmas morning than with a dislocated toe?

A brief history of Chinese porn

Wed, 24 Aug 2011 11:48:00 +0100

The origins of Chinese erotica and pornography can be traced way back into antiquity. Though remnants have been found dating from as early as the 1^st century, production of erotic artwork appears to have properly flourished around the 10^th century and reached its peak during the late Ming Dynasty (17^th century).

Ancient Chinese erotica drew its influences from both Daoist religious practices and the courtesan culture that was developing in the imperial courts. The spread and increases in production of erotic works coincided with the rise of the mercantile middle classes particularly in cities such as Suzhou, Hangzhou and Guangzhou. Pornographic artworks produced during the Ming dynasty were called ‘spring palace paintings’ (春宫画, chungong hua) a reference to the presumed debauchery that occurred behind the walls of the Forbidden City.

» Read more at Danwei.com

People's Pornography - An interview with Katrien Jacobs

Tue, 23 Aug 2011 17:30:00 +0100

China has a long tradition of erotic art but pornographic films and pictures are currently illegal. Despite frequent anti-porn clampdowns, pornography remains available both online and in the form of DVDs.

A paper titled A Peep at Pornography Web in China compiled by scholars at Xi’an Jiatong University is one of the few authoritative sources of pornography statistics. The scholars examined “part of network traffic in Northwest Net of China, from Mar. 29 2009 to Jan. 25 2010″ and “collected 92,950 online porn web pages from 1,826 porn sites” of which only 12.8% were hosted on servers inside China. The paper looks at usage patterns of the people detected visiting porn sites, but does not attempt to derive any numbers about porn use nationwide.

Nonetheless, anecdotal evidence suggests demand for porn in China is growing. Aside from professionally produced films, there is a growing subculture of DIY porn movies, which is one of the subjects Dr. Katrien Jacobs examines in her new book, People’s Pornography: Sex and Surveillance on the Chinese Internet.

» Read the interview at Danwei.com

The Great Student Swindle

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 08:48:00 +0000

How the Lib Dems tricked their way into power via promises they never intended to keep

Election season 2010: as the country prepares to go to the polls, Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats whip up the student vote by signing the National Union for Students’ Vote for Students Pledge to vote against any rise in tuition fees and attempt to introduce a ‘fairer alternative’. Signatories included the now Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, now Business Secretary Vince Cable and every single Liberal Democrat later elected to Parliament.

However, even while they encouraged their candidates to sign the pledge, and emphasised their student friendly credentials in the media, in private, party leaders admitted that they would not be able to honour the pledge if they reached government. Indeed, in May 2010, Nicola Dandridge of Universities UK told the Times Educational Supplement:

Even though the leadership has told us it is complete nonsense, it is pretty clear the grass roots feel passionate about [the NUS pledge]

This lack of commitment to the pledge quickly became apparent following the indecisive May election as the Liberal Democrats were courted by both Labour and the Conservatives. As a Lib-Con Coalition became ever more likely, news was leaked that the deal included an agreement for Lib Dem MPs to abstain from votes to raise tuition fees. The experienced parliamentarians on the Lib Dem negotiating team had to realise that the abstention of their MPs could not on its own prevent the Tories pushing through a tuition fee hike. What was previously a key stone of the Lib Dem manifesto had become a face saving ‘get-out-culpability-free’ card for Lib-Dem members of Parliament.

Shortly after the Coalition Government came to power, Business Secretary Vince Cable sent an email to Lib-Dem members with the subject “We can do better than a pure graduate tax – and we will”. In this email, Cable outlined his sudden revelations that a graduate tax “fails both the tests of fairness and deficit reduction” despite his previous frequently stated support for just such a tax. The email closed with Cable emphasising Lib Dem commitment to a “progressive system of graduate contributions”, but it was clear that opinions had begun to shift amongst Lib Dems at Whitehall, if they were ever truly held in the first place. Activists scrambled desperately to prevent a Lib Dem capitulation. Aaron Porter of the NUS stated:

Liberal Democrat candidates made an en-masse, cast iron commitment by signing our pledge to vote against any rise in tuition fees in the next Parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative. They were elected to Parliament on that basis and are now duty bound to honour their promises. It would be intolerable for those MPs to backtrack on their personal pledges to voters.

The Liberal Youth, the Lib Dem student organisation, called on its party to honour their promises but it was becoming increasingly clear that a policy reversal was on the horizon.

Sure enough, on Tuesday the 12th October, following Lord Browne’s review of the Higher Education Sector (on which Russell Group – which the University of Liverpool belongs to – lobbied heavily for uncapped fees) Vince Cable read a prepared statement to Parliament in which he outlined the ‘progressive’ argument for an increase in fees to £9,000 establishing the most costly public education system in Europe. The pledge made to the NUS and the public had been unequivocally abandoned.

The saying that ‘power corrupts’ has become a cliché, and perhaps in this situation a more appropriate statement would be that ‘prestige corrupts’. The Liberal Democrats, out of power for so many years, compromised themselves absolutely for the slightest taste of government. That they may have destroyed their party in doing this seems not to faze ministers who harp on about Liberal influences over what would otherwise be completely regressive Tory policies. But why, if Ministers recognise that government policies are so unpalatable to the general public and Lib Dem party members did they support the Conservatives in the first place? David Cameron never had a clear mandate for government, and whilst it would be absurd to claim that Gordon Brown did have a mandate, the Labour party (who previously set the bar for being corrupted by power and abandoning their principles) had very belatedly begun to return to progressive politics, echoing Lib Dem policies of a graduate tax and proportional representation.

With the passage of the new tuition fee bill through the Commons by a narrow majority, the Lib Dems have one remaining policy to bank their scant political integrity upon. Should the public referendum next year reject adopting the alternative vote system (already a compromise on the long stated Lib Dem policy of full proportional representation), the concessions the Lib Dems made to join the Coalition will have been for nought and they must return to opposition, from where they may (finally) be able to act as a tempering influence over the rapacious ideological budget slashing of David Cameron and George Osborne.

First published Dec. 10, 2010 at LSMedia

Why it was right to arrest Julian Assange

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 08:46:45 +0000

Wikileaks is under threat, but Julian Assange shouldn’t be above the law

Earlier this week, Julian Assange, the petite, blonde Ernst Blofeld spokesman of Wikileaks handed himself in to London police to face an extradition hearing for charges made against him in Sweden. There has been considerable furore made both on the blogosphere and in the media regarding these charges with many screaming conspiracy and claiming the charges are an attempt to cut the head off the Wikileaks-snake.

Whilst it is undeniably true that both the Metropolitan Police and the Swedish authorities have acted with considerably more alacrity than they usually do in cases of sexual assault, and this whilst this vigour for prosecution may be due to Assange’s notoriety or US pressure, that does not make it wrong to attempt to prosecute someone for sexual assault.

Much hay has been made over the accusations placed against Assange, the accusers themselves have been subjected to a media storm of unprecedented proportions: with their names, addresses and photographs posted on the internet, typically accompanied by scathing judgments of their character and desperate attempts to find evidence of sexual deviance which, to the misogynist mind, invalidate their ability to be sexually assaulted.

There has been considerable confusion regarding the charges themselves, mainly due to the confusing nature of the relevant Swedish laws. Sweden has, in the past, been criticised heavily for its failure to prosecute sexual offenders and non-victim-friendly legal system.

Let us examine the charges from a British legal perspective. The main accusation laid against him is that Assange refused to wear a condom during sex when the accuser had made it clear that she wished him to do so. If true, this, in my opinion, constitutes rape. Consent is not unequivocal and everlasting, it may be given with caveats and it may be revoked at any time. The typical misogynist screams that this is “unfair”, or a “double standard” will no doubt sound, that a woman who withdraws consent is displaying “buyer’s remorse” or somehow owes it to her partner not to give him “blue balls”. Well this is bullshit. We are not rapacious, uncontrollable beasts, and the vast majority of men are capable of stopping when someone says stop. If you are so desperate for an orgasm, evolution has handily provided two appendages which hang right next to your genitals, see if you can work something out.

Whether Assange is accused of rape or sexual assault, he should face prosecution and be assumed innocent until proven otherwise. However, whilst we should presume him innocent, it is not for us to scream “whore” or “CIA informant” at his accusers, who have just as much right to be believed as he does. Whether or not his prosecution is politically motivated does not invalidate his crimes or his accusers. Those who provide a public good are not exempt from the law. Those who leap to discount the accusations as minor, or ‘not really rape’ echo the ridiculous arguments made in defence of Roman Polanski, who drugged and raped a 13 year old girl. That Polanski makes arty films that win awards doesn’t make him less of slimy, advantage taking pederast who has escaped prosecution by hiding behind French extradition law and powerful friends. Whether or not Assange is exonerated in these accusations does not mean he should not have to face them in court.

Julian Assange is not Wikileaks. Regardless of the outcome of his trial, Wikileaks still provides an immeasurable public good and we must not allow its enemies to tar it with the actions of one man. In addition to defending the organisation from Assange’s actions, we must also focus our outrage on the real conspiracy against it.

First published Dec. 10, 2010 at LSMedia

Peter Mandelson wants to block your tubes

Wed, 02 Mar 2011 08:11:00 +0000

Integrity isn’t the first word that comes to mind when thinking of Lord Mandelson. He was forced to resign from the Cabinet due to scandal in 1998 and then again in 2001. It comes then, as no surprise to hear that his latest campaign against copyright infringement followed an expensive dinner with anti-file-sharing media billionaire David Geffen. Since this fateful dinner Mandelson’s stance on file-sharing has hardened, to put it lightly. The latest edition of the Digital Economy Bill was outlined in the Queen’s Speech last week. This includes:

The three strike policy

A recurring weapon in the anti-file-sharer’s arsenal, this policy would allow households to be disconnected if they are accused of copyright infringement three times.

(The important thing to note is that this revolves around accusations of copyright infringement, there is no trial, there is no evidence; there’s simply three accusations and no more internet for you, you very bad boy.)

This bears a similarity to the widely criticised (American) Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This is the piece of legislation that’s used to take down infringing videos from YouTube. It’s also been used (as there is no trial procedure) to silence critics of Scientology, remove Calvin Harris’ music video from his own YouTube channel, and attack blogs for posting criticism of badly photoshopped adverts.
This collective punishment could result in thousands of households and families being disconnected from the internet for the (unproven) actions of a few.

New powers for the Business Secretary

Lord Mandelson also wants the Business Secretary (at the moment, him) to be allowed to create secondary legislation (passed without debate in Parliament) with regards to the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Such as:

Power to create remedies for online infringements.
Power to create procedures to ‘confer rights’ for the purposes of protecting rightsholders from online infringement.
Power to “impose such duties, powers or functions on any person as may be specified in connection with facilitating online infringement” (this could compel ISPs to spy on their users, or allow government or business agencies to do it for them – in the name of ‘copyright protection’).

Whilst many of the powers and provisions laid out in the Digital Economy Bill are draconian and scary, these are still the ones Mandelson thinks he can get past Parliament. Who knows what new regulations he might decide to create once he’s removed that tricky democratic road bump?

Should that not be scary enough, the Guardian raises the prospect of what these powers might mean come the next election:

By giving the business secretary the power to amend the Copyright Act at will, Labour fears Mandelson could be creating a Trojan horse that under a Tory administration would allow Murdoch to be rewarded for his support for David Cameron over Gordon Brown, for example by making it illegal to use such extracts from a news site for profit.

Given Murdoch’s recent strides against Google, he would only be too happy if a Conservative Business Secretary were to make some secondary legislation specially tailored towards News Corp.

It has been shown time and again that internet piracy cannot be stopped. Attacks on Napster led to better encryption, increased anonymity and the creation of BitTorrent. The recent case in Sweden which led to the closure of the largest torrent aggregator, the Pirate Bay, has simply caused users to turn to the multitude of other torrent aggregators to find what they want (and led to the creation of a few new ones). Nonetheless, the dying media giants have the ears of our legislators and they continue to push for stricter and more draconian measures in an attempt to kill something which cannot die.

The Digital Economy Bill will have little effect on the true pirates, they will simply up their encryption, go further underground and proliferate like mad, like they have every other time. Ironically, the biggest infringers have also been shown to be the largest consumers.

The people that will be hurt are you and me – people who live in households where everyone has a computer (or two), and all use the same internet connection. With our ISPs forced to spy on our every move how long will it take to rack up three strikes? One TV show streamed via Surfthechannel, one film downloaded via torrent, one cheeky mp3 shared via email – bye bye internet.

If you find these proposed powers appalling, the Open Rights Group is currently running a campaign to lobby MPs to reject the Digital Economy Bill in its current format. You can find information about contacting your MP at They Work For You, and you can also sign a petition to prevent these plans.

First published Nov. 23, 2009 at LSMedia