La pequeña editorial especializada en humor y creada en 2012 por Alba Diethelm y Manuel Bartual, ¡Caramba!, acaba de anunciar que pasa a integrarse en la estructura de la editorial Astiberri. Bartual y Diethelm seguirán ejerciendo de editores, según explican en el blog de ¡Caramba! En el enlace también se adelantan algunas novedades para 2015.
I don’t aspire to Harry Crews’ lifestyle, but that last quote is the reason I had this clipping tacked above my desk long enough to turn yellow and brittle.
"Before me, this was not. Because of me, this is."
Why wouldn’t we? It is, by definition, popular. And, even if it’s popular the way high-school kids are popular (which is to say, strangely unpopular, re: dislike) it still is the standard that everything else stands in approval or opposition to.
As such, some of the messages weaved in pop culture can leak into your lives.
Here are seven of those lies, explained and unraveled here:
1. Following Your Dream Will Make You Successful
It won’t.
Success is tricky as-is, and usually it comes with a drawback, like long hours or a difficult, specialized job. It’s not a given, and it’s not an automatic reward or finale for your life, and least of all for your dream.
And that’s okay.
Your dream isn’t your dream because you want success. It’s your dream because you love it. And even without success, it will make you happy and fulfilled.
Focus on that and savor the realistic joys ahead.
2. Reckless Ambition Is Your Friend
No it isn’t!
Reckless ambition doesn’t correlate to success. It does often correlate to megalomania and serious anxiety.
Find personal peace; make that and ambition. Don’t let yourself be consumed by the fires that heat you.
3. Everyone Is Having Sex All The Time And Is Also Sexier Than You.
They aren’t.
You’re fine.
4. College Is Nothing But Wild Alcohol Parties!
This is one of the rare lies that works in your favor. Because college is even better than pop culture lets on.
That’s because pop culture is obsessed with the parties(!!!) and fixates on the lamer sort of extremes of chugging, kegs, and all the other recognizable shorthand. But what about awesome classes that you enjoy? Debates that stretch late over video games? Learning how to cook or at least bake with pals? Smoking and having a beer on an aimless Tuesday night that’s made special, like every night before it, by the people you’re meeting?
More importantly, college is about choice.
Don’t feel pressured to have a specific college experience, because as long as you grow and learn through it all, you’re going to have a good time. You’re going to find good people, good times, good classes and grow into yourself in a special village full of like-minded people suddenly empowered.
It’s basically Hogwarts.
5. Sexual Health Is A Scary, Shameful Boogieman!
It isn’t and living in fear of something so human and normal and, frankly, fixable, does you a disservice.
Two simple things I wish were better known is that the human body has a wide range of normal, or normal-ish behaviors. If you have a red dot on your upper inner thigh, calm down. That’s the gym, or an ingrown hair, or whatever.
Pop culture and media leans towards the intense, and that can color your imagination. Try not to let it, and remember the universal truth: in the case of extremes, things are rarely as bad as you fear or as good as you hope.
The second is that the more common things thrown around in the sort of nervous punchlines you hear are curable and not insane or permanent. There’s a poor job done in distinguishing likelihoods and severities, but for the most part, the more common things are the curable, calmer things. The bad news is that they’re real and you should, of course, be careful.
The good news is worshipful fear isn’t helpful or needed.
6. You Need To Get Your Shit Together!
Good news: if you’re the sort of anxious planner who needs a plan, you’re the sort of person that’s bound to be successful. You’ll figure something out because that’s who you are and what you want.
Exhale and trust your future self.
7. Follow This List!
Pop culture lies and sells you on improvements.
You can have these lashes! You can have this body- and also, these arms. Wear these clothes! Man-buns are a thing now, right? Here’s fifty of them!
Pop culture, especially internet culture, quantifies trends and quietly asks you to stack up to them.
Don’t. Even here, even now, even with me. Be you; take what works and leave the rest.
Lists invite you to follow, and they want to beckon you to agree, but you don’t have to. You’re not beholden to do XYZ before you die, or to look that good or eat that food porn.
"Get a bra that's perfect for you. I've seen a number of outfits that could have been perfect if only she had worn the perfect bra." —Submitted by Ashley Norris (via Facebook)
"Pay less attention to the size of something and more to the fit. I'm a small but I can buy a large in something and it's a completely different look." —Submitted by Alexis Maureen Larma (via Facebook)
The Green Bay Packers are a football team in Green Bay, Wisconsin. They play football for a living. But for fun, a group of them play the board game Settlers of Catan--at every possible moment. It was started by offensive tackle David Bakhtiari, but now there's an entire group that pursues the game with a passion. Kevin Clark writes for the Wall Street Journal:
Packers center Garth Gerhart was intrigued by the game, because teammates were “talking about it all the time, all the different strategies.” He wasn’t expecting such cutthroat competition until he sat down with them two weeks ago and, he said, longtime players ensured his failure. “Everyone is super competitive, so when you first start playing they don’t tell you all the rules. So you start your moves and they say ‘well, actually you can’t do that’ and it sort of screws you in the game,” Gerhart said. “They get very salty.”
Word got around the town of Green Bay that the Packers are avid players of the game. The result was that many football fans began to explore and embrace the game:
Perillo, in passing, mentioned on a local radio show that he and his teammates had played the game the night before. Pat Fuge, who runs Gnome Games, a Green Bay game store, was flooded with texts and calls about it. Packers have occasionally come into Gnome Games—where the events include Pokémon and Magic: The Gathering releases—but those players were there to buy backgammon or other basic games. “Jordy Nelson bought a chess set,” Fuge said of the Packers’ star receiver.
Fuge said most of the gamers are Packers fans, but the store is one of the few local businesses that don’t allow Lambeau Field parking on game days—because many of the customers would like to play board games on a Sunday and not necessarily watch football. But when word spread that the Packers were playing Settlers, people started pouring into the store. After Perillo mentioned it in December, Fuge said, he sold “double what I expected.” He usually orders too many for the Christmas season, but this time he had to restock in mid-December. “When the average person sees the Packers doing it, it becomes a safe thing. That it’s not the kids in mom’s basement anymore,” Fuge said.
We are the best (2013) is a Swedish film set in 1980's Stockholm, about three young punk girls who form a band (mainly to play a song dedicated to their gym teacher called "Hate the Sport"). It's fairly lighthearted, but there are some deeply poignant moments that really capture what it's like to be that 13 year old girl with the short hair and all the usual insecurities, finding solace in friends, music, and giving the finger to mainstream society.
This is England (2006) is another counter-culture-coming of age film, about a group of skinheads in England, c. 1983. This is a much heavier film, exploring serious issues of race, gender, social class, family relationships, and how these tensions eventually lead to the adoption of skinhead culture by white nationalists. All of this is set to an awesome soundtrack featuring the likes of Toots and the Maytals, The Specials, Jimmy Cliff, and Soft Cell.
Were you dismayed at the lameness of "vape" and "culture" being named by Oxford and Merrian-Webster (respectively) as the 2014 words of the year? Are you wondering what words English should steal from other languages? Mental Floss has you covered with its roundup of 13(ish) words of the year from other countries.
Some are prosaic -- selfi (selfie) from Spain, corrupção (corruption) from Portugal, 乱 (luan, chaos) from Singapore -- but some are awesome, including shirtfront (a term from Australian football for running into an opponent head-on in order to knock them down) and dagobertducktaks, a tax on the super-rich, which transliterates to "Scrooge McDuck tax".
Del 15 al 31 de enero se podrán degustar catorce propuestas diferentes en el Restaurante Caney.
El restaurante Caney de Santiago de Compostela pone en marcha una propuesta de “cocina contemporánea en miniatura”. Todas las personas que visiten el establecimiento este mes podrán probar las catorce propuestas que el chef Siro González ha elaborado basándose en tapas ganadoras y finalistas de pasadas ediciones del concurso Santiago é Tapas, así como la tapa ganadora de la pasada edición del concurso de la Denominación de Origen Rioja.
Se podrán degustar bocados de cabracho oriental entero y desespinado, hamburguesa crujiente de cordero y curry, medallón de jurel ahumado con algas y pimiento, roast beef con brotes tiernos y sésamo, berenguelas de Compostela, arroz con leche visto así.
Son algunos de los propuestas que se podrán degustar hasta el día 31 de enero en el Caney. “Es un viaje emocional a través de nuestra cocina de los últimos cinco años, con tapas finalistas y ganadoras de varios concursos que van de los 2,5 a los 9,5 euros” –explica el chef–.
Sin duda un motivo más para acercarse este mes de enero a Santiago de Compostela y disfrutar de la ciudad bajo la lluvia.
Ayer 15 de enero falleció Kim Fowley en la ciudad en que nació. Fowley cabalgó por la historia musical de Los Ángeles desde finales de los 50, ejerciendo de productor, compositor, intérprete y de auténtico buscavidas. Un personaje extravagante y carismático que atravesó las modas del rocknroll, surf, garaje, psicodelia, folk, glam, punk o hard rock, construyéndose a si mismo una imagen única de provocador adicto a los instintos. Este es nuestro homenaje de despedida a una figura irrepetible, el último loco del rocknroll. Playlist; Kim Fowley (Animal man), The Renegades (Geronimo), Paul Revere and Raiders (Like long hair), The Gamblers (Teen machine), B Bumble and the Stringers (Nut rocker), Hollywood Argyles (Long hair unsquare dude called Jack), Kim Fowley (The trip), Warren Zebon (Wanted dead or alive), Kim Fowley (It’s great to be alive, I’m bad), The Byrds (Hungry planet), The Runaways (School days), Kim Fowley (Living in the streets, International heroes, ESP reader, Is your computer slowly killing me? y World wide love).
Hay cine español más allá de Almodóvar, Amenábar, Bardem, Buñuel y Berlanga... Hay cine español incluso más allá de "La torre de los siete jorobados", "Angustia", "Arrebato", "Acción Mutante", "Atolladero" y "Amanece que no es poco"... Aquí 12 buenos ejemplos:
JUGUETES ROTOS
Cupletistas octogenarios, boxeadores sonados, futbolistas de éxito olvidados en asilos, toreros jubilados... Son algunos de los decadentes personajes que retrata Manuel Summers en este brutalísimo documental. Una pena que este master del universo sea más recordado por los chistes de Lepe, las cintas de los Hombres G y las pelis de cámara oculta que por joyas como "Juguetes Rotos", "Del rosa al amarillo" o "La niña de luto" (ésta última incluso nominada a la Palma de Oro en Cannes!).
TENEMOS 18 AÑOS
Mi primera reacción tras ver "Tenemos 18 años" fue revisar el año de estreno: ¡1959! ¿Cómo podía ser un delirio pop como éste anterior a 1960? El bueno de Jess Franco (con producción de Berlanga) se adelantó a lo que unos años después llegaría desde UK con cineastas como Richard Lester, desde Francia con la nouvelle vague más alocada ("Week-end", "Zazie en el metro"...) o desde Checoslovaquia con pelis como "Las margaritas" o "Who wants to kill Jessie". "Tenemos 18 años" es una road movie psicodélica que bebe directamente del jazz, el cómic y la literatura pulp. Las jóvenes protagonistas intentan narrarnos desde a comodidad del hogar como fue el viaje que hicieron por España a bordo de excéntrico coche amarillo, pero cada una de ellas, a medida que avanza la peli, nos cuenta una versión más demencial de lo ocurrido. Un recurso que la peli usa para recontruirse constantemente a sí misma y pasearse aleatoriamente por todos los géneros habidos y por haber: el terror, la comedia surrealista, el cine de gangsters, las aventuras selváticas... Diferentes versiones en las que un caricaturesco Antonio Ozores desempeñará el papel de distintos villanos. Lo mejor de todo es la falta de pretensiones e inocencia con la que se realiza este ejercicio de estilo. Se nota de lejos que la peli está hecha por puro divertimento, conservando de esta manera dos de las cualidades de las que suele carecer el cine pretendidamente vanguardista: alma y frescura. Y aún encima tiene la mejor declaración de amor hecha por un misántropo de historia del cine:
"No me gusta nadie... Pero quiero confesarte una cosa: tú eres la persona que me da menos asco."
STICO
Maravillosa comedia negra acerca de un catedrático de derecho romano arruinado (Fernando Fernán Gómez) que decide ofrecerse como esclavo a un antiguo alumno (Agustín González) que triunfa como abogado. El antiguo profesor no pide nada excepto techo y comida. A cambio está dispuesto a ceder todas sus posesiones, incluida su maravillosa biblioteca, a la familia de abogado y convertirse en su fiel y sumiso esclavo. La humillante oferta pilla por sorpresa al bueno de Agustín González, ya que no estamos en Roma sino en la España de mediados de 1980, pero apenado por la precaria situación del antaño venerable profesor decide aceptar. Lo que no se imagina es lo MUY EN SERIO que Fernán Gómez va a tomarse su papel de esclavo... ¡PELICULÓN!
GULLIVER
Quizás la película más esperpéntica de la historia del cine español. Una adaptación libérrima de "Los viajes de Gulliver" de Jonathan Swift, en la que Fernando Fernán Gómez llega a un país dictatorial habitado únicamente por enanos dedicados al mundo del espectáculo. Una especie de fusión oscura entre los shows del Bombero Torero, "También los enanos empezaron pequeños" e incluso "Freaks" de Todd Browning, según el propio Alfonso Ungría una de las principales fuentes de inspiración de la película. Se contrataron a casi 40 enanos para la realización de la peli que se rodó en un pueblo perdido de Plasencia. Al parecer todos los actores estaban hospedados en hotel de carretera y pasaban la mayor parte de su tiempo libre bebiendo en el bar de la gasolinera. Cada vez que un camionero entraba en el bar y veía a 40 enanos de fiesta su cara era todo un poema. Se estrenó en 1979 con críticas bastantes desafortunadas, ya que todo el mundo estableció pararelismos entre el país dictatorial de enanos y la España franquista. Un detalle que no sentó nada bien en aquel momento.
"Gulliver es una de las películas mías que más me gustan y algún día espero que se redescubra y que el público la vea como una película muy original" (Alfonso Ungría)
REINA ZANAHORIA
¡No sólo de "Amanece que no es poco" vive la comedia surrealista española! "Reina Zanahoria", aunque menos conocida, es otro buen ejemplo a tener en cuenta. Una comedia absurda que quizás por moverse en el poco transitado terreno existente entre "Agárralo como puedas" y "El fantasma de la libertad" no ha sido lo suficientemente valorada. Una ensalada de gags en la que tontorrones chascarrillos sobre patadas en los huevos y agentes secretos conviven con hombres-timbre, ataques de osos violadores, grifos-teléfono, sexo con armadura medieval, zanahorias y frases lapidarias del tipo: "Hay dos tipos de gente que no soporto: los racistas y los negros".
Más que suficiente para hacerse fan del bueno de Gonzalo Suárez, el Ken Russell español, un hombre del que Julio Cortázar ya decía: "Para alguien que aprecie los juegos sigilosos de una inteligencia irónica, y la marginalidad deliberada allí donde la gran mayoría trabaja a full time, la obra resbaladiza y casi inasible de Suárez dibuja en el panorama español contemporáneo algo análogo a lo que pudo dibujar en Francia la obra de Boris Vian."
EL HOMBRE QUE SE QUISO MATAR
Esta peli me ha dejado del revés. ¿Quién me iba a decir que una de las pelis más mala leche de la historia del cine se grabó en España, en 1942, por un filofranquista como Rafael Gil? Una nueva prueba de que al cine hay que acercarse siempre con la mente abierta y sin ningún tipo de prejuicio. "El hombre que se quiso matar" es mil veces más negra, iconoclasta y crítica que pelis encumbradas como "Plácido". El personaje de Antonio Casal es exactamente igual que el de Peter Finch en "Network", un suicida que al descubrir que no tiene nada que perder comienza a arremeter contra todo y contra todos, como Michael Douglas en "Un día de furia", como Albert Dupontel en "Dejad de quererme" o incluso Philippe Nahon en "Solo contra todos" pero mucho antes que todos ellos y aquí, en España. Increíble. Directa a mi Top Ten!
EL ELEGIDO
Otra sorpresa que me lleve estos días fue "El elegido" (1985) de Fernando Huertas. Una extraña comedia surrealista, muy en el tono de "Jo, ¡qué noche!", que se adelantó varios años a propuestas yankis como "El show de Truman" o "The Game". Es increible que pelis así no se conozcan más y acaben en el olvido. Casi parece que exista una conspiración iluminati para que sólo perduren y se conozcan las pelis de los 5 directores españoles de siempre.
POPPERS
¡Interesantísimo delirio ochentero made in Spain! La factura técnica y el diseño de producción son impecables, incluso superiores a las típicas series B americanas e italianas de aquellos años. Hay imágenes que son para enmarcar. Parece que en su momento la crítica pasó completamente de ella por considerarla un simple vehículo para el lucimiento de Giannina Facio (futura pareja de Ridley Scott), famosa en la prensa del corazón de aquellos años por su affaire con Julio Iglesias. De hecho, el propio director, José María Castellví, era (¿es?) el fotógrafo oficial del cantante. En cuanto al público, supongo que todavía no estaban preparados para digerir semejante marcianada. ¡Ni "La fuerza de la venganza", ni "Gymkata", ni "Deadly Prey"! ¡"Poppers" es la peli ochentera de cacerías humanas definitiva!
FUNCION DE NOCHE
Una de las mejores pelis de no-ficción que he visto en mi vida. Original en la forma y potente en contenido. Lola Herrera y Daniel Dicenta analizan las causas del fracaso de su matrimonio y ponen sobre la mesa todas las miserias de su vida conyugal. Todo ello entre las bambalinas de "Cinco horas con Mario", la obra de teatro de Miguel Delibes. Reconozco que a priori no parecía para nada el tipo de peli que me suele gustar y me acerqué a ella con bastante escepticismo... Pero los testimonios de ambos son tan descarnados y brutalmente sinceros que es casi imposible no quedarse bobo escuchando. ¡Lo de Bergman a su lado es un juego de niños!
LA HORA INCÓGNITA
Nada como ver "La hora incógnita" para quitarse un montón de prejuicios respecto el buen Mariano Ozores. Una peli de ciencia ficción seria (al menos seria en comparación su cine habitual), con sabroso regustillo a Twiligh Zone, que al igual que pelis posteriores como "Miracle Mile" o "Last Night" nos sitúa en una fantasmagórica ciudad recién evacuada, cuando tan solo faltan unas horas para que ocurra un apocalipsis nuclear y sólo unos pocos inconscientes siguen vagando por las calles.
La dirección de "La hora incógnita" es brillante. La composición de los planos está mimada hasta el extremo y hay secuencias que son para quitarse el sombrero del estilazo con el que están rodadas. Da un poco de pena que un director con tanto talento acabase posteriormente dedicándose unicamente a hacer comedias a ritmo de churrería. Que sí, "Los Bingueros" son las risas y está muy bien, pero con "La hora incógnita" además de reírte alimentas el alma. La verdad es que te quedas con ganas de saber hasta donde habría podido llegar Ozores de haber seguido haciendo trabajos de este estilo. Lo más probable es que a la bancarrota pues "La hora incógnita" fue un fracaso ecónomico tan enorme que obligó a Ozores a tomar la decisión de no volver a hacer jamás el cine que a él realmente le gustaba para dedicarse única y exclusivamente a darle al público lo que pedía.
LA CAMPANA DEL INFIERNO
Durante la EGB, al menos una vez al año, nos solían llevar de excursión por diversos puntos de Galicia. Me quedé alucinado cuando visitamos en Noia la iglesia de San Martiño y el guía nos contó que era un santuario con fama de maldito. Por alguna misteriosa razón una de sus torres nunca había sido acabada de construir. Para aumentar la leyenda resulta que un director de cine (Claudio Guerín) había muerto al precipitarse desde el campanario cuando estaba rodando la última escena de una película titulada, como no, "LA CAMPANA DEL INFIERNO". Es todo tan perfectamente maldito que casi parece un cuento de terror pero es una historia 100% real. Muchos años después encontré la película y para aumentar aún más mi entusiasmo resulta que es una de las grandes joyas del cine fantástico español de los 70. Más apreciada fuera que dentro de su propio país. La mayoría de las localizaciones son gallegas (Noia, Coruña, Betanzos, Padrón...) e incluso hay una mágica escena donde unas fantasmales cantareiras interpretan una inquietante versión del la popular "Eu non sei que pasou no muíño", así que supongo que debería tener un plus extra de curiosidad para los que habitamos por estas tierras. Está completa en youtube. ¡Más fácil de ver imposible!
ODIO MI CUERPO
La película feminista definitiva. Algo así como convertir "El cerebro de Frankenstein" en un drama social sobre los obstáculos de ser mujer en la década de los 70. Según el propio Klimovsky: "Fue una tentativa más de hacer un cine extraño,por lo distinto, y volver, efectivamente, al fantástico. Es la historia de un hombre muerto cuyo cerebro puede salvarse trasplantándolo a un cuerpo de mujer. Esa mujer, con cerebro de hombre, nos permite seguir la experiencia de un hombre, arrogante y machista que, como mujer, se siente desplazado totalmente, y de una mujer que, con el cerebro de un hombre, no puede actuar como una mujer. Es un doble juego que realizó con mucha inteligencia su argumentista pero que, por alguna razón que desconozco, no fue aceptada por el público." Spain is different.
Mención especial merece el doctor con pasado nazi que realiza el trasplante cerebral, un histriónico Narciso Ibañez Menta que parece salido de la misma facultad que el doctor de "The human centipede".
*Some names, including those of brothels, have been changed.
This article originally appeared on VICE UK
Wearing thick-lensed glasses and a tweed flat cap, George McCoy picks me up at 9:30 AM. He has the oppressively loud voice of a horse-racing commentator.
"Before I did this, I had my business in the record industry," he tells me. "My business failed, my ex-wife died. Before she died, she divorced me and took all the money she could. I'd used prostitutes before when traveling with work, and decided to make my hobby into a business."
The heating in the car is cranked beyond 80 degrees and I already want to get out.
Born in 1948 in Malvern to two Cambridge physics graduates, George has always been entrepreneurial. Selling mail order records by the likes of Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, and Donna Summer, in 1990 he was turning over $3 million. By 1995, he'd lost it all. And so began his next crusade: to deliver the first comprehensive guidebooks to the UK's brothels, ranking prostitutes on a five-star scale, listing specializations, working hours, and charging policies, and
inciting the fury of people who don't want to see human beings rated for how good they are at blowjobs.
Sex work brought in an estimated $8 billion in the UK last year, and while statistics suggest that
one in ten men have used a prostitute, George suggests that the real statistic might be as many as one in three.
"Clients include barristers, accountants... you name it. I know of a former foreign secretary who enjoys dressing up in women's clothing and having his bottom smacked. I know of another who just went for regular sex with lots of different women."
In the UK, selling your body for sex isn't a crime, but soliciting in public is. Working in a brothel isn't illegal, but running a brothel is. For customers, soliciting someone for their sexual services is illegal in public, but fine in private. Therefore, George isn't technically committing a crime—and besides, he doesn't have to actually buy the sex; because he's reviewing, he usually gets it for free.
"Occasionally the girls will say, 'Let me show you how good I am,' and it would be impolite of me not to let them demonstrate their prowess," George says. "If you think,
That was bloody good, I'd see her again, she'd get a five-star rating. If you think, Dunno why I bothered, that would get one star. They generally do their best because they know who I am."
At 10:30 AM we reach our first appointment: *Bentley's in Dewsbury. It's set within an office block, neighboring a number of totally unsuspecting businesses. George tells me the landlords know and are happy to maintain the brothel on the premises, as long as there's no "funny business." Bentley's has been established for over 25 years and is officially licensed as a sauna. It's open seven days a week, employs six women, and averages ten to 13 clients a day.
"Dangerous Love" by Fuse ODG (ft. Sean Paul) is playing on the radio as we walk in.
*John, the owner, takes us on a tour. Bentley's is light and clean but has the kind of musty smell that makes you inhale a little lighter than normal. George had given it a four-star rating in his guidebook, noting the staff as "versatile" with "plenty of young beauties."
Here, George's celebrity status becomes more pronounced. Gray stickers reading "Recommended by George McCoy!" peel from parlor doors, assuring his seal of approval.
[body_image width='1840' height='1232' path='images/content-images/2015/01/15/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/15/' filename='i-spent-a-day-with-britains-leading-prostitute-reviewer-body-image-1421327840.jpg' id='18302']A "Recommended by George McCoy's Massage Parlor Guide" sticker at Bentley's
Anna, the manager for the past three years, greets George like an old friend. They know each other very well, judging by the four-star review he gave her, but isn't involved in that side of the business any more.
"I found it horrendous—simply because I think you need to be quite a strong person emotionally to be able to perform in that way," she tells me. "The customers were always nice to me, but on a mental and emotional level, I was unable to handle it."
Besides the physical health risks involved, 73 percent of sex workers also suffer from anxiety disorders, and 46 percent
develop depression. George seems unperturbed by this.
"Why would they be suffering?" he asks. "Once you get in that position, maybe it's time to call it a day. The parlors don't want unhappy girls or girls on drugs, because you get unhappy clients and they don't come back for more business. It's bullshit when they talk about people being forced to work against their will. Is it not better that they do that than live off the state?"
Back in the car, we move on to another appointment in Dewsbury, this time at *Sandra's—but they fail to arrive.
"Owe me money for an advert," George grumbles.
Instead, we take a pit stop in a car park somewhere near Sheffield and pick up a salad from Morrison's.
Yes, if a lady is prepared to let me enter her anally, then so be it.
George tells me that this is a full-time job. When he isn't on the road visiting brothels two days a week, he's in his office analyzing data on the internet. He's written 32 guidebooks on British brothels, with detail so exhaustive he claims that the Home Office looked to them to tally up official UK brothel figures. He tells me that he's sold around 100,000 books online, for a tenner each. As I start to do the maths, he informs me that he's actually yet to break even. So why does he do it?
"I enjoy being given an oral session by a lady and then regular intercourse thereafter—nothing out of the ordinary," he says. "Yes, if a lady is prepared to allow me to enter her anally, then so be it. But I wouldn't ever want to insist a woman does anything."
For all George's politeness, it suddenly dawned on me that I was sat in a car park in the middle of nowhere with a man who's built his life and career upon rating women in bed. He tells me that he doesn't think women "appreciate the sexual longings that exist in men." Men view sex as an experience they enjoy, he says, "not the procreation aspects of it."
[body_image width='1840' height='1232' path='images/content-images/2015/01/15/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/15/' filename='i-spent-a-day-with-britains-leading-prostitute-reviewer-body-image-1421328218.jpg' id='18310']Photos from inside a brothel, *The Retreat, visited by the author with George McCoy
Throughout the course of the afternoon, we visit a few more spots on George's itinerary. One is an immaculately clean Thai-run parlor, and another called *The Retreat. The two places were in stark contrast with one another, the latter boasting a sign warning us to "beware the trap door."
George greets the owner, a man in his late sixties with gnarly fingers and a grisly smile, and we start talking about trafficking.
"It's mass hysteria." George barks. "Politicians love to scare us, trying to paint a country which is rife with trafficking. Because if we're scared, we will vote for them to keep us safe. That's all they're fucking interested in. If it suits them to worry us, they will worry us."
He's careful to differentiate parlor workers from those working on the street, where he admits drugs and trafficking issues might be more of an issue. "I'm not saying that there's no girls in parlors who take drugs, but so does
Nigella bloody Lawson!"
[body_image width='1200' height='793' path='images/content-images/2015/01/15/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/15/' filename='i-spent-a-day-with-britains-leading-prostitute-reviewer-body-image-1421328351.jpg' id='18315']George sits on a bed at *Infinity brothel
Our penultimate viewing of the day was *Infinity, a four-roomed parlor in the outskirts of Sheffield. Complete with a gym, pool table, and dungeon, it receives anything between eight to 38 customers in a day.
I was shown around by the owner, David, who says that his establishment is one of the only places he knows of designed to be disabled-friendly. "There's a guy coming today. He comes every week. He's only 21. His father brings him. He comes in his wheelchair and he speaks through a computer. And we've got ex-soldiers who've had their limbs blown off. They know when they come here, it's comfortable."
[body_image width='1200' height='803' path='images/content-images/2015/01/14/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/14/' filename='i-spent-a-day-with-britains-leading-prostitute-reviewer-body-image-1421255491.jpg' id='18119']
Taken at George's appointment with a dominatrix
By 5 PM we're making our last stop, this one slightly different to the others: a dominatrix who works alone. George assures me she's a "bunny rabbit" compared to others as we ring the bell of her semi-detached. There's a small child peering out the bottom-floor flat, and I think about the slaves being ball-gagged and pissed on a few feet above.
Inside, George greets "Mistress Lola" with affection. He clamps his pudgy hands either side of her corset. "George!" she exclaims. The longer I stay, the more I realize that she only speaks in exclamation marks.
We are invited into the living room, which looks relatively normal apart from a huge golden throne. Two men—slaves—are occupying each sofa. One is clean cut and suited, the other was Comic Book Guy IRL. "After a good session," the latter says, "it feels to me like falling head over heels in love for the first time, again. Who wouldn't want to keep getting that feeling?"
"I fell madly in love with a lady once," George says. "When I was 19, after I spent a weekend with her minding some poodles. But her parents insisted on breaking it off. After that I decided that getting involved with people is more trouble than it's worth."
George waltzes around the dungeon, gleefully demonstrating the knives and dildos. "There, you have a cross, the idea being you are tied to it spread-eagled, and you can be whipped or have your bottom smacked. Or, alternatively, you can be round the front and have some cock and ball torture," he grins. "You can be locked in that cage and left like a puppy for an hour or so. The mistress will often sit on the throne there. They've got various clips, which you can put on your nipples and other parts of your anatomy."
I was disappointed to hear that George isn't very experimental himself. "I'm quite prepared to be restrained and mistreated, so long as I don't get bruised," he stipulates. "But that's about as far as it goes with me."
"Believe it or not, there are women who enjoy it," says George. We're back in the car now; we've finished our visits. I'm ready to end the day and hop out at the next red light.
I agree that it must be pretty exhausting for those few women happily employed in sex work to constantly feel that they need to defend their desire to sell sex. But that doesn't justify overlooking, as George seems to, the many others who are bound by financial and familial dependencies, who suffer the physical and emotional tolls of performing sex acts on upwards of three strangers a day.
George may spout about trafficking and depression being fabrications of authority, but one thing he has brought to my attention is how tolerated brothels are within British society. Every parlor we visited claimed the police knew exactly what they were doing, and let them get away with it. This does suggest current frameworks might be outdated: Implementing new perspectives or even regulation of the industry might help us to paint an honest picture of what is going on, because currently, George's guidebooks could be the most comprehensive source of information we've got.
George isn't in the right, nor is reviewing women like a product in a magazine. What has become clear from spending a day with him, though, is that his intent is not malicious. His actions seem governed by emptiness and loss, his job giving him a sense of purpose and status.
"Not all men are secure," he tells me. "But if everyone was, we wouldn't have any decent bloody literature. We need people who are a bit bizarre to be the Mr. Rochesters or Heathcliffs."
Clearly, to George, men who use prostitutes are the tortured heroes of romanticism. I revolve back into the normality of the Sheffield evening, but George slips back off into the underworld, where there, at least, he is king.
From game day to weekend snacking to, um, weeknight dinners, we support any excuse to eat nachos. But pre-shredded cheese and a jar of watery tomato salsa? You can do better than that.
That’s why we’ve come up with three brand-new recipes for alterna-nachos. That’s right: alterna-nachos. From Indian-style to Asian-inspired to fully-loaded black bean nachos, these generously-spiced, hugely-flavored trays of chips (and fried wontons!) should all earn a spot in your personal nacho repertoire.
Black bean nachos are good. These fully-loaded black bean nachos with two different kinds of cheese, two salsas, and fresh jalapeño? Yeah, they’re better.
Indian-style nachos may seem like a stretch, but the combination of sour-sweet tamarind chutney, fresh mint, and crispy chickpeas and potatoes brings it all together.
We substituted traditional tortilla chips for freshly-fried wonton wrappers in these Asian-style nachos because… freshly-fried wonton wrappers are amazing. Spicy ground pork and a crunchy quick slaw add heartiness and texture.
The iron maiden was a horrible medieval torture device, a casket with spikes on the inside which could be closed slowly, impaling the living person inside. It was awful. It was also not real. It was a fake concept popularized by two men in the 19th century, an era not known for impaling people to death.
A family-medicine doctor recent saw a 13-year-old with a weird, unidentifiable rash. It wasn't itchy or painful, and the teenage boy hadn't traveled anywhere recently. So the the doctor did what any modern physician would do: he took a photo and uploaded it to an Instagram-style app called Figure 1.
(Figure 1)
"13 y/o M with rash on his knee for 2 months," the doctor with the username inder70 wrote. "it is not itchy, no pain, no travel, no new food no inciting agent, no medications?"
The suggestions came piling in. One doctor asked if it was fungal ("no itchiness or raised border," inder70 responded). Most of them quickly landed on the same diagnosis: granuloma annulare, a skin condition that has no known cause and can be treated with certain ointments. "Thanks everyone!!" inder70 responded, the medical mystery solved.
Hospital hallway conversations, gone digital
Figure 1 is the brainchild of Josh Landy, an internist from Toronto. He did his residency at Stanford and saw constant, off-the-cuff consults happening in hospital hallways, where doctors would try and talk through the details of a case that was surprising or new to them.
"It can be 4 a.m. when you're working, and you're going to see something that can astonish you," Landy said. "It might be the most classic textbook example of something you don't know about, and it happens when there are not a lot of other people around. So the idea was there has to be a better way to communicate."
Landy started doing research on his fellow residents and found that 13 percent were already using their smart phones to share images with one another via email or text message. What if there was a wider network to share those images and get more input from not just one hospital's residents, but the wider medical community?
That's where Figure 1 comes in: since its launch in the spring of 2013, the app has accrued 115,000 users. It's most popular, unsurprisingly, among young doctors: an estimated 20 percent of medical residents now have Figure 1 on their phones. There are sections on dermatology (lots of rashes), radiology (mostly x-rays), and emergency medicine (not for the faint of heart).
Not all of these users are doctors: Landy estimates that about 10 percent of the users are non-health care professionals (people like me, which explains how I was able to see that image and discussion above). Only doctors, however, can comment on cases — and they do, a lot.
Some of the doctors are sharing images they find interesting: "Kitchen knife vs. thumb. Pretty minor but I've never seen someone stitch through a nail like this!" one doctor wrote under a photo that, as you can imagine, is a thumbnail with stitches. But a lot of the app is doctors seeking advice and asking other professionals to give their opinions on cases.
For example, a radiologist recently asked others to look at an x-ray of an elderly woman who "fell backward onto the floor." A registered nurse posted a photo of the phlegm her patient had coughed up ("Any idea what this may be??"); another shared a photo of a patient's urine that elicited a 77-comment chain discussing the diagnosis.
Privacy, diagnosis issues raised
One of the persistent questions about an app like Figure 1 is privacy. Few patients would want their faces to turn up in the public forum. Landy said the approach to protecting privacy is twofold: doctors are required to ask permission to take a photograph, and they can't capture any identifying details. That explains why you see a lot of limbs on Figure 1, but no faces.
The issue I was interested was whether Figure 1 raised issues of liability. If another user suggested a diagnosis — and the doctor posting the photo followed through — could that put the commenting user at potential fault for something going wrong? It's easy to see a patient, in the future, going back to Figure 1 to trace the comment thread that may have contributed to her treatment.
Landy said this wasn't an issue that had come up much yet in Figure 1's short lifetime and that these interactions were arguably just another version of the corridor consults that already happen. "These are people who are talking about a lot of the cases because they're interesting, textbook, classic versions and they can help," he said.
Some songs are born instrumentals, and others have their non-vocal status thrust upon them. Los Straitjackets are the band that leads the field in recording instrumental albums with vocals, having made two albums (2001’s Sing Along with los Straitjackets and 2007’s Rock en Español, Vol. 1) where guest singers lend their voices to the band’s acres of expressive, usually lyric-free twang. Now the Masked Men of Instrumental Rock have added a third vocal album to their list, and this time they’ve put a new spin on the concept by covering 14 well-known pop, rock, and surf instrumentals, and brought in Deke Dickerson to warble the oft- forgotten lyrics the tunes had all along (except for two numbers where Mark Winchester has come up with fresh words to match the melodies).
Of course, part of the gimmick is that Los Straitjackets have partnered with a guy best known as a master guitarist to do the vocals on Sings the Great Instrumental Hits, but Dickerson is a solid and capable singer, and he has enough of a sense of humor to know how to play the (usually unintentional) silliness of these verses, and his con brio approach to “Fury,” “Magic Star” (better known as “Telstar”), “Perfidia,” and “Kawanga” is fitting and happily shameless. Of course, you also learn why hardly anyone sings the words to “Honky Tonk,” “Walk, Don’t Run,” or “You Can Count on Me” (which in instrumental form was the theme song to Hawaii Five-0) by listening to these recordings (which Dickerson delivers in glorious deadpan). Los Straitjackets tear into these songs with their usual skill and guitar fire, and they put imaginative twists on a few numbers, playing “Miserlou” as a song of exotic romance in the desert, and referencing both Jørgen Ingmann and the Sugarhill Gang in their take on “Apache” (and Dickerson’s rapping on the latter is itself worth the price of admission). Ultimately, Los Straitjackets are at their best without a singer, but in spite of this, Sings the Great Instrumental Hits works because the band is at the top of its game here, and Dickerson is an entertainer who knows what to do with this concept. (But how come they didn’t use NRBQ’s much-superior lyrics for “Wild Weekend”?)
When these farmers aren’t shearing sheep, they’re stealing hearts. Via Farmers Weekly.
Meet James Hall, 32, from Somerset, one of the 10 finalists in Farmers Weekly's Britain's Sexiest Farmer 2015 competition. There is only one word: Phwoar.
He says: "I have the best office in the world – the great British countryside – and you can’t get any better than that."
(Image: Kyle T. Webster)
Asian-Style Pork Nachos with Red Cabbage and Scallions. Photo: Alex Lau
Some songs are born instrumentals, and others have their non-vocal status thrust upon them. Los Straitjackets are the band that leads the field in recording instrumental albums with vocals, having made two albums (2001’s Sing Along with los Straitjackets and 2007’s Rock en Español, Vol. 1) where guest singers lend their voices to the band’s acres of expressive, usually lyric-free twang. Now the Masked Men of Instrumental Rock have added a third vocal album to their list, and this time they’ve put a new spin on the concept by covering 14 well-known pop, rock, and surf instrumentals, and brought in Deke Dickerson to warble the oft- forgotten lyrics the tunes had all along (except for two numbers where Mark Winchester has come up with fresh words to match the melodies).
