A re-written dialogue between me and the guy who persisted on lecturing me about ethical travelling...

Hippie: So, I'm just back from South America

Me: Oh, hey cool, I'm going there next year!

Hippie: oh, it's amazing.

Me: Yeah,I can't wait.

Hippie: But it's become very westernised...

Me: oh yeah?

Hippie: It's, like we have this cultural imperialism

Me (surreptitiously getting spade): mm-hmm?

Hippie: Like we think our culture is somehow superior...

Me (giving spade a few test swings): oh, totally...

Hippie: I mean, who are we to say that adequate healthcare is a good thing?

*SPADE!!*

Me: I am Tiger woods.

Visa application (abbreviated)

Are you, or have you been known by any other name?
There's a small mexican mining town that know me only as El Baldo.

Have you ever been convicted of a crime or offence in any country?
I've caused offence. I called this one guy a dick. he was pretty offended. I did it with conviction too.

Have you ever committed or been involved in the commission of war crimes, or crimes against humanity or human rights?
Question of semantics. if getting a truckload of prisoners in Kosovo to dig their own grave, then turning a machine gun on them is a war crime, then I'll be the first to put my hands in the air.

Science club #1 - Rucksack testing

Apparatus:
1 brand new rucksack, bought on afternoon of experiment
1/2 bottle of wine, 2 cups of coffee and a small quantity of gin. (to
be ingested in the hours leading up to experimentation)
1 Brother, 20. (preferably bored, full of coffee and study)
1 Brother's girlfriend. (on phone)
1 brother, 11
1 suite of furniture
1 staircase
1 shelf of books

Other considerations:
everyone else in house must be asleep - for best results perform
between 1 & 2 in the morning.

Procedure:
-Return from rucksack purchase / dinner.
-have vague plans of going to bed.
-Find brother still up, talking to girlfriend on phone.
-Wave rucksack at him in excessively gleeful way
- motion to brother to tell girlfriend that rucksack is brilliant.
- Brother should stand back, and say 'that doesn't look so big'
- You should say 'horseshit'
- Brother should shrug, and finish conversation with girlfriend.
- Both of you should then look around room for something to test the
size of bag.

IMPORTANT: For the next step to work, all must be asleep in the house.

- Dismantle couch, and start squishing cushions into rucksack.
- Have brother discover secret latch that trebles the size.
- keep squishing cushions into bag.

Make some tea. (see caffeine procedure #2334)

- Return to find brother triumphantly squishing last cushion into rucksack.
- discover that there is weight in squished cushions.
-Speculate on possibility of fitting smallest brother in bag. (maybe
even bet money)
- Demonstrate 'adjustable torso system' harness to brother.
- Repeatedly point out how 'the weight goes straight to your legs'
- Notice brother's skeptical look
- Wave arm towards brothers leg. He may not, after all, know where his legs are.
- Position brother at bottom of stairs, with bag on his back.
- Stand halfway up stairs, and push down on bag.
- Get brother to do the same.
-Debate on distribution of weight. (glean arguments from half
remembered applied maths classes)
-spot bookshelf
-fill rucksack with books.

NOTE: Do not replace cushions on couch, rather, leave them all over the floor.

-be barely able to lift book filled rucksack.
- have competition with brother on lifting the bag.
- Wake up smallest brother. (he should appear bleary eyed at the top
of the stairs, bewildered as to why his older brothers are loudly
stuffing books into a bag, in the manner of literate burglars.)
-Remember bet.

RESULTS:
smallest brother can fit in rucksack up to his waist.
It's very difficult, nay impossible to carry him like this.