The child next to me glanced over, curious, at the opening whine of the laptop as it kicked into life, then quickly turned away with an obvious lack of interest. She's eating an apple and swinging her legs against the seat, idly exercising pent up energy that has no other release. The sound of her crunching through the apple flesh synchronises with my waves of nausea, flowing and swaying out of my control, cresting up through my gullet before falling with a heavy splash to the bottom of my gut.
It's the remnants of the alcohol I think – the fried breakfast this morning and the pizza last night combining in a heady, foul mix. Chemical memories of a hundred cigarettes wheeze in and out of my lungs, tasting acidic and thick. The party itself went on to the early hours of the morning, and the few hours sleep I snatched on the sofa as the dawn broke served only to remind me of the benefits I could have gained, but missed. I never even got drunk, in the end, but imbibed so much willing poison for the sake of – what? This, it would seem.
As I left the house to start the long journey home, a friend gave me some ecstasy he'd bought at some point between the cock-piercing comparisons and the snorting of whatever powder it was that someone had thoughtfully tapped onto the kitchen surface. I dropped it as the coach set off and sat back to lose myself in some music. It was, with typical luck, a bad batch though, and the prickling heatflushes and burning indigestion that are only now starting to die down were my meagre reward. Whatever poison had been substituted for the drug made itself felt with abandon.
Overlying it all, of course, a pent up sexual frustration that drugs and drink and the hint of intimacy will stimulate to overwhelming highs. Morphed now, it's died down into a background regret that snakes itself through my mind whispering invidious provocations, taunting and bitter.
Soon perhaps I'll
disappear backwards into the toilet and force some fingers down my
throat, and whilst thrown around in those tiny walls try to purge my
system of anything I can into the queasily shifting vacuum bowl that
serves as a bog. Tomorrow I'll spend in bed all day, drinking tea,
eating fruit and trying to coax some vitality back into the twreck of
my bowels and lungs, scrambled mind and heavy muscles. At the moment
it feels as though this cramped coach and bumpy road are endless
punishments, my warm bed as unreachable as Tantalus' ever withdrawing
salvations. A melodramatic fiction, I know, but a dispiritingly
convincing one.
--
Addendum: As it turns out, a couple of hours after I'd tapped that out and with a few Mighty Boosh radio episodes under my belt, I felt absolutely fine, if not bone-weary. Still, it wasn't a massively pleasant journey.
There was a black woman, ahead of me on the train. As she walked, unsteadily, her hips swayed out past their centre to compensate for the lurching of the journey, and her heels provided a counterpoint for the rhythmic clacking of the carriage wheels, travelling over old line. She was young and proud, straight backed and tastefully dressed. A hint of ruby lipstick, against powdered cocoa skin.
When we got off she waited in line with everyone else for the doors to sigh themselves open, retreat into their cavities and let the cold air rush in. I watched her as we walked down from the station. She moved through her own world, handbag on her arm, eyes on her road, thoughts inviolable. Another connection in the web of humanity that neither shimmered nor dulled beyond any other.
A thought crept in:
To suggest that her trousers should be ripped from her and replaced with the smearing of week old faeces is absurd. Exchanging her earrings with a heavy iron manacle, her lipstick for cracked and drying blood, her artfully pinned hair for a fraying, tangled nest of bacteria, simply sets a scene. For the walls of the train carriage to fall away and reveal a galley, stuffed with the noxious, crushing pressures of hell – filled not with su doku, and lattes, but with rape, banal with its frequency, and the semen of white men, splashed where they will – this is a cruelty and perversion beyond endurance.
To suck her life away in slavery, and to take her name and her spark from her – to excise her from the strands of human history and leave, in place of her legacy, a sorrowful void – this is madness. This is a horror so great that, once fully accepted, labelling it then not as nightmare but as history could cause the soul to crack, overburdened and unable to understand.
I gave thanks then that there was a black man in the seat of the white house. That the woman ahead of me could sit on the train with a moral and social impunity. That in Soho, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, beefed up men who love other men can wander around in pink tutus and bright wigs. That my gay best friend and I can sit in the open and wait for his boyfriend over a coffee. There are many pockets of prejudice that still linger, festering and repugnant over the world, but the larger battle is won. The paradigm shifting of fear and loathing to acceptance and promotion has almost completed, and like the filtering of acid rain through volcanic rock it will seep down through all the levels of society over the next hundred years. Inexorable, purifying, glorious.
A summary:1) The west is bad
2) The Jews are bad 3) Racism is bad 4) One and Two are worse than Three. A choice quote I quite enjoyed: "The global Zionism is the complete symbol of racism, which with unreal reliance on religion has tried to misuse the religious beliefs of some unaware people and hide its ugly face." Ironic, much?
Ahmadinejad speech: full text |
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This is the full text of the speech Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave at the Durban Review Conference, a UN conference on racism, in Geneva, Switzerland, on Tuesday, 20th April 2009. Protesters interrupted the conference before Mr Ahmadinejad could start his speech. He refers to the incident in his opening sentence.
Praise belongs to the just, merciful, and compassionate God. May God's blessing be upon the prophets, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and the last prophet His Holiness Muhammad Mustafa, who called for monotheism, fraternity, kindness, human dignity, and justice. Mr Chairman, Honourable Secretary-General of the UN, Honourable High Commissariat for Human Rights, Ladies and Gentlemen, following the Durban anti-racism and discrimination conference, we have gathered here to examine the current situation and to find practical solutions for this humane and sacred campaign. In the past centuries, great injustice was inflicted on mankind. In the Middle Ages scholars and scientists were sentenced to death. And later on slavery and the hunting down of innocent people, separating them from their families and taking them in millions to Europe and America in the worst conditions, was popular. These were dark ages where lands were occupied and their sources were looted, and innocent people were killed and made homeless. Years passed until people rose. They paid a high price in order to drive occupiers out and establish independent and national governments; millions of people were killed. Those in power imposed two major wars in short periods of time on Europe and parts of Africa and Asia. These were wars which took about 100 million lives and resulted in destruction of a lot of countries and regions. Those who won these wars considered themselves conquerors of the world and considered other nations defeated. And by the imposition of oppressive laws and arrangements they ignored and violated other nations rights. Ladies and gentlemen, look at the Security Council which is the legacy of World War I and II. Based on what logic have they been given the right to veto? With which human and divine value is this logic compatible? Justice, equality in the eye of law and human dignity or discrimination, injustice, violation of human rights and belittling the majority of nations and countries? This Council is the most supreme decision-making centre for maintaining peace and security in the world. When there is legal discrimination and the law-making centre is a source of bullying and force instead of justice and fairness, how can one expect to achieve justice and peace? Seeking power and selfishness is the source of racism, discrimination, aggression and tyranny. Today many racists condemn racism in their slogans and speeches but when some powerful countries give themselves the right to make decisions for other countries, using their discretion, and based on their own interests, they can easily trample on all rules and human values. As they have already proven. After the Second World War, by exploiting the holocaust and under the pretext of protecting the Jews they made a nation homeless with military expeditions and invasion. They transferred various groups of people from America, Europe and other countries to this land. They established a completely racist government in the occupied Palestinian territories. And in fact, under the pretext of making up for damages resulting from racism in Europe, they established the most aggressive, racist country in another territory, i.e. Palestine. The Security Council endorsed this usurper regime and for 60 years constantly defended it and let it commit any kind of crime. Worse than this is that some Western governments and America are committed to support genocidal racists while others condemn the bombardment of innocent human beings, the occupation of their land and the disasters that took place in Gaza. Even before they kept silent, not responding to all the crimes of that regime, and supported it. Dear friends, ladies and gentlemen, what has been the source of recent wars such as the Americans' attack on Iraq or the wide military expedition in Afghanistan? Has it been anything else than the selfishness of the American government of the time and the pressures by those in possession of wealth and power to expand influence and hegemony, support weapon manufacturers, destroy a great culture that is thousands of years old, destroying possible and potentials risks by the countries of the region against the occupying Quds regime, and looting the energy resources of the Iraqi people? In fact why were one million people dead and injured and a few million people forced to leave their homeland? Why were hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage inflicted on the Iraqi people and hundreds of billions of dollars of costs for the military invasion imposed on the American people and America's allies? Was attacking Iraq not orchestrated by the Zionists and their allies in the previous ruling government of America which was on the one hand in power and on the other the owner of arms manufacturing companies? Did peace, security and prosperity return to Afghanistan by military intervention? America and its allies were not even able to stop the production of narcotics and during their presence it increased several fold. The main question is this: What was the role of the previous ruling system in America and its allies? Were they the representatives of the world nations? Were they elected by the world nations? Do they have representation by the world nations to interfere in the affairs of all parts of the world and especially our region? Don't these actions, the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, count as examples of selfishness, racism, discrimination and violating the dignity and independence of other nations? Ladies and gentlemen, who are the people in charge of the crisis-hit economy of the world? Where did the crisis start? Did it start in Africa and Asia or American and then Europe and their allies? For a long time, using their political influence, they [West] imposed unfair economic laws on international economic transactions. They set up financial and monetary systems without provisions of international supervision and imposed those systems on countries that did not have the smallest role to play in the processes and policies adopted. They do not even allow their own nations to supervise. By taking away morality from their actions, they have established laws in a way that they serve the interests of certain powerful people and capitalists. By giving a specific definition of free market and competition, they took away many opportunities from others and imposed their problems on others. Today, with dozens of thousands of billions of dollars of debt and thousands of billions of dollars of budget deficit, those waves of crisis have come back to them. Even today in order to improve the situation, they have started injecting hundred billions of dollars of unsupported money from the pockets of their citizens and other nations into banks and companies and financial markets which were close to bankruptcy and they have made their people even more indebted and they have made the problem more complicated. They are thinking of maintaining their power and wealth. And the people of the world and even their own people are of no value to them. Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, the true root of racism is the lack of human understanding as God's chosen creatures and deviation from the true path of human life and human missions in creation. Due to negligence in worshipping God with awareness and pondering on the philosophy of life and the path towards human perfection - which leads to the natural outcome of being committed to divine values and mankind - the horizon of human insight has declined. And limited and temporary interests became the criteria of evaluation and actions by human beings. Therefore, the seeds of evil power took their shape and by neglecting fair chances for others' growth, it added to the boundaries of its development. In such a way that it changed to an ugly and uncontrollable racism that today it is threatening the global peace as the most dangerous factor. And it is an obstacle on the way of achieving peaceful life in the world. Undoubtedly, racism should be recognised as the symbol of ignorance of the depth of history and a sign of dogmatism against mankind's general growth. Therefore, we should look for the signs of racism under conditions and situations in a society where poverty of knowledge and lack of understanding would be spread. Therefore, the main means of fighting such symptoms is to promote general awareness and deepening public understanding towards the philosophy of mankind's existence and the truth about the human-oriented world. Its requirement or outcome is a return to spiritual and ethical values and human virtues and finally the belief in God. The global society should start a united cultural movement for enlightening certain suffering and undeveloped societies as much as possible and uproot this hideous and evil phenomenon. But dear friends, today the human society is facing a kind of racism which has an ugliness that has completely distorted the honour of mankind at the verge of the third millennium and it has made the global society shameful. The global Zionism is the complete symbol of racism, which with unreal reliance on religion has tried to misuse the religious beliefs of some unaware people and hide its ugly face. But what should be seriously considered are the goals of certain superpowers and those in possession of major interests in the world; those who try their best through economic power and political influence and wide media means, to lessen the crimes and ugliness of the nature of the Zionist regime. Here, the main issue is not ignorance and therefore, cultural movements on their own, are not sufficient to fight this evil phenomenon. But we should try to put an end to the misuse of international means by the Zionists and their supporters. And by respecting nations' demands, we should motivate the united governments to eliminate this clear racism and step on the path of reforming international relations 0and mechanisms with courage. Undoubtedly, you are all aware of the extensive efforts by the institutes of global power towards creating a deviation on the path of the real mission of this important conference. Unfortunately in the literature supporting the Zionists, a clear participation and cooperation in their crimes can be noticed. And this adds to the responsibilities of the respectful representatives of nations in revealing this antihuman issue and improving relations and behaviours. We should be aware that to keep a huge global capacity, such as this conference, away from its real intentions, means helping to continue the most hideous sense of racism. Today the necessity of defending human rights is firstly, to defend the rights of a nation to be free to make decisions regarding important global affairs without the influence of certain powers; secondly, to take action to improve international structures and relations. Therefore, this conference is the arena of a major test and we will be judged by the world's public opinion today and tomorrow. Mr Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, the world's general condition is rapidly moving towards basic changes. Power based equations have become very weak. The sound of the pillars of global tyranny breaking can be heard. Political and macro economic structures are falling. Political and security crisis are growing. And the growing global economic crisis, for the resolution of which there is no bright horizon, makes all sorts of quantitative and quality aspects of change on the way very impressive. I have emphasised the necessity of getting back from the wrong path that today's absolute global management is following and I have warned about the critical outcomes of delaying to do so. Also now, in this valued conference, addressing you managers, thinkers and all the world nations who are thirsty for peace, freedom, progress and prosperity, I would like to say that the unjust ruling of the world is reaching its end. This deadlock was inevitable since the logic behind this imposed management is tyrannical. This is because the logic of the mass movement of the world is divine, purposeful, humane and God-centred. It is a movement which opposes any policy or plan which is not in line with the interests of nations. Victory of truth over vice and the bright future of humanity and the establishment of a just global system is the promise of God and all prophets, and a common hope of all communities and generations. Achieving such a future justifies the reason behind creation, is the belief of all those faithful to God and the very high status of the human beings. Formation of a global community, the practical possibility of a common global system materialising and finally involving thinkers, managers and people of the world to actively and justly participate in the macro and principle decision makings is the main path to this great destination. At the moment, scientific and technical capabilities as well as information and communication technology have created a mutual and comprehensive understanding of the global community and have created the necessary ground for a common system to materialise. . Now, this is a grave responsibility that the world's scientists, elites and officials across the world should shoulder by playing a historic role through faith in this definite path. Now I want to stress on this fact that western capitalism like communism has reached the end of its path because it does not see the world and humanity as they are. It has tried to impose a self-constructed path and destination and instead of paying attention to human and divine values, justice, freedom, compassion and brotherhood it has set fierce competition for gaining individual and collective materialistic interests as a basis for life. Now we should collectively try to learn lessons from the past and understand the necessity for correcting this path by considering today's conditions. And on the same note and as the final word I would like to draw your attention to two important points. First point: The improvement of the current international condition is hundred per cent possible. But we should know that this cannot be achieved without the cooperation of all the governments and nations. Therefore, we should benefit from the capacities of international cooperation to the maximum. My presence in this conference indicates my respect for this important issue, and the essential issue of human rights and support for nations' rights against the evil phenomenon of racism and cooperation with you, the thinkers. Second: Considering the lack of efficiency of systems and international political, economic, security and cultural relations is necessary. In view of divine and humanitarian values and the true and real definition of human beings and based on justice and respect for the rights of all human beings across the world, confessing to the wrong management in the past and changing the views and performances, measures should be taken to reform the current structures. Therefore, a speedy change in the structure of the United Nations and the elimination of the discriminatory right to veto and a change in the financial and monetary system of the world must be on the agenda. Obviously, the lack of understanding for the urgency of this change will result in heavier costs due to any delay. My dear friends, you should know that moving in line with justice and human dignity is like moving quickly on a stream of water. Let's not forget the valuable elixir of love and compassion. The guarantee for a clear future for human beings is a great asset that can keep us more aware and more hopeful than ever before. It can enable us to create a world full of love and blessing and can be free from poverty and hatred. We will also be able to profit from the blessings of God and have the advantage of having a decent management of a complete human being. Let us all have a share in this important issue, and hope for that bright and beautiful day. I would like to sincerely thank the President and the UN Secretary-General and all of you for your patience, wishing you dignity and success. | |
The day was a perfect cut out, turning the sky into a two-toned collage, a blanket of blue with an orange heart. As hours moved inexorably through themselves and as the sun dipped and dimmed, the second lives of trees and bushes had been teased into life. Spreading out grey fingers they grasped at the earth, tugging themselves slowly, achingly forward until eventually a critical mass was reached and, merging like lovers, they melted into the grass. Shadow slowly exerted its sombre hold, unnoticed by the joggers, basketball players, dog walkers and young mums who trotted, sprinted, whistled and wheeled themselves through the park.
I sat uncomfortably, my back pressed at an angle against a knot in the tree trunk, eyes focused on the book but occasionally pestered by an uncooperative flash that had managed to escape the disc overhead. The story was proceeding excellently, and the small distractions of this environment were no serious competition against the hollow laughter ringing from my insane Russian duchess, as she burned her money, mocking old priapic merchants who, too polite to beg her grace, simply grasped their cocks and posed as lovers.
Then, a movement strong enough to draw my eye, forced up by hormones which, defying it seemed all logic or sense, had sourced out the tightly defined buttocks of a Lycra-clad jogger and demanded my attention focused thereon. Frustratingly frequently the duchess paused her collapse and her ardent admirers winked in lecherous sympathy from the pages as I tried to dispel the rush of blood to my groin, savoured and then discarded the primal urge, the centralised push to chase and mate and mate again until I was spent and empty.
It was one such woman or man (memory cares little enough for distinction) who led my sight to a copse of trees directly ahead, a flash from above which sped to earth. I flicked my eyes, reproachful, to the sun, and saw between the branches and the leaves in grey a fall of flakes that glinted gold, which pushed and swam against their descent from sky to pale earth till it slowed to a still, and they hung in amber long since gone. They were the last dying children of day, sedate and heavenly in their demise, with the unreasonable, irrefutable beauty of a siren call, whispering of the glory that would come tomorrow, their explosive resurrection, their enduring triumph. I know not how long I sat, transfixed and lost in the extended moment, but I do remember clearly that the white van which roared by in a clogged up cough of artificiality and muted, poisonous explosions, was how I ended. When it had passed the specks of light were gone also, snuffed out by exhaust. I closed my book, bid them farewell and stood, not sad, but looking forward to tomorrow.
Unnecessarily wordy introduction
It is with a mounting and tangible pleasure that I come to you tonight with a pre-emptive salvation - with information so important that it could well be as epoch-defining as the Gospels on which the foundations of the western world securely rest. And, like Christianity’s Good Book, the story I have to tell is of unusual origin and composition; to their Romans and people of Galilee, I have 19th Century Russian aristocracy. They brought you the Ultimate's scion, borne of an unbroken woman – I bring you existentially bombastic apes.Heed me, ye tired wanderers of literature's endless path – for I come with great news.And it starts, as all good tales do, with a profound defeat.* The past month has been full of new experiences for me: I've discussed period pains and womb cramps without an involuntary shiver of evil running down my spine...I've discovered one can subsist entirely off pasta floating in a variety of alchemical compositions...and I have been defeated by not one, but two books. For the first time in 22 years, I haven't been able to finish a book once I started reading it. I know, it doesn't sound like a big deal, but as I reluctantly closed the covers of the first novel someone outside my window got stabbed. The Universe cares.**Second Genesis...is first on our list of literary abortions for this evening. It took just 20 pages for SG to defeat me – twenty pages of depressed sighs, emotive grimaces and uncomfortable silences. Though it was nigh on 5 weeks ago that the contents of this awful first chapter passed my eyes, they're still regrettably burned into my psyche, and are recounted for you below.The book as a whole starts as it means to go on: Really, really badly. Underneath the blurb on the back cover is a tagline in large green letters:“SURVIVAL IS AN INSTINCT....SO IS FEAR!”The author (providence has robbed me of his name or I'd be writing this camped outside his house) has, before we've cracked open the musty covers of the book, presented us with something totally devoid of meaning or emotional significance. The second line of the above has got nothing to do with anything. Fear is part of the survival instinct, prodding one to preservation by virtue of coating your shorts in excrement and then running the hell away. One can only assume that considered and rejected options ran along the same, utterly irrelevant lines.SURVIVAL IS AN INSTINCT...SO IS HUNGER!DONT FORGET TO EAT WELL,A BALANCED DIET IS IMPORTANT.The book is set in a jungle. In a country. Somewhere or other. Earth. The exact location isn’t important - all we need to know is that the jungle is hot and contains a (failing) camp full of scientists, and one of these scientists is a woman, with breasts. Breasts wet with humidity. Breasts so wet with humidity that her shirt is sticking to them uncomfortably, embarrassing her in front of the swarthy native worker she's trying to get freaky with. He has, not at all typically, “dark, mysterious eyes”. FFS.After two utterly awful paragraphs about her flirtatious posturing, horny scientist decides her genitals aren't going to be called into play any time soon and so leaves to go for a run. We’re informed that swarthy native boy steals a glance at her bottie on the way out, calming any fears we may have had that she was unattractive. Already we're endeared to this woman only as a hormone-driven, uncomfortably moist hack scientist who could quite easily be replaced as a plot device by a malfunctioning dildo in a swimming pool.So. She's running and she's thinking and the run and the energy and the rhythmic slap of her feet against the fronds clears her mind and it's all very much an advert for Nike shoes from the early 90s. You're a power woman. Fill those lungs. Stretch those thighs. Make that sports bra work for its pay – right now you're independent and strong, but enjoy it because soon you're going to be back fiddling with a microscope, filling a small lake with secretions from your chest and mentally fixating on the puff and stuff of a teenage boy. Whoops! She slips and slides and falls down somewhere or other and comes across a forty foot wire fence.Bear in mind that this camp of several hundred people has existed for two years and that she's been running for ten minutes along her favourite route. The reader can only presume that this enormous mile long barrier had remained unnoticed up until now, perhaps because none of the scientists in question ever deviate even the smallest distance from their camp. Or maybe because the author is a lazy SOB and couldn’t think of a better way to introduce it. Whatever. Scientist lady, displaying the sound-judgement that has endeared her to her profession, chooses not to report this anomaly but to throw a vine over the massive magical fence and explore the inside, with no concern or consideration of possible danger to herself, or the contents of this obviously protected enclosure. On the plus side, this explains why her jungle-based venture is slowly failing; it seems to be staffed exclusively by people as bright as broken 5 watt bulbs submerged under a tar-pit.Inside the enclosure she stumbles around for a little while before she sees two apes, sitting on the floor.Now: a little bit of serious exposition. The sci-fi savvy reader may at this point suspect that all will not be natural with these apes. They reside, for example, in a mysterious and well guarded enclosure. They are the lone live things there, the sole focus of the narrative, and most tellingly, they're being discovered by a scientist, who (if she ever displays any indication of intelligence) would be a good character to notice and investigate natural anomalies. Our suspicions are enforced when the author slyly mentions that the mother ape, in between watching her child cavort and touching herself, is delicately balancing rocks on top of each other.This is a good move. The average reader won't know that much about rock-related ape play, and this could be simple, innocent behaviour. We could be thrown off the scent. Obviously that’s too subtle for Second Genesis though, and we’re led to believe it’s not normal behaviour because:a) The author devotes three paragraphs to it,andb) The act of stacking the rocks makes mummy ape considerably smarter than everything else we've encountered in the book so far.
That's NOT ENOUGH THOUGH. This writer does NOT rest on his laurels! A soupcon of intrigue isn't going to satisfy his audience - the subtle hint of attraction at the start of the book was more or less replaced by a flood of vaginal fluid, so why should he change tack now? No! The baby ape walks over to Horny Scientist with “a disturbingly intelligent look” in its eyes, but that's STILL NOT ENOUGH. It picks up a stick and starts to draw things in the ground! Pictograms? No! Hieroglyphs? No! Stick men? NO!What the ape writes in front of her is:“WHO AM I?”BANG - THIS CHAPTER IS DONE. Ideally the reader here is rocked to his core – the adorable rock-stacking simians have shown themselves to be inquisitive sentient beings mired in an existential funk. No poo-flinging here I'm afraid. This is stupendous. Astounding. A literary coup de grace within the first 20 pages. Not ONLY has this ape the intelligence to question his or her own existence, he or she can do it in clearly formulated, grammatically perfect English. (Or, to put it in a slightly different way, they're just about demonstrably literate and they don't mind approaching strangers with absurd text. Remind you of anyone, author whose name I can't remember?). Not able to rely on subtlety or nuance, we’ve been coshed over the head with the melodrama-stuffed sock of literary effluence. I didn't read past the end of this chapter, but the following ingredients are all fairly predictable. She'll form a bond, the apes will turn evil, there will be ethically dubious individuals and at some point firelight will gleam off the ripping biceps of the swarthy well-endowed teenager, as he joins her and they dunk themselves headfirst into the profane. Maybe an ape will be watching. I don't know.This book, sad to say, has by my own fault been released to the wild and is circulating on the London Underground system. It bears a sticker on the front cover that reads as follows:“Hello. I found reading this book as enjoyable as having my eyes scooped out by an paralytically drunk baboon. If you enjoy it, please take it home with my blessing. I do not want it back.”I can only advise that you never, EVER engage with it. If this means avoiding all books from now on, that's a course of action that I would wholeheartedly endorse. I was in a funk for 8 days after those twenty pages – the worst depression to hit me since I realised a year ago that our total lack of any connection meant Neil Gaiman probably wasn't my long lost brother.Beware.---* Cf Schindler's List, The Count of Monte Cristo, War of the Worlds, Bambi.
** Not strictly true, but the implications would be shocking if it were.