The Euro Cup was absolutely thrilling, and we couldn’t be happier that Spain won. I’d been watching the matches and had predicted early on that Spain would win. Of course a lot of that was wishful thinking, but still, I was right. We watched the final at a packed Spanish bar surrounded by cheering, dancing and kissing Spaniards.

The Spanish love football. They really love it. So all the hugging and kissing was reserved for football celebrations while the annual Erotic Film Festival in Barcelona was uncharacteristically chaste. Normally the promoters expect 50,000 men in trench coats using aliases and paying in cash. This year’s attendance was down over 70%, and the decline was blamed on the Euro Cup.

“Football is one of the few things that can compete with sex,” moaned the festival director: compete and win, apparently.

One of Spain’s newest sex symbols:

How can hot, naked women compete?

Amsterdam, like many EU countries, is banning smoking indoors.

Well not quite. You can still smoke marijuana or hash, but not tobacco. This is great news for people who want to hang out with their prostitute while tripping on magic mushrooms and smoking hash, but are worried about the health risk of second-hand smoke.

Amsterdam, you are truly a land of contradictions. Like a riddle wrapped in an enigma.

I love many things about living in London, but occasionally I miss little things such as good American IPAs, sunny weather and Mexican food. Sometimes I miss the bigger things like the bill of rights. Free speech ‘traditions’ be damned. I prefer my rights, such as the First Amendment, to be in writing to prevent just this sort of thing; A teenager is facing prosecution for calling Scientology a ‘cult’.

The act this 15-year-old is accused of violating is the ominously Orwellian named ’Public Order Act’ which prohibits using words that are ‘abusive and insulting’. Calling Scientology a cult is ‘abusive and insulting’? I think it’s more of a case of calling a spade a spade.

Since my last post poked some fun at the cult organisation seeking to separate its followers from their money and family, I will refrain from saying more lest I end up in court. You can, however, visit this handy site named after the alien overlord at the center of Scientology for more information.

update: Apparently I am free to refer to Scientology as a cult again. So, Scientology is a cult, scam and a con. But the London police might be in on it… Aliens everywhere!

Darth Vader received a suspended sentence after attacking two Jedi Masters with a lightsaber after breaching their church’s defenses. In Wales.

Darth Vader, er 27-year-old Arwel Wynne Hughes wearing a black bin bag, attacked two members of the Jedi church in March. He cunningly found the flaw in their perimeter by leaping the hedge and shouting “Jedis! Darth Vader!”.

The two Jedi masters related the harrowing tale in Intergalactic/Wales district court. Master Jonba Hehol -aka 27-year-old Welsh hairdresser Barney Jones - was struck over the head with the lightsaber - aka metal crutch. His cousin and co-founder of the Church of Jediism, Anglesey order, Master Mormi Hehol - or more informally, Michael Jones - was struck in the thigh by the Sith Lord’s weapon leaving a rather dark bruise.

Darth Hughes claims to have no memory of the event due to either a Jedi mind trick or his drinking of a 10-litre box of wine beforehand. Fortunately the two Jedi Masters recorded the whole event on a camcorder they had set up to film themselves having a lightsabre duel.

Master Mormi Hehol, skilled in recognising danger in his dual role as head of sect security and Poundsaver employee, thanked their lucky stars; “If it had actually been Darth Vader with a real lightsaber, things might have been more serious”.

Jonba Hehol put the inter-sectarian violence in context, “We all love the films and what they stand for. Obviously some people are going to laugh about it. But a lot of people do take it seriously.”

Hey, it’s not as weird as Scientology.

Great tits cope well with warming. Insert your own joke here. All of mine will just increase my bizarre search hits.

Well we’re back from four days in Amsterdam and I’ll have to start a detox program for my body. It’s so easy to indulge in so much in that city.

This trip was incredible and a marked difference from my last one. Last time I was there was in January of 2006. My sister and I had great difficulty finding someone to speak English with and were treated to many Dutch phrases that I’m certain were insults. We also saw the seamy underbelly of the city, which in most cases is charming, but in Amsterdam it can be especially seedy.

This trip was different. I’m not certain if it was due to the fact that Amsterdam cracked down on unlicensed coffeeshops and closed a significant portion of the red light district, but the experience was a marked change. Everyone was friendly, the weather beautiful and we were never treated rudely in any interactions. Even the coffeshops seemed cleaner and weren’t full of junkies and techno music. The junkies were bad enough but the techno music was unbearable.

We arrived at about noon on Thursday. After checking in at the hotel, we indulged in the complimentary whisky decanter in our room. Then we headed out in search of a coffeeshop. Our hotel was on a canal, and as soon as we crossed that we found a punk/skateboard shop. I was thrilled.

Next were the coffeshops. We found a couple about two blocks down that became our place of choice. Then we walked about the city; the weather was great and our meanderings and stopping at benches were a nice experience. I don’t remember benches when my sister and I went.

We went to dinner by ourselves rather than with the wedding party as we wanted a bit of time away to ourselves. We went to a restaurant called ‘Knus’ (cozy) and had a great meal. They had a crazy menu, which given Amsterdam makes a weird kind of sense. They had mains like raw ahi tuna lasagna with poppadums and wasabi vegetables. I was so tempted to order it, but I stuck with stuffed chili peppers followed by roquefort croquettes. I clearly felt in a cheesy mood. Mrs. Yanqui had goat cheese on toast followed by red mullet. The desserts were equally amusing as they featured pear and thyme ice with a vodka sauce, but we skipped desserts and just drank our absinthe sours followed by coffees. Absinthe sour, by the way, is not a good drink.

…But we’ll take you regardless.

As part of a recruitment drive, letters from the Training and Development Agency here in the UK have been sent out to entice teachers who have left the profession to come back. The letters describe the increased pay, time off and overall joie de vivre inherent in teaching.

They didn’t screen the list of recipients too well though. They were sent to teachers declared ‘unfit to teach’ and ones who left on grounds of mental illness. There’s probably a good lesson to be learned here.

It’s hard to shock Londoners.

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Now playing: Anti-Flag - The Press Corpse
via FoxyTunes

Thriller London Underground

Owning a bike in London is often described as a waiting game until it gets nicked. As if that isn’t bad enough, now I have to worry about it being sexually abused. BBC News reports on a ‘cyclesexual’ who was arrested after attempting to have carnal knowledge with a Schwinn.

The BBC also has a report on a virtual theft that has resulted in a very real arrest. Some Dutch teenagers stole furniture from the Habbo virtual hotel which they then relocated to their own rooms. At least they didn’t fence them for virtual drugs.

There is also a story about Australians being the worst emitters. I assume it has to do with CO2, but you never know.

CMM News has a story on one of the strangest commercials I’ve seen in a while. It’s from France and it’s for Orangina, which is a drink that I have trouble saying with a straight face. Not sure of the target audience. Perhaps psychoanalysts like orange soda?

The YouTube embedding is breaking things now, so you’ll have to click the link for the video.

The mayor of Amsterdam has spent €25 million to buy up one third of the brothels in the red light district. It was decided that although prostitution is legal, there was just too much of it going on in the city to the detriment of other businesses. Imagine the pie chart at that city hall meeting.

The brothels are scheduled to be turned into new housing. Presumably the new tenants will have curtains.