Economical Hookers In London

Today I learned that it is cheap, very cheap, we're talking dirt cheap, to get a hooker in London. London whores? Extremely inexpensive. I also learned that there are many, many, many brothels in London at which to find and pay for the cheap ass whores. Who knew? I'm guessing the Londoners, but other than them? Well, not me.

There's a group called the POPPY Project in Southwark and their purpose and mission is to "provide education about prostitution and to help victims of sex trafficking." That according to the fine chaps across the pond at BBC News. Therefore, to fulfill that mission, they had their researchers pose as "potential punters" ("Punters"? Is that British for "john"? They have to have their little names for everything, don't they?) and call some brothels that they found advertising in newspapers. Wow. Whorehouses in the newspaper. While that's interesting, it's not exactly the most shocking part of this aspect of the story. No, that aspect would be that those whorehouses that they called? Yeah, there were 921 of them.

921 brothels in London?! 921 whorehouses?! What's the average number of whores per house in London? I don't know either, but let's assume it's 5. (I realize that's a low estimate, but the number is going to seem huge as it is. I see no need to get carried away.) That would mean that there are 4605 whores in London. That's approximately 28 whorehouses for each of London's 33 boroughs. (A borough is basically like a town or a city. There they go again with their fancy little names. What's wrong with just "town", London?) Holy whorehouse, now THAT'S a lot of whores.

(Say, is there a correct term for when more than one hooker gathers in the same location at the same time? Like a gaggle? A flock? A herd? A pride? (Oh, it most certainly is not called a "pride of hookers". The term "hooker" itself automatically implies that it is devoid of any "pride" in the first place.) I'm just going to go with "handful". A handful of hookers. Catchy, no?)

So, the sneaky, punter posing researchers learned that some of the brothels charge as low as £15.

Now, over there in the UK, they don't use the Euro. No, as we've already learned, the UK needs to be all fancy, so their unit of currency is pounds sterling. (Pounds sterling? Rather pretentious sounding, don't you think?) Pounds sterling is represented by the " £ " sign, which is yet another pretentious UK personalization. To convert pounds sterling to US dollars, every £1 is the equivalent of approximately $1.772 USD. Thus, £15 would convert to $26.58. For a hooker!

Look, I know the economy is rough and all, but less than thirty bucks for a whore? And while she is a whore and all, even thirty bucks seems low for a whore. The article does say that if you want unprotected sex, that can run you another £10 or $17.72 USD. (Me, personally, I'd be wanting to pay extra for super-duper, over protected sex. She IS a hooker, remember?) That's $44.30 for unprotected sex with a hooker in London. You can't go on a date with a non-hooker for less than $50! Holy canoli! And the article doesn't mention a coupon or frequent flyer program or anything like that, so I can only assume it's just the regular going rate.

By the way, if you're the sort of person who this sort of thing appeals to, well, thanks for reading. But aside from that, if you're going to partake in such an activity, might I suggest that you don't actually count out the change for the hooker? Think of it as a tip, perhaps? But don't be asking her if she has a penny or anything like that. Just fork over the cash and get down to it. (I'm sure that information is available on a brochure at the Chamber of Commerce there in London, but his way, you'll already be prepared.)

With prices like those, how profitable are these brothels anyway? Good question. The answer will shock you (especially when you factor in the $26.58 per whore price tag). The researchers estimated that "the brothels generated between £50m to £130m a year." Here's a bit of foreshadowing: That little "m" after the 50 and the 130? Yeah, that's stands for "millions". And after I do the math, you will know that turns out to between $88,600,000 and $230,100,000! WTF?!?!

OK, something is wrong with their math! There is no way in hooker hell or hooker heaven (depending upon your perspective) that those slut sanctuaries are generating millions and millions of dollars or pounds sterling or whatever the hell unit of currency you horny bastards are forking over to them hand over fist (innuendo so implied!). NO way! Oh, wait a minute. I forgot that there were 921 of them, for cryin' out loud! Geez. You just don't think of someplace like London having 921 brothels, you just don't! So then that comes out to approximately $249,837 per brothel in London per year. And some of these chicks are doing it for less than fifty bucks per punter! (See? I can be uppity and British too!)

Actually, according to these researchers, the "average price for full sex was about £62." That's a little over $108 USD. And while that's more reasonable for the person getting paid for all of the sex, it's still an abomination. I'll bet that even if Wal-Mart had hookers, they'd get paid more than that! But what is "full sex"? After you've eaten? The article doesn't say.

And here comes the scientific conclusion that the researchers arrived at: "This research shows the disturbing prevalence of the sex industry in every corner of London - fuelled by the demand for prostitution services." First of all, what in the hell else would it be fuelled by if not the "demand for prostitution services"? And second, why is what is being focused on the "prevalence of the sex industry on every corner in London"? Personally, I'd be more concerned about the seemingly insatiable "demand for prostitution services" in London. I mean, shouldn't you want to know why those uppity Brits are so damned horny randy all the time that they need a brothel on every corner like they were 7-11s? The brothels are just meeting a need. Don't blame the brothel!

So what have we learned today? More than any of us wanted to, that is correct. But let's review anyway.

You can get a hooker in London just about anywhere you go for very, very cheap. It has been estimated (by me) that there are thousands of whores working the many, many brothels in London for a mere pittance paid in pounds sterling every time they jump in the sack with a punter. (And not the kind of punter that you'll find in the NFL, either. Well, not always that kind of punter.) We also learned that the whorehouses make a boatload of money every year. And finally, we learned that sometimes, when they feel it's necessary, scientists/researchers can be very, very sneaky in conducting their little experiments and gathering all of their data. But probably only the British ones are like that. I'm sure that the scientists and researchers in this country (even the ones working for the Federal Government) aren't sneaky hardly at all.

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msgs u snd shd B IN ENGLISH

So the fine folks across the pond there in London are slowly, but surely, losing their minds. And I'm not saying that because of the occasional haggis eating contest. (OK, I AM saying that's not normal, but I'm not saying it right now.) No, they seem to be going in a direction in which I'm not quite sure which way is up. Here's the scoop:

According to the fine folks over there at the Mail Online, the London Grid for Learning (known by them as the LGfL. Why the little "f", I have no idea. Then again, I don't know what a "learning grid" is either.) has created a poster that is currently being displayed in over 2,000 secondary schools in London. The poster is titled "Top Tips For Pupils - Safe surfing at home and at school". Well, that sounds like a good thing, doesn't it? Of course it does. Of course it sounds like a good thing. But does it read like a good thing? Behold! A poster that is supposed to convey something about something to someone!

Oh, what the hell is that? (If you click the image above, the monstrosity should get bigger.)That would be the poster that gives guidelines to students on how to stay safe when online or when using their cell phone (known across the pond to those wacky Brits as their mobile, which is often pronounced mow-BILE). It gives those guidelines to those students in the form of TEXT MESSAGE LINGO. According to the Mail Online, over 5,000 of the posters are "...written in a mind-boggling array of numbers and unlikely combinations of letters, in an attempt to connect with children who are more comfortable writing and reading in the abbreviated language used in mobile phone text messages than formal English." Oh, well, that explains it. What could possibly go wrong?

Are you freaking kidding me? What is that crap? Don't get me wrong, I am an extremely adept texter. But as anyone who has ever received a text from me will tell you, I don't abbreviate squat. Every word is typed out. I even use punctuation. There's just something so...so....not OK about using "u" in place of "you". I don't like it. It's all very Prince. (before he wasn't Prince and was just that symbol thing and then was Prince again and then...is he still Prince? Regardless, it was before all of that stuff started happening.) No, that's not totally it. It's just a mess is what it is.

The LGfL folks explained it/tried to justify this nonsense by saying that they "believe text language is the best way to get through to children today." A one Brian Durrant, who is the chief executive of the LGfL, said: ‘We think it would raise their interest by using “textese”. It does take some translating, but we want to connect with the pupils." SOME translating? Dude, do I look like an archaeologist, intensely trained and highly skilled at deciphering hieroglyphics? No? Good, because I'm not. And that's why it's going to take a little bit more than SOME translating to figure that out. This is better than English written as English...why? Again?

Allow me to translate a little bit of this crap for you. Number nine reads: "nvr agree 2 mEt an on9 pal IRL w/o chekin W a responsible XXX." That line of crap is supposed to mean: "Never agree to meet an online friend in real life without checking with a responsible adult." So, let me get this straight....they feel the need to abbreviate words like "never" and "to" and "with", but they do not feel the need to abbreviate "responsible"?? They're doing it backwards! You don't abbreviate the already brief! They're already brief! Why must they make them briefer?! Why not brief the elongated instead?! It makes even less sense to me now than it did when I started making fun of it.

And what is with "adult" being abbreviated as "XXX"? Doesn't "XXX" usually stand for the really porn-y porn? Like goat rapist porn? As an adult who is not a goat rapist, I'm a bit offended that all "adults" are grouped under the "XXX" label in this seedy text underworld.

Number one read like this: "u av d ryt 2 feel safe ll d tym, includN wen UzN ICT or yr mob ph." This is supposed to translate into English as "You have the right to feel safe all the time, including when using information communications technology or your mobile phone." All right, that's just crap. It read like: "You have dry teetoo feels a fell deetyem, includ enwin uzi en ickt or your mobfuh." Sure. That's going to help. Oh, and these posters are up in the classrooms and hallways of the schools over there, are they? Yeah, that will really speed up the learning process for sure!

Now, in Scotland, "....text messaging, social networking websites and blogs will be studied alongside books, plays and poetry in schools in future under new curriculum guidelines that were published earlier this year." Oh, sweet mother of God, I need to find out who is in charge of this little experiment in Scotland and contact them immediately! They must study this blog! (Perhaps they can find out what is wrong with me!) It'd be like Internet psychoanalysis for me. Only with kilts and bagpipes and little golf hats with pom-pons on top of them (because that's how everyone looks in Scotland, right?).

The Scots can justify this because they say that, "The idea is to use modern methods of communication to engage children and prepare them with the skills necessary for the workplace." And I suppose all of that would be fine and good if they were entering the workplace as children. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that they're not entering the workplace as children. (I'm assuming all of this, of course. For all I know, the Scottish pom-pon factories could have sweatshops that are recruiting child labor left and right over there.)

I was glad to read that not everyone over there thinks that this is a good idea. Nick Seaton, who is with the Campaign for Real Education (I like real education!), said, "To use text language is to pass on entirely the wrong message and encourage lower standards. The people behind this really should have known better." But they didn't, Nick, because they're not for "Real Education". No, they seem to be for "RL EdUc8tn". And "RL EdUc8tn" has very low standards indeed.

Well, this should be interesting. If they're going to start publishing educational materials in "text message-ese" one of two things is going to happen. They're either going to end up with a whole bunch of people who will be walking around like human Rosetta Stones or they're going to have a whole bunch of people who are just morons.

Hello, Vegas? Yes, I'd like to place a hundred dollars on the morons, please.

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Speaking of Walrus

So, for some reason, there are a whole lot of bodies/skeletons buried all throughout London. They're everywhere. Under the streets, under the roads, under buildings, everywhere. You can't swing a dead person without hitting another dead person, from what I can tell. So when you have a city full of skeletons, if you're the Museum of London and The Times Online, you team up and you make an electronic map that allows users to zoom in and see how many bodies they walk over on the way to work every day. Spiffy.

The skeleton map project will pinpoint the location of over 37,000 bodies that the museum has found in London. And when I say "in London" I mean just that. Buried right there IN London, right beneath the very two feet you're standing on (if you're standing on them in London). The curators at the museum have kept 17,000 of the ol' bones for themselves in storage, but have re-interred the rest. ("Re-interred" meaning, "back in the ground, wherever we feel like putting them", apparently.)

They went and got all cutsie with the map and put little skull logos to locate where, you guessed it, each skeleton/dead body is. AND, if 37,000 skeletons seems like quite a lot to wade through on your own (and it is), you're in luck because the 26 skeletons with the most fascinating stories will be put on display at the Wellcome Collection in London. That according to our good friends over there at the Times Online - UK.

But if you still can't wait to learn more about the best ones, here's a teaser. According to The Times, The most gruesome example is the skeleton of a young woman who died around the beginning of the 19th century. She had such severe syphilis that her skull still bears the scars of where the disease entered her bones." (Note to self: Do not get syphilis.) Ooh, but it gets better according to Bill White, who is the senior curator of the museum's bio-archaeology department. Bill said that "The woman would have had open sores on her forehead. By that time she would have been out of her mind, so she wouldn't have known much about it. She was in her twenties when she died. We think she may have been a prostitute, because Southwark, where she was found, was well known for prostitution at the time. She also suffered from rickets, probably from being kept indoors away from sunlight as a child, and had chronic tooth decay. " (Note to self - Part Deux: Your life is pretty darned good.)

Um, "probably from being kept indoors away from sunlight as a child"? What the hell does that mean? The most disturbing part of that (aside from all of it) is the word "probably". "Probably" as in "most likely". WAS it "most likely" that the individual was "kept indoors away from sunlight as a CHILD?" I would hope something like that would fall more in the "least likely" category, but apparently it does not. Of course, no word on WHY she was "probably kept indoors". Important information to the reader, one would think! But it's no where to be found.

Here's some more skeleton-y goodness to tide you over until October. Well, when the Chelsea graveyard (that's in Chelsea) was being explored, the archaeologists there discovered the Hand brothers, who, according to our friends at The Times Online again, were "imaginatively named Richard Gideon and Gideon Richard, and whose family invented the Chelsea Bun." (The Chelsea Bun is the distant cousin of America's beloved bun, the Cinnamon.) Richard Gideon was an odd duck. (NO. Not a platypus.) He was an officer in the Staffordshire militia who was known to his men as “Captain Bun”. (A title which I'm sure commanded loads of respect.) The Captain also enjoyed walking about his neighborhood in a fez and a long gown. (Clearly, this was long before "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".) Jelena Bekvalac, an osteologist at the museum said that his neighbors saw him as "a bit of an eccentric." Oh, do you THINK? The 1850s, in or around the London area and some guy is walking around with a fez and a gown and calling himself "Captain Bun". That's almost the very definition of "eccentric." Sadly, for reasons unknown, his skeleton will not be part of the 26 on display. (Though, could you imagine if it was? They could dress his ol' bones up with the fez and gown and give him a tray of Chelsea buns. It'd be quite a hook for tourists, you have to admit.)

There's another set of skeletal remains that will also NOT be on display with the 26 that are. These would be the remains that were found in a coffin in a graveyard at St. Pancras. And while it's not overly surprising to find remains in a coffin in a graveyard, it is a little surprising when you learn that the remains that were found were that of a walrus. Wait. What?

Correct. For some reason, a walrus, yes, a walrus was given a rather dignified burial, complete with coffin, in a cemetery where you almost never find ANY walruses. (Walruses? Walrusi? Walri? I swear, trying to figure out the plural of things like 'walrus' or 'octopus' is just a pain in the ass. All of your choices sound good! There's no way to tell!) And here's where it starts to get weird. The archaeologists don't have any clue as to why the walrus is there, who put it there, none of it. They just don't know.

Oh, but they DO know about a woman who "probably" was locked in a closet as a child and they DO know about the gowned Captain Fun Bun and his traipsing about town in his fez. THAT they know. But the walrus has them stumped? HOW is it possible to know EVERYTHING about the skeletal people and NOTHING about the walrus?! (Kind of makes me wonder if they were just making all of that other stuff up.)

Yep. It's a head scratcher alright, Chumley. It's a head scratcher.

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Half-Cocked Signage

Will Smith has a new movie coming out. Now, if you're in, say, London, it's entirely possible that you could learn about the plot of this movie in a completely different fashion than if you were in, say, the US. See, if you were in the US and you learned about Smith's new film, you'd know that it's called 'Hancock" and it's about an alcoholic superhero who is hated by the public. (Of course. No one likes a drunken superhero.) You'd know that after he saves the life of PR executive Ray Embrey (who is played, interestingly enough, by Jason Bateman), Embrey attempts to rehabilitate the drunken superhero's public image. (Step one: Stop getting drunk. Step two: Be more super.) As a way of showing his gratitude, Hancock has an affair with Embrey's wife (played by the very hot and extremely luscious Charlize Theron). Nice. What a d**k.

But see, look at how long that took me to explain. I mean, it wasn't terribly long, but it was more than it would have taken those chaps over in London at Leicester Square where the movie was premiering. For some reason, the blokes putting up the lettering for the sign started at the back. They apparently needed some sort of a break about halfway through this chore and so they took one, leaving their job half finished, but still conveying the basic premise of the main character in the movie.

And that seems to sum up the main character. Totally different delivery of the exact same message. And although a bit more vague, I think Ilike their method a bit more than those used in the US. Yeah, little bit.

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Where'd I Put That Puffer Fish?

In London, when you leave something in a train, bus or taxi, the policy is that they hang onto it at the Transport For London Lost Property Office until someone claims it. And I was amazed at the stuff that people forget that the property office gets to hold. Simply amazed.

A record 170,000 items of lost property were left on the capital’s transport network over the last year. According to Julie Haley who manages the lost property office, the number of items that are handed in has been increasing year after year and claims that they receive approximately 700 items every day. (If you do the math with the 170,000 items a year figure, it appears to amount to around 465 items a day, but it's still a hell of a lot.) She claims that the fact that such a huge number of items are turned in every day "is a real testament to the honesty of Londoners on the whole.” See, but to me it's a testament that Londoners would forget their heads if they weren't attached to their bodies, so it's all just a matter of perception, really. Overall, about one in three of the items are returned (eventually) to the rightful owner (or the thief who left them on the bus).

So what do people leave on The Tube? Well, last year there were 32,268 books, 27,946 bags and 25,802 clothing items left behind. (What kind of clothing items? How many of those were pants? After all, the thing is called "The Tube". It seems like a reasonable question.) And if the pictures that the fine folks over at The Telegraph are any indication, there's a whole lot, I mean a whole lot of other stuff left lying around the transportation vehicles of London. Let's take a gander, shall we?

• The stuffed puffer fish. What amazes me about this one is that it doesn't appear to be in any sort of carrying device. I could see forgetting it if it were in some sort of tank or box, but if you've got this sucker tucked under your arm, you'd think you might notice when you don't have it tucked under your arm (or when it feels a lot less pokey).
  
  
  
  
  

• Um, the 80s called. They want their phones back. (And bring the skull while you're at it!)
  
  
  

• I didn't even know that there were this many sparkly tiara like hairpieces that looked like butterflies or dragonflies, let alone that many that were left on the Tube. (Maybe they are actually tiaras. It is London. They have that whole monarchy/Queen thing going on and there are tiaras involved with stuff like that.)
  
  
  
  

• And finally, the grossest (and most mind boggling) of them all: The piles of false teeth and other dental appliances and prosthetic teeth. Apparently, one guy who had lost his false teeth on a bus picked them up from the lost property office, only to return a few hours later to explain that they weren't his after all! Let's just forget about the "How do you leave your teeth on a bus?" question that's running through everyone's head right now. How about the other pressing question of, "How do you put in false teeth that aren't yours?!?!" (Good Lord, I hope he didn't have them in his mouth during the entire time he had them before he realized his unfortunate error.)

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The Fungus Among Us

How much exposure do you think those who live in Russia have to the rest of the world? What kind of media sources do they have and what exactly are their sources providing them with? News? Pop culture? (Though I do not know exactly what would constitute "pop culture" in Russia, but the question is still valid!) Tabloid gossip? Dr. Phil-ski? Whatever it is, either it's not very extensive or they just don't get it. I base that conclusion on a picture that a Russian student claims that she took of a UFO while she was in studying in London.

The first thing that I found odd about that claim is that she was in London when she took the picture of the UFO. I don't recall hearing about a lot of trailer parks in London. Hmmm. Interesting. The second odd thing was where she was when she saw the object and took the picture. Anastasiya Gavrilenko says that she was at Ribblesdown Park in Croydon, South London when she heard a noise and looked up in the sky and saw the object. Now, it appears to have been during the day when this occurred, so I'm having difficulty with some big huge object hurtling through the sky in the middle of the day, in the middle of London (there's a lot of middling over there in England) and the only person who notices it is a 17-year old girl and she's from out of town! None of the regular reisdents of the town see it. None of the people who live their entire lives there see it. No, instead it's the temporary foreigner who senses something out of the ordinary is afoot and and quick as a whip, she snaps a photo! Of course. And she's the only one. Again, Hmmm.

But really, the thing that really made me a little skeptical (she's totally lying!) was the picture itself. Behold! A picture of a UFO taken in London by a Russian.

OK, I think I can speak for most when I say, WTF is that? Um, Ana? Yeah. Sweetie? See...um, that's not a UFO. No, that's a mushroom. More specifically, that is half of a mushroom. But a mushroom none the less. And from what I've heard, scientists these days are beginning to realize that UFOs and mushrooms are different.

There are no clouds in the photo, no one else saw the UFF (Unidentified Flying Fungus), it's pretty blurry for a photo taken with any camera in the year 2008 and, most importantly, it's a mushroom. Let's compare: Here's the UFF:

And here's a mushroom:


Yep. They're the same!

See, that is why I question what their exposure is to everything else in the world. Did she not think that someone out there MIGHT be able to look at that and say, "Didn't I see that on my pizza last night?" Does she really think that a blurry photo of an edible fungi that has the consistency of an eraser would be so much better than a Photoshop scam job that she would get away with it when so many others have tried to pull it off and failed miserably? I just can't come up with any other rationale for it. And why a mushroom? Why not something more complex? Like an artichoke. have you seen one of those things? They're crazy looking. I would have believed that before I would have bought the 'shroom story here.

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OMG, OGC!

The Office of Government Commerce over there in London decided that they needed some sort of a catchy logo to represent their department. They paid 14,000 of those lira things to have a logo created that would show a bold commitment to the body’s aim of “improving value for money by driving up standards and capability in procurement”. Oh, it did appear to be driving something up. You'd think that for 14,000 lira things, someone within the group of people responsible for creating the logo might have been able to do what people who weren't responsible for creating the logo could. That would be to look at the design you've created from all angles, just to save yourselves from mockery later on. (Oh, and to save yourself from having to hear "penis" a lot. I mean a LOT.)

Here's the logo that was created for the OGC:

Not bad. Looks....wait. What if I....turn it...like....this:

And it's hard to say what's more amusing, the logo debacle itself, or the comments that were made by the OGC about the logo. So many puns, so little time. According to the fine folks over there at The Telegraph, “It is true that it caused a few titters among some staff when viewed on its side, but on consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC - and it is not inappropriate to an organisation that’s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.” Yes, good idea, boys. Make sure you get a "firm grip" on that. Hang on tight. Not too tight! You don't want to break it!

Another person who commented on the logo/man-holding-penis design was brand expert Michael Hamilton. Hamilton said that this could be a positive thing for the OGC. “They’re going to get more column inches than they could ever have expected before. If I were them, I would be pretty pleased.” Yes. I'm sure that their inches will grow as a result. Nice job, Mike.

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