Bore-core

Dear life

2008-05-17T04:33:10Z

Make me small in your arms.

_yungfuktoi_ @ 2008-05-16T15:44:00

2008-05-16T14:46:25Z

Today, life will either be on its way to getting better, or become fantastically worse.
My survival helmet is on, just in case.

Disclaimer: pop music ahead. But there's also casual lezzing, so watch it.

2008-05-14T06:14:39Z

I'm chuffed to be doing costumes for music videos again: this time for European pop star Natalia Lesz.

A far better version can be found at the directors website.

_yungfuktoi_ @ 2008-04-30T02:25:00

2008-04-30T01:28:45Z

I've noticed that there's a hell of a lot of cleavage in my MySpace 'top friends'. Have I become one of those guys?

Suddenly, my day doesn't seem so bad.

2008-04-26T20:11:27Z

From Blabbermouth:

"MOTÖRHEAD drummer Mikkey Dee reveals his worst party experience drinking absinthe in Prague, the capital of Czech Republic. "That stuff makes you go nuts," says Dee about the anise-flavored spirit. "I'd had a few shots and felt weird, so I rushed back to the hotel."

Mikkey Dee went to bed, but soon found himself awake in another man's room.

"I woke up in a bathroom with a man screaming at me. I had been sleepwalking, walked into someone else's bathroom and fallen asleep. I ran out and discovered that I was naked and without my room key. I had to take the elevator, an elevator made out of glass, down to the hotel reception."

Ladies and gentlemen...

2008-04-22T15:57:16Z

Today's optimism brought to you by the Chicago Bears

2008-04-18T22:12:31Z

Super Bowl Shuffle rap, 1985. With saxophone solo.

You can has Mother of London?

2008-04-17T15:39:51Z

I was asked to complete a collection for a charity event at the end of this month, of which I'm mostly finished, and I work through my entire trip home in order to finish in time.

I find out two hours before I'm supposed to leave for the States that it's been postponed. Until October. So I'm out several thousand dollars and squandered my first trip back in four months. Nice. Oh well, stuff happens.

I now have two weeks unaccounted for so I think I'm going to to give this Ebay thing a go. If there are any particular pieces you'd like to see available, leave me a comment here or email me at mildredvon at yahoo dot com, and I'll try to make the most popular pieces available. You can see most of my collection on MySpace and Model Mayhem.

Edited to add: If you would like to be notified by email, send your email address to the above.

High school marching band performs 'The Hand That Feeds' by Nine Inch Nails

2008-04-07T05:15:54Z

_yungfuktoi_ @ 2008-04-05T17:55:00

2008-04-05T17:03:35Z

Courtesy miss_glitch
And...
Westboro Baptist Church gets Rick Roll'd

wah.

2008-04-04T19:41:05Z

Everything in my life is changing again. This seems to happen in regular cycles since I ventured into adulthood. One thing goes, followed by another, and then suddenly it's as if fate has taken me in it's beak and dropped me into another life.

I fail to find any sense of permanence about anything. There was a time when there was a strong sense of excitement when big changes appeared on the horizon, but now I'm just lethargic. I want to be frozen in time, although perhaps not this one.

_yungfuktoi_ @ 2008-04-03T00:44:00

2008-04-02T23:43:49Z

Stratovarius break up :(
Kicking myself for missing them on the last tour.

Here we go...

2008-04-01T23:15:01Z

Fox News: Steampunk is “Trenchcoat Mafia for Adults”

Eurovision? Why the hell not....

2008-03-26T23:50:12Z

TERÄSBETONI are Finland's entry for Eurovision.
I've been pimping this band for a long time, and I hope this is their well-deserved ticket to world recognition.

In other news, Blind Guardian are playing a role-playing convention. Wonder which clan they're in.

Warning to travellers over Dubai drug laws...officials 'are paid bounty for each arrest'

2008-03-24T17:41:09Z

The Times cover Cat's story in detail, with surprising new revelations being published for the first time.
PASS IT ON.
If anyone has harbored any doubt about the validity of his case up to this point, have them read this.

From The Times
March 24, 2008

Endemol exec sent to Dubai jail after customs find 'speck of dirt'
Warning to travellers over Dubai drug laws as it is claimed officials 'are paid bounty for each arrest'

Murad Ahmed

A speck of dirt invisible to the human eye was all it took to land Cat Le Huy in a Dubai jail.

Officials at Dubai airport claimed they had found 0.03 grams of hashish in the Endemol television executive’s bag after he had travelled to the United Arab Emirates to visit a friend last month. They accused him of possession — which would have led to a mandatory four-year prison sentence had he been convicted. After he spent six weeks in Dubai’s jails protesting his innocence, prosecutors dropped the case this month.

Mr Le Huy, 31, a German citizen living in London, claims that Dubai officials are paid a “bounty” for arresting drug offenders, a practice confirmed independently to The Times by sources who did not wish to be named.

“People shouldn’t go to Dubai until the laws change,” Mr Le Huy said. “They are running a risk. Even if you’re innocent and know about the laws, if they suspect you of anything, you run the risk of incarceration.”

His experience is common, according to Fair Trials International, a legal charity, which says that drug-related arrests have increased rapidly since 2006, when the laws changed in Dubai so that trace amounts of banned substances picked up by airport detection equipment were deemed to indicate possession. “People are being subjected to very thorough searches,” said Saima Jirji, a solicitor at the charity. “Even seams in their clothing and the fluff in their pockets is being checked.”

Mr Le Huy claims that he was also approached by a detective asking whether he knew any drug-takers back in Britain and whether he could coerce them into coming to Dubai. He alleged that at least two other foreign inmates had been approached with similar requests. The UAE Embassy in London refused to comment.

At first he was accused of smuggling heroin after officials found pills in an unmarked container that turned out to be jet-lag medicine sold freely over the counter in Dubai and the US.

He was strip-searched. Officials claimed to have found a trace of hashish in his bag and detained him. He was asked to sign letters in Arabic, which he could not read. Only after being told that he would at once be deported if he signed did he do so, but he wrote “under duress” beneath each signature.

Instead of being deported he was put in solitary confinement. Because he was dehydrated and forbidden from drinking he was only able to produce a urine sample after eight hours.

Last year 59 British people were detained in Dubai over drugs offences, and so far this year the figure is nine, according to the Foreign Office. Keith Brown served nine months after customs officers found a 0.003 gram trace of cannabis stuck to his shoe. This month the BBC Radio 1 DJ Grooverider, whose real name is Raymond Bingham, started a four-year sentence for possessing 2.16 grams of cannabis.

Fair Trials said the list of prohibited substances included everything from antidepressants to a cough medicine for children. Even those in Dubai on transit to another destination can be arrested under the regulations.

Mr Le Huy denies that there were ever any drugs on his person. “Hashish isn’t something available in my social circle — the idea it was in my bag is absolutely ludicrous,” he says.

He was pressed by the authorities to plead guilty, but his refusal left him in a legal limbo. After a persistent campaign by his friends in Britain and after negotiations with his lawyer in the UAE, the Dubai authorities agreed to drop the investigation.

He had initially spent two weeks at the airport jail, where he couldn’t shower because of the condition of the bathrooms. To compensate, he “discovered the magic of Dettol”, using the disinfectant to shower.

At Dubai Central Jail he suffered even worse conditions. Inmates slept eight to a cell. Because of the poor food he lost 15 kilograms in weight (more than two stone). “Every day was a bad day when you wake up and realise, ‘I’m still here.’ ” When he was finally released, he was taken to a police station to pick up his passport, only for detectives to put him in a bloodstained cell for another four hours.

During the six weeks he had found solace in the company of other English-speaking inmates such as Grooverider. Mr Le Huy said that foreign inmates were treated with “distant contempt” by guards, who “played mind games” with them. “They’d ask us to go out in the courtyard at 1am, then take four hours to search all our cells. There was a lad from London who had a bronchial infection. They made him wait in the rain for four hours even after we asked the guards if he could stand in the corridor.”

“The laws and punishments of a nation are theirs to set,” he emphasised, adding: “My point is that you will be detained for a minimum of 21 days if they suspect you of anything, whether or not you’re innocent.”

Contact our advertising team for advertising and sponsorship in Times Online, The Times and The Sunday Times. Search globrix.com to buy or rent UK property.

© Copyright 2008 Times Newspapers Ltd.

This service is provided on Times Newspapers' standard Terms and Conditions. Please read our Privacy Policy.To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from Times Online, The Times or The Sunday Times, click here.This website is published by a member of the News International Group. News International Limited, 1 Virginia St, London E98 1XY, is the holding company for the News International group and is registered in England No 81701. VAT number GB 243 8054 69.

Interview with Diz about prison conditions

2008-03-18T19:40:38Z

In both he met a large number of European residents, who also claim to have been wrongfully imprisoned...

"A very small percentage of them were guilty of trying to bring something across but by and large they were innocent. These people are sitting in a foreign prison and are losing things in their life like their jobs or mortgages. During the Dubai shopping festival we were getting about nine foreign nationals sent in every day..."

TV executive tells of Dubai prison ordeal
editorial@hamhigh.co.uk
18 March 2008
Katie Davies

A HAMPSTEAD TV executive has told of his harrowing 40 days locked up in a Dubai prison with HIV risks, unsanitary conditions and violent inmates for a crime he didn't commit.

Cat Le-Huy, 31, head of technology for Big Brother makers Endemol, finally returned home last Thursday after being thrown behind bars on a holiday in the UAE in January.

Airport officials claimed he was carrying 0.03 grams - less than a grain of sugar - of Hashish in his suitcase - a charge that could lead to a four-year prison term in the country.

But the charges were dropped last week and on his return to his Garnett Road home he told the Ham&High of his horrific experiences behind bars and his new campaign to get others freed.

"It doesn't seem real now, it seems very far away, like it happened to someone else," Mr Le Huy said. "In prison we talked about how we would kiss the first person we saw in British passport control. Passing the last duty free shop in Heathrow, I just thought I'm home."

Mr Le-Huy was held in the airport detention facility in Dubai and later the Al Wathba

prison where he shared a cell with Radio 1 DJ Grooverider, who was convicted to four years in jail for carrying a small amount of cannabis on February 19.

In both he met a large number of European residents, who also claim to have been wrongfully imprisoned, including three others from the Belsize and Swiss Cottage area.

"A very small percentage of them were guilty of trying to bring something across but by and large they were innocent. These people are sitting in a foreign prison and are losing things in their life like their jobs or mortgages. During the Dubai shopping festival we were getting about nine foreign nationals sent in every day.

"Most others weren't serious criminals, but one was a paedophile, which was particularly nasty. We had a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old put in the prison as well and they weren't kept separate from him. We took care of them but one night he kicked down the door of another guy's cell - it was pretty disturbing."

The men were also being held in unsanitary conditions, according to Mr Le-Huy, which made health problems a growing problem.

Mr Le-Huy continued: "There was a hepatitis and HIV scare at the detention centre.

"You get tested when you arrive and there were three men found positive, but it took the guards to sort out who they were and move them.

"There was also some drugging. One guy came in he was screaming all day and all night and kept everyone up. He would just lie in the middle of his urine and faeces. They put him in solitary but he got better and said he had been injected by guards.

"Another guy came in with the same thing - we fed him food and water through the bars, but he didn't improve.

"The bathrooms were absolutely filthy - the toilets were overflowing. There was a Salmonella outbreak, but the prison denied it was happening."

The prisoners also had to deal with the guards who changed their rules "on mood" -

forcing them to stand outside for hours in the rain while they searched their rooms, or confiscated all reading material.

Mr Le-Huy added: "We only had what people left behind and had to keep it hidden - I've read every John Grisham novel going which I never thought I'd say.

"After the shock you have to learn to live with it, but you know you're in too long when you start dreaming of prison.

"Now I keep stopping just to watch people go by. It's like being born again and you have a new level of appreciation."

Mr Le-Huy is now supporting the campaigns to free others he met there and hopes pressure will build on the country to change its legal system.

"You have to be level-headed about things," he said. "There will be cases of people wrongly imprisoned in any judicial system, but if you give an unbiased system, which allows representation, it will limit it. Dubai has a promising future if it can maintain its Islamic views, while also bringing in some sort of representative justice system. It has to realise what it is putting people through - something needs to change.

Top Gear goes to America

2008-03-17T04:12:17Z

This is well worth your time to watch: absolutely hilarious and scary enough to make me want to jump on the first flight home to London. I am not actually joking.

Dear fucking god.

_yungfuktoi_ @ 2008-03-14T20:42:00

2008-03-14T20:50:13Z

Diz and a reporter. Look at the ego I gotta deal with now.

So now that he's sitting at what looks like a Cafe Nero in what is visibly London, safe and sound, I can go back to concentrating on other important things. Like the new fuckin' season of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA!

On a serious note...the campaign is taking a new and interesting turn, but we're waiting for word back on something before we move forward. Yeah, I know. Cryptastic.

WARNING: this post invariably descended into a full on BSG discussion, and there's spoilers in the comments.

Travel plans

2008-03-12T21:12:12Z

Faced with having to cough up $1000 that I simply don't have, it looks like no England for me until April, which I'm a bit gutted about...going to miss ynl 's welcome home party and kumimonster's birthday this year, which is a downer, but most critically I don't think I have the capacity to switch off my survival mode until I actually see him in the flesh.

Not an ideal situation, but vastly more ideal than it could have been, so I'll stop complaining :)

Looking at the first ten days of April, now.

This Sunday: Pass it on!

2008-03-12T06:00:11Z

lydiamorgan and the massive concocted a benefit for Diz...little did they, or anyone else, know that he would be able to show up to it in person. Sneaky bugger and his great escape.

The proceeds from this event are going toward the outstanding legal debt which he is faced with in his newly acquired freedom. He's been through harrowing circumstances and although he's taking everything very well, the last thing he needs to worry about right now is massive debt.

It's £6, and at an awesome venue...stop by for a bit and welcome ynl home. He's squishy!

I'll be there to carry him home afterwards.

“Half a calamity is better than a whole one” - Lawrence of Arabia

2008-03-03T17:08:03Z

The DA has dropped all charges.

Cat is coming home. No criminal record, his name cleared, and he's a free man. A poor man, but free! We expecting him on a plane back to London within twenty-four hours.

The BBC went to Dubai to cover this story, and interviewed key officials in the case. The reporter and our attorney are saying that damage control is underway: many prisoners are about to be released, and they're promising reforms which could reduce these sorts of arrests happening to future travelers. Not holding my breath, but if this does transpire, then we've basically achieved everything we set out to do from the beginning, and that's a fair bit of awesome.

It's all a bit sudden, and I'm still trying to get my head around it.

You guys have a fucking lot to be proud of. The media attention we've drawn from our collective efforts has resulted in not only Cat's release, but that of other prisoners and the subsequent changes that are under review. That's a pretty serious accomplishment. Today you can look in the mirror and know you've made the world a better place, and I sincerely hope karma gives you the reach-around for your efforts. You guys rock.

I never thought I'd see the day where I said the internet restored my faith in humanity. This is the geek equivalent of an 80's movie ending. Who's throwing the prom, then?

Tee-vee

2008-03-02T00:09:50Z

Feature on the Australian news!

Fun campaigning stuff: put that outrage to good use!

2008-02-29T04:04:08Z

So Dubai is whoring itself out to the UK at a major expo in Earls Court this weekend. I bring you The Dubai Show!

That's right! An entire festival devoted to sucking in more workers and investors, brought to you by the lovely folks who gave you this, this and this, amongst many other classic hits!

You can help

From Radha:

We are in need of a Team Leader to attend the Dubai Show in Earls Court, London this weekend. It will involve handing out press releases in order to raise awareness, further the campaign & highlight the extremity of the situation to the UAE authorities and international press. If you can lead the team, it would simply involve arranging to meet volunteers at a certain time with printouts. Please contact me urgently if you can help in this way.

Let's put a stop to this at the source! Anyone who's up for flyering the event get in touch with Radha at radha@futurecorp.co.uk

Pass it on!

Please, Sir, can I have some more?

2008-02-27T19:41:20Z

I'm still a little shell-shocked that we managed to nail the £25,000 down-payment in advance of the deadline. That secured us the legal aid we needed, and already so much progress has been made (the hearing may be moved forward, so he won't have to wait several months in prison to find out if the case will be dropped).
Problem we're faced with now is the mounting legal bills. We've already accrued an additional £25,000 in fees. The good news is, this covers us until the trial in the event that the hearing fails to secure the dropping of his case. The bad news is, that's another mountain of cash we have to raise, and needless to say, anything you can give will take a tremendous burden off of us.
I'm doing my part to raise cash: I'll be going back to London to sell a bunch of our stuff, and I'll be renting out our space.

So here goes nothin': New goal, £25,000. You can donate here, and thanks for everything you guys have done:

_yungfuktoi_ @ 2008-02-27T05:22:00

2008-02-27T05:24:39Z

The xenophobes can kindly fuck off now