June 30th - S-Club's Rachel Playing With Plums And How Rumours Start

Remember S-Club 7? Course you do. How could we forget. Well us guys would never forget Rachel, that's for sure.

And if you were wondering what she's up to now, you've come to the right place. Just click here to see S-Club's finest rolling around on a bed and follow her instructions - so demanding. Rachel gets fruity!

This website is barely 6 months old, but it looks like it's not the only 'me' James Hampton website out there. A 'friend' of mine appears to be insitgating some sort of smear campaign against my sexuallity.

Still, after seeing what Rachel is now up to, it's also good to see that 'Punch' from 'C.H.I.P.S' (remember that ol' classic?) is still doing well in his modelling career!

June 28th - A Personal Moan And Jesus In Drag

'It does exactly what is syays on the tin' goes a well known advertising slogan. and I hope the title of this Blog, as bizarre as it is, will prove to 'do exactly what it says'. So first comes the personal moan.

Bloomin' internet connections. For some unthatomable reason, the (sh)IT at work can't keep a connection for more than 5 minutes, so the infrequency of my Blogs can be blamed entirely on them. So I have been reduced to the 'old faithful' dial-up at home. Much slower, but at least I'm here.

Now Jesus in drag (well he can be if you like, as you get to dress the Messiah on the cross).

If that isn't to your taste, or you still haven't been amused (are you not entertained?!?!?!?!), then maybe this can help a little more (it is meant to help pass the time of bored office workers - pariticualrly designers in Columbus, Ohio).

Family (Mis)Fortunes has always provided some classic answers. Amazing how pathetic we can be under pressure, isn't it?

June 24th - That was the week that was

Thursday is my last woring day of the week, so Friday morning is the start of the weekend for me. So here's a quick rundown on anything and everything that happened last week.

Workwise, it was the same ol same old. It's testing my patience, but it pays the bills right now. Got a new colleague, fresh into China, and it's taken him 7 days to relaise 3 things. 1 - the school is a mess. 2 - any male, single foreigner over 40 in Shanghai is a pervert and an outcast at home. 3 - Chinese Chinhese food is compltely different to that at The Golden dragon in the High Street.

At home it's all good. I'm still on my health kick and exercising intensely everyday. Been doing it for about a month now and can see no change whatsoever! Ah well, I guess 28 years of abuse won't go away in a month! I also got my ass kicked by a 50 year old in the swimming pool yesterday, so am feeling pretty gutted about that!

What else? Oh yeah, Wimbledon finished earlier than usual this year, as Tim Henman went out yesterday, so no more English interest in the strawberries and cream fest this year. Although haggis and cream might be on the cards as teh new kid on the blovk, Andrew Murray of scotland, seems to be putting a nice little run together.

My house is finally clean! We've got an 'aiyi' (means 'Aunty' in Chinese and translates to maid in English). She's sweeping my feet as I type and costs 7rmb an hour (about 50p). Probably put me in a whole lot of trouble if I did this at home, but when in Rome (or Shanghai) and all that...

No plans for the weekend. Probably try and catch up with some reading and make a few overdue changes to the website.

Other than that, it's all quiet on the Eastern front.

June 20th - The Weekend

I did something I haven't done for a long, long time on Saturday - I went to the zoo. Shanghai zoo is much like the rest of China - some bits are wonderful, modern and great for the occupants, other bits are outdated, depressing and prison like for thier dwellers.

One thing that did impress me was the abundance of wide open spaces - unfortunately this space was for visitors and not the animals. As nice as it was for us and oru picnic, it seemed a little strange to see certain creature in their little boxes, whilst acres of park and 'don ot walk on the grass' areas were just behind them.

I took a few photos which might make the website at a later date (just zoo photos really - nothign out of th eoprdinary) but a couple of them I especially liked. So here they are:

Up close and personal with the elephant (Asian elephants do live wild in the deep South West of China - these ones had been trained to play football, among other things)

One of the unlucky monkeys - those sad eyes in a concrete cage.

Not sure what this weird species is - never seen it in any other zoo in the world. Nice hat though!

And then it was back to work on Sunday.

June 17th - Random Recollections Of Fun Passed

Listening to a friend tell me he only buys free-range eggs because of his concerns for the ethical treatment of chickens, whilst carrying a bag of frozen chicken breasts, 6 frozen chicken burgers and a packet of 30 frozen chicken nuggets. Bet the chickens are glad he is on their side!

"I was so ill once I nearly caught Downs Syndrome" said a friend who obviously though that DS is contagious. This guy went on to graduate from University with a 2:1 (admittedly it was in Sports Studies!).

Health advice from another friend: A Mars a day keeps the doctor away (apparently apples are useless).

Listening to a student telling me how much she loves dogs and trying to explain that she likes and knows all the diffrent breeds of dogs by saying "I like dog style and I know dog style very well".

Being a little drunk and falling into the The River Thames after a boat party weraing a tuxedo I'd borrowed from a friend, who'd just been given it as a birthday present.

Q: Who invented central heating? A: An Italian called Ray Di Ator (funny at the time).

Bored one evening, watching a very lame Channel 5 Shannon Tweed 'adult' movie with a few friends. One of the guys getting really into it and saying "Yeah! Get your cock round this one bitch!" (Still can't figure that one out)

Arriving in Bali with 2 mates, meeting up with a touring Aussie rugby team, losing 2 mates, runnign along the beach at 5.30am in the morning very drunk, desperately trying to find my hotel. Nobody else on the island appears to be awake, apart from a weird looking guy a little further up the beach who looks like he is deciding which bush would be better to sleep in. He chooses a bush and I recognise that the only person dumb enough to be doing this must be one of the travel companinons I lost earlier. He was.

Man trying to sell us a fake 'kinetic' watch on Bali. Told us it was kinetic because it works by the sun. Then offered to throw in 2 batteries for free!

Ah well, I guess you ahd to be there.....

June 16th - Playing Catch Up

Not much to add today.

Was out last night with a friend, just shooting the shit and catching up. Unfortunately we got strong armed into having drinks with the kind of no-hoper ex-pat alcoholic mid-forties losers that I fear I may well become in the future. Really quite sad.

There we were, a couple of 20 somethings surrounded by these sleazy, pickled failures without any credible escape route. There was the typically obnoxious louder than loud American, a mumbling 50+ English guy who alwasy promised he wouldn't keep you long because he knew full well how dull he was/is, but who would just carry on relentlessly anyway, until the moment he really had enough when, literally mid-sentence, he just stopped talking, stood up and walked home. Truly bizarre.

Anyway, other than having a drink with my future self last night, only thing to update on is that the vanishing Blogs, which got acciddentaly deleted a few days ago, have been merged into one 'catch-up re-Blog' and can be found by scrolling down to the bottom of the page.

Most of my Blogs are pretty dull I guess, but these 2 I particualrly liked so couldn't just let them disappear into e-Heaven. So they've been re-incarnated as one. If you didn't see them before, I hope you enjoy.

June 14th - Aaaarrrrrgggggghhhhh!!!!!

When scientists finally make artificial intelligence become a reality and there are walking, talking robots among us, I am going to be one of the first to run up to these machines and give them a massive boot in their electronic gonads, just so I can try to encourasge their understanding of why I am beginning to hold all computers in such contempt.

As you may have noticed, a few of this months Blog postings have mysteriously vanished. Probably my own fault, but I'm going to blame technology and not myself. So I have had to mess about with teh thing for a few hours and now everythign seems to be back to normal, just with all my previous pearls of wisdom missing.

So there may be a few 'new' posts which have just been recycled from memory, so I apologise in advance if you feel a sense of dejavu as you read them.

Just blame it on the computers.....

June 13th - Warning: Alcohol And Business Don't Mix...

...unless you're in China, that is.

Chinese plied Rover managers with alcohol, says ex-director screamed a headline in todays Idependent. Maybe a shock or surprise to some. It just made me laugh.

Now I'm no business expert (or anything expert, come to think of it) but I have got a lot of students who are involved in some pretty big business and they are always keen to share their expereinces. Take one of them, called James, for example.

He's a funny kind of guy. Speaks good English and is very open about business and how he goes about it. His methods are 'clever, verging on illegal, and always eye-opening. I shouldn't really be suprised - he works in sales afterall.

I once asked him about business negotiations in China. This is what he told me:

We will usually got to have a large dinner, drink lots of bai jiou (local hard stuff) then after we are drunk we will talk business. After business is finished we might go to KTV (karaoke, but also doubles as a brothel).

I asked what happens if people get so drunk they can't remember what they said during the negotiations. He told me that he will 'remind' them of what hey said, and would often covince them that they said something 'extra'.

Common business practice, he told me.

So when I saw the article about the Brits getting drunk before getting down to business I had to laugh. Looks like James was just being honest with me after all.

Sometime in June - re-Bloged

OK - so here goes. I've got an idea of a couple of the things I wrote about before the disaster that was the disappearance of the whol eof June's Blog, so here is what I can remember of it.

First up it's back to an old favourite of mine - Hooters. In true Yoda style - "A new car, am not".

Real Tales From A Traveller - warts n' all

An unedited version of an e-mail from a friend who was in South America and decided to be honest about what was going on instead of just giving the folks back home a picture postacrd account of what she was up to. Entertaining and real - love it.

just a quick update whilst I have a few hours to kill in some dive of a bus terminal...

last few weeks been a bit ridiclious I would say..

after leaving the pissing, shitting ,.*anking monkies ...(only lasted 1 week with them) ...tried to get out of the jungle.. but Bolivia seems to have been in a crisis about some oil or gas or something and the country has been demonstrating with riots and roadblocks ever since... (this is quite normal I was lead to believe here)..however the situation got steradily worse.... so that we had to get a lift in one of those open top lorries with loads of corn and oranges and locals 7 hours back to the nearest city.... it was fin for first 25 minutes then it was bloody uncomfortable, cold and smelly...when a local old man asked where I was from I told him England and he asked where was that so I said Europe and he asked me if that was in Asia... so I decided to just say "Yes exactly" !!!!..say no more..

Arrived in La Paz the capital.... got to stay in 5 star hotel as it was so cheap as a treat..got food poisioning from there AGAIN... tried to leave... all roads blocked.. got stranded for 8 days... then got tear gas hurled at us whilst walking near the main square.... I was pulled into a shop by 2 Isralies who seemed much more clued up as to what was happening than me...the streaming eyes and a stinging nose...( I would never have known what it was they were gushing at us )

Eventually had to bribe a local 100 dollars.. about 2 mths salary here for taxi man. to get us out.. tried twice and had to leave at 2am and even had to get out of the car and move rocks..piles of sand... and were left at 5am in a deserted mountain lakeside and wait for a boat to take us to Copacabana (in Bolivia)...completly corrupt and dogey but not much you can do... they don磘 even speak spanish just some local tribe language in the mountains...

spent 2 days there...

then today tried to get to Peruvian boarder and were stopped and forced out of the car with all our bags and told to walk the rest of the way... (I have a 22kilo backpack and another 10 kilo smaller one) at 4300 metres up with no bloody air in 29 degrees heat.. I told the men what I thought of the idea but they didn磘 seem too impressed and so after about 10 steps started to cry as I never intended to bring my hair straighteners if I knew I would be forced to walk 10 kilmoeters with all my BLOODY stuff on my back....

Well anyway...I stopped that too as it took my energy.... and I did walk that far because I had no choice... got to Peruvian boarder and caught bus to Puno...went for a beer and rushed back to bus terminal to carry on with journey but realised they are 1 hour behind so ..am here just filling you in...whatevernext I think to myself... why am I not relaxing on a beach somewhere...like normal people.

So ...although having a very "character building expereince "and seeing and doing some fantastic stuff.. some of it is *uckingshit and it is not so bad sitting at work ..being clean and dry and comfortable.....

no one ever sends the real emails..about the crap bits... so I thought I would...before I forgot it and glamourised it when I got home...