LETS GET READY TO RUMBLE……fighting out of the blue corner Maya weighing in at 13.8kg holding a professional record of 9-0 from kindergarten…..every child fear her…the mental toughness  of a Viet Cong with 300 days of active combat experience combined with the physical power & size of a Viking……..for the first 18 months of her life she looked like Clint Eastwood from Pale Rider, she only started smiling recently because we bribed her with wine gums…..and fighting out of the blue corner  Mila weighing in at 4.2kg she holds a professional record of 1-0…..her first victory was coming out on Saturday and on that note I really do take my hat off to women….I will admit it, they are harder than men when it comes to pain. At St Mary’s hospital on Saturday eleven women came in….only 1 walked out…to no surprise it was Reina “Crouching tiger with dragon fire out her backside” Tan…..3 caesareans, 7 on epidural, Reina just asked for a glass of water, some gas and she pushed with the same thrust as Apollo 11 in the summer of 1969 before it hit the moon……Not only did she do a natural birth but she also delivered the biggest baby that day……standing ovation from midwife, me and the fly on the wall. That Malaysian tiger is hard as nails, even the midwife couldn’t believe how relaxed she looked during labour….it was like watching Bobby Fischer or Kasparov playing a game of chess, only one minor squeal and raised eyebrows when the near 10lb baby came out….unbelievable….full respect to women and the wife in particular!

Here is photo of the proud parents, sister and a relaxed Mila….

Hope you have a smashing start to 2012….all the best
Danepack

The past 3 months have been busy for our household. We settled into our new home and my wife managed to get rid of the smell of dead Polish builders from the garden with some bleach and hydrochloric acid. My in-laws who consist of the legendary black belt pharmaceutical pill popping champion Jiminy Cricket and his beloved wife Kung Fu Panda stayed with us for 2 weeks and it was a delight to have them in our new Disney castle. They took care of our little rascal Maya Mouse while she was transitioning between two nurseries.  It didn’t take long for Maya Mouse to dominate her new playground….every evening when I arrive at the nursery I can hear her shout the following commands to the other kids “If you ladies leave my playground, if you survive my Euro-Asian training, you will no longer need diapers. You will be pouring vodka into your milk bottles. But until that day you are pukes. You are the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human, fucking beings. You are nothing but unorganized grabastic pieces of amphibian shit! You will not like me. But the more you hate me the more you will learn. I am hard but I am fair. There is no racial bigotry here. Here you are all equally worthless. Do you maggots understand that?”   And she asks to be driven away from the nursery while standing up in her pram waving good-bye to the poor little kids with the back of her hand….in fact it looks very similar to an 1880’s queen Victoria parade or maybe more like some German fella’s in the 20^th century…….

I have been doing a lot of driving lately visiting clients all over the UK and as a result I often tune into Radio 2 where there is a program called “Factoids” where they present useless facts from planet earth.  So here are some of the strange facts with my responses to them in italic…..

Your ears and your nose carry on growing all your life….true my grand dad’s ears were longer than my thighbone by the time he was 80.

Bees have 5 eyes…then how come they still can’t find their way out when I open the window?

Adults spend on average of 16 times as many hours selecting clothes every day as they do planning their retirement…at least they will know what to wear when they get old

Dolphins’ hearing is so acute they can pick up sounds from 15 miles away….my wife can hear me farting in North West London when she gets off the plane in Malaysia

Every human spent 30 minutes as a single cell…..Not true my daughter Maya was actually three cells, but when the doctors looked in the microscope she had already eaten the other two cells while she raised her middle finger at the doctor!

You grow about 8mm every night but shrink to your former height the next morning….I can think of other parts of my body that grows slightly more than 8mm every night

The word ‘listen’ contains the same letters as the word ‘silent’.

All planets rotate anti-clockwise apart from Venus….no wonder they say women are from Venus

In Washington there is one lawyer for every 19 residents….that explains why America needs water

Goat’s pupils are rectangular…..so were mine at Ministry of Sound in 1995 in my clubbing hay day…

Moon was Buzz Aldrin’s mother’s maiden name

Women raise their voices a pitch higher when they talk to men they’re interested in……my wife just uses violence to show affection

Food takes 7 seconds to get from mouth to stomach…..yep and then sometimes 6-8 hours from the stomach to the arse

Humans blink over 10 million times a year and the heart beats 30 million times a year…..no wonder it’s tired by the time you hit 75…..

We spend around two weeks of our lives at traffic lights……and most men spend 2 weeks every year waiting for their wives to put on the make-up

People generate enough saliva in their lifetime to fill 2 swimming pools….perhaps, but I have seen small kids generate a swimming pool in 1 week…..

You can remove and replace all body parts apart from brain…..I am pretty sure with a magnifying glass and some tweezers it would be possible to remove and replace some politician’s brains 

And to round up this quarterly edition with some George Carlin quotes…..

• The main reason Santa is so jolly is because he knows where all the bad girls live.
• The other night I ate at a real nice family restaurant. Every table had an argument going.

Hope you and your loved ones are doing well…….If you are coming by London drop me an email.

Asta la vista,
Danepack Shakur

MAYDAY, MY POSITION IS Kensal Rise Coordinates: 51°31′51″N 0°13′29″W / 51.5308°N 0.2248°W / 51.5308;

I AM in deep shit with mad oriental woman and her mini-me WITH (10) PERSONS ON BOARD, I REQUIRE IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE……

Those were the distress calls I sent out on June 4^th when moving into our new house after finding my wife had castrated the builders in our back yard with a rusty metal chop stick. They worked tirelessly on the panzer steel bunker to ensure the empress, her princess daughter, their two royal dogs and tired looking male servant (me) could enter the grand premises in early June.

They promised, they delivered and they paid for it. Some builders had disappeared into the cement as the empress was re-living moments of when her ancestors built a great wall back home. There was no mercy throughout the entire project, everyone played their part in achieving Cleopatra’s grand vision.

Here is the dialogue between our builder and my wife on the handover day:

Wife: You come before me as a suppliant.
Paul “The Polish builder”: If you choose to regard me as such.
Wife: You will therefore assume the position of a suppliant before this throne. You will kneel.
Paul “The Polish builder”:: I will *what*?
Wife: On-your-knees! (Smack, back-hand kung-fu slap across Paul’s face)
Paul “The Polish builder”: You dare ask for a price discount for a 13^th time?
Wife: I *asked* it of Rupert Murdoch. I *demand* it of you!  
Paul “The Polish Builder”: ouch stop twisting my left eyelid using the force…..
Wife: You are getting too close. I can feel a kung fu chill riding up my spine….. You’ve got to let go of that stuff from the past because it just doesn’t matter . The only thing that matters is what you choose to be now….
Action: round-house kick to the left temple and the builder is still stuck in our backyard in a foetal position sucking his right thumb…..On a serious note, she did an incredible job, the house is exceeding our dreams/expectations, the dogs have a much bigger toilet, Maya a bigger playground, and daddy more garden work.

During our homeless period we always felt at home staying with family and friends and it was a lot to take on 2 adults and a toddler for 60 days & nights. Our second host family consisted of a German architect and Spanish raw food vegan specialist(s)…..you have to remember when our family drives down the motorway and a fly comes through the vent my wife eats it….nothing goes to waste and she loves meat (protein). So living in a household with rice milk, raw food and lots of celery was an eye-opener. Every night my carnivore wife would whisper in my ears “I didn’t fight my way to the top of food chain to be a vegetarian“ …”I am not a vegetarian, but I eat animals who are”…”Vegetarian- that’s an old Indian word meaning “lousy hunter”….either way after living with our friends for 5 weeks we did notice a difference. More energy, more frequent toilet visits, the carrot was definitely more active, overall I think it gave us a more balanced diet, of course our influence on the vegan’s also made them freak out a few times when we served them cooked food. Overall it was a very symbiotic relationship that consisted of love, laughter and vegetables.

Now that’s my 5 cents for today folks….

Danepack

Here are some quotes that made me chuckle recently:

Regular naps prevent old age, especially if you take them while driving.

Don’t feel bad. A lot of people have no talent.

Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired.

It doesn’t matter how often a married man changes his job, he still ends up with the same boss.

It’s funny when people discuss Love Marriage vs Arranged. It’s like asking someone, if suicide is better or being murdered.

I am 35 years old, with a wife, two dogs, 1 kid and a mortgage. I pay tax, contribute to charity and recycle waste. I am a man, not just an adult male, but a confident, assured and responsible member of society.  And like most of you it takes a lot to freak me out these days, I have seen my fair share of freak shows, even if we were heading straight for the iceberg I would sit back and ask for more ice cubes for the gin/tonic…..and like most of you if the worst comes to the worst? Ah well no one gets out of here alive. But I am scared of moving house! I am a hoarder….I love to collect stuff and I am terrible at throwing things away….for some peculiar reason I always imagine sitting on a porch at 78 years old telling some old tale to Maya’s children about some strange postcard I received in 1998….even though I know the likelihood of that happening is small. Most likely at 78 I will have forgotten the story and by 2053 people will not be listening to stories, but inserting memory cards up their rectum to learn everything they need to know…literally bugger. Yet I can’t throw away old belongings…I cherish all my old university folders like I gave birth to them….For the love of god how and why can my notes on micro-economics  in particular the Stackelberg equilibrium be useful for anything but future toilet paper or two mice in the loft interested in game theory and market structure…..yet the mice or the termites in our new house will never get a chance to read all my old folders…..the general aka wife has no emotions towards the past….she presses the “defcon 3” button on anything that wasn’t bought yesterday…absolutely zero emotion towards anything personal, whereas I am still wearing t-shirts from my holiday to Corsica in 1990. Two souls, two hearts but only one decision maker!

We have now been homeless for 4 weeks but due to amazing generosity from family and friends we have kept a roof over our heads and that is good news for the homeless people of London, otherwise they would be awoken every night by a loud child (Maya). We are in the middle of a big house move as we left Maida Vale in early April. We have taken on a big project, we bought a house in Kensal Rise that has been abandoned for 2 years….my wife thought it would be fun to re-enact the construction of the Great Wall of China. The house smelled like Carl Lewis underwear after the final against Ben Johnson in Seoul 1988… mostly a few brown lines down the walls and with mold all over, but luckily I sent my wife in there with 10 Polish builders….her middle name is Cillit Bang (UK cleaning product that I like to call Clit Bang as it gets women excited on how well it cleans).  The art of house renovation is simple enough according to my wife. Find out where your builder is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can with a sharp bamboo cane, and keep moving on to the electrician, then the plumber and finally your husband. Every morning before the devil gets his shoes on she is at the building site screaming Chinese commands and whipping the Poles into shape.

They have been working non-stop (every week-end and bank holiday) for past 4 weeks and the project “you cannot fail or I will ram your testicle into your ears” is making steady progress (most of them would enjoy not being able to hear anymore, a testicle blocking the sound from my screaming wife might be a welcomed break). Most of the builders looked like Tom Cruise from Top Gun when they started, but have now deteriorated to Christian Bale from the Machinist…… thin, gaunt looks with black rings around the eyes and red marks down their backs from where Cleopatra whips them every morning. They promised us that we can move in by May 20^th unless they have any more “deaths” by building the bridge over river Kensal Rise. At night time the builders think they can relax….but wait a minute. Reina and her evil mini-me Maya Mouse monitor the site with night vision goggles. They put a breeching charge on the front door, flash bang in the corridor, and storm in with their SPAS-12 shot guns, and Kevlar weave stab vest shouting Mandarin commands to get the Poles fired up again….I think with operation Overlord managed by those two tyrants there is every possible chance we will be in on time…..we will then need them both to defend the compound from credit card companies and bank managers as we have gone so far over the budget that I think the Bank of England will raise interest rates next quarter. On that happy bombshell I hope you have a great summer.

Laters,

Danepack “very thin wallet” Shakur

Go on now go walk out the door and die
just turn around now and look at my shotgun….
’cause you’re not welcome anymore
weren’t you the one who tried to hurt me with goodbye
you think I’d crumble
you think I’d lay down and die
Oh no, not you
please don’t survive
as long as i know how to shoot
I know you shall die
I’ve got all my life to hunt you down
I’ve got all my live rounds to give
and you will NOT survive
you will NOT survive

Arrgh I feel much better now after releasing some anger and frustration at that song surviving for 32 years. Back to my new year resolution discussion. A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one Year and out the other. We set out new goals, hopes and aspirations for an improved life. Jan 1, more than any other day of the year is about the future. Bono wants to save the world, Maya wants daddy to change the diaper, and the two dogs just want to suffocate me in my home office with farts that are lethal enough to take the lives of 4 adults in a closed train compartment.  So I guess we set out with all good intentions of creating change ….. I look forward to the New Year for a new start on old habits. The usual suspects for new year resolutions are give up smoking, lose weight, change job, travelling…the list goes on….. but think about this positive point…now there are more overweight people in the UK than average-weight people. So overweight people are now average… which means, you have met your New Year’s resolution.

Towards the end of the year I always like catching up on news that made me laugh. From research across 450 CV’s submitted researchers found that 81% were laden with spelling and grammatical errors, missing comma’s in crucial places as in this example “My interests include cooking dogs and interesting people”.  For others, the omission of a single letter consigned their CV to the dustbin: “I am a pubic relations officer.” To be honest I might just invite someone like that in for an interview, they could have some interesting insights into latest trends on the genitalia space. Another news story that made me laugh was this one…. A man who tried to chat up a woman in a German nightclub dropped his false teeth down her cleavage. Shop assistant Tina Lange, 37, who met the man in a disco in Mannheim, said: “I wasn’t very interested in him but when I was leaving he whispered in my ear: ‘I hope we’ll see each other again.’ “He then dropped something down my cleavage, which I thought was his phone number.” But when she later went to fish it from between her breasts, she found it was a plate of three false teeth. She said: “If he wants his teeth back, he’ll have to ring me.” With the price of visiting dentists these days I have no doubts he made the call.

Reina, Maya and I managed to escape the claws of the cold Christmas by just a few hours. We left London on Dec 16th heading for the lush tropical climate of Penang. A few hours after our beloved 747 had blasted down the runway Heathrow shut down for 5 days due to snowflakes and incompetence. Someone in the planning department of Heathrow should be shot. How can the world’s busiest international airport only have 2 de-icing trucks?  Even Finland has 20, and 19 of them is for de-icing bottles of vodka and then 1 for the planes. England is like a third world country when it comes to dealing with snow….2 football supporters walking around Heathrow with a water pistol trying to clear tons of ice on a backlog of 233 planes. This has been 3 years in a row now, but I can think of a solution. Just block all the toilets and only allow people to urinate on the wings, it is green, environmentally friendly, people always drink loads in airports so they are constantly in need of the toilet….Job done! Now back to our Christmas break, well life is tough when you have affordable massages, food that is exciting and cheap, warm tropical weather with a beach on your door step…..well it really doesn’t take a lot to beat a cold, grey, and wet day in London being stuck on tube that is delayed while paying 50% tax. Reina’s parents were so helpful with babysitting, that Reina and I got to relive 1999 all over again….young, care free, irresponsible and just the right medication the doctor ordered with good friends in Penang.

Hope you and your loves ones had a nice start to 2011.

Benjamin Franklin once said “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days”, but over the years we always enjoyed guests staying with us…..  But since having a child no one asks if they can come and stay with us……. you don’t need to live in a bad neighbourhood just have a noisy kid and people will avoid your guest room like the plague…..so coming back to the kid….she is sending shockwaves through the neighbourhood with her out of tune dancing in front of the television. When North Korea sparks World War 3 and the cockroaches finally die, all that will be left is my daughter sitting on my tombstone wondering what to eat next.  She has a healthy appetite and I have been told by some of the staff in the nursery that she is immensely strong and confident for her age. She often takes toys from kids twice her age and if they resist they get a back-hand combined with a bear-hug…mummy and I try to tell her what is right and wrong……she generally responds with this answer “It was character that got me out of bed, commitment that moved me into getting the toys I wanted, and discipline that enabled me to follow through and scare away the other kids”….well  if she keeps that attitude as a teenager at least mummy and I can thank her for the many drinks of scotch we will be consuming.   

During the month of September we had Reina’s parents & brother stay with us for 3 weeks, we had a lovely time celebrating Maya’s Christening, travelling to Switzerland and going to a cousin’s wedding in Hampshire. I have named Reina’s dad and brother turtle one and turtle two because they are extremely slow in the bathroom….I could have started two new companies the time I was waiting outside the bathroom door. After a week of them being here we decided to drive to Switzerland….5 adults, 1 baby, 2 dogs, it was like watching Noah’s Ark in a Ford Galaxy rental car doing  56mpg along the smooth French highways. It must be a Chinese thing, but as soon as I put that cruise control on 80 mph everyone in the car was sound asleep…..not just sleeping but literally unconscious……. I could barely get the car into 6^th gear before it looked like the dude from “No Country For Old Men” used the captive bolt pistol “cattle gun” to knock them all out….occasionally turtle 1 (Reina’s dad) would wake up and mumble something out of sympathy for me being lonely driving for 12 hours…”hey Christian….it is dark”…..”hey Christian…12 km to the next gas station”…well thank you very much…how did he know I cannot read signs and I am a bat so I see well at night and had not noticed it was dark …very useful commands. After spending 3 weeks talking about health, vitamins and Chinese herbs I think I have become a hypochondriac. Yesterday it was brain damage from the vodka the night before. Friday, heart attack – my arm and chest started hurting at the same time, but then I realised I had been to the gym the day before….The trouble with being a hypochondriac these days is that antibiotics have cured all the good diseases!  Now on that happy bombshell, have a great last go at finishing off 2010 with a bang.

Laters

Danepack Shakur

The heatwave in London has been a wonderful change to past summers of rain. We have had an outstanding dry spell for 6 weeks, the grass is as dry as BP’s savings account, the wife is happy and looking smokin’ hot and even little Maya & the doggies are quiet in this heat, both parties slightly subdued which gives this summer a lovely silence. I left the corporate world 3.5 years ago so I am no longer a prisoner on the hot tube, but can actually enjoy the sunshine. However, I do miss the office air condition even though it would sometimes create arctic conditions and snow on my desk. In my home office the temperature is regularly 31c (even too hot to watch porn), so when I read stories about sweatshops in the Far East, I can definitely sympathize, and I think whether you are manufacturing a Nike shoe in the Philippines or working on an IT Outsourcing deal in 31c the pain, sweat, tears and toil equally stack up, the only difference is location & pay but they are not far off.

Laughter is the shock absorber that eases the blows of life, and the little princess has kept me busy laughing. Her first 3 words were “mama, daddy, and baby”. She says mama when she needs food, daddy when her diaper needs changing and baby when she wants to be carried….I am pretty sure that trademark will follow her through life except the content will change. She will say “mama” when she needs to go shopping, “daddy” when there is some pooh-pooh that needs sorting out, and “baby” when she needs her teenage boyfriend to carry her around on the backseat of his highly tuned scooter. But I did notice her maturing slightly the other day while playing with daddy’s stereo…. the first sign of maturity is the discovery that the volume knob also turns to the left.

She has also recently discovered 8 sharp teeth which I hope she will continue to use on boys who approach her in nursery….they have already left serious marks on most of our remote controls and on my chest….we have two dogs so when people ask I will just blame them otherwise they will think our daughter is a re-incarnation of “Jaws” in Maida Vale. She is also a tough little one (not surprised considering the DNA from her mum who can survive a nuclear bomb head on). When we visited the neighbor their two sons aged 3 & 5 kept lifting her up by her head and ears and by accident dropping her on the floor…and the parents kept saying “She is not a doll boys…treat her well”… she in fact smiled back at them with a mischievous smile….and if I were to predict her thoughts they would go something like this “Just you wait boys…you might enjoy lifting me by head….but sooner than later I will be bigger than you, stronger than you, more mature than you, read the Hello Magazine, have kissed more boys than you, and if you touch me again, I shall give you a round-house kick in my dungarees and finish you off by hitting you with my plastic spade and destroy your sand castle”

A compromise is an agreement whereby both parties get what neither of them wanted. Anybody can win, unless there happens to be a second entry. Unfortunately most of the compromises I make with my wife only have 1 winner and it ain’t me. This year I had planned two boys trips for some escapism. Just before I left on the first trip the Dragon lady grabbed me by my tonsils with her chopsticks and said “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you at a later date”. I left for a driving holiday with 5 friends thinking it wouldn’t jeopardise my chances of going off-roading in Spain later in the year….honestly, I am so optimistic that if I fell off the Empire State Building, after 50 floors I would say ‘So far so good’, but in this case I had bitten off too much…two boys holidays away from diapers, massaging my wife’s feet, daily routines, picking up dog pooh, closing outsourcing deals….it was too much, my conscience agreed with my wife that with a new born baby it is important to stay behind and help out. I still have not recovered from the torture and most nights Reina ties me in the basement while Maya reenacts “Chuckie” and stabs my toes with a rubber alphabet. On that happy bombshell, I will just say I am a proud husband, daddy, brother, son and friend to many people and I am still breathing so life isn’t too bad.

Asta la vista
Danepack

PS…..some funny sayings I read somewhere recently……. 
If you can’t see the bright side of life, polish the dull side.
When everything’s coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.
If you wish to live wisely, ignore sayings including this one.
A consultant is someone who takes a subject you understand and makes it sound confusing.
Join The Army, visit exotic places, meet strange people, then kill them.

Born in the hood, raised on the backseat of a Jaguar, I roll with my crew and beat up mosquitoes on hot summer nights. I don’t regret anything and I am doing things for the right reason now let me get on with unloading the latest rap from Danepack Shakur for this quarterly update. Ever since the general (wife) banned me from motorcycles I have been feeling this void in my soul….the lack of danger, the sense of speed, the adventure of travelling with your mates on two wheels feeling free as an eagle but finally the Khmer Rouge gave in and let me have a little adventure. This summer I am going with 5 old friends to the Sierre Nevada desert to ride off-road for 4 days in the wilderness. My wife has a point, in London while riding a motorcycle I am more likely to get hit by Bob Geldorf doing a u-turn in his eco green Lexus, whereas in the wilderness of Southern Spain I can hit a few grasshoppers and perhaps a construction manager looking for some work….none of it life threatening. I am more concerned about how my heart will react when I see what my Stirling buys at the exchange rate desk….that mighty Euro will ensure I bring packed lunches from London to avoid a sudden stroke over a 7 Euro croissant, you know the world economy is becoming a bizarre place when bringing food from London is cheaper than buying food in a country with 20% unemployment (Spain).

The road to success is always under construction, but even worse the road is uphill and very bumpy….I took the plunge a few years ago starting my own business, the high’s and lows are like a Greek tragedy combined with an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. Some day’s you feel like you won the lottery and others like you are strapped to a wing of Mitsubishi Zero Fighter with a kamikaze pilot on the morning of 7^th of December 1941 on way to Pearl Harbour (certain death). Which bring me to the point of my beloved daughter! She is the complete opposite of anything with lots of fluctuation, she is consistently looking like the last survivor of Hiroshima, very rarely smiles in public, most people say she looks like Mona Lisa…the eyes smile a little but the mouth looks quite grumpy. The only time I have seen her smile in public was when a handicapped girl walked up to her in Sainsbury’s and dropped her ice cream on the floor and started crying, well I cant complain she does have a sense of humour the little bugger. She does quite extreme facial expressions. The two photos below is an impersonation of Clint Eastwood (from Gran Torino) and Susan Boyle. I rest my case. I think she has great future ahead of her and might just end up in a Quentin Tarantino movie with a face so versatile. 

I read in an article that the British now consider mixed race people more attractive, while they account for only 3% of the population they make up 10% of those considered “extremely attractive”. Darwin suggested that diversity of genes lead to great genetic fitness and this in turn seems to be linked to attractiveness. I am already starting to plan how to take out young boys that want to visit Maya after school, but then again with her serious facial expressions like Madge from Dame Edna only the very brave will attempt to visit.

Two babies were born on the same day at the same hospital. They lay there and looked at each other. Their families came and took them away. Eighty years later, by a bizarre coincidence, they lay in the same hospital, on their deathbeds, next to each other. One of them looked at the other and said, “So. What did you think?” Well I hope when I am lying there that I will be able to tell an exciting story that is full of laughter, happiness and it includes my family and friends like you.

On that happy note, have a fantastic spring

Danepack Shakur

A few humorous comments I read somewhere in the past 3 months…

I was born by Caesarean section…but not so you’d notice. It’s just that when I leave a house, I go out through the window.

When I was little, my grandfather used to make me stand in a closet for five minutes without moving. He said it was elevator practice

I was so ugly when I was born, the doctor slapped my mother.

A Jewish grandmother is watching her grandchild playing on the beach when a huge wave comes and takes him out to sea. She pleads, “please God, save my only grandson. I beg of you, bring him back.” And a big wave comes and washes the boy back onto the beach, good as new. She looks up to heaven and says: “He had a hat!”

As a recent journalist wrote in the times “Money talks, but wealth whispers. And Switzerland is the snowcapped, landlocked Bermuda Triangle of the cashocracy, where those with serious swag go to quietly disappear among their own kind.” Reina, Maya, the dogs and I escaped little Britain on Dec 18^th for our annual winter migration to the cashocracy of Switzerland. Unfortunately I am not doing something meaningless in the city making millions of pounds so I don’t really belong in Switzerland, but the relatives bring us there, and with the fresh amount of snow the skiing was excellent, the calories intake comparable to a sumo wrestler’s preparation for a big tournament and the family atmosphere charged up like Pablo Escobar’s final assault on the Colombian special forces. We reveled in Swiss chocolate, melted cheese and the usual holiday overeating, but combined with some healthy walking, skiing and fresh mountain air we all came out at the other end of the Christmas sausage machine looking fairly normal.

I started out in life with nothing and I still have most of it left, so the recession has not taken away our desires for a bigger house, nor will the higher taxes drive me to become a tax exile in Belgium or Andorra, I don’t fancy getting buggered while eating nice chocolate nor re-enacting Jack Nicolson’s scene from the Shining while suffering from cabin fever in the Pyrenees. So that leaves me with the option to stay in London, the greatest city on earth. Just don’t get ill outside of normal business hours, because you won’t be able to see a doctor, unless you are happy to go to someone who has flown in from Ukraine for 2 days earning £900 a day (from a bankrupt government), but who doesn’t speak English and has not slept for 3 days, who will most likely kill you anyway.

Piece Love and Hara Krishna

Danepack Shakur

Sleep – the most beautiful experience in life – except drink as WC Fields said, and yes I would agree with him yet having kids sort of makes you forget about sleep. People who say they sleep like a baby usually don’t have one! But when it comes to sleep both Reina and I have been blessed for now. Maya sleeps like Reina after a glass of wine. Both hands up in the air, legs slightly spread and a face with less facial expression than an ant on prozak. We try to keep it fairly quiet as we don’t want other tired looking parents to stab us out of envy, but I guess we have won the lottery for now. Yet this perfect child has clearly demonstrated to mummy and daddy that 7pm is just too early for bed, it sounds like Axl Rose in puberty when she rips it up to 110 decibels telling us to keep her company until 9pm. I can understand her, 7pm is only a good time to sleep if you are jetlagged or have a massive hangover. But the general Mama Tan has read in some book that babies at 4 months need sleep training so for now Maya is in Reina’s Paris Island Marine Corps bootcamp. When she finally falls asleep exactly at 9pm, good old Ralph Emerson manages to capture the moment “There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep.” We sit in the living room enjoying some peace and quiet looking a little frazzled because we know the strange noises that are awaiting us in our bedroom when we go to bed around 11pm. Babies make some strange noises when sleeping, and in particularly Maya….. I am thinking about recording them so I can ask her later what she meant! Honestly, for all those men out there, don’t worry about snoring, a baby is ten times louder and it sounds like a mixture between Hulk Hogan wrestling Andre The Giant and a German Stucker dive bomber…so for once in your life the missus won’t elbow you during sleep.

They say a cynic is a man who when he smells flowers, looks around for the coffin. Maybe, but I think a cynic is a man who found out when he was about ten that there wasn’t any Santa Claus, and he is still upset. I am quite the opposite of a cynic, you might call me an optimist. In case you thought optimism was dead, the average pencil is 16 cm long with just 1cm for an eraser! Now back to the point on optimism, I historically have always driven fast and been known to get into minor altercations with other motorists. As a youngster I used to love driving fast while getting my wing wang squeezed and not spilling my drink, but as you mature the appetite for driving the car like a rental beast (.i.e. as if you stole it) is slowly fading away. I guess my optimistic view on how other people drive and there never being a car coming the other direction while making a silly overtaking maneuver is disappearing with age. “If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire, then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is inconvenience” the issue with getting older is those thoughts become more realistic, luckily Maya is teaching us to think like kids again….she is a great excuse to do foolish things with enthusiasm and on that happy bombshell, have a great run up to Christmas and lets stay in touch for 2010.
Word up’
Danepack Shakur