I’m about to head off on my insane cycling adventure and I’m currently wondering if I’ve done the right thing – my body is complaining and I’ve now got a few injuries to worry about. Still, can’t be helped – we’re going whether I’m fit or not.
So here’s a few nice couples pics to tide you over. They’re from inside the member’s area of For The Girls.
I’ll return to my regularly scheduled smut when I get back.
You may have noticed that blog and twitter posts have been a little scarce over the last few weeks. That’s because I decided to take up a new hobby and it’s taken over my life.
Five weeks ago I decided to join my husband on a 570km 9 day cycle tour, along with 1500 other people. A bit of a strange decision for someone who hasn’t really been into cycling before, but there it is. Always good to try something new.
What happened is I discovered the wonder of recumbent tricycle riding. I had a go on my husband’s new trike and decided to steal it off him. As you can see from the production pic above, it’s like a billycart for grown ups. No more aching crotch, wrists or neck like you get on a normal bike, just a lot of laying back and enjoying the view… and going really fast down hills (although, damn, it’s a bitch getting to the top of said hills).
Since then I’ve been in training, trying to build up my muscles enough to cope with average rides of 75km a day. I’ve also been stocking up on sexy lycra clothing and camping equipment, learning about cogs, cranks and derailleurs and generally turning into a cycling nerd.
In the meantime, I’ve been taking a bit of a mental break from porn. After the stress of the last 7 months, I’ve needed it. So I haven’t been keeping up with my usual news feeds or searching out good pics to post. It’s also been nice to mentally withdraw from a few of the usual conflicts: anti-porn, censorship, religious bigotry etc. Sometimes you just need to step back and refresh your mind a little.
I do still want to keep up my blogging but it’s not as frequent as it could be. And I’ll be pretty much offline for 9 days when the tour starts on September 4.
Rest assured, I’ll be back into the swing of things when I return, hopefully fitter and thinner than before. And then it might finally be time to make that movie.
Over the weekend, Australia had an election. Now the people have spoken and their overwhelming response is: Meh.
We have a hung parliament. Neither Labor or the Liberal/National coalition won enough seats to form government. This means the fate of the country lies with three country independents and a freshly minted Greens MP. Meanwhile, the Greens have gained control of the senate.
This is all fantastic news. If you’ve been following my blog you’ll know I’ve often written about the ridiculous internet filter proposed by Labor. I couldn’t vote for them because of it but I was loathe to support the conservatives. I really didn’t want to see either of them in charge… and now they’re not. Rather, we have three Independents who all seem to have a lot of passion and integrity. People are feeling a little stunned that these blokes actually give honest answers in their TV interviews. That’s how jaded and immune to spin we’ve become.
And now there’s a chance that these guys can actually change things for the better. They’ve all said they have little time for spin or party politics or bickering; rather, they want to see issues being addressed. They’re also promising changes to our crap electoral system so we won’t ever have to sit through the nonsense of this election campaign ever again. I’m just so pleased about it.
I spent Saturday morning handing out pamphlets for the Australian Sex Party. My husband and I caused quite a stir at the booth wearing our bright yellow “Vote 1 Sex” T-shirts; a surprising number of people said they wanted to own one. There was a lot of interest from a wide variety of people, including the other volunteers handing out How-To-Votes. So many people sidled up and said “Can I just have a look at that pamphlet?” We also got a few cheers and made plenty of people smile. Better yet, we noticeably boosted the vote for the ASP. I only wish I could have done it in Victoria, where Fiona Patten came incredibly close to winning a seat in the Senate. Next time, for sure.
So… after an idiotic and inane election campaign things took a surprising turn and I now have reason to feel hope for the future of this country. Which ever side gets in, they’re going to have to change they way they conduct themselves. Less spin, more consultation, greater honesty and integrity.
And one thing is certain: there won’t be an internet filter here any time soon.
As @benbirchall said on Twitter: “Nobody’s in charge, Australia! Let’s eat the condensed milk out of the can!”
Pic is from For The Girls.
This is an ad from the Australian Sex Party which parodies the conservative “Work Choices” campaign from a few years ago. It’s not often you get an electoral ad that makes a fairly direct reference to masturbation, even though it probably should happen a lot more often in political advertising.
Yes, the Sex Party ARE serious but they know how to make us laugh.
A friend of mine is having a birthday soon and, giggling madly, I lashed out and bought him a fantastic present: a lime green Borat mankini. No doubt he’ll look superb in the outfit… if he’s ever brave enough to try it on.
I found myself doing a Google images seach for the mankini and discovered a surprising number of good looking guys who do a damn fine job of wearing this difficult garment. So I thought I’d compile them into a single blog post for your questionable ogling pleasure.
The Original Mankini
Sacha Baren-Cohen’s Borat is often credited with inventing the mankini but in truth it’s been out there for a lot longer. Digging around in my old humour file I found these two images taken prior to 2003. I don’t know who the guy is or where it was taken but I think he was the original inspiration for Borat’s mankini exploits. My photo is labelled “Rico Suave.”
This is a backpacker in Cairns celebrating his 18th birthday – from this news item.
This is allegedly John Mayer wearing a mankini on a boat but I suspect it’s photoshopped. Source. There’s also images of John Mayer sniffing a mankini onstage so he’s obviously a fan.
London mankini marathon! Source
And another one. Source
“Mankini for lovers” – this image appears on various adult store sites.
As does this one.
It’s always good to wear protection. Source.
Who knew you could actually swim in it? Source.
Matter of fact I got it now… this guy is so laid back he deserves to be in this gallery. Source.
This is Mankini Malph. He travels the world and takes photos of himself wearing the mankini in front of famous landmarks. He’s obviously a Dead. Set. Legend. Here’s his Twitter stream and here’s his website. Source.
Now this is what I’m talking about. Sexy guy engaging in serious glamour posing in a waterfall clad in a mankini. Source.
The lime green mankini does fairly well but if you’re after something a little different there’s an entire online store dedicated to selling the mankini. Yes folks, you can even buy a tuxedo mankini for that special occasion. What better way to say “I love you” than with an upmarket 82% polyester black mankini.
Fellas – is anyone willing to show off their stuff in a mankini? Send in your pics! Msnaughty AT msnaughty.com
The Sun held its own competition in 2007 – here are the entrants.
The deadline for the Female Gaze Erotic Film Competition is the 16th August – next week. Alas, I haven’t received a single entry.
I’m a bit sad about this. I had hoped to encourage alternative visions of erotica with this competition but perhaps now was the wrong time. Perhaps I didn’t promote it enough (although it didn’t help that the major filmmaking sites wouldn’t list it due to their “no porn” policies). And perhaps asking people to create visual erotica is a bit of a stretch – although it didn’t have to be explicit or particularly big-budget.
So I’m considering extending the deadline, although this may depend on whether it will be cutting things too fine for a screening at Cinekink. Alternately, I might just throw up my hands and give the prizemoney to Cinekink as a sponsorship.
If you are waiting until the absolute last minute to enter, drop me a line to let me know you intend to enter (femalegaze AT forthegirls dot com)
I should also say: Please don’t scramble to film and send off any old crap in the hope of winning. We aren’t obliged to award the prize if the entries aren’t up to a certain standard.
I will update this post if the deadline is extended.
UPDATE
I’ve extended the deadline to September 6th. Winners announced on September 20th.
Now get busy, folks!
And here’s my favourite: Muscle Bound, with a fabulous introduction by Marcel Wave.
A Twitter conversation has made me revisit some of the sexy Hot Gossip dance clips on Youtube, so I thought I’d post a couple here.
Hot Gossip were a dance troupe in the 70s and 80s who became famous via the Kenny Everett Video Show. They were also incredibly RUDE. At least, that’s what I thought when I was 10. I wrote about the experience in 2007 – read about it here – and posed the question: was it a bad thing that I got to watch suspender-wearing women dancing in a sexy way when I was young?
I don’t think it was. Yes, it shaped my idea of sexiness but I was never made to feel about about enjoying it. So it was never a problem and it’s now a fond memory for me.
I’ve recently written about the moral panic of “sexualisation of children” and I feel the urge to add a bit more to this in light of “the Hot Gossip experience.” To whit: it seems to me that those making a fuss about “sexualisation” automatically assume that a childhood awareness of sex and sexuality is harmful. But that’s a big call to make and I don’t think it’s backed up by any evidence.
And really, is it so bad for a young person to see a Hot Gossip or a raunchy Lady Gaga video and to find that experience sexy?
* Another thought: the ABC is repeating old episodes of The Goodies from 1972. The episode entitled “The New Office” sees Bill putting up a poster of a topless woman on the wall. The poster remains visible for the entire scene. Interestingly, while the ABC censored some bits of the show when it screened at 6pm weeknights (usually when they said “Get Stuffed”), the poster was never censored or blurred. Contrast this now with the censorship of nude photos from art exhibitions because “kids might see them”.
So it’s official now: the Opposition will scrap plans for the internet filter if they get into government. Liberal Treasury spokesperson Joe Hockey spoke about this stance on JJJ radio and it was later confirmed by another party spokesperson.
If you were reading my Twitter feed you would have seen that my husband actually got Joe Hockey to say this over two weeks ago (July 18) when we were on holiday in Cairns. We were strolling the boardwalk on the esplanade when seemingly out of nowhere Mr Hockey appeared, pressing the flesh with media in tow. My husband asked him if it was Liberal policy to oppose the filter and Mr Hockey said it was. There were channel 7 and channel 9 cameras recording this, along with several other journos present.
Alas, it didn’t make the Sunday news. There was no mention of him saying this anywhere. The media simply decided it wasn’t important enough to publish.
Worse still, we’d left our little camera in the hotel room so we had no proof that it even happened. Imagine if I’d got the exchange on camera and put it up on Youtube?
Today I read Annabel Crabb’s amazing behind-the-scenes article about how journalists are “embedded” with politicians on the campaign trail. It’s not surprising that this is the most inane and soulless election ever, given the stitched-up nature of political reporting in this country.
Imagine if citizen journalists were allowed access to these stage-managed press conferences? Imagine if more of us were able to ask the real questions and then put the footage out there via the net? Perhaps we’d have more honesty, clarity and facts and a far better democracy.
Maybe we need to be more proactive in holding our elected officials to account.
I know, I really am neglecting my blog lately. I used to try and write in it every day but a lot of the time I’ve already said what I wanted to say on Twitter. I think blogs are becoming better suited to long-form writing anyway.
In any case, here’s a bit of eye candy to tide you over until I get into the writing mood.
In 2000, the Howard government seriously considered introducing a new law that would have essentially made explicit porn movies legal in Australia. The Non Violent Erotica (NVE) classification was to replace the existing X classification. Explicit films rated X are illegal to sell in all Australian states (though it’s not illegal to own them). The NVE classification was a handy way of liberalising erotic material in one broad legal stroke without messing around with the laws of individual states.
(I have to say, part of me is still stunned that the Liberals, traditionally the conservative side of politics in Australia, had actually decided to go down this path in 2000. And I’m appalled that the government and opposition we have in 2010 are essentially more conservative, religious and pro-censorship!)
Unfortunately one right-wing fundamentalist Christian had balance of power in the Senate in 2000 – Brian Harradine. And he succeeded in sinking the NVE classification, ensuring that Australia continues to be stuck with an archaic censorship system.
In this video, shot at the Queensland Humanist Convention in May, Sex Party leader Fiona Patten describes how Harradine convinced the Prime Minister that porn shouldn’t be legalised: he held a private screening of porn films. Essentially, Brian Harradine held a stag night at Parliament House.
Fiona also talks about how she’s spoken to MPs who privately have no issue with porn but who are afraid of losing the religious vote on “moral” issues – thus, we end up in this stagnant political quagmire.
You could argue that the derailing of the NVE classification became something of a moot point in the face of the glories of internet porn. Nonetheless, our ridiculously outdated censorship system is still used by the religious right as a tool for imposing their version of morality on the rest of us. And the internet filter plan has meant we are now hearing calls for the government to classify everything on the internet, with an aim of banning legal adult material.
If you are interested in the history of the X-rating, read An X-Rated Hoax on Libertus. This was written in 1999 and was originally submitted to the government when they were considering the NVE classification.
If you follow me on Twitter you’ll know I’ve been plugging the Sex Party a lot recently. As an atheist, feminist pornographer who believes in human rights, how could I not? We’re currently in the middle of an election campaign here in Australia, so I can’t help but “root” for the ones who are fighting censorship and oppression.
One more thing: isn’t the hypocrisy of censorship infuriating? It was OK for a group of politicians to have an (illegal) public screening of erotic transsexual films in order to “assess” them but the rest of us are apparently morally incapable of such dispassionate judgement. The same thing occurs every time the Australian Classification Board judges something to be Refused Classification; they can see it but the rest of us are too fragile to withstand it.
(Note: The video is 2:12 long and I’m hosting it on my server. Unfortunately I am having a lot of trouble uploading videos to Youtube or other vid services at present so this means the video is not embeddable. Sorry.)
This great video details The Bechdel Test, which is a way of measuring how mainstream movies treat women. To pass the test, a movie has to:
(1) have at least two women in it, who (2) who talk to each other, about (3) something besides a man.
The test first appeared in 1985 in Alison Bechdel’s comic Dykes to Watch Out For.
This site has a growing list of films that do pass the test. Films from 2010 include: Toy Story 3, Sex and the City 2 and, perhaps surprisingly, The Karate Kid. What’s more interesting is applying the test to your favourite movies. It makes you realise that the male point of view has become so normalised that we’re often blind to the marginalisation of women in films. Worse still, this whole attitude seems to be entrenched in Hollywood and is actually taught in film schools.
The idea of applying the Bechdel Test to porn films seems almost ludicrous; porn films are usually about one or more women “discussing” a man, nice and hard. Still, it’s another useful way of revealing just how male-oriented most porn can be.
via Erika Lust.
In yet another example of their opaque censorship policies, Facebook has removed Violet Blue’s Our Porn, Ourselves page, even though it had over 3000 members and was obsessively policed by Violet. It seems the anti-porn zealots may have been behind it. Read more about it over at Violet’s blog.
Like other member’s of that group, I’m reposting Violet’s letter to Facebook, questioning the page removal. A shit storm is about to get started, folks. Will be interesting to see how FB reacts.
Hello,
I’m Violet Blue: bestselling and award-winning author, and educator who speaks from UCSF and UC Berkley (Boalt) to Google Inc. Tech Talks on my field of expertise — exactly what this Facebook group page was about.
My page did not violate any of the reasons stated for deletion. It was under constant attack by people who disagreed with our point of view, and constantly reported our posts and images, even though we were very careful not to violate your Terms. May I find out why the page was removed? It is my utmost priority to follow and uphold Facebook community rules and standards. With national media attention to the page, questions will be raised and I hope to be able to furnish answers. Especially with a higher minded page of over 3000 members seeking community and discussion around a topic that did not target any group, threaten anyone, or link/depict/suggest inappropriate content. In fact, I policed the posts hourly for spam and attacks on our members, of which there were many. We never posted obscenity in links or images, though innocent user photos seemed to be increasingly mysteriously removed.
I feel that our page was targeted, and that we did nothing to violate the community standards of Facebook, which we sought to uphold. Any help to find out why this has happened would be deeply appreciated. I do not want to be talking to press about this in the next few days and be left guessing. We sought a safe place to discuss sex culture in media, and that is all.
I sincerely hope we can resolve this. Salon and Examiner wrote about our page as a signifier of community organization around women’s empowerment, calling it a new movement for women’s rights. I could tell we were under attack by those who violently opposed our discussions and representation as a community intersection for enriched discussions about important women’s rights issues. This development is confusing and saddening.
This fostering of group community around female empowerment and the page topic stems from my work as a talkshow guest (Oprah), international conference speaker, and columnist for various national and international magazines and publications (Oprah Magazine, Forbes.com, MacLife, etc) and media pundit (Wall Street Journal, MSNBC, Esquire, Redbook, Wired, etc).
Please help me understand what I can tell media outlets asking about this, and the over 3K member we had in the page group.
Sincere thanks,
Violet Blue
2010 was going to be a fabulous year for me. After winning the Petra Joy Award in Berlin in October 2009, I had big plans to make more erotic films including a feature. I had planned to travel to the US to make the movie and do more business there. I was also going to do a lot more with For The Girls and maybe get a book organised.
And yet here I am nearing the end of July 2010 and none of that has happened. Instead, I’ve been mostly sitting in my office, completely stymied, feeling angry and helpless and incredibly frustrated.
There is one major reason for this: a bunch of rip off artists called ************
In November last year we hired this company to revamp the member’s area of For The Girls. Seven months later, the job is still not done and we are having to start all over again.
A bit of background: Jane and I started For The Girls in 2003 and designed the whole site using simple html with a few includes. Seven years later, it’s still pretty much the same. We add all the galleries, movies, articles and stories by hand and it can be very time consuming. Knowing a change was long overdue, we put out a call to find someone who could create a content management system (CMS) for FTG which would automate tasks like gallery building and movie conversion as well as make the site more interactive. We were also keen for a nice new, snazzy look.
Because FTG has been around for a long time, there’s a lot of content in the member’s area. A LOT of content. We’re talking thousands of photos and movies and over 1000 individual articles. We wanted someone who could take our existing written content and put it into a database so the new CMS could use it.
We put out a call on the webmaster boards and ************ stepped up and said they could do it. Article database? No problem, they said. CMS? Easy. We’ll just adapt Joomla for you. Vast amount of content? Sure, we’ll transfer it all over for you. We were promised a completely updated new member’s area with all content ready to go. All for the bargain price of $3000.
So we hired them, paid them a $1500 deposit and eagerly awaited the delivery of our new member’s area. We’d hoped we could launch the site on January 1 but given it was Christmas, figured it would be done by the start of February.
How to best sum up the subsequent seven months of lies, obfuscation, frustration and endless waiting? As you can probably guess, there’s a lot to tell. I have pages and pages of emails, including very lengthy ones written by me asking, demanding, pleading and often swearing, trying to get some kind of a result. A few highlights of the whole saga:
* In late January I asked why nothing had happened. After repeated emails, ************ told me they’d were unable to automate our article database and were subsequently doing it by hand. Turns out that the article database doesn’t exist and never did.
* In late February they said the site was ready to go and we just needed to give them the final payment to finish it. So, stupidly, I paid them. The site was actually nowhere near ready.
* In late March, after more delays, they finally told us there was a problem getting the CMS to work with our existing server. We tried to troubleshoot the problem and then managed to set up a new server for them after a couple of weeks. Ever since then ************ has used the problem with the host as their excuse for not doing the work as promised.
* From April they had unfettered access to the new host with all our content transferred over. Nothing got done.
* Throughout May and June I sent demands that the work be done. More promises with very little progress. In mid June I started threatening to take this public and to tell other webmasters not to hire them. That got them moving, at least. A few changes were made… and then nothing.
* I have been making repeated demands for a refund since May. They refuse.
* These people are some of the worst communicators I’ve ever encountered. Days and weeks go by without replies. There was one point where they didn’t reply to any of my repeated emails for three weeks. And then they said it was because there’d been some kind of email glitch. Funny, but they always seemed to get the emails when I said I was going public with my problems.
Start of July I left a very, VERY angry message on their answering machine. Suddenly, the emails worked again and work was being done. It looked like we might finally, finally, get a finished CMS.
Alas, no. They disappeared again. Barely a tenth of our content has been added to the site and I haven’t heard from them since the 12th July.
They seem to think the job is done. It’s not. What we have is a nice-looking site with almost nothing on it, no further information on how to work it and a company who is not interested in fixing the semi-working CMS they’ve created.
I have been threatening to take this public since May; this is overdue. The reason I held back is because the threat to ruin their reputation seemed to work for a while. But I’m over it. This farce has gone on for long enough. Now we just have to walk away from the whole sorry affair and start again.
It hurts to be financially ripped off but that’s not the real problem. For me, it’s the complete and utter waste of seven months of my time – time that I could have used doing something useful and positive. Instead I’ve been sitting here waiting for this thing to be finished.
I’ve got so many things that I want to do with FTG. Unfortunately I decided I’d put off any changes until we had the new member’s area up and running; it felt like I’d be duplicating work otherwise. So I’ve been spinning my wheels, frittering away my time on a few side projects, wasting time on Twitter and Facebook and waiting. Waiting for “tomorrow”, for “this afternoon”, for “this Friday”. It’s pretty easy to lose half your life waiting for someone else like that, especially when you expect things to be done in the near future.
It’s been very hard for me. I would lie awake at night composing angry emails to these people, trying to work out how to make them do what we’d hired them to do. At one point I went to bed for several days, crying because everything seemed pointless. I’ve had to delay travel and delay my plans to make the film because I felt I had to clear up this mess before moving on to other things. I had every intention of spending the summer in the Northern Hemisphere; instead I’m here, cold in my office as the sun dips below the horizon.
And I do wonder if I’m the most gullible person in the world. Surely I should have known better than to let it all drag on for so long? The problem was that they kept saying they were working on it. And I’d get a bit here, a bit there… the hope was always dangling in front of me that maybe, just maybe, it really would be done by Friday. Maybe we hadn’t wasted all this time and money and we could move on with our lives. It was always just there, over the horizon, if only I’d be patient and give them a bit more time…
And while ************ have been untruthful and uncommunicative, I suspect they’re not really scammers. It’s just that they’re massively incompetent. They took on a job that they didn’t really know how to do and then they wouldn’t front up and be honest about it. If only they’d said: “Sorry, we can’t do this after all, here’s your money back,” then we could have been spared this disaster. But no. Instead they’ve lied, ignored me, treated me with contempt, wasted my time and, ultimately, not done the work they were paid to do.
So, Google spider, chew on this please: ************ and the parent company ************ ripped us off. Do not hire them. Do not use them for any design or programming work. They are dishonest and have treated us very badly. Do not hire or work with ************.
I will be posting a full timeline of this saga on a blogspot blog. It details every email and every broken promise. ************ will say that it’s our fault for expecting too much, or the fault of the host, or any one of the myriad of excuses I’ve been given. None of them wash anymore.
The fact remains: we paid ************ $3000 to create a new member’s area for For The Girls with all our content ready to go. They have not delivered it after seven months. We have been ripped off. There’s no other way to look at it.
So there it is. The full sad and sorry saga. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me 19 times over 7 months and the story goes up all over the internet. Fair’s fair.
Yes ************, it turns out that you really do value your reputation at $3 grand.
Update: 9.40pm Friday night. The company has contacted me offering a partial refund. I have therefore redacted their name from this post. If they don’t come through with the refund, it goes back up as originally posted.
I’m not going to delete this post. It expresses the stress and frustration I’ve experienced for 7 months. Getting a refund does not compensate me for my lost time and lost opportunities. No amount of money will make up for that.
Update 23rd August: The designers have contacted me and said that unknown persons are making threats via email on my behalf. Let me state unequivocally that I have nothing to do with this, I do not know who these people are and I’d very much like them to stop. It is not helping. I am still waiting on most of this refund but I do not need shit like this getting in the way. I also have no control over any other webpages that my link to this post or who have reproduced my original Tweets on the topic. I also have no desire to make threats to this company or the people involved. I simply want my money back.
Gorgeous cartoon from Stuff No One Told Me, via Erika Lust.
I think we need to make this point a little more often. Romance novels are often derisively called “porn for women” and, while this is inaccurate in a lot of ways, it does make a point about unrealistic fantasies. Both porn and romance/fairytales offer a fantasy version of the opposite sex and depict sex and relationships in a very unrealistic way.
Interestingly, there isn’t the same moral panic about girls reading teenage romance novels as there is about boys looking at porn. But maybe it’s something we need to talk about more.
Just speaking from personal experience, I used to love Sweet Dreams and similar girly romance books when I was 14 and it led to plenty of confusing experiences when I finally got boys to pay attention to me. I expected them to act a certain way and floundered when they didn’t. I wouldn’t say it was a major problem, really, but it meant I was somewhat deluded about how this whole “love” thing was supposed to work.
Thankfully, it all worked out OK for me in the end and I did marry my Prince Charming. I just had to get used to the fact that he farts.*
Still, it’s a question worth asking: do romance novels encourage girls to have a warped view of men? Of relationships? Of sex? And does it feed into the general world view that sells Men Are From Mars-type books? Does it encourage the Cosmo-style idea that men are mysterious creatures who are afraid of committment and must be seduced with feminine wiles?
Or is this another case of not giving young women enough credit? Are romance novels, like porn, just a bit of easy entertainment?
And since I’m asking questions, here’s one: why don’t boys (in general) read romance? Is it because, like porn for women, there are no books that actually dare to offer male-friendly stories that focus mainly on love and relationships?
It’s an intriguing idea, romance for men. I’m now wondering what it would look like. Excuse me while I go away and see if I can find anything like it on the net.
* As do I!
If voting made any difference they wouldn’t let us do it.
Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.
Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first.
When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.
Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence on society.
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.
Kindness is a language which the deaf can hear, and the blind can read.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
Every generalization is false, including this one.
In religion and politics, people’s beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination.
Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more.
A classic is something that everybody praises and nobody has read.
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
I have found solace in profanity unexcelled even by prayer.
Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.
Substitute “damn” every time you’re inclined to write “very”; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.
Cauliflower is nothing but Cabbage with a College Education.
From this page.
Ms Naughty On Twitter
