Newspaper blasts soaring costs of magic

Holy Smeg, did anyone read "The Sun" celebrity speculator today? Now I wouldn't normally give such credibility to this dodgy tabloid "news" paper, which is only marginally more believable than the likes of "Weekly World News", "National Enquirer", and "The Mirror", and I feel even worse about advertising the bloody thing, but this story just seemed so true, and if it is... Bloody Hell!

It was about this woman (a health and safety supervisor - thankfully not mine) who was conned out of €32K (well STG £22K actually - she lived in England - but The Sun were nice enough to translate it for us Irish readers) by a... wait for it... A witch doctor. Her dad had contracted a rare blood disorder, which apparently doctors were mystified by, so Anastacia Adams (for it was she) decided to contact a witch doctor, whose number she found amongst about 20 others in the back of "a magazine". (Unfortunately they don't say which one - probably owned by the same company as The Sun, maybe?).

It's hard to believe that in this day in age, an adult could fall for this rubbish. "I went to see the professor alone, as I didn't want my friends to know in case they thought I was crazy", said Anastacia. I wish she wouldn't insult unfortunate people with serious mental conditions by equating them with the sheer stupidity of what was to follow.

On the first day, she spent 2 hours talking to ethically-challenged entrepreneur Professor Sidya about her father's condition, and he made her feel relaxed, asking for nothing but photographs of her father, herself and "other important people" in her life, for use in his spell. Money would only be required once the request had been accomplished.

On the second ay, it appeared, he would need £350. Although she could pay him installments... (such a trusting, nice fellow)

As she continued to speak to Sidya, he reported the glad tidings that the spirits, in their infinite medical expertise, had given a positive prognosis on her father. He was on the mend!

On the eighth visit, Sidya explained that they required £22,000 for the spell to work! Get this: They needed £1,000 for every year that Anastacia was alive! It gets worse. She had to raise the cash (which she borrowed from a friend's inheritance, feigning the need to consolidate debts), put it under her bed and pray to it! Pray to the money!

Strangely, the tried and tested medical practice of praying to money while rubbing lotion on her naked body had no noticable effect on her dad. However the resourceful Professor Sidya (he didn't get his title for nothing!) had another idea. Of course! He would take the cash and pray to it himself! The spirits couldn't ignore *him*.

She gave him the money anyway. Time went on, the dad did not improve, and soon she became worried about her money. She confronted him, and he explained that the money was buried in the woods! He then told her that the cash-strapped spirits would need another £22,000 to speed up the spell. Although she found herself applying for a bank loan, I can thankfully report that she came to her senses, and went back demanding her money back.

After much attempts to rekindle her faith in the money hungry spirits of blood-diseases, and assurances that he hated to see her upset, he gave her £1,000 back. She went back sometime later to try and get the rest of her money, but Sidya had upped and left.

I'd like to think that... well in a kingdom like the united one, with about 60,000,000 people, the laws of probability state that no matter how unlikely it is, there will probably be one idiot who will fall for this. Just like the lottery, there are so many millions of entrants that despite the odds being nanoscopic, someone will win.

Not so. On her return to the professor's office, she not only found him gone, but she found another man there, just as angry as her. This man had given Sidya £44,000 to save his marriage! The article never mentioned whether Sidya was caught, but we can only assume he's still at large, out there... selling magic beans at £1,000* per year old of the customer.

All I can say is that I would be ashamed to go to the police with this story, never mind an international newspaper. And how can someone like this be allowed in charge of health and safety?


* - may vary depending on the exchange rate between sterling and the spirit world, terms and conditions apply.

Cause without a rebel.

It may surprise you to learn that this time 2 years ago, I was a long-haired hippie. When I announced that I was going to do a charity head-shave, the reaction was pretty much all positive, but there were two dissenting voices. One had a valid point, that she thought I looked better with long hair (unfortunately could not out-sponsor the pro-head-shave people).

The other, however, (jokingly of course) accused me of lying down to the man, selling out my hippie roots (no pseudo-pun intended), and conforming to the status quo of shaven-headed Limerick "lads".

Then, she proceeded to light up a cigarette and smoke it. (This was before the smoking ban in pubs). This brings me to the point of this piece.

This is addressed at all the "Anarchists", all the anti-capitalists, left-wingers, rebels, non-conformists, goths, disestablishmentarianists and anyone else who prides themselves on being free and refusing to bow down to the modern authorities, be it legal or religious or social or fashion or any other kind of authorities.

Now, we'll ignore the fact that many of these people fall into another authority or fashion which may not be the majority, but it is a significant minority.

If you are addicted to cigarettes - especially the legal non hash kind - I'm afraid you are a slave. It may have seen as an act of defiance when you were young because your parents didn't want you to. But while it was cool to defy your parents, you were unwittingly priming yourself for a far worse conformity.

Yes, you are a slave to The Corporation. Every time you buy a pack, you are lying down to The Man. They are giving the orders, which are, "You will inhale these sticks which is bad for your health and may cause cancer to you and those around you and you have no idea what's in them, and you will give us €6 (or whatever the current price is) every day". "Why? Because we are the masters and you are the slaves. That's all you need to know." Of course, they are more subtle than that, but that is effectively what they are saying.

Your addiction is the chain. Your cravings are their whips. Some may claim (as they did against the smoking ban), "It should be our choice whether we want to smoke". If you are addicted, it is not your choice. Meanwhile the profiteers are laughing at your illusion of exercising your rights to smoke.

Now I don't mean to belittle the horrific slavery that happens in the third world, be it from unlivable low wages (sweat shops), or slavery due to debt, or even the actual capture and forced labour of people in some parts of the world. These things are truly horrific, and a mere cigarette addiction is nothing in comparison.

My point is simply that you can't claim to be anti-establishment and anti-authority if you are a keen supporter of one of the worst establishment-authority in the "Western" world.

I acknowledge that are those out there that have managed to avoid addiction and do actually have the ability to smoke the odd fag and get away with it. But these people are in the minority, and quite a few of them have actually been enslaved but won't realise it until they try to escape.


On a related note, some might say, "I only smoke joints, i.e. with hash in them..."

If you are the type who advocates boycotting socially & environmentally irresponsible companies, like Nestle, Esso, Shell, Nike, etc. then I'm afraid by smoking hash, you are supporting evil companies too. Sure they may not be registered businesses, but they are organisations that engage in the evils that those other companies do. The fame of the former is no reason why they should be hated any more than the secret drug-producing organisations.

While you may be sort of defying authority here, you are still supporting organisations that put profits above the lives of others.

You may, of course, argue that since hash is illegal in most countries, you are forced to go to the criminals in order to get any, as they control the only supply.

While this is an argument for its legalisation, it is left to your concience to decide: Is your enjoyment of a joint worth supporting the evil profiteers?