A friend of mine, Rory, has recently moved to Dubai for work and just sent me a very, very inspiring email. For once, he's on to something..something big. But he probably doesn't know it yet. Men are like that.

Extract from email:

I miss the BBC.
> Karl Vaneigeim noted that modern capitalism instead of simply relying on machinery to increase the means of production and so depress wages as previous capitalism had done so, now relies on the worker to consume the articles of production. In other words, shopping is the new drink.
>
> The radio is the best example of this:
> Headlines, in the exact order:
> Free WiFi at Abu Dhabi airport
> NewPriMark opening at Ibn Batutta Mall
> Paris Hiton wants a baby (not sure whose)
> Brad Pitt has not bought one of the Islands on "The World" Angelina Jolie has!
> Manchester United win against some other team who dont have a franchise operation here
> Aftershock kills 20 people in China


Jesus...it really DOES take men a while longer to grasp how the universe is supposed to work. Us females have not only realised, but done our utmost to (unselfishly) help the inter/national economy out by uncontrollable shopping since pretty much the beginning of TIME!

Everybody knows that when you guys were out fighting, kicking each other with poles back in the neanderthal days, women were busy trading bones and..nuts and lipsticks and stuff. That's how commerce started. This is well known, Rory. I thought you were educated.

And I really *$#&*&% hope that Angelina hasn't tried to pick MY island over there in the artificial archipelago (it's so cool!!!) cos I've been planning to get my mittens on Greenland for ages now. I'm just saying...keep an eye on it for me, ok, cos if you do I might even invite you to a barbecue (and optional pole bashing) over there in the future.



And...Rory, we can invade the other islands! Oh my God, the potentials...I clearly hadn't thought this through! Wouldn't it be relatively reasonable to expect any kind of micro society to automatically copy the development of the original one (ie earth, where most of us citizens will probably originate from after all).
Ok, we might not have to go through every state of evolution all over again (cos that would be a bit of a drag!) but surely we'd regress to a state-centred perspective when it comes to most international interaction (as we used to have before realising that international cooperation was in every ones best interest and started joining up in federations and international organisations etc etc) which pretty much only leads to one thing - WAR!

Look, what I'm trying to say here is that there really is a severe lack of places to invade in the real world nowadays, and here, suddenly, we could make it happen! I'm sure the UN would leave us to our own devices as long as we don't mess with any neighbouring areas (outside the islands, that is) or start creating allies within the rest of the international society.. It'll be like a real-life game of RISK!

We'd start with Greenland (well, I say "we", cos I would be pretty pissed off if you decided to go off and join forces with Angelina. I mean, bloody hell...haven't you got any sense of loyalty?! Rory, that would piss me off. I'm serious. ) and then discreetly go on with Iceland...Canada...Scandinavia!

I'm fairly sure I could raise a full-time army of a total of at least...8-12 people. And don't you start sneezing at that, cos these are hardcore combat fighters.
One has got a complete camouflage outfit (we can use him for undercover stuff like snooping around) and one has got a really high quality set of cutlery that his mum gave him when he moved away from home a long time ago. We can use him for close up combat.
And a guy I know in Sweden, Jonas, who's really into wars (loves the stuff) - he's got a boat, so he can be our navy. He's quite fit so I think he can row pretty fast if his life is suddenly under threat.
And hey, I just realized that if I could just convince my two pilot cousins to quit their jobs and come work for me - then we've got an air force as well! :D
I'll leave the army stuff to you (for now) cos, after all, you've worked for the army for years!! And honestly, Rory, if you can't manage to defend a miniature Greenland, then, maybe, it was a good choice to quit. Hm?


Wow, this is really exciting stuff!



I suddenly feel a bit dizzy...