The Politically Incorrect Show - 04/12/2000

[Music - Die Fledermaus]

Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Monday December 4, proudly sponsored by Neanderton Nicotine Ltd., the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit, & excellence, against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.

[Music up, music down!]

As millions of junkies will attest, it's an endlessly diverting thing, the internet, e-mail in particular. It brings out the best & worst, the scariest & the funniest in people. On Saturday night one lad of my acquaintance looking for a relationship e-mailed me to tell me he'd replied to several ads on one of those lonely hearts sites. On Sunday morning he e-mailed to lament that he hadn't yet received any replies. Cripes! The Internet, though instantaneously fast, can also be agonisingly slow. Having been out of a relationship since February of this year, I myself replied to some e-personal ads shortly after. Several months later, I started to get responses. By this time I had long since forgotten what appalling lies I might have told about myself that I might, heaven forbid, have to live up to in the flesh, so I flagged the whole thing away.

Americans are the worst. They have no sense of netiquette whatsoever. Then again, they really haven't had any manners since they abandoned the English language & its civilising influences in 1776, so I suppose this is to be expected. One of my American e-mailers gets sniffy with me if I don't e-mail him for a whole day, but thinks nothing of ignoring MY e-mails for THREE days. Do I get sniffy back?

One can't be too careful with e-mail. Something said in teasing jest is all too likely to be taken seriously, triggering an explosion of spluttering indignation at the other end. Hence, e-mail tends to be replete with smiley face symbols, a precaution against World War Three & ending up friendless. This is unfortunate, since putting a smiley face at the end of every sentence typed in jest is rather akin to laughing at one's own jokes. But one omits the smiley faces at one's peril. I once began one of my missives with Dear Abomination - something which, in the context of preceding events surrounding the recipient, I thought was quite self-evidently tongue-in-cheek, not requiring a smiley face. Alas ...

Mind you, a smiley face is no guarantee. One person I know has spent the last year or so determinedly taking umbrage at anything & everything said by anyone, on & off the net - life for this unfortunate case is just a series of slights, a state of permanent dudgeon which a million smiley faces couldn't begin to assuage.

All of which is by way of whimsical introduction to the following SOS I received via e-mail from an American friend yesterday. I told him I'd enlist the help of my listeners, so here goes:

"You are the only friend and co-conspirator that I have in New Zealand. I have heard, through the Nicotine Underground, that a brand of cigarette rolling tobacco called Rotterdam Shag is still to be found in New Zealand and Australia, although it disappeared here some twenty-five years ago. I have missed it much. It is very dark and black and strong and just the thing for people like me and Crocodile Dundee. Surely in Zealand there are phone books with yellow pages. Would you please try to search out for me some tobacconist shop willing to sell and ship Rotterdam Shag to USA? Of course, I may be misinformed; it may be that Rotterdam Shag is no more. Nevertheless, I would be very grateful if you could give it a shot."

No doubt many of you have had experiences with Rotterdam Shag that have nothing to do with tobacco, but if you can help with the latter, please phone up now - 309 3099 - or e-mail me at editor@freeradical.co.nz, so that my deserving friend can savour a suitably Politically Incorrect Christmas.

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