You're Wearing Other People's Hair..

I can count the number of friends I have who DO NOT own hair extentsions on one hand. Which goes hand in hand with the fact that the industry is worth in excess of £65 million a year in Britain alone (and the fact that I'm going to piss a lot of people off by writing this) But did any of them ever stop to think where the 'real', non-synthetic hair extenstions come from?

A friend and I pondered this thought over a cup of tea. We concluded that
A) it couldn't come from animals as they would never have hair long enough, and it would all have to be bound together.
B) to get the really long hair extensions she was wearing someone would have had to literally shave their head and sell the hair.

We were wrong on point A as some of the hair does come from horses tails, which we were not open minded enough to think of, however conclusion B was to lead us down a horrible trail of internet investigation.

The hair that you weave or clips into your heads, comes from a number of disturbing sources.

The first being 'Hair Factories' which initially send scouts out to the poor villages in India to find women and young girls who they can pay not very much money to grow their hair to an agreed length. They must also keep the hair in perfect condition by avoiding any contamination with chemicals.. which often means years of living under house arrest while it grows. The women are then taken to the 'hair factory' where their hair is shorn off and died and washed and packaged. The women are of course sent off to start growing it again.

Aside from these larger organisation there are also many many people who exploit the booming Western industry by offering poverty stricken families, the equivalent of mere pennies, for their children's hair. Which is then sold on the black market.

The last, disturbing origin of the hair on your head, is from a Hindu Temple in India, where women and girls are encouraged to shave their heads as a ritualistic sacrifice and cleansing cermony for the gods, in the hope of happiness and health in return. Little do they know, their hair is collected and sold by the people who run the Temple for vast quantities of money.

Now you know.
I'm not trying to preach or scaremonger or say DON'T WEAR HAIR EXTENSIONS BECAUSE THERE ARE POOR BALD CHILDREN IN INDIA WHO HAVE ONLY SEEN £2 OF THE £45 YOU PAID FOR IT.. Well I am saying that a bit.
But I have been forced to understand the confidence boost associated with them for a lot of women, so if they make you feel good then who am I to suggest you go without?
The contrast just makes you think, women selling their whole head of hair so they can eat or feed their family.. and girls buying whole heads of hair... so they can look good.
The same can be said for a lot of every day consumables though, as is the way of the world unfortunately.

Fairtrade hair extensions anyone?

Peace out from a non judgemental Elf x

You've Got to Laugh..

Hospitals can be deeply depressing places, but when you are submerged in the sickly society, humour must be found wherever possible. It's not nice to laugh at others' expense, but on occasions such as this it can be necessary to avoid perishing at the hands of the searingly painful reality that you are confined to a place which oozes death and decay from its very walls.

Take for instance my 'next door neighbour', an epitomy of everything Essex, but not the fake tan, fake boob, fake hair kind of Essex.. far from it. Her name was Shirely and she was 71 and spoke like no-one I've ever heard before 'Oooooh no, I fink I've done a poo in the bed. I fort it was just wind but it was a little bit more than that.. ooooh nooo' was a regular utterance from her mouth. In fact on the first night she arrived she did 5 accidental poos in her bed, thinking it was just going to be wind. You'd think she might learn after the first time?
And I would like to now take the opportunity to mention that in standard NHS style, my bed was probably less than 2feet away from her.. and old people's poo has a tendancy to waft...

Not only did the smell keep me awake through most of the night, everytime she 'soiled' the bed, the nurses would have to come and turn on all the lights and start banging and bashing everything around as they try and change the bed linen whilst she moans ' Ooooh nooo, I'm so sowwy nurse I just fort it was wind. Yoo 'aven't got any laaaperimiiide ave yoo?'

I'd also like to add that she felt it necessary to tell me that her 30 year old son just had an operation because .. and I quote ' he had free (3) testicles ya know! One was the size of a football!' Oh Shirely, I am so pleased that I now know of your son's testicular abnormality, although I sincerely doubt it was the size of a football as I imagine that would be somewhat difficult to walk.

But worse, much much much much much worse than dear old windy Shirely, was Pamela. The nutjob of the ward. True and complete stereotypical nutter, but with an added touch of violence and insanity. Pamela was also early 70's, with long sinewy grey hair and one lone tooth which hung from her top jaw like a tombstone. She would roam the corridoors all day shouting for 'Simon' and 'Johnny' and having imaginary conversations with them about gardening and babies, none of which made any sense. This kind of behaviour is tolerable if a little disturbing, but the other side of Pamela was the most terrifying. At random intervals she would switch temperament and start screaming abuse and attacking doctors and patients. 'YOU CHINESE C***' she yelled at one nurse as she yanked a handful of her hair. 'GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME' she would scream at visitors merely walking past her.

She also used to come into our bed spaces at night and even tried to rip Shirely's drip out her arm and another patients drip from her chest, only to be shoved aggressively away by the woman attached to the other end! Possibly worst of all she climbed into bed with another patient in the middle of the night! Now that is nightmarish. I'm just so grateful it wasn't me. (Lest I forget a previous hospital experience of another crazy lady urinating on my clothes in the middle of the night)

And what did the nurses do while Pamela was in action, while she was attacking patients and putting their health at risk...? They stood 5 or so feet away softly calling her 'Pamiiila Pamiiiila, come here please. Come back to bed'. Very helpful indeed.

Aside from these two characters, my ward alone featured a number bizarre people, from an old woman with very heavy green eye make-up being dragged backwards in a wheelchair from the ward by her husband, every night at 9pm sharp. Or the shifty alcoholic woman in her leather jacket and spotty PJ's striding back and forth on the hour with her drip stand, to and from cigarette trips downstairs (apparently they found empty wine bottles in her toilet.. scandalous).

The whole brigade of mad and somewhat interesting people at least have to be thanked for forcing me to laugh at their ridiculousness.

Peace out from a happy to be home Elf x

My Inability To Age

Tonight I've been looking through pictures with friends of times gone by, when we were much wilder and frankly quite considerably cooler; which is quite a ridiculous thing to say bearing in mind that I'm only 22 now. But the days of 2007/2008 when we partied hard were definitely my heyday, dramatically more exciting than my life now.

My point however, is not that I'm now a boring boris, but that over the past 3 years, in my opinion, I have completely and utterly failed to physically age. I look the same, if not younger than I did when I was 17. And I didn't look particularly old then so you can only imagine how stupid I look now when people gasp, mouths agape when they are told my age or when my ID is produced to their questioning eyes.

That of course being the bane of my life. Ignorant, foreign (not an important trait but worth noting) shop attendants asking for my ID with a mocking smile as if to say 'HA don't think I'm going to sell you any contraband you stupid child' only to be confronted with a 1988 year of birth. Those mocking smiles then twist into confusion, their eyebrows furrowed with disbelief, they look again, show their colleague for approval and then.. they LAUGH. Most of these people genuinely snigger in a ridiculing manner.
HOW BLOODY DARE THEY. For all they know I've got some horrendous medical problem which causes me to look young. The bastards.

I don't in fact have a horrendous medical problem, as fas I'm aware. I think it's in my genes as my mother is often suspected to be in her 40's, and is certainly not, whilst my father in his late 50's has managed to miraculously maintain a whole head of jet black hair with not a grey in sight.

But the worry is. What if I keep not aging? I'll turn, 23, 24, 25, 26 and still look not a day over 16!

However, by the time I reach 40 it will probably be a good thing as all my friends wrinkle up and sag around me. HA.

Peace out from the childlike Elf x

The Most Googled Person

Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga. These are the top two Googled people.

What the bloody hell is wrong with the world?! In what crazy universe do I exist in that these two POP STARS are invariably more talked about and highly revered than great inventors, authors, scientists and heros of the past and present?
How warped is our society that most young people would never think to google Thomas Edison, the inventor of the electric lightbulb, something they use everyday without thought or gratitude?
Instead they would rather Google a woman wearing raw meat as clothes. A month or two ago the bookies put her at 1/100 odds to be the next American President.
HAVE WE ALL GONE MAD? (I haven't but has everyone else?)

What is the fascination with these disgusting people? They sing songs that have videos on the television. OH MY GOD. They must be worshipped in that case.
The magazines full of gossip about all these celebrities, I don't understand it. Why does anyone genuinely care whether Jennifer Anniston was seen out with a 'dark haired stranger' or that Britney Spears had a Mcdonalds.What might be intersting is if Justin Bieber was seen coming out of Katie Waissal's prostitute Grandma's house or Eva Longoria was seen with a new 7 armed hunk with seaweed for hair. But just to get excited over a 16 year old wimpy, vile, joke of a human existance Bieber and google him more times than anyone else in the whole world is MENTAL.

I'm certainly not condoning Hitler's behaviour but even he deserves to be Googled more times than these twats.

In fact I'm more angry at the Googlers than the Googled. Yes these celebrities are irrelevant but they are just making a living, it's the deluded fanbase and society we live in that has really pissed me off.

In fact fuck Google entirely.

Peace out from a Bieber face smashing Elf x

VNA

The first page of my interview with the incredible Miso in VNA Magazine.. to read the rest you'll have to buy yourself a copy!
VeryNearlyAlmost.. VNA.. the best street art magazine in existence

Hope..

It can be hard to have hope when you are curled up in bed, battling the pain of what feels like 700 very small kangaroos boxing and kicking inside your intestines, it can be hard to see the bright side.

It can be hard to have hope when you have been battling the kangaroos for the past 15 years, when men with knives have repeatedly come and extracted the kangaroos from inside you, when other men with drugs have tried to kill the kangaroos.. and yet there they are. Kicking and punching and wrecking havoc inside.

It can be hard to have hope that one day they'll finally leave, after so many years of constant disappointment and constantly finding yourself back where you started.. with nothing positive to show for all that wasted time.

It can be hard to have hope when you hear the words 'this time it will help, we've had great results' for the thousandsth time.

It can be hard to have hope of any happy future when you waste away in a hospital bed with wires and tubes trying with all their might to do their best and keep you going.

It can be hard to have hope, but I've got you and you give me not only hope but the power to cope.

Peace out from a kangaroo battling Elf x

I Hate You

Listening to you makes me want to claw my own eardrums out using a ferocious, miniature kitten who has a complex which allows him to believe my eardrums are tiny mice he must hunt and savage.
You are truly one of those sycophantic idiots who is so desperately obsessed with their own life that you can't possibly begin to comprehend anyone else around you and how penetratingly irritating your loud, incessant yapping is to them. On a coach full of people where 95% are asleep it does not enter your petulant mind to shut the fuck up, or at least keep your constant whining down.
'I'm hot. I feel like I'm on a sweatbox. This is the worst journey ever. I can't believe there is still 2 more hours to go'
No, neither can I, two more hours of your childish moans to endure. God kill me now. Did it ever occur to you that the person you are talking to is right next to you, it obviously did as you keep mentioning how squashed you are (which would not be a problem were it not for your fat ass) you therefore do not need to screech and scream your complaints to him, you unholy lump of noise.
The emergency exit is just there, perhaps I can relieve you of your cramped conditions?

Peace out from an irritated Elf x