Seperate but equally fucking annoying

What little I can say about Marseille after 14 hours - the cab drivers are nice, the five star hotels don't offer enough freebies, the internet doesn't work well enough for me to check my Outlook (which is sweet), it does get cloudy from time to time, the sea is pretty, and Finns seem to find it a relief.

What I can say about first class travel in the TGV between Brussels and Marseille - it's less about sensual luxury and more about who's not in the car with you. And I don't approve. Rich people are just as annoying as economy class people. They have smelly little lapdogs and bitter marital strife that can be audibly explored over five fucking hours - just because they're not yelling doesn't mean it doesn't bug me, anyways I can deal with volume via my MP3 player. The rich older people smell like diapers. The rich younger people smell like perfume, which makes me sneeze. So come on. If I pay for first class travel, I want the neck massages, the dancing girls, the in-car wading pool, new releases, drink and song. I don't just want to be segregated from annoying working and middle class people with equally annoying middle and upper class people.

Same with this five star I'm in. What the fuck the point of this place is besides segregation is beyond me. At least last year in Lisbon there were some touches of real luxury and in the Scandinavian five stars they serve caviar. Not to mention, even in a Scandinavian three star they'll have a sort of neat-o shower bidet so you can bathe your bits after every evacuation. Here there's not even a fucking bidet. Conference rate Euro 220 for a double, normal rate more than a hundred north of that, and not even a fucking bidet. What a crock of shit. Let's admit the only point of this place is that the proles are all deferential and in uniform.

Got in late last night and watched BBC World make an arse of itself over Ukraine and Russia and the global credit crisis. Crisis my ass. Ever read Gone With the Wind? I recommend it. Seriously. Weirdo book but moments of clarity amid all the slavery apologias and nostalgia for a society worse than fascist. At one point Rhett Butler tells a whiny Scarlett O'Hara that there's slow money to be made in the building of an empire, and fast money to be made in taking it apart. All we're seeing now is fast money. Lloyds and HBOS merging in an absolutely uncompetitive and unethical way with the encouragement of the British government, whose job should be to prevent this sort of rubbish - their customers will pay for that and the executive class will walk away singin'. Vomit.

Now I'm going for a calming walk along the seaside.