UK - NO EXIT STAMPS! THEY LIED TO ME & CALLED ME A LIAR

To show you how racists UK immigration are, one of the demerits leveled against granting me entry was the lack of departure, or exit, stamps in my passport from the time I left London when I travelled via bus to Berlin. Their stance was that I, in fact, overstayed my welcome and sneaked out and here was the proof: no Exit stamps!

They dismissed my assertion that the officials didn't stamp my passport as unbelievable and grasping at straws

Only get this: there are no such things as Exit stamps. Blimey, limey sonsofbitches. But you don't have to take my black word for it. Here's a white blogger by the name of Nomadic Matt. Happy reading!

With the deluge of desperate peoples fleeing eastern Europe and Africa for London I like to think the chickens are coming home to roost. 

Border bullies (VIDEO)

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United Kingdom Border Assholes (UKBA) is, like many Immigration agencies, staffed by the lower rungs of society who feel validated by their dispensable position on a gov't force. Much like poor white trash divines some divine pride from the mere fact of having pale skin never mind having no formal education, land, bank account, artistic endeavors, or marketable skills outside of auto mechanics or pig farming.

stopped from entering Scotland because I had "sexy underwear" in my luggage

The following report regards the Home Office's bullying tactics on discriminating against foreign students. But it is not solely brown and black students the British authorities dislike. Last September I was stopped from entering Scotland because I had "sexy underwear" and lube in my luggage! The Home Office has yet to reply to my written complaint. The UK resents -resents - having allowed so many people of color, many from its former colonies, onto the island, itself, and is enforcing "reforms" to roll back that tide. Roll, roll your boat and your puny industries. The world dynamics can prosper very well with the American and Eastern markets as well as most markets from European countries. I don't know that I have one thing in my apartment that's MADE IN ENGLAND but I have many things which read MADE IN CHINA/JAPAN/MEXICO/USA.

Are there any readers of color who felt they received undue attention from British border officials?

( @RT_com )

UK Border Assholes

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Once again the best laid plans of mice and men were screwed up by a bitch working at border patrol (it should go without saying she was a white bitch).

Two days ago I was on a bus from Paris to London (after having spent half a day riding the train to Paris...ICE was five - five! - hours behind schedule because of a little snowfall that wouldn't even make a Hoosier sneeze). Exited through French Customs without problems but two minutes later at the UK Customs I had nothing but problems -- starting with the white bitch.

It was a criminal interrogation. They wanted a fugitive; I am not that.

Never mind that I had a doctor's appointment in London, reserved lodgings and plenty of money the UK Border Patrol were more concerned with:

• why I wasn't in America? 
• why I travelled alone?
• where did I live in Germany, Italy, USA? (seriously they wanted the addresses)
• if I visited the Middle East?
• how did I get money? 
• and why wasn't I in America (again)?
• why didn't officials stamp my passport?

Why? Because any single black man travelling outside of America must be on the run from the Law. He can't possibly be a writer. Black people don't "backpack". That much is true: We blackpack. After two hours I knew I wasn't going to London so I stopped cooperating. They wanted a fugitive and I am not that. After four hours of this extra "interviewing" the pig went through every content of my luggage; every piece of note paper...every page of book, including my diary...every item of toiletry...every snack...and he even counted out every single euro I had. This was not an "interview". It was a criminal interrogation.

Of course, to their chagrin, they found 

• zero contraband
• zero bomb schematics 
• zero drug paraphernalia
• zero outstanding arrest warrants or felony charges
• zero extra passports

Then they wanted to finger print me and archive them in a "visitor" database for a decade. Oh hell no! Prisoners are finger printed, not tourists...especially when  no one else in the course of that evening was removed from his bus, searched, and presented with an ink pad. But, of course, these racist pigs aren't racist! After seven hours - at midnight! - French police were called to escort me back to the French side where they left me on the sidewalk. No more buses were running so I was stuck in the dead of cold night in the middle of nowhere. 

So I missed my medical appointment and wasted lots of plans & money on travel reservations. I don't need to steal work from some British schmuck. I'm American! In fact, if the UK is so concerned with keeping their own employed they need to take back their limey asshole scum journalist Piers Morgan.

  

Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee

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As the year ends I'd like to share about a very historical event  celebrated in 2012: the Queen's Diamond Jubilee.

Since I was already in the UK this spring I wanted very much to be in London for the official Diamond Jubilee celebrations. I took the bus down from Edinburgh that weekend. The first day was awash with miserable rainy weather but that did not stop crowds from packing along the River Thames to watch the parades of sea vessels, hoping to see the Royal Family. Twice I almost caved in - I loath crowds...and standing in the cold rain - but, in the end, stuck it out and eventually got a glimpse of the Queen! No, not Elton John. The real deal. Didn't know it, though, until I got back to the hotel room and watched the rest via television coverage. I was just stoked to have made out some tiny figure on the distant royal barge; but the pink silhouette turned out to have been her. So I didn't get soaking wet for nothing. And the old girl stood the whole time!

Visitors came from all over the world and the British people were nice and understanding of the extra tourism

It was wonderful seeing all the streets and show windows bedecked for the occasion. Visitors came from all over the world and the British people were nice and understanding of the extra tourism. (Had to get used to it, really, as the Summer Olympics were just weeks away.) Pomp and pageantry tends to bring out people's best behaviours....


While in London I took a spin on the Eye and a train ride up to visit Oxford - for the second time - and toured the Duke of Marlborough castle. Talk about living large! The "house" seemed as vast as the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry and then there were the grounds and gardens which rolled out neat and green as far as I could see. Whew! Must be nice.

A pound sterling by any other name

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When is a pound sterling not a pound sterling? When you're in London, England, and the currency in your hand was printed by the Bank of Scotland -- apparently.

The clerk looked at the purple bill so queerly and asked, "What is that?"

 

I'd gone down from Edinburgh for an appointment and, with some time to kill, popped into a second-hand shop. Wasn't terribly tempted to buy anything - like I needed to buy anything! - but I found a thin book by Camus and a canvas money belt. When I went to pay for them I apologized for not having anything smaller than a twenty pound note. The clerk looked at the purple bill so queerly and asked, "What is that? Sorry, we only accept pounds." This is pound money, I said. So he went to double-check with his manager. She'd never seen such money either. Talk about thick! "Sorry sir....," the clerk said upon return. Whatever. Long live the Queen! I huffed and left the hicks to themselves.

Like New Yorkers some Londoners remain ignorant of things outside of their big metropolice.

(For the sake of knowledge, Scotland is part of the United Kingdom - said kingdom an extention of the House of Windsor (e.g., Prince Phillip is the Duke of Edinburgh) - and has as its currency the British pound; but being a seperate nation with her own federal bank Scotland prints her own notes which are, of course, of equal with those printed by the Bank of England).  

Tate Modern Museum (London)

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Visited the Tate Modern along the Thames River. The building was once a factory of sorts and very immense within just as one would expect of a “working building” where ventilation and production were core. And, owing to that vast spaciousness, it’s impressive to walk through; not at all like a jam packed museum feel with wall-to-wall glass casings and paintings and roped-off artifacts. But that’s about as impressive as it got for me; that and the souvenir shop which, surprisingly, actually has many reasonably priced and discounted goodies. I went back twice just for the gift shop!

modern art pieces are what I would classify as crap for rich dummies

What didn’t lure me back were the modern art pieces. Most of it is what I would classify as crap for rich dummies. What do you offer to the man who has everything money can buy? A cock-and-bull story that no one in his right mind would buy! Hence exclusivity. Barring the canonized masters – Dali, Picasso, Lichtenstein, and even Pollock – I am greatly turned off by modern art, which, to me, smacks of a smart alecky affront where the story/explanation behind the piece counts for more than the art piece, per se. It’s not just a rock I found on my neighbor’s ranch but the rock which caught my attention when I decided to become a father and, thus, its potential energy is, in reality, active because it inspired me to enact my kinetic energy of reproduction; motion propelled by immobility!

(Gag!) Give that man a shovel.

There is actually a mirror taking up space in a gallery. Unlike the mirrors in the bathrooms this, otherwise, ordinary looking glass is glued to a canvas. And what goes onto canvases? Why, art of course – and boxers. This mirror was even naked of a frame. I’ve seen more creative works in a craft shop but because those things are actual and not symbolic they fail to impress rich dummies and qualify as art.

and, like Her Majesty, it is still around!

 plenty of space for plenty of sunflower seeds

 A nylon staircase which hangs from the ceiling. Pretty awesome!

I returned a lost wallet (London)

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"See something, say something" is catchy -- but rubbish (in as far as folks follow it). 

I sat in the only other available seat in the subway, the other one being taken up by this lady's shoulder bag, which I thought that was rude of her until I realized that, unlike any other woman, she did not pull the bag closer so...the bag wasn't her's?? Nor did the gentleman sitting across the aisle appear to possess any ownership of it. In fact, as I looked around the crowded car zero eyes appeared to be watching this Puma bag (which I initially thought was too sporty for the lady anyway but what do I know?). One stop later nearly the entire car empties and there still sat the bag; on the next stop, which was mine, I took it.


I imagined nothing dangerous about it - hell, if it was going to detonate, then it was going to blow us up whether I picked it up or not - because I refuse to swallow the paranoia gov't propaganda perpetuates to partial away all public and private corners of comfort, convenience, and common sense. But I was displeased and put off by the 'self-preservation' of everyone in that subway car: not one of those "civilized" bastards sought out a platform official and I'll bet a hundred pound sterling no one tried to call back the passenger who forgot it; but, hey, they were "decent" enough not to steal it, right? Just ignored it and let it be.

 What comes around, goes around

I hoped there were bricks of cash or diamonds inside but there were none. It was just some guy's stuff: cellphone, newly bought neckties, loads of hair dyes (I imagine he worked in a salon), several pieces of identification, digital camera, and a wallet with sufficient cash and credit cards. Was I tempted? Certainly. Do I know the Principal of 'finders keepers, losers weepers'? Certainly. But, then, I also KNEW this belonged to so-and-so...there was his face and name and address and, by extension, his story: he was a German tourist and he'd lost his belongings! Plainly, this wasn't mine to keep. And since it wasn't bricks of cash or diamonds what then, after all, was there to keep?


I've walked off many a-times and left behind stuff like shoes, gloves, hats, cell phones and, yes, money. Only in one country were any of those things returned to me: Germany. So I felt all the more compelled to turn this man's lost bag. What comes around, goes around. 

I refuse to swallow the paranoia gov't propaganda perpetuates to partial away all public and private corners of comfort, convenience, and common sense

The station manager looked at me strangely as if stunned by confusion or something. I didn't like the way he was looking at me so I repeated my stated business because either a) he didn't comprehend me and b) I had to pee -- really, really badly. At length he said, still unsure, You're a braaave man to pick up things like this! What his tone said, however, was that I was crazy but, being a transport official, he couldn't very well discourage good Samaritanism/civil obedience/honesty.

I had to stick around and witness his itemizing the inventory (he counted out the monies a little too slowly for my bursting bladder). While there the lost cell phone buzzed! Turns out the tourist was on his way back to Germany. He beat it back to the tube station and correctly identified the contents of the bag. Grateful, the man offered me the British money (£15) and was more than willing to reward me all of the euros (€95) in the wallet but I was cool with accepting an additional €20; I was just so happy that he was happy and grateful, and that his trip wasn't effed up by this blunder. 

There are good people in the world -- and I like to prove that I'm one of them. 

Dover Castle Hostel (London)

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While in London I stayed at Dover Castle Hostel. It was the first one I found and I was able to buy a bed on a walk-in; and they offer good weekly rates…so I stayed. After three weeks in town – I didn’t plan on sticking around that long! – I really wanted to move to another place but was unsuccessful. Couchsurfing is a bust (good luck trying to secure a host in London!); Hostel 369 et al. (there are three of them) is simply a money-maker run by people who couldn’t care less about running a comfortable hostel – and who don’t even answer their own phone line – and St Christopher’s Inn is way too corporate and accepts only guests with bank cards. I’ve already written about them here.

one of the first hostels where I’ve not found a place within to read and write…and very, very stingy lighting

Dover Castle is a nice enough hostel with free wi-fi, comfortable beds, clean facilities, hot showers. The staff is friendly and helpful. Its operation is organized and professional and the building is a mere block away from the Borough tube station (walking across the street in direction of the backside of the nearby church). A lot of French people work here (but they are friendlier than the French people you might encounter in France); and there are even two black men on staff! On the ground floor is a real pub, meaning it’s open to the public, and guests receive one free welcome soft drink.

A big minus to Dover Castle is its tiny Commons Area which also serves as the kitchen. Rather than use a room for T.V. and lounging separate from cooking and eating the hostel prefers to squeeze in as many beds as possible thereby making more money. 

The television is never loud enough to hear but this perhaps owes more to the group of Italian and Spanish guests who insist on having the television on regardless of watching it and downright prefer to shout over it rather than turn down the volume or simply off. Go figure. Dover Castle is one of the first hostels where I’ve not found a place within to read and write…there are no study or dining tables (only two coffee tables) and very, very stingy lighting. The sister hostel, The Cricketer, is one tube station away and is even worse. 

Dover Castle has good weekly rates

For long-term lodgings - it also has good weekly rates - The Cricketer serves the most basic purposes – bed and linen, hot water, lockable doors – of having a cheap place to live while working or looking for work in the City which is good; but the long-term lodgers seem… shall we say, unhappy and unmotivated. I find its atmosphere depressing. Cold and depressing. Who wants to be around that?

Cheers!    

Renting in London? Dream on...!

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Renting a place in or around town is far from easy or affordable. Aside from the multitude of rent scams proliferating on the Web targeting newcomers for whom London post codes are Greek – 300 pounds sounds reasonable to me! Doh! You mean the median rent in this neighborhood is 950 pounds?! – there is simply the high standard of living which, compounded by requirements of a deposit plus two months rent paid in advance, makes getting your own place the thing of fairy tales. This year is even worse thanks to the coming Summer Olympics: renters are jacking up rates (and evicting tenants) to cash in on the Games.

London iconic telephone booth

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St Christopher's Inns doesn't take cash payments (London)

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Sell out. That's one of the better ways to label the hostel franchise St Christopher's Inns. You know how laughable it is for Jennifer Lopez to claim she's still down-to-earth Jenny from the block? Switch the celebrity for a brick-and-mortar business and you get my drift.


I've stayed in St. Christopher's Inns in, both, Berlin and Paris and never incurred a problem buying a bed if there was vacancy. But such was not the case in London. Unlike most stupid young people I don't use credit cards. I pay for everything in cash and upfront because - guess what - much of the world commerce still does use hard currency.

this policy of London St. Christopher's Inns is not at all in the spirit of youth hostels

I walked over to The Village, one of the hostels on High Borough Street, to book a bed for the week and asked if they had a weekly special rate. They had but.... I found it very odd that the reception could not take my booking then and there; she gave me a card and informed me to call the booking office. I did. But the telephone rep wouldn't make a reservation unless I had a bank card of some sort. Really?! Wow, let's complicate life by making the simple complicated! What did hotels ever do before the invention of call centers and invisible money (credit)?

to turn away my business just because I was equipped to pay cash is amazing

This particular policy of London St. Christopher's Inns is very short-sighted and not at all in the spirit of  youth hostels. That the hostel would turn away my business just because I was equipped to pay cash is amazing -- and stupid.

Thankfully, London is a big, big city with plenty of other budget hotels who, unlike this corporate-minded establishment, gladly accept credit cards AND cash. In the meantime I'll write a complaint letter to the appropriate gov't bodies to see if this practice is even legal. 

Oxford, England

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Went up to Oxford last week. I took the bus, which makes frequent runs to the town, and paid only 14GBP; even bought my ticket on the day of the trip with no price increase. It takes just under two hours to reach Oxford.


Of course I visited the university campus and also went to the theatre to see "Tis Pity She's A Whore". Can you believe that play is over 400 years old?! Sounds just like one of our running reality television shows! Upon coming out of the theatre the streets were already being freshly covered with snow. It looked pretty but I wasn't too glad to see it or feel it. I hate the cold!


The nearby hostel, Oxford Backpackers, wasn't much warmer either. Damn manager is a cheapskate who takes energy conservation a little too keenly...Commons area (translation: wi-fi reception, television, comfortable couches and tables) was cold as a witch's tit! We had to wear our coats and hats indoors. Thankfully, though, the sleeping rooms DID have heat -- and I took the bunk right next to the radiator. Hello! I stayed three nights. At 18GBP (18 bed dorm) the cost of sleep ain't all that cheap; in fact, it was more than what I paid for in London.

On the wrong side in London

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I'm a little shy to admit - but because it's so funny I will - it took me a few days to realize why the so-called "civilized" people of England were walking on the wrong side of the street. I can't stand idiots walking on the left side of the walk (Mexico..!) but then, since I had to keep mindful of looking right when crossing the street, I suddenly understood: oops, I'm the idiot walking on the wrong side of the way. Hahaha!

Cadbury calls Naomi chocolate

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Cadbury chocoletiers pulled a new ad campaign for a rich chocolate bar lounging in diamonds in which they compared it, the candy, to supermodel Naomi Campbell.

Said Miss Campbell:

"I am shocked. It's upsetting to be described as chocolate, not just for me, but for all black women and black people. I do not find any humor in this. It is insulting and hurtful."

Yes it is. Except in Mexico where ignorance and name-calling of (black)people is standard. And the white people who escape south of the border think it's cute.

Something fishy with U.S. State Dept and passports

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There is something going on with U.S. passports and the American State Dept. Supposedly state-of-the-art and foolproof and secure I certainly encounter more than a few hiccups or long waits whenever crossing the U.S. border.  Whatever information is encrypted is beyond me. On one travel it gives pause to the border pigs yet on another it registers something else or, miraculously, nothing at all.

I'm not the only one with passport headaches. A NY woman is repeatedly hassled whenever crossing into -- surprise, surprise -- Canada and -- oh wow surprise! -- back again. Her's is a frustrating case of mistaken identity which the govts can't get their asses around to correcting. As if it is so improbable that two human beings can share names, birth dates, and even skin color; only this poor woman is too often mistaken for, apparently, a black man. Now I read the Iroquois are having their sovereign nation travel limited less they comply and get American passports. The country is warning they won't be allowed back in without a U.S. passport and other countries are weary of issuing visas to them if they can't return home.

What the hell are Obama and Hillary Clinton doing?

I'm so glad I'm in Europe.

No trouble going through UK & EU

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UPDATE: Four years later it's a much different story. The Immigration "reforms" of the UK have made them vigilant against travellers of color. They resent foreigners(studying there). I, myself, was stopped and detained twice.
It's been nearly a week since I left NYC and came across the pond and it's worth saying that I had no hiccups, stress, beef or third-degree passing my black ass through English officials at Heathrow Airport or German border patrol at Berlin's Tegel Airport. No twenty questions, no sarcastic undertones, no snarky attitude, nothing remotely racist--- like the Qúebecunt border patrol.

I had forgotten it could be so easy. I felt like a white person.

JOURNAL: OCTOBER 13, 2009

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Oct 13

   Am at the airport with hours to spare! My mistake in missing last week's flight was a result of softness. I had a safety net: I had the "extra" money to afford another hotel stay, to say nothing of another flight. Lesson learned. The hard way. I was also wide awake well before the alarm because someone checked into the room in the middle of the night. A while later I re-awoke to her snoring. Jesusfuckingchrist. 
   But am at the airport.
   My four hour layover in Heathrow was not the drag I imagined; far from it. That is the best airport I've been in, and so much changed from my first visit, what, two years ago. Ordered the beef & kidney pudding (with peas and "chips") plus a side of onion rings and ginger beer. Delicious but I did not fancy the taste of kidneys. 

Freedom T-shirt causes man grief

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A family man wearing a plain T-shirt with the small message "Freedom or Die" on it was asked to change his clothing by security personnel. Said the security officer:


"Some airlines get a bit worried by T-shirts with what you have got on, it might be a bit threatening."

The UK airport has apologized for the "overzealous" gaffe, stating it has no T-shirt slogan policy, but the incident highlights the fickleness of all this high security measure bull and, incidentally, reminds us of the great compromise before us: freedom or death?  

On London

If you plan to visit London among other destinations, make it towards the leg of your trip or else you will wind up hating all of England -- and that's without even having tried the English Breakfast. (One word: regurgitation).

London is so amazingly expensive it makes the head hurt.

Trust me, the currency ain't called the English pound for nothing.

Did not mind the typical grayness of the weather---charming, rather---but this world city is not for the budget traveller. In fact, I stopped over near the start of my trip and was still smarting from the exchange rate.

Very glad, however, to report I didn't encounter any racial beef. Whilst in Barcelona I met a rowdy group of Britons from Birmingham, England. They were a nice lot and not shabby about sharing drinks. In fact, they were happy to ply you with them...the more, the merrier, as the saying goes.

Long live the Queen, and all that jazz.

County Hotel (London)

At £41a night this hotel was a "good deal" according to my ex-friend in London.

Was all right but not that good of a deal. I liked my private room and the hotel reminded me of the snow lodge in The Shining. Maid service is decent but the bar is its best feature. With wood paneling and heavy burgundy wallpaper I could almost hear someone calling, "Aye gov'ner! I'll have another!"

The female Front Desk was cold and terribly short with me. Since these cold cunts were on shift the most I have to give a low mark to customer service. The Porters, too, miss the mark since they failed to put through an international call to my room. Jerks. Breakfast staff, though, were spot-on...unfortunately, the meal was traditional English Breakfast. Btw, it's no typo: the address actually has no numbers in it.

I loved that the bathrooms had bathtubs. It was such a long time since I soaked in a hot bath. Highlight of my stay had to be down in the bar---with whisky---watching the English advance to the Rugby finals. Johnny Wilkinson's the most!

Upper Woburn Place, London WC1H OJW, England