RKS Literature: WHY CAN ANYONE BE UNHAPPY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM? (Salman Rushdie)

They say, sir, that in the U, K. if a man does not have a job, the government gives him money. If he does not have a job, the government gives him money. If he does not have a house, the government gives him a pukka residence, not a jopadpatti shack on the pavement but a solid construction. If he or his family is sick, the government pays for the hospital. If he can’t send his children to school, the government sends them free. And when he is old and useless, the government gives the good-for-nothing cash money every week for the rest of his life.

The idea that a government might behave in such a way seemed to offend Gieve’s sense of the natural order. When Darius confirmed the approximate accuracy of the assertions, the butler couldn’t stand it. He smacked his brow, shook his head, couldn’t speak for a moment. Then he said, “In this case, sir, why is anyone I the U.K. ever unhappy?”

Salman Rushdie, “The Ground Beneath Her Feet”, 1999

RKS Literature: I WANT TO BE IN AMERICA (Salman Rushdie)

I want to be in America, America where everyone’s like me, because everyone comes from somewhere else. All those histories, persecutions, massacres, piracies, slaveries; all those secret ceremonies, hanged witches, weeping wooden virgins and horned unyielding gods; all that yearning, hope, greed, excess, the whole lot adding up to a fabulous noisy historyless self-inventing citizenry of jumbles and confusions; all those variform mangling’s of English adding up to the livingest English in the world; and above everything else, all that smuggled-in music. The drums of Africa that once beat out messages across the giant landscape in which even the trees made music; for example when they absorbed water after a drought, listen and you’ll hear them, yikitaka, yikitaka yikitak. The Polish dances, the Italian weddings, the Zorba slithering Greeks. The drunken rhythm of the salsa saints. The cool heart music that heals our aching souls, and the hot democratic music that leaves a hole in the beat and makes our pants want to get up and dance.

Salman Rushdie, “The Ground Beneath Her Feet”, 1999

RKS TURKISH LITERATURE: AN ISLAMIST FANATIC ADMONISHES HIS MURDER VICTIM A “SHAMELESS ATHIEST” (Orhan Pamuk)

Head scarves protect a woman from harassment rape and degradation. It’s the head scarf that gives women respect and a comfortable place in society. We’ve heard this from many women who’ve chosen later in life to cover themselves. Women like the old belly dancer Melhat Sandra. The veil saves women from the animal instincts of men in the street. It saves them the ordeal of entering beauty contests to compete with other women. They don’t have to live like sex objects, they don’t have to wear makeup all day. As the American Black Muslim professor Marvin King has already noted, if the celebrated film star Elizabeth Taylor had spent the last twenty years covered she would not have had to worry so much about being fat. She would not have ended up in a mental hospital.

Orhan Pamuk, “Snow”, 2002

RKS Literature: England an Ersatz America (Salman Rushdie)

Nowadays England is ersatz America, America’s delayed echo, America driving on the left. Sure, Jesse Garon Parker was white American trash who wanted to sing like a black boy, but the Beatles, for goodness sake, the Beatles are white English trash trying to sing like American girls. Crystals Ronettes Shirelles Chantels Chiffons Vandellas Marvelettes, why not wear some spangly dresses, boys, why not get some beehive hairdos instead of those loveable mop tops and have the sex change operation too, go the whole way, do it right.

Salman Rushdie, “The Ground Beneath Her Feet”, 1999

RKS Literature: England an Ersatz America (Salman Rushdie)

Nowadays England is ersatz America, America’s delayed echo, America driving on the left. Sure, Jesse Garon Parker was white American trash who wanted to sing like a black boy, but the Beatles, for goodness sake, the Beatles are white English trash trying to sing like American girls. Crystals Ronettes Shirelles Chantels Chiffons Vandellas Marvelettes, why not wear some spangly dresses, boys, why not get some beehive hairdos instead of those loveable mop tops and have the sex change operation too, go the whole way, do it right.

Salman Rushdie, “The Ground Beneath Her Feet”, 1999

RKS Literature: 1965 Air India Flight from Bombay to London: Like the Mayflower (Salman Rushdie)

Welcome aboard the Mayflower, he greets them, seizing their hands as they pass by his seat, the terrified uncomprehending peasants from remote inland villages on their way to desert kingdoms, the perspiration sprinkled young executives in cheap suits, the frowning chaperones of a veiled young bride fainting in a pink gharana with too much gold braid, the unwary young student on his way to a miserable four years in an English boarding school, and the children. There are children everywhere, children running in the aisles imitating the aircraft to the dismay of the cabin staff; or standing up on their seats grave-eyed and motionless, showing more than an adult understanding of the importance of this momentous day; or screaming like strapped-down lunatics at their fastened seatbelts; children dressed in spectacularly lumpy woolen jumpers in functional gray and navy blue, their very garments proclaiming their alienation from the new homes they have never seen, trumpeting the difficulty they will have adjusting to life in those lightless northern climes.

Salman Rushdie, “The Ground Beneath Her Feet”, 1999

BEYOND PUPPYDOM: INCIDENTS, ACCIDENTS, EXPLORATIONS AND MAYHEM: RORY DYLAN STEPHEN TELLS IT LIKE IT IS: RORY DYLAN STEPHEN AIRLIFTED TO SWITZERLAND FOR MEDICAL CARE

RORY DYLAN STEPHEN AIRLIFTED TO SWITZERLAND FOR MEDICAL CARE

Bob, Fay and Raffles were very concerned with my uncharacteristic behaviour. Not eating well, apathetic and reluctant to go out on my usual multitude of walks. It was the crying in my sleep and refusal to chase tennis balls that sounded the alarm bells.

Bob is not a psychologist, but it smelt not like teen spirit but Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. I had undergone a kidnapping and was exposed to nefarious and murderous characters in foreign lands. I played along for strategic and safety reasons and it paid off as I was liberated safe and sound in Singapore. A small puppy in an oversized and sleazy Southeast Asian world.

Bob, Fay and Raffles transported to me via a leased executive jet to Alstätten, Switzerland to the famed (and outrageously expensive) Kay Nine Clinic specializing in psychiatric (OMG) care for dogs. We first met with Dr. Moutro Skilos the well-known author of a series of veterinarian centric papers on PTSD for dogs.

After two days of intake sessions where my story was provided in great detail, mostly through my Singapore Times articles detailing my ordeal, a two-week intensive therapy session plan was developed.

Bob, Fay and Raffles found accommodation in a deluxe former shepherd’s hut in the mountains proximate to the clinic and were to pick me up in two weeks and return home.

Wouldn’t you know it! My roommate was Giak a Cambodian landmine sniffing mutt who had his rear left leg blown off by a landmine in Cambodia. Could have very well have been me!

RORY DYLAN STEPHEN’S BEYOND PUPPYDOM:WHY AM I FEELING THIS WAY?

WHY AM I FEELING THIS WAY?

I am back in Toronto with Bob and Fay. Raffles, my Singaporean Westie friend is with me on a permanent basis and I have been showing him around the neighbourhood. He is, or at least was, a working dog at the Raffles Singapore Hotel acting as a greeter and rat and mouse hunter in the kitchens of that esteemed hotel. Everyone loves him to death but he is a bit shy never having much more than a casual “greeting relationship” to guests at the hotel.

I should be feeling on top of the world being at home with Bob, Fay and my new friend Raffles.

I do not sleep well and I don’t think it is jet lag. I have recurring nightmares about my cage being kicked at the Hong Kong Airport by a nasty baggage handler. I heard his cruelty was captured on a security camera and he has been charged with cruelty to animals. Perhaps good for justice but for me?

And those threats to send me sniffing for land mines in Cambodia?

Being deprived of Bob and Fay my protectors?

The criminality I have witnessed such as the murders and explosions on the Eastern and Oriental Express, dog fighting, opium dens and money laundering. What could these occurrences have done to a Westie puppy?

I was caught up in the moment and it all was so exciting….at the time.

I ignored the horrific fact of my abduction and survived the best way I could realizing I was trapped and escape was impossible.

I admit it all seemed so fun and exciting. However one wrong move on my part and I could have been more than abducted. I could have been murdered.

Bob, Fay and Raffles decided I required some help after gagging on my kibble and crying in my sleep.

I used to enjoy my puppyhood here in Toronto but it has been stolen from me.

I am a big boy now and I need some help to get back on track.

RKS FILM: “10 Kilos”: Kinda Seen This Story Before

I couldn’t stop my brain cross referencing “10 Kilos” with “Midnight Express” but I will refrain from a comparative review other than remarking if you are in the poor narcotic inflicted gringo imprisoned in a Third World Prison type of mood you will not be disappointed.

“10 Kilos” is the “true” story of Sharon Yitzhaky an unsuspecting drug mule for Roni a man she met in Peru and travelled to La Paz, Bolivia with. Roni leaves Sharon (Daniella Kertesz) in their La Paz hotel room and hours later the Bolivian police bust in and arrest her for drug trafficking the 10 kilos of cocaine found in the hotel room.

She proclaims innocence during her slapped around interrogation and refuses to sign a prepackaged confession. An unnamed American (quite obviously a DEA agent) appears at the interrogation looking for a full confession so the United States can score a media victory although given the small amount of cocaine it wouldn’t be much of a victory.

Sharon is transported to Miraflores Prison controlled more by a gang than prison guards continually turning a blind eye to the contraband (including drugs) smuggling and acts of intra-prisoner brutality including murder.

The prison mother Amparo (Luna Mansour) welcomes Sharon with an “electrifying shower” and terrorizes and brutalizes and murders anyone opposing her rule or failing to pay their debts. The chief extortionist at Miraflores is Donna Maucha (Paola Tirado) who runs dollars and cocaine into Miraflores for Bolivian drug cartel leader Amadeo de Soto (Juan Pablo Olyslager) himself in the men’s section of the prison.

De Soto cuts a deal with Sharon; in court if she admits possession and does not mention Roni who has since been transferred to a Peruvian cocaine laboratory by de Soto until matters “cool down”. By agreeing to possession, a twenty-year sentence for trafficking will instead be a greased palm five years.

A sexual interest develops between Sharon and de Soto and she becomes chief extortionist and drug dealer at Miraflores replacing the departed Donna Maucha.

The golden rule of de Soto’s team at Miraflores is never snort the cocaine you are dealing to inmates and accept no sob stories begging for cocaine without payment up front. Sharon causes herself much harm by breaking this rule. Sharon has become quite a vicious thug as evidenced by her revenge shower administered to Amparo. Like the Turkish prison in “Midnight Express” Miraflores is more a village of criminals than a North American prison.

An expose of drug cartel money ruling justice in Bolivia and the slimy tactics of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency more concerned with media wins than actual drug cartel destruction.

As Billy in “Midnight Express” escaped back to his home in the USA Sharon also escapes to Israel.

A watchable film from start to finish perhaps even gripping at points. Well cast all round although Luna Mansour as Amparo is a bit over the top in her viciousness.

Watch the trailer here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dv2tIgsJ1ts

A limited USA theatre run begins 21August2026.

Directed by Doran Eran.

RKS Film Rating 73/100.

BEYOND PUPPYDOM: INCIDENTS, ACCIDENTS, EXPLORATIONS AND MAYHEM: RORY DYLAN STEPHEN TELLS IT LIKE IT IS: INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Let’s round off my period of puppydom at approximately twelve months.

When I commenced with “Lost in Puppydom” it was all cute, cuddly and good clean if not puerile fun.

Running around smelling and sniffing. Whimpering with curiosity. Being the cutest dog on the planet. Pooping and peeing here and there without a care of the consequences. Puppy fighting. That innocent tsunami of harmlessness. Ahhhh….so cute!

Some idyllic moments are not meant to be as on my first grooming I was kidnapped by Madame Fong in Toronto and smuggled through North Bergen New Jersey and Hong Kong with Singapore my final destination. Being transported in airplane cargo holds from Newark International Airport, via Hong Kong to Singapore is a sure way to obliterate puppydom or at least the syrupy version of most West Highland puppy stories.

My co-abductor, the late Bobby Fong Jr., was as time would tell a decent man and I was treated well. I played the waiting game and it worked out and I was “repatriated” to Toronto to my master Bob and mistress Fay.

I have had more adventure and intrigue than most Westies will ever experience. Dog fighting, opium dens, murder, unimaginable luxury, chewing gum smuggling, bribery, high politics, threats, international travel can mature a seemingly spacey puppy mighty quick.

Well readers I am back by popular demand and you readers are demanding more incidents, accidents, explorations and mayhem. Nothing like a story with a world savvy West Highland Terrier. A story for adults and one that you won’t want to read to your children or grandchildren.