Chris Saul's Blog

Wednesday May 28, 2008

Attack of the duck faced freaks

I've seen a couple of ladies walking around recently with lips that have been surgically altered to resemble ducks' beaks.

Glancing at the covers of the Arabic language women's magazines in the newsagent, I see that having your lips changed to resemble a duck's beak appears to be the latest fashion.

How exactly did all this start and how do plastic surgeons sell their services? Do people wake up one day and decide they want to look like duck faced freaks or do they see an advert in the paper offering 'duck faced freak services' and feel persuaded?

I can understand why someone might want their ears pinned back, a bump on the nose smoothed or hair removed. I don't understand why people would have plastic surgery that then blatantly obviously looks like plastic surgery.

These duck faced ladies just look like ladies that have had their lips altered to give them a duck face. Why?

Chris Saves The World

Our developer's doing a good job at the moment.

Back in October or November I sent them a mail asking them why none of the doors around the complex closed properly. People were just walking into the shopping centre and leaving the doors wide open, with cold air blowing out and hot air blowing in - a colossal waste of energy.

They said they'd 'ask their consultants' to look into it.

Last week all the doors were fitted with something that makes them swing shut automatically. I've no idea why this wasn't done in the first place and can't guarantee that this change was really anything to do with my email, but at least it's been taken care of.

We also had free water saving devices fitted to our taps and the showers. These widgets are supposed to halve your water consumption but maintain pressure. I'm in two minds about them - to be of real use, you need an option to switch them on and off. If you're just rinsing your hands, they're fine and are clearly saving water. If you're filling the washbasin to shave, for example, it now takes three times as long.

Mrs Saul claims she can't wash her hair properly as the pressure's dropped too much on the shower after the special widget was added, so I had it removed.

Let's see what next month's water bill's like. I'll put up with waiting a bit longer for a basin or mop bucket to fill if we're saving elsewhere.

There is one minor annoyance. I emailed the developer asking when the barbecue area would be ready and received a reply telling me that a barbecue area was 'not part of the concept of the development'. This is odd, as we were repeatedly told there'd be one. The developer's own website also clearly states that there'd be one - click here and read about the 'BBQ Zone'.

'Not being part of the concept' seems to be the new phrase that's taken over from 'but it was signed off by the consultants' as an excuse for whatever's gone wrong or hasn't been done. The fact that the promised free gym will now cost $2,000 per couple per year is apparently because a free gym was 'not part of the concept of the development'. An apology and an explanation with some detail would surely make customers happier.

Presumably a kitchen sink that's useable by non-midgets and that doesn't cause you to splash water all over the place was also not part of the original concept.