Sex Discrimination -- Sexy Uniforms at the Rocket Bar

Above is the Facebook picture and below is the offending dress.

It is interesting how news is written.

A young Bosnian Muslim woman who managed to get herself a job at the Rocket Bar in Mayfair and then quit after just eight days has won a £3,000 damages payout because she was made to wear a figure hugging red dress. According to the woman, Fata Lemes (photos courtesy of here), the dress made her feel like a prostitute.

It seems that the Rocket Bar has two uniforms; a summer one and a winter one. The winter one being a loose-fitting black deal and the summer one being the offending red dress that was the subject of the claim. Lemes was so concerned about the look of the dress that she could not bring herself to where it for a shift. However, she had no qualms about getting a picture in it.

The interesting part is that she is reported to have said: "I was brought up a Muslim and am not used to wearing sexually attractive clothes. I might as well be naked in that dress." I guess the key words here are "am not used to wearing" because that must be construed to mean, it is uncommon for me but I have been known to wear the odd sexy outfit.

The social networking phenomenon that is Facebook means that if you are on it then someone somewhere will know who you are and be privy to what you have posted on Facebook. This is the case for Lemes, who has posted pictures of herself wearing clothes that seem far more revealing than the red dress.

Now, for the interesting news bit. The Central London Employment Tribunal rejected her claim for £17,500 as 'manifestly absurd', and was explicit in stating that the dress was not revealing or indecent. However, they did make an award to her based on sexual discrimination in the work place. It seems that the Rocket Bar did not make their male employees where an alternate uniform in the summer months.

Is there a lesson in all of this? Yes, make sure that your male and female employees are treated equally across the board, at least in terms of uniforms.

The Buddha Bar -- Jakarta

The Buddha Bar is one that I have heard of and have never had the cause or the inclination to go there. I have friends and colleagues who have trundled by and have given it mixed reviews. By consensus it seems that it caters to the upper end of the market and I am a strictly down town kind of fella. So, the Buddha Bar and me are not a match made in heaven.

However, this is not a post about my watering hole preferences,but rather a musing about what Buddha might think about a group of Buddhists students closing the place down because it allegedly insults their religious sensitivities.

The Jakarta Post is reporting that the Indonesian Buddhists Student Association (Aliansi Mahasiswa Buddhis / AMB) has closed down the Buddha Bar and management has seemingly agreed to this. This does not seem to be a particularly enlightened move on the part of the AMB.

The Buddha Bar is part of a chain of bars owned and operated by George V Hotels and Resorts which is based in France. The groups has Buddha Bars in a number of other locations including London, New York, Cairo, and Beirut, to name but a few.

According to Kompas, the group has recommended that the Tourist Agency of the Government and the Governor become pro-active in the stripping of the groups business license to operate in Jakarta. Presumably, this request should be directed further up the chain so as to ensure that any requisite business licenses are stripped for the whole of Indonesia and not just Jakarta.

It seems that the primary concern of the AMB is that the association of Buddha to a bar is inappropriate, particularly as the Buddha Bar is a place that serves alcohol and allows people to get drunk. I am guessing that the point is that Buddha neither drank alcohol nor got drunk.

The secondary concern relates to the fact that the Buddha Bar is populated with Buddhist symbols and artifacts (I would be guessing that most are cheap imitations as opposed to the real thing - but as I said I have not been to the place and I am not sure that I would know the difference anyway).

It also appears, according to a spokesperson for the AMB, that before the word Buddha can be used in any context there must be written approval from the Directorate General of Buddhist Affairs at the Department of Religion.

The last time I was in a music store checking out a couple of the latest CDs, I noticed that there are a series of music CDs related to the Bar and simply called Buddha Bar I, Buddha Bar II, Buddha Bar III, and I think I saw a Buddha Bar IV as well. I guess once the students successfully close down the Buddha Bar proper then they can turn their collective attention to blockading music stores and demand that the CDs be withdrawn from sale.

Interestingly, the Jakarta Post is reporting that the management of the Buddha Bar has also filed a request for a name change. It is not often that you see Indonesians demand changes that are likely to see them out of a job.

The simple reality here is that the Buddha Bar is part of a chain, a franchise if you will, that will lose its appeal should it be renamed George V Bar (although you might get a bit more patronage from some English folks looking to down a warm pint or two). More to the point the staff that work there had no qualms about joining the establishment in the first place. Because if they did then they should have stuck to their principles at that point in time and refused to take up employment until such time as the owners caved into the yet to be employed employees demands for a name change.

This is at best a case of opportunism by the staff and at worst a misrepresentation in the media of the employee's actual position.

This is clearly a case of students having too much time on their hands and nothing better to do. Let's face it there is a world of poverty and illness out there that needs the idealism of youth much more than the shutting down of a poorly named bar that is providing an income to Indonesians and allowing them to feed themselves and their families.

My understanding of Buddha and Buddhist teachings is that they teach tolerance and understanding. I am guessing Buddha is probably sitting under a tree somewhere taking a break from his enlightened meditations and thinking to himself, chill out, it's just a bar.

My thanks to Lawblogger (one of my readers - I cannot link to a blog because I do not know who he is and whether he even has a blog) for pointing me in this direction.

Knife Crime

What better way to start the ball rolling in October than with a post about knife crime in London and an x-ray image of a 16-year-old kid with a knife in his head.

The amazing thing is that the boy survived! This happened in November last year but the police are only now releasing the graphic image as a means to warn about knife crime.

The stabbing was the end result of a robbery at a supermarket in Southwark in London. The knife entered the kid's head just above the eye and ended up as far back as his ear.

The person that stabbed this kid was also a 17-year-old kid. He has since been tried and convicted of attempted murder and grievous bodily harm. I am guessing there is not much dispute on the grievous bodily harm charge as just looking at the x-ray shows that it is pretty grievous. I am figuring that there cannot be too much dispute on the attempted murder charge either as you do not normally want to stab people in the face just above the eye to warn them off.

The police have said that the releasing of the image is part of a wider campaign to crack down on knife and gun violence in London.

Monopoly World Version -- Sydney Rules!

Monopoly was one of the board games that I really enjoyed playing as a kid. It is probably because I was born into a family of competitive siblings in which no quarter was ever given. Perhaps I just enjoyed grinding my younger brother and sister into the make believe financial abyss.

The world version of the game is set to be released on 26 August. However, most everyone knows what cities made the cut and it is now time for the 22 cities that did to enjoy some bragging rights. Sydney is the only Australian city to make the grade. This is a point that the increasingly unpopular Premier of NSW has been making over the last 24 hours or so. It is sad that the Premier has to resort to a board game to try and revive his flagging popularity.

It is interesting that Sydney has ranked alongside New York and London. Interesting, not because it does not deserve to be there, but rather it could have been in so many other possible combinations. The 22 successful cities were chosen after a vote conducted in 58 countries throughout the world and more than five million votes were cast.

The cities that made the cut are Montreal, Riga, Capetown, Belgrade, Paris, Jerusalem, Hong Kong, Beijing, London, New York, Vancouver, Shanghai, Rome, Toronto, Kyiv (Kiev), Istanbul, Athens, Barcelona, Tokyo, Taipei, Gdynia (Gdansk), and Sydney.

The World Edition includes some changes to the monopoly of old that we used to play as kids. The main changes are that the homes and hotels reflect architectural themes and icons from the cities included. There is also a new currency but hopefully it is not the Euro.

The 22 cities:

Dark blue - Montreal, Riga

Green - Capetown, Belgrade, Paris

Yellow - Jerusalem, Hong Kong, Beijing

Red - London, New York, Sydney

Orange - Vancouver, Shanghai, Rome

Magenta - Toronto, Kyiv (Kiev), Istanbul

Light blue - Athens, Barcelona, Tokyo

Brown - Taipei, Gdynia (Gdansk)

Qantas -- Safe or Not?

The story goes that the national press is always harder on the national flag carrier than it is on other airlines. Yet, in the case of Qantas (photo) then perhaps this increased glare of the spotlight is warranted considering the consistent failures logged over the last month or so. For an airline that has prided itself on its safety record while allowing its service standards to slip. I must admit that I have not flown Qantas in years, and the reason for this was that their service was less than expected.

However, on with the safety issues. Qantas is taking a bit of a hammering of late as the list of failures grows ever-longer. The most recent of these "events" includes a Perth bound 737-300 making an unscheduled toilet stop in Adelaide on its way from Sydney. It seems that the ground staff had forgotten to empty out the bowels of the plane and consequently mid-flight things went all to crap. I guess this is both in the literal and figurative senses of the word.

After the delay the flight continued on its merry way.

The second "event" was the delay to the QF2 flight out of London. which was delayed some 15 hours because of a broken rudder. I guess though this was not a mid air which is probably a relief for the passengers that were taking this flight.

These two "events" follow a string of other incidents including a mid-air explosion that forced a plane to divert to Manila in the Philippines, a hydraulic leak that forced a plane to divert to Brisbane, and the loss of a panel from a plane in flight that was not discovered until the plane landed at its destination.

The best is yet to come as a drunken Qantas flight attendant fell against a fire alarm in a hotel in New Zealand that caused a full-scale evacuation of the hotel in the wee hours of the morning. The flight attendant has since resigned. Another flight attendant from the same flight refused to take a breath test before boarding the plane and was stood down from the flight. This served to delay the flight for several hours as a new crew was flown in to cover for their drunk and embarrassed colleagues.

I guess people will have to draw their own conclusions on this expanding list of events.

Jihad

Jihad is an all encompassing struggle and you probably need a personalized number plate for your car to make sure that you get there in the end.

The picture was found here. Unfortunately, the site is in a language I do not speak or read, but some of the words I think I can make sense of. This leads me to believe that the photo was taken in front of a flat in London.

Nice car too!

World Naked Bike Ride -- 2008

World Naked Bike Ride is an event that has been happening for a number of years. However, I do not recall having ever heard of it!

The rides take place in more than 70 countries. It has expanded to include non-pedal power means of transport such as roller skating, inline skating and the like. The ride is to protest "indecent exposure to cars" and in particular the pollution of cars.

The photos are from the Sao Paulo (Brazil) and London (United Kingdom) protests / rides.

This is from Sao Paulo. I have to say there seems to be many more clothed than unclothed people riding bikes. However, it should be added that full nudity in public places in Brazil is apparently illegal! It would seem that the camera person knows which of the riders they want to photograph!

Nah...this is what I call a real kick in the nuts! This is one unhappy copper and it is likely to be one unhappy bike rider who might not be riding a bike for a while if the police officer manages to connect with the big right kick! Take a look at the expression on the copper's face; he's not messing around on this one!

This is a photo from the London event! This fella has a billboard big enough that he could have written a few other slogans for the day. I hazard to guess that he does not get the bike out of the garage all that often!

Saving the best till last! It seems like the route is spectator lined. I wonder why?

Man Boobs (aka Moobs)

Man boobs are not sexy on any man and it seems that the Court of Appeal of the United Kingdom sitting in London agrees. The effect of the decision means that it is legal to not only look at moobs but to photograph and video them till your hearts content. Simply, moobs are not deemed in the legal sense to be "private parts" and are therefore not sexual in nature.

The reason this case was heard was that a gentleman by the name of Kevin Bassett was found guilty in a lower court of voyeurism for filming the moobs of a fella taking a shower after a swim. The filming took place at a public pool in the changing area where once someone has had a swim there are open air showering facilities made available to wash off the chlorine.

The charges were laid under the 2003 Sexual Offences Act and voyeurism requires that the breasts be exposed for the charge to be made out. The Court of Appeal made a distinction between the breasts of a woman and the moobs of men. Moobs are not deemed to be private parts.

Interestingly, this was not an open filming but rather a hidden camera (in a bag) and there were plenty of children about. Mr. Bassett is a middle-aged man. So, when the camera was spotted you can imagine that there was a heated exchange between Mr. Bassett and the other pool goers. However, part of the Bassett defense was that he was a homosexual man and not interested in filming the little children but only the adult men. In light of the charges brought against him the video must have borne that out and there must have only been images of adult men!

The Court of Appeal ultimately held that the lower court judge had erred in allowing the jury to consider that the images were ones of breasts in the manner intended under the 2003 legislation. The Court quashed the conviction.

So, any fellas out there with moobs -- you might want to keep your shirt on!