Over the years, Rollie Pemberton has built a career both writing about music for outlets like Pitchfork and making music under his rapper alias, Cadence Weapon. He's also the host of VICELAND's new show Payday, which follows young people across North America as they attempt to make a living amidst our modern-day economic realities and anxieties. In advance of tonight's new episode, we talked to Pemberton about what viewers can expect from the show.

VICE: Tell me about the message and mission behind Payday.
Rollie Pemberton: Payday isn't just about the different ways people make money—it's also about how people make money today. It's a very contemporary view on the different kind of jobs people can have today. Some of the people we feature have jobs that I'd never thought of them holding. There's one guy who's a funeral director in his twenties—you wouldn't necessarily think of that as a young person's job. It's a show about the economic realities for young people in America today.

What stigmas is this show trying to break when it comes to young people and money today?
In Canada, the Finance Minister recently said young people should get used to having temporary jobs—that's going to be the future. the way the economy is going now. Our government is telling us that we should rely on inherently unreliable jobs that don't have benefits. So it's important that a show like this shows the lengths that people will go to make a living, and how dynamic and creative people can get when they don't have the option of having a typical salary-based job. Some of these people are working multiple jobs. In the Baltimore episode, we follow a tattoo artist who's also picking up scrap metal. People are doing whatever it takes to survive.

The baby boomer generation almost has an aversion to the level of freedom that our generation has—they're mad that we get to take chances and choose different things, because that wasn't an option to them. I don't think we're necessarily that different from the previous generation, I just think that we have the option to make these choices.

If you had to give a young person advice on how to financially survive in North America, what would you tell them?
One of the first things that I would tell them is to be knowledgeable, figure out something that you're passionate about, and become an expert on it. The younger generation feels like it's a startup generation—all of these people who've come up with their own ideas and created their own jobs that didn't exist before, in fields that didn't exist before. I went to journalism school, but I knew that I wanted to make rap music the whole time. Everyone around me was telling me, "Don't do it—you have to stay in college, because this is the way people have always done things." Follow your own vision. We have access to so much that you can become extremely knowledgeable about something in a way that wasn't possible when we were young.

What do you think is the greatest economic barrier that this generation of young people currently faces?
Debt is one of the major issues for young people—specifically student debt, which is one of the biggest issues for people today. You have to go to college and get a job, and then you're getting a job to pay for college. You're fighting a mounting fear of monetary control, and I find that a lot of people on the show are dealing with debt in various ways.

What's the worst job you've ever had?
I worked in the garden center at Canadian Tire—it was one of the first jobs I'd ever had. I didn't know anything about plants, and there was another person working there who was an expert and was my age. People would get mad at me daily for not knowing what I was talking about because I had no training whatsoever.

You can catch Payday on VICELAND. Find out how to watch here.

The worst thing about American Thanksgiving is that for two days every November it feels like half the internet grinds to a halt. Well, luckily for you Canadians celebrate the holiday in October like decent people so here we are, fulfilling our solemn duty to keep the content churning! This week's trailers are a true cornucopia of flavours, we're talking a serving of Obama, a side of white people playing Japanese people, and, of course, the sweet finish of a live action remake of a problematic yet beloved cartoon.

Photo via Flikr user Caden Crawford

Someone put a hit out on me.

Well, kind of. Frankly, the whole plot is less covert espionage and more revenge-on-a-basement-dwelling-budget kind of thing. In short, a stranger offered the internet $250 if they could find video evidence of me saying something "utterly racist."

Lemme explain.

The thing that spurred this mastermind to take action was an article that I, and Anisa Rawhani, wrote recently regarding a rather racist costume party thrown by Queen's University students. This particular piece of writing seemed to really grind the "my dad will sue you" gang and alt-right anti-political correctness crowd into an angry frothing fury—the kind that makes comment sections an uninhabitable radioactive wasteland.

Read More: Queen's University Students Held a Party and the Theme Was Racism

It also pissed off future Bay Streeter/America regular Ben "Here Comes the Money" Harper—the fruit of Stephen Harper's loins—but that's a story for another day.

This article originally appeared on VICE Sweden

This week, Socialstyrelsen . Transförsvaret is an LGBTQ rights organisation determined to take action against injustices facing transgender people in Sweden.

On Monday, a group of more than 60 transgender activists made their way into a conference room at the board's premises. The aim was to protest against the fact that being trans in Sweden is still classified as being mentally ill. Transförsvaret also feel that the reforms of Swedish policy on transgender rights, laws and regulations take too long.

Transförsvaret's activists on their way to the National Board of Health and Welfare. Photos by Simon Edström

"One month ago, we sent a list with 13 demands to the Swedish government – to Prime Minister Stefan Löfven, Equality Minister Åsa Regnér and Health Minister Gabriel Wikström," Transförsvaret's Rhea Bengtsson told VICE. "But they never answered and that's why we decided to occupy the National Board of Health and Welfare."

According to Ola Billger, Director of Communications at the National Board of Health and Welfare, the occupation was peaceful. "We had a great dialogue with the activists and we hope they got the attention they wanted," Billger told VICE. "But after office hours, we had to contact the police since we couldn't let the activists stay overnight."

"Activism by organisations such as RFSL and FPES is good. There's no denying that lobbying and 'gentle' activism are required for change. But that change is currently taking way too long and trans people are dying while they wait. Gentle activism only works when the people in charge care, and they currently don't. What is needed is to make them care; rights don't come just because you ask nicely," Transförsvaret wrote in a statement on their website.

It's not the first time Sweden's government is criticised by the trans community. It was only in January 2013 that the Swedish government stopped sterilising transgender people. Unfortunately, the government thought that move was enough and continued to label being transgender the equivalent to having a mental health disorder. In fact, according to Amnesty International, Denmark and France are two of very few countries in the world that don't consider transgender people to be mentally ill.

Transförsvaret hope to change this. And what better place to do that than by occupying the national authority responsible for listing what and what isn't considered an illness?

"We haven't got an answer from the government yet. It's not really a surprise but we're happy we got some attention from the media and we hope that an answer will come soon," Bengtsson told VICE. "If we don't get a response, we will continue with similar actions in order to get heard. Although for now, nothing is planned."

Monday's occupation lasted seven hours and ended around 8PM, when the police started to escort members of Transförsvaret out of the building. "Any future demonstrations might have a better penetrative power if they take place inside the parliament building," Billger said. "Our conference room is better fitted for conference meetings ." When asked about what the state of conversations regarding classification of gender identification, Billger said that "nothing will be changed this year, at least."

This is not the first time Swedish LGBTQ-activists use occupation as a strategy to make themselves heard by the authorities. In 1979, between 30 to 40 gay activists occupied a stairwell of the National Board of Health and Welfare in Stockholm demanding to stop listing homosexuality as an illness. Shortly after the 1979 occupation, homosexuality was removed from the authority's diagnostic records over diseases and disorders. The 1979 event is now seen as an important milestone in Swedish LGBTQ history.

VICE reached out to Health Minister Gabriel Wikström for comment but so far we have gotten no response.

More from VICE:

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Look, Wolverines are scary.

An average wolverine may only weigh 35 lbs and yes, they're about the size of a medium sized dog but their lack of size is counterbalanced by the fact that inside each wolverine exists the fiery rage of a thousand suns.

That's why when one of Satan's lap dogs edged near William McDonald middle school in Yellowknife they put that school on lockdown. That's the proper response.

A Dene trapper named Fred Sangris told the CBC that wolverines are all over that area of the north because it's their natural habitat.

"We are living in the habitat area, the wolverines' home range," he said. "Wolverines have always been around this area, especially around this time of year; they're scavenging."

The good thing about all of this is that wolverines rarely attack humans but that's most likely because we're simply a waste of their precious time. They have bigger things to deal with like biting a bear on the face or chasing it up a goddamn tree.

FBI sketches of "D.B. Cooper." Photo via Citizen Sleuths.

This past summer, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced it was formally ending its 45-year-old investigation into the infamous D.B. Cooper case, the only unsolved case of American aviation piracy. The bureau told the media that it was "redirecting resources" from the case that has become one of thelongest ongoing FBI investigations on record.

On Nov. 24, 1971, a man wearing a dark suit, sunglasses and calling himself Dan Cooper (the media inaccurately reported him as being D.B. Cooper, but it became a popular epithet) skyjacked a Boeing 727 plane flying from Portland to Seattle. After boarding the flight, and ordering a bourbon and soda, Cooper showed a flight attendant a briefcase with what appeared to be a bomb inside. Cooper demanded that the plane land in Seattle and he be given $200,000 (the equivalent of around $1.2 million today) in "negotiable American currency" and four parachutes. After receiving the cash and parachutes, Cooper released all 36 passengers from the plane. Two pilots, a flight attendant, and flight engineer remained onboard. After refuelling, Cooper told the pilots to plot a course to Mexico with a stop in Reno, Nevada to re-fuel; he also told the pilots to fly at an altitude just under 10,000 feet and to set the flaps to 15 degrees. A short time later, Cooper equipped two of the four parachutes, opened the staircase at the back of the plane and jumped into the Pacific Northwest night.

On the plane, Cooper left behind a black clip-on-tie, a tie clip, two of the four parachutes he had demanded, and several cigarette butts. However, no trace of Cooper was ever found, and to this day his identity has remained a mystery. In the 45 years since the skyjacking, amateur and professional sleuths, conspiracy theorists, authors, investigative journalists, and former and current members of the FBI have tried to solve the Cooper mystery. Despite years of FBI investigations into numerous suspects and over 900 self-confessed Coopers coming forward, no one has ever confirmed the identity of the skyjacker.

A Canadian Connection?

Over the years, a plethora of theories on who Cooper was have sparked numerous independent investigations. Interestingly, many of the theories involve Canada. Some suggest Cooper may have worked or lived in Canada, while others allege he may have stashed the cash in a Vancouver bank. Some even claim Cooper was responsible for sending a mysterious letter to a Vancouver newspaper, just days after the skyjacking. The following theories explore some of the more popular Canadian angles that have become attached to the Cooper mystery.

North Carolina Governor Pat McCrory speaks at a pre-election rally in Releigh. McCrory is behind in votes but refuses to concede, alleging fraud, in what some people are speculating is an effort to force the contest to the state General Assembly. (Photo by Zach D Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Now is a strange time to be a North Carolinian. Half the counties in the state are in danger of being engulfed by massive wildfires, and, more existentially, we're still not sure who our next governor is going to be.

On Election Daya, Republicans mostly swept the major contests—Senator Richard Burr and Donald Trump had wide margins—but early returns indicated that Governor Pat McCrory had lost to his Democratic challenger, longtime Attorney General Roy Cooper, by a slim margin. Cooper declared victory, and is assembling a transition team in anticipation of being sworn in on January 7.

But McCrory has refused to concede. First he claimed he was waiting for every vote to be counted, but he's not getting any closer to a win. According to the most recent State Board of Elections data, Cooper leads McCrory by 7,716 ballots out of more than 4.5 million cast. The battle has put the state's politics in limbo, with some speculating that McCrory has a secret plan to get the General Assembly to overturn the election results, even though most people in the know are assuming that Cooper will eventually win.

Most observers of state politics chalk up McCrory's apparent defeat to his signing of HB2, North Carolina's notorious "bathroom bill" which contains language allowing for widespread discrimination against the state's trans community. Not only did the bill give Cooper ammunition to stir up social progressives, it's also led to businesses moving jobs out of the state and the NBA taking its all-star game away from Charlotte. (McCrory had campaigned in 2008 and 2012 as more of a moderate than a hardcore social conservative.) So his loss is hardly a huge upset—but he says it wasn't a loss at all.

Earlier this month, McCory filed complaints in more than 50 counties, claiming widespread voter fraud. He said ballots for his opponent had been cast on behalf of dead people, people living out of state, and felons. He also pledged to file more even more complaints on a rolling basis.

The governor has alleged he's the victim of a "massive voter fraud scheme" perpetrated by the Democratic Party. In a legal brief filed over the weekend, McCrory's campaign petitioned the State Board of Elections for the right to assume jurisdiction over counties in which they claim voter fraud occurred, effectively allowing them to nullify voting results in those counties.

Naturally, his opponents think all of this is sour grapes. "McCrory's filing these challenges and looking to scrounge up evidence—that's not the way the system's supposed to work," Terry Van Duyn, the State Senate Democratic whip, told me.

McCrory's campaign has pointed to evidence suggesting that several hundred absentee ballots from in Bladen County may have been illegally cast. The original complaint filed on behalf of McCrory takes issue with votes cast not in favor of the governor's opponent but instead for a write-in candidate in a down-ballot election (view the complaint here, along with others filed as part of the governor's efforts to contest the results). The Bladen County Improvement Association, the local voting rights group accused of perpetrating the fraud, has claimed that the evidence McCrory's camp is pointing to is simply evidence that they helped members of the county's African-American community file absentee ballots.

On Monday, the State Board of Elections declined to assume jurisdiction over all the objections the governor was making. The next day, McCrory officially filed for a statewide recount, even though the election results in some counties have not been finalized. State law dictates that once all votes are certified, election officials must conduct recounts in statewide contests in which a candidate's margin of victory is less than 10,000 votes. (My emails to both the Cooper and McCrory campaigns, as well as the State Board of Elections, went unreturned.)

"He's making widespread allegations of voter fraud without any evidence. It delegitimizes the system."
– Michael Munger

Jake Quinn is a former FDIC official and current Asheville-based voting rights activist who also serves as a member of the Democratic National Committee. In a phone interview, Quinn said, "The funny thing about McCrory leveling these charges is Republicans control the State Board of Elections and the Board of Elections in every county. It means he doesn't trust the people he gave these jobs to." (Full disclosure: I met Quinn while serving as a volunteer on a Democratic congressional campaign. The candidate was my father. He lost.)

Michael Munger, a political science professor at Duke University who ran against McCrory in 2008 as a Libertarian, told me that irregularities in voter rolls are de rigueur in the state. "Several North Carolina counties have more registered voters than they have population," he told me. "There are dead people registered to vote, and there are people who have moved away who have still registered." As Munger sees it, it's within McCrory's rights to call for the legitimacy of every ballot to be determined in such a narrow contest. "In this chess game, that's the correct move. If it has been a close race and the Republicans were winning, the Democrats would be doing something similar," he said.

However, Munger added, "McCrory's doing more than that. He's making widespread allegations of voter fraud without any evidence. It delegitimizes the system." Though there very well could be a handful of instances of fraud in each of the state's 100 counties, he said, even if all of those phony votes had been cast against McCrory, removing them from his opponent's tally would only knock Cooper's lead down by a fraction.

Watch the VICE News Tonight report on the North Carolina election:

So why is McCrory fighting so hard? In a widely circulated Slate post from earlier this week, Mark Joseph Stern speculated that the goal might be to delegitimize the election results and move the contest to the heavily Republican state legislature, who could then "step in and select him as the winner." Indeed, state law dictates that if there's a serious question "as to the conduct or results of (an) election, the General Assembly shall determine which candidate received the highest number of votes."

Quinn told me that if this is what McCrory's angling for, he'll have a hard time making the case that the election results had been tainted. The law in question, he explained, has its roots in a 2004 race in which thousands of ballots had been lost or destroyed, rendering a recount impossible. "The difficulty of relying on the precedent of lost and destroyed ballots," he said, "is we have them this time." Quinn, who serves as the Democratic liaison to the Buncombe County Board of Elections, told me that the has state instituted a system in which votes are tabulated electronically and are backed up by paper records. "North Carolina has a zillion problems right now, but the way it conducts elections isn't one of them," he said.

State Senator Van Duyn isn't so sure McCrory's strategy will fail entirely. "If he can get people wondering about voter fraud, then he can justify a lack of confidence in the outcome and give the election to the General Assembly," she said.

But if that happened, she doubts legislators will simply hand McCrory the election out of partisanship. "When push comes to shove, I think the General Assembly will lose their nerve," she told me. "Fundamentally, democracy works because we believe it works. Can you imagine how cynical people would feel if the General Assembly told them their votes didn't count?"

Follow Drew Millard on Twitter.

A protestor at an ACT UP protest of the National Institutes of Health in May, 1990. Photo courtesy the NIH History Office

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In mid-October, historian Lillian Faderman began preparing remarks for an appearance at last week's Miami Book Fair, an international literary festival that draws hundreds of thousands of readers and writers to the city each year. There, she planned to discuss research from her 2015 book The Gay Revolution and chronicle the struggle for LGBTQ rights to a live audience. But the unexpected election of Donald J. Trump prompted her to revise those notes.

"I was originally going to talk about this long fight for legal equality, concluding with Clinton's victory and a few things we still need, like a sweeping federal civil rights law," Faderman told me. "But now that would be frosting on the cake. Now, we have other things to worry about—like will we be able to keep the progress we've made so far? That's what I'm talking about instead."

She's not the only one. For many coming to grips with the realities of a President Trump, "this isn't the normal fear," as news anchor Don Lemon said to filmmaker Michael Moore in a CNN segment about "not my president" protesters. Based on the nationalist, anti-immigrant rhetoric Trump espoused during his fraught campaign, minorities are right to be worried. In the wake of the alarm and panic many felt immediately following the election, gender and sexual minorities have learned there are legitimate reasons to worry that he could roll back progress in ways a younger generation has never before seen.

That raises a question: Can the LGBTQ community reawaken the radical fervor that fueled the queer liberation movement of the 1960s through the 80s—again, standing up to fight in ways the present generation has not yet had to do?

While pundits can only speculate about what exactly Trump might accomplish with a Republican-controlled Congress, the president-elect could make sweeping impact upon LGBTQ rights gains seen over the past few decades. As his running mate, Trump selected Mike Pence, who signed Indiana's discriminatory "religious liberty" law and has predicted that marriage equality would lead to "societal collapse." And after the election, Trump put Pence in charge of his transition team. Among several concerning names on this team, Trump appointed Ken Blackwell to head up domestic policy issues; Blackwell serves as senior fellow at the Family Research Center, a conservative Christian lobbying and advocacy organization, which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group. And perhaps most alarming is the president-elect's promise to sign the First Amendment Defense Act, which would allow everyone from private businesses to healthcare providers to ignore marriage licenses and deny service to same-sex couples.

Watch Ian Daniels break down the GOP's homophobic 2016 agenda:

Even so, Faderman takes a cautiously optimistic view. "I refuse to be pessimistic. I don't think young people will just sit back and let their rights be taken away—even if they're not used to fighting yet," she said, admitting that the Obama administration didn't present as much reason for them to march in the streets. "I think they'll learn to fight for their rights, just as young people learned to fight during Stonewall—I think they're going to become another Stonewall generation."

But skeptics can also find evidence of a young LGBTQ rights movement comfortable—even complacent—with how far they've come.

Take pride parades: The LGBTQ community in New York City took to the streets of Manhattan for the first pride march in 1970. Participants have recalled the audacity it took to simply gather in public under the banner of liberation. "In those days, the idea of walking in daylight, with a sign saying, 'I'm a faggot.'... nobody, nobody was ready to do that," said playwright Doric Wilson in the PBS documentary Stonewall Uprising. Today, pride events across the country have assimilated into mainstream urban culture. You can easily miss the political furor that once fueled those marches among the corporate floats and sponsorships that now dominate them.

And though history was made last year when the Supreme Court affirmed the national right to same-sex marriage, leaders in the community have since suggested that activists over-concentrated on that fight as the gay liberation movement's end goal.

Far before the court's ruling, LGBTQ rights advocates said the campaign for same-sex marriage had diverted resources away from less marketable concerns in the community, including the high rate of homelessness among queer youth and the brutal murders of transgender people—essentially things a white, cisgender straight rapper may not willingly write a sentimental rap song about. In a 2013 op-ed for The Nation, several academics suggested the legal fight for marriage was shortsighted and had come at the expense for other big-picture issues, such as economic, racial and gender-based inequalities.

"Are young people comfortable? Probably—they've only known progress that has moved in one direction," said gay rights activist and journalist Michelangelo Signorile. "But what people have to realize is that the fight is never really over if you're a minority or a marginalized group." In other words, the arc of the moral universe might bend in the wrong direction if we don't apply continual pressure.

That's the topic of his 2015 book It's Not Over, in which Signorile warns about "victory blindness"—the idea that the LGBTQ community shouldn't be blind to homophobia and transphobia despite political rights victories, and instead should remain vocal and confrontational.

And Signorile knows a thing or two about confrontational activism. During the late 80s, Signorile was the chair of the media committee for AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT UP). He organized high-profile protests outside of the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute of Health, New York City Hall and other government agencies—criticizing them for foot-dragging while so many people died during the AIDS crisis.

A fiery brand of resistance came to define that chapter of the gay liberation movement. Protesters associated with ACT UP and other groups staged brazen media events: blocking the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, chaining themselves to the VIP balcony of the New York Stock Exchange and scattering the ashes of people who had died from AIDS on the White House lawn.

ACT UP protestors hold a "die-in" at a protest outside the National Institutes of Health in May, 1990. Photo courtesy the NIH History Office

The challenges that the LGBTQ community faced in the 80s were, of course, starkly different from today. But every generation has its wakeup call, said Signorile. "I think one thing we learned in the 80s with Ronald Reagan and AIDS is that you have to mobilize and you have to protest to get the media's attention," he said. "Now, I think if people start organizing today, and really put the Trump administration on notice, it could help prevent some of the extreme outcomes—I think this is happening to an extent."

"Of course, terrible things can happen anyway; I mean, who knows what Trump is capable of doing," Faderman asked rhetorically. But she puts her faith in the masses of protestors in the streets and the civil rights advocacy groups, lobbying in Washington and working in the judicial system.

"I have confidence in our ability to fight back—we're better organized as a community, and we're savvier with our activism," she said.

Follow Jon Shadel on Twitter.

(Illustration: George Yarnton)

Sex work sells. In fact, an estimated 72,800 people in the UK sell it. The media knows this, which is why stories involving female sex workers are very easy to come by. Male sex workers, however, do seem to remain somewhat of an enigma.

Figures into how many men sell sex paint an ambiguous picture; studies in the past have suggested that they may make up as much as 17 percent of the trade, whereas others argue that it could be less than 5 percent. But due to the often covert nature of sex work, academics can struggle to get a real sense of what's going on.

A couple of weeks ago we looked at the different types of clients a 22-year-old female escort had encountered during her time on the job. Wondering what the differences would be between that and the world of male escorting, I spoke to Michael, a 58-year-old who's been in the business for 12 years, about all his different clients.

CLIENTS WITH SPECIFIC FETISHES

I had a client with a real thing for trifle and cream. He always wanted to be covered in it; I had to put about three covers on the bed each time. Another one had a fetish for a high-powered hose – I have a distinct memory of turning it on him one night at about 2AM, and he was really getting off on it. There have been two who loved nettles, so I always made sure I had some growing in the back garden. I'd rub them all over their bodies.

I also have a current client with a dirty sock fetish. It started with him wanting to smell my socks and have them placed onto his face. Now, I prepare well for him; I'll have a pair of special socks in my house and, every morning, before I have a shower, I'll wipe them under my arm and put them in a zip-locked bag ready for when I see him. He's bought a couple of pairs, too.

CLIENTS WHO WANT CRAZY SEX POSITIONS

I've become known for being able to fuck in positions that nobody has ever even seen in a porn film. My signature move is what I call the "helicopter fuck": the client is on all fours facing the wall and I'm facing the other way as I reverse in. I can penetrate them from behind, arse-cheek-to-arse-cheek, and spin a full 360 degrees while doing it. That's not bad for a 50-odd-year-old. Many clients have read about this in my reviews and specifically request it.

CLIENTS THAT REQUEST SCENARIOS THAT CANNOT BE DONE

These clients come up with scenarios that are so farcical that they're totally unrealistic. They want to fuck in a graveyard, or be humiliated in a really public place like a high street. Some will say they want group sex, and ask: "How many guys can you get?" So I say: "Okay, you understand they're all going to be escorts, right? If you want that you'll have to pay 50 percent upfront."

DISABLED CLIENTS

Working with disabled clients is quite a big part of the job. I wish I could help people in that situation more – they have needs like everyone else. Years ago I used to see a guy who was in a wheelchair, and he said that he once rang an escort and when he told them about his disability they hung up. That made me so fucking angry; I thought, 'How dare you.' If any escort has an issue with someone because they have a disability, they are not fit to be in that line of work.

I've had plenty of clients who use sign language – sometimes we have to write things down, but we always manage to communicate fine. I had an extraordinary experience once where I had to meet a client's parents. This client – who was connected up to various monitors due to his disability – had been seriously ripped off by various escorts. I was very impressed with the parents; they wanted to meet me so they could feel comfortable first. So I had lunch with them before the deed, and after they even gave me a bed for the night.

READ: These Volunteers Give Handjobs to the Severely Disabled

CLIENTS WHO WANT ALL THE PROPS

Some clients want certain things ready for them when they arrive. I have one client who has his own box in my room because he is so into leather and rubber clothes. He's also paid for loads of toys, which are in there, because he loves fisting. He insists that a new bottle of poppers is waiting for him when he arrives for a session.

VIP CLIENTS

These clients do get special privileges. If I'm spending time with clients who take me abroad, for instance, I'll negotiate at a special rate. If they want to book me I'll clear my diary. These types of guys might book me for like 22 hours, so if I've got a booking for an hour I have to apologise and postpone it.

NO-SHOWS

The biggest challenge of my job is when prospective clients book and never turn up. I get a lot of people who talk the talk but then just cancel. Common excuses include: "I can't get my sat nav to work," "My sister has had an accident" and, "I've been told that I need an operation." I often don't know if they've bottled it, or just get off on the booking, in which case they've got what they want.

ANXIOUS FIRST-TIMERS

One of the challenges of my job is trying to get prospective, first-time clients over that threshold of nerves. It is an anxiety-ridden scenario for them; they are meeting a stranger. I always think that it's like the process for people the first time they get a tattoo. Despite everything I put on my profile to put them at ease – and my website is very detailed – they are still scared. Some of them think that when I fuck them for the first time I'm going to tear their arse apart, which I'm not. I'm very professional; I always take my time and offer them original formula poppers.

FEMALE CLIENTS

About 99 percent of my clients are male; female clients are rare. But occasionally I'll get a young posh girl who brings prosecco.

RUNNERS

This doesn't happen often. They say that they're going to their car or the cash machine and don't come back. Usually escorts ask for money upfront, but I don't make an issue of it. My reasoning is if I give them an experience that meets or exceeds their experience, they are going to tip. But if you get the money first you don't get that tip. It's like going into a restaurant; you don't tip the staff until they do a good job.

POSH CLIENTS WHO ARE OUT OF CONTROL

"Michael, darling, can you come to my place?" they say when they ring at 2AM. It's usually a flat in Kensington, or somewhere like that. You turn up, the place is wrecked and they are completely off their faces. They try to pour champagne and it falls on the floor. It doesn't usually get better.

@oldspeak1 / georgeyarnton.co.uk

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All photos by the author

This article originally appeared on VICE Australia.

On March 11, 2011, the Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami smashed into the east coast of Japan, killing over 15,000 people. The epicentre of the quake was just off the coast, where the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant sits. The subsequent 12 metre tsunami ran straight over 5.7 metre seawall shielding the plant and flooded it. Daini's operators had ignored everybody's advice about safety.

Three reactors went into meltdown, and huge plumes of steam escaped the plant blanketing the surrounding towns, villages, and farms with radioactive fallout. At least 170,000 people were evacuated on a single day, and hardly any have been able to return to the area. The melted reactor cores are still spewing out radiation.

Like everyone else, I heard about the disaster when it happened. But in the five years since, there had been very little news from Fukushima. I was already in Japan, so I decided to go see the impact of this disaster firsthand, to take a trip inside the Fukushima Exclusion Zone.

Because the Japanese government has absolutely forbidden tourism, there's basically no information online for visiting the zone. There's not even a map. But from what I could discern after speaking with some experts in Australia, there are three parts to the exclusion zone. Green, where you can go during the day and stay overnight with a permit. Orange is for day visits only, with the police clearing the area at sunset. And then there's red, where nobody is allowed.

With protective suits, gloves, masks, goggles, and booties bought from a Japanese hardware shop—with a rather convenient "disaster zone" section—we headed towards Fukushima, about a three hour drive north of Tokyo. To be honest, the suits and masks don't actually shield any radiation. You'd need a two inch lead suit for that. But we were told they do prevent radioactive dust from getting in your lungs or on your skin. I also didn't really need to hire a Porsche 911 Carrera. But, damn it, if I'm going to a nuclear fallout zone, I'm doing it in style.

Readings of 0.1–4.1µSv/h in Fukushima Prefecture. Normal background radiation is around 0.1-0.2µSv/h

Our first stop was Nahara in the green zone. The government is trying to repopulate the area but only around 15 percent of residents have returned. So we headed further north into the Orange Zone to Tomioka.

On the way, we noticed signs for the Fukushima Daini Nuclear Power Plant (Fukushima II) and turned in. Fukushima II was closer to the epicentre than Fukushima I, the plant in meltdown, but much better protected. It survived the quake and tsunami totally intact. It's a stellar example of good nuclear design but it's still shut down as a precaution.

We drove up to the first police roadblock, expecting to be promptly turned around. The officers very politely checked our passports and waved us through, mentioning something about screening. The same thing happened at the second roadblock. I was genuinely shocked that they were actually going to let us into the plant. But then we were directed to a nuclear decontamination area.

After scanning our car, the officers decided that while we didn't actually need to be decontaminated, they also probably shouldn't let two Australian amateurs roam around a fully fuelled nuclear plant. We were sent back to the main road.

Tomioka has higher readings than Nahara. People are only allowed in for short day trips once a month. Other than police, the town is completely deserted. The Japanese government is trying to decontaminate towns in the fallout zone, which basically means scrubbing every road, path and external surface of each house, and removing the top 10 to 15 centimetres of topsoil to clear the radioactive dust released after the disaster.

Huge piles of industrial garbage, bags full of contaminated soil, are stacked with typical Japanese neatness all over the town. Five years since the disaster, Tomioka remains almost untouched. Shops were abandoned, stock scattered on the floor, shelves still overturned from the earthquake.

Tsunami damage in Tomioka

We walked around a local elementary school. Plants had taken over, lessons were still on the board, and school bags lay untouched in classrooms. Police soon joined us in the school but, again, they just took names and were happy for us to continue walking around taking photos.

Tomioka Elementary School

All the kids' shoes were still in their cubbies

The school was completely overgrown

We pulled up outside an abandoned pachinko parlour, filled with Japanese-style slot machines that use ball bearings as tokens. While pulling on our protective gear, we met police for the third time. We explained what we were doing as they took our names, bowing politely as they left.

The abandoned pachinko parlour in Tomioka

Police come from around Japan for two-week postings in Fukushima. Like all the police we met that day, they were from Nayoro in North Japan. It seemed like they'd been told very little about radiation and were pretty surprised when I suggested that they probably should be wearing masks.

The door of the pachinko parlour was wide open. It was clear nobody had been inside since the disaster struck. Half finished games lay silent, cash was still on the counter, cigarette packs lay open next to games. The calendar on the wall read March 2011.

After the Fukushima disaster, the Japanese government wasn't exactly open with radiation information. Its most recent data release comes from 2013. So a company called Safecast was formed to try and get a more accurate picture of what was happening inside the exclusion zone. Anyone can buy one of Safecast's GPS-enabled Geiger counters, called a bGeigie, to collect and submit data. All of this is information is mapped online and Safecast's Fukushima data is only a week old.

We then drove North on Highway 6, turning off for the entry road to Fukushima I. The bGeigie counter we'd put on the outside of the car was reading around 7.5µSv/h—about the equivalent of a chest x-ray every six hours—and it was climbing fast. Thankfully the counter inside the car was only reading around 2.5µSv/h. Not wanting to hang around any longer than necessary and answer more police questions, we turned around before the police checkpoint.

Futaba, the next town north is in the red zone and had the highest readings of around 1.8µSv/h outside the car. Way too hot to live. Every side road is blocked and patrolled by police, and any driveway or place you could possibly pull over is boarded up. There's no chance you could stay here, even if you wanted to.

The red zone, every road, driveway, anywhere you could pull over is blocked off. It had the highest readings we saw in any town of around 1.8µSv/h outside the car

To date, no one has died as a direct result of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster. The real cost is less tangible. Entire towns have been forced from their land and had to leave everything behind. They might never be able to go back. Ancestral homes have been lost, livelihoods destroyed and communities ripped apart. It's estimated more than 1,500 people died during the evacuation or living in temporary accommodation.

An abandoned shop in Namie

Even in the towns that have opened, like Nahara, most chose not to return. They've either moved on with their lives or simply want nothing to do with the area anymore. Despite the government's attempts to decontaminate and revitalise the area, it seems that people want to forget the Fukushima disaster ever happened and get as far away as possible.

The Namie fire station, damaged by the earthquake

It was heartbreaking to see once thriving communities decimated by one company's lax approach to safety. But Mum and Dad, don't worry—my total additional dose of radiation from the day in Fukushima? Less than the 2.7µSv dose you'd get from one hour on an international flight.

Check out Allison Conway's Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, and Facebook.

All photos by Jakub Bors

This article originally appeared on VICE Poland

After a vote in the Polish parliament in April, Our Lord Jesus Christ was officially crowned the king of Poland last weekend. You might think you've accidentally landed on a fake news site, but you didn't. It's true, Jesus really does rule Poland now. The idea originally came from a young nurse, who in the early 1900s had a vision that foresaw Poland's imminent demise if Jesus Christ would not be crowned its king. The idea was initially dismissed by the clergy, but after more than a century of uncertainty it finally happened this week.

The coronation, which took place on November 19th in Kraków, attracted thousands of believers – including President Andrzej Duda andseveral MPs. Having Jesus on Poland's throne doesn't change anything legally, but it's another step the conservative government has taken towards forcing outdated morals on the Polish people.

Below are some photos from the crowning ceremony.

More on VICE:

Photos from the London Protest Against Poland's Restrictive Abortion Laws

We Watched Nationalists Wave Flags and Flames at Poland's Independence Day March

Portraits of Women on Strike Against Poland's Ban on Abortion

All photos by Jan Lukanovič

The US presidential election result surprised most people. But Slovenia had an ever weirder night on the 9th of November. A Slovenian had actually made it to the White House—as First Lady, but still. Most of us were flabbergasted. He – well, Donald and Melania Trump both—had done it. And the small town of Sevnica, which wasn't well known internationally (or in Slovenia for that matter), suddenly became the country's unofficial capital.

VICE Slovenia went to Sevnica two weeks after the election result, to see if anything had actually changed. And it had. The moment we entered the city, a huge billboard brandishing Melania Trump's face welcomed us to the hometown of the First Lady of the United States. It set the tone for our short but very sweet stay.

Translation: Welcome to the hometown of the First Lady of the United States

As we parked the car and set off to find a nice place for a cup of coffee, we stumbled across a sign in front of the bakery Julija, which read: "Melania cake." And as we love cake and obviously would love to know what a White House-themed cake tastes like, we stepped inside and took a good look at this beauty.

The people in the café assured us that they spared no expense putting together the ingredients for this creation, and that the idea for it came to them after the surprising victory. Their vision: a silky white chocolate mousse with nuts, lying on top of a crust made with a buttery nut base, and best of all – edible gold!

While we were mesmerized by the shining golden chocolate pieces, the baker pointed out that, as one of her patrons said best, "with the gold, you really Trumped up the whole cake." The appeal of gilded peaks and flourishes quickly became the theme for this whole trip.

After a hefty breakfast of golden cake we found the tourist centre, to get any new information on the past two weeks. We learned that more Melania-themed treats are being prepared for the near future. This small but beautiful municipality is betting heavily on Melania Trump's new status as a way to shine a light on all the tourist attractions on offer. They admitted that nobody was expecting Trump to win and that when the results were coming in they went from "shit, he may actually win" to "fuck, he actually won." But what caught our eye was something completely different: the first in a series of new products that the town would offer to potential tourists. It was, of course, the quintessential Slovenian thing—honey.

The entrepreneurial spirit of the people of Slovenia has powered up an initiative to bottle local honey, and pitch it as coming "from the local garden of Melania Trump." I couldn't verify whether that was really factual or not.

With thoughts of optimistic future in our minds, we ventured towards another place where we'd heard more desserts named after the future First Lady were being sold. It was onwards to "Pizzerija Rondo," where one of the first "Melania" desserts was made.

Its neatly packed mascarpone strawberry mousse was decorated with silver sugary pearls and covered with delicate lace and small glass crystals. According to the people working at the pizzeria, the dessert is a hit and we were quite lucky to even get a piece to try.

Fighting the effects of early onset diabetes, we followed rumours of another possible Melania-themed dish up the hills to Lisca, a 948-metre "mountain". It's a hiking destination near Sevnica that holds a beautiful cottage on its peak. And this was, if you ask us, the best experience of them all.

The caretaker Franc is a well-known pancake master, has baked more than 6000 crepes already and told us that he "was asked many times if he would make something new, now that the White House was just a little bit closer to Sevnica." And he delivered. He surpassed our expectations, even. The Melanija crepes are not only delicious but also the decorated in a truly impeccable fashion.

They're made with the finest ingredients you can get: blueberries picked around the cottage; a bourbon vanilla filling and ice cream; some cream to top it off and a nice layer of edible—you guessed it—gold dust.

When I asked why the decision to go with gold, Franc replied: "Because, you know, Trump." But the best thing about the whole experience might just be the the room you sit in while you eat your golden crepes.

It's a place once personally visited by Josip Broz Tito, the former autocratic president of the Socialist republic of Yugoslavia, who even left a personal thank-you letter. The place has retained much of the same décor from those socialist days gone by which lends it special charm—even with all the Tito portraits intently staring down at you from the walls.

The culmination of the Melania Trump day on Friday was in Ljubljana, where the Christmas lights were turned on. This year there was something new. The workers, who put the Christmas tree up, and everyone else to be frank, had unofficially named the 20-metre tree "Melania." And until the beginning of January, "Melania" will be the centerpiece not only in Sevnica, but also in Ljubljana.

To top it all, the band Slavček performed a wonderful song honouring Mrs Trump. A loose translation of its chorus would be: "Melania found her marketing niche, through Trump she will enter the White House. From Sevnica directly to the top of the world, because she has a nose for the right man."

What a year to be Slovenian.

Recently the Bank of Canada released a short list of women eligible to be featured on the 2018 series of banknotes. The list included "two activists, a poet, an engineer and an athlete," meaning that many celebrities, writers, musicians and disgraced figure skaters will not be making the cut.

For this edition of First-Person Shooter, we sent a disposable camera to Josh Opdenaker, a.k.a. JOP!, a seriously skilled glass pipe artist based out of Philadelphia. Josh has been blowing glass for 15 years and runs a studio called Jop Glass. While he was the first in Philly's Fishtown area to make a name for himself in the field, today there are five glass studios and 18 glass blowers on his block alone. "I was there when there was no money in the scene," he says, "and I'll be there if the money runs out."

Josh snapped a few pics of a glass pipe he's working on that's shaped like a large cassette (complete with badass flames coming out of its sides), gave us a tour of his studio, and also showed us the most expensive tool for smoking we've ever seen: "The Baby Mecha Ganesh," which is valued at over $100,000. Here's what else the glass guru had to say about his niche, incredible craft.

VICE: What'd you get up to during your day?
Josh Opdenaker: To start my day, I bike to the studio almost immediately after getting ready in the morning. The first hours I'm awake are my most productive, so I skip breakfast and usually lunch. I get to the studio, spark the kiln, then spark some weed. I use weed like a tool on my bench—it helps me work and get inspired, and I don't usually smoke when I'm not working. After I get to the studio, I work at minimum 10-12 hours straight until I'm spabbled from no food, too many cigarettes, and being in the same room for too long. If I'm fully immersed in a piece (which is always), food and resting come second—if at all. After that, I crush a few specials (a cheap beer-and-shot combo) from the El Bar across the street and call it a day.

How'd you get into the craft?
After hand-carving stone sculptures for a few years, I was sick of being broke. My buddy JAG was making pipes in another homie's kitchen (not recommended), and he definitely was making some money. He let me play around with it one day and after just 15 minutes of trying the medium I knew it was what I would do for the rest of my life.

I took whatever little money I had and bought my first torch and small kiln. Then, I rented a garage and worked trial-and-error style for the first few years. Techniques weren't shared so frequently back then, and there was certainly no information on the internet. If you thought of something, you had to just go for it. And fuck up. And then go again for it. And fuck up. And repeat.

If somebody wanted to learn how to get into making glass pipes like you what would be some good first steps?
If someone wanted to learn to make pipes I'd say take a class—they're all over America and easy to find these days. But make sure the instructor is reputable. Too often, unskilled and unqualified people teach and spread some ill habits. Back in the day, techniques weren't shared and secrecy was prevalent. You had to do it apprentice-style, much like a tattoo artist.

Do you do commissions?
I used to do commissions when I had no rep and no voice. Now I make whatever I want. This is both good and bad: On one hand, I'm following my own unique voice, but a piece may sit in my studio for a little before it's finally sold.

What kind of customers usually buy your glass?
The type of person that buys from me varies greatly, as I make pieces that range from $90 to $100,000. With that great of a range, there is everyone from Johnny-Smokes-a-Lot who lives in his mom's basement to very well-known rappers and hip-hop artists.

What's the piece you're most proud of?
The piece I am most proud of is the 'Baby-Mecha-Ganesh' I made last year. It's a three-foot-tall mechanical baby with six arms—not including the stand. The head is removable and so is the pipe. The process of making it completely consumed me for two months, to the point where I neglected many aspects of life like food, water, sleep, socializing... I look back at the Baby Ganesh and realize all the stars were aligned when I made it. It's a once in a lifetime piece.

Where can people buy pipes from you?
A good place is to hit me on the gram, or check out the site.

Follow Julian on Instagram and visit his website to see his own photo work.

A young boy dressed as Superman walks in front of a collaborate mural commemorating the first ever Indigenous Comic Con

All photos by Gabriela Campos

For decades Native Americans have been wholly misrepresented in the world of comic books, stripped down to a series of caricatured, homogenized tropes of the American Indian.

"We were either shamans, mystic boogeyman, or pocahotties (Pocahontas hotties)," said Arigon Starr, creator of the comic book Super Indian, while speaking to VICE about the representation of Native Americans in pop culture at the first ever Indigenous Comic Con, which ran from November 18 to 20 in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

"We have been prostituted and raped in the story world," said Jonathan Proudstar, creator of 'Tribal Force'—America's first all Native American superhero comic. "The power of the media is that it has taught us Natives that we don't have a space. So it is our job to carve out that space."

Starr and Proudstar were just two of the dozens of high-profile Native creators—illustrators, game designers, artists, and actors—present at Indigenous Comic Con. The event was organized by Lee Francis of Native Realities Publishing, in partnership with A Tribe Called Geek, a weekly radio show and website.

Two Native American women pose in their cosplay outfits.

The event, the first of its kind in the world, represents the growth of the subcultural vanguard of indigenous-created media that is slowly working its way into the multibillion dollar comic industry.

"Ten years ago, this wouldn't have been possible," explained Arigon Starr, speaking to VICE behind her booth at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque where the event was held. "This event shows that there's a movement and a market for this."

"We need to get Native characters and Native creators into the mainstream," added Native American artist Jefferey Verege, who works on 'Red Wolf'—which centers around Marvel's first Native American hero. "That is what this event is all about."

This year's event, modeled after a traditional Comic Con and complete with artists forums, comic book signings, and cosplay events, was a strong attempt to foster a community for Native creators that are still largely unrepresented at mainstream Comic Cons.

Arigon Starr, creator of 'Super Indian,' was one of the features artist and speakers at the event.

"They don't know we exist," said Arigon Starr, noting the absence of Native creators from the major comic publishing companies, as well as the now hugely popular Comic Cons throughout the United States. "But here we are, doing things that no one else is."

"There's a platform for the subculture, but there are larger media outlets not allowing us in," Jonathan Proudstar said from behind his booth at the event. "They want to propagate our image without giving us our own voice."

The booth of artist Dale Rey Deforest with his comic book 'Shadow Wolves' alongside a depiction of a turquoise-clad Native American woman in the likeness of Holly Golightly.

For Proudstar, one of the first Native Americans in the comic industry, comic books provide a unique medium to both break down historic stereotypes of Native Americans and address the myriad of contemporary issues facing his people.

His comic book 'Tribal Force' features a team of Indigenous superheroes and engages with issues directly affecting Native people. Of Yaqui heritage, Proudstar has been counseling Native youth for nearly three decades. These kids are, according to him, the "inspiration for Tribal Force."

Proudstar added, "On many reservations, the education system is very poor and you have 8th and 9th graders reading at a 3rd grade level. Comics are a way to start to teach these kids about their culture in a way that makes, has relevance, and is cool."

Jay Odjick, comic book artists and creator of the TV show 'Kagagi,' stands behind his booth at the Comic Con

"They're seeing what they would see in movie theaters, but with their own culture and language," said comic book artist Jay Odjick, creator of 'Kagagi'—a nationally distributed graphic novel and television show deeply rooted in his his Algonquin culture. "Now Kagagi is their guy," he explained, speaking about the popularity of the television show and comic on his reservation in Canada. "It's our job to provide our people with our own culture and our own superheros."

For Odjick, Kagagi also provided a unique opportunity to help preserve the dying language of his people. Each episode of the show (in English) contains Algonquin subtitles. His website also contains translated episode scripts available to download.

"In our community the speakers are literally dying out," said Odjick, explaining to VICE how one of the two translators used for the show has passed away since it began. "Anything we can do to help kids get interested in the language and give it to them in the way they understand and enjoy."

A couple dressed as characters from 'Avatar.'

For many of the Native creators VICE spoke with, this event represents a huge step toward inclusion in a media that has long done the opposite.

"Seeing those kinds of stereotypes in comics made me determined to do something for those that never had representation," said Arigon Starr. "It's exciting to see all of doing this. All together in one place."

"To think that this would be possible to be here in Albuquerque, New Mexico at the first ever Indigenous Comic Con representing my own TV show is mind-blowing," said Odjick, who's been drawing comics since he was five years old. "I hope kids that come here see that things are changing. That we can do things that we could not have done just a decade or two ago."

See more photos from the first Indigenous Comic Con below, and visit the organization's website to learn more.

Follow Sam on Twitter and Gabriela on Instagram.

Artist Rod Velarde, from the Jicarilla Apache Nation, stands beside his stormtrooper done in traditional black and white style.

Dezbah Evans, one of the event workers, dressed up as Jedi from Star Wars.

Cosplayers on the steps of the National Hispanic Cultural Center, where the event took place.

A costume contest at the main stage

Laddy Yazzi has her hair braided prior to a dance performance on the main stage.

Jay Soule, a Native American artist from Canada who creates horror movie-inspired "indigenous pop art."

Latvia's capital, Riga, is a sublime balance of old and new. Its architecture and local traditions reflect on what it once was. Behind this exterior it's also a lively city with modern ideas, from experimental theater to third-wave coffee shops. There's this contrast between old-world corner shops and the shiny designer shops across the road. As strange as it can be, locals get it, and this balance gives Riga its charm.

On the flip-side, as a small city with a distinct culture, Riga has a tight-knit feel. It can also be hard to break in as an outsider. A feeling of openness towards newcomers is growing, but still leaves a fair bit to be desired. At the same time, it's exciting to see how younger generations are embracing change and accepting Riga for the global city it's becoming. I don't remember when I started taking photos of the city, but I always have a camera in my bag. Some of the people you see here are technically strangers, but in a city this small, they don't stay strangers for long.

Follow Henrijs on Instagram.

Fidel Castro, seen here in 2001 (Photo by Paul Faith/ PA Wire)

Fidel Castro, who died Friday evening aged 90, was consigned to the "already dead" box in most people's heads about a decade ago, when he withdrew from the limelight after a stroke and handed the country over to his brother.

As ever, he had the last laugh. Castro outlived six US presidents. He went on to live another half-century after JFK's assassination. There were 638 attempts to kill him, by some accounts—seems a lot, but over 50 years it's basically only one a month. The exploding cigar plot—real. The "make his beard fall out to humiliate him" plot—also real.

Yet for a life of an ultimate 20th-century tumult, those who saw him in retirement painted an idyllic picture. He lived in a modest two-storey house on a former golf course: watching TV, entertaining his grandkids, occasionally writing newspaper articles for a Communist mouthpiece newspaper, doing two hours' exercise a day, and getting his staff to translate books unavailable in Spanish.

One journalist checked in to find he was reading Obama's Dreams Of My Father. What follows isn't meant to be comprehensive or complete reading of him—for a start it barely touches on his loathsome human rights record. Rather, it's a harvesting of facets that caught our eye, humanizing touches that put some flesh back on a guy who has only really loomed out at us from old news reels—the ghostly fourth Marx Brother of International Socialism.

HE WAS A BALLER

The eight-hour speeches came later, but Castro's sense of destiny was apparent even in the 1940s. He was an exceptionally talented baseball player who turned out for big Cuban teams—in 1944, he'd won a prize as "Cuba's best all-round school athlete." Real head prefect material, basically.

HE WAS AN ANNOYINGLY PRECOCIOUS CHILD

The roots of this megalomania didn't start there—in fact they seem to go all the way back to birth. Aged 14—not 12, as he'd claimed—young Fidel wrote a letter to FDR, congratulating him on his re-election, and signing-off "Your Friend." In his head, Castro was already the equal of kings and courtiers. This is all exactly the sort of stuff biographers love.

HE WAS A LAWYER

That was his actual job. He got into politics as a congressional candidate for the Orthodox Party. There, he found he had skill as a speaker and rose rapidly. But then he hit the glass ceiling: Fulgencio Batista annulled an election that the Orthodox Party were favourites to win, and Fidel realized he wasn't going to get anywhere in politics without throwing a few grenades.

ALL REVOLUTIONS CONTAIN AN ELEMENT OF HIGH FARCE

Castro's probably had more than most. First there was the disastrous opening salvo he fired in what was to become the Cuban revolution. In 1953, he and more than 100 fellow revolutionaries attempted to storm the Moncada military barracks. This, they hoped, would be the kick-off for a full-blown Cuban uprising. But they were obliterated. Eight were killed in the fighting. Another 80 or so were murdered by the army afterwards.

Castro was only spared because the guard in charge ignored his orders and sent him to a civilian jail instead. Once inside, Fidel was inducted into what was to become a long and proud tradition of Pink Panther-esque failed attempts to assassinate him, followed by huge strokes of luck on Castro's own part. An army captain was given instructions to poison his food. He refused, and instead told the world. At which point, General Batista decided he was too weak to risk inflaming public opinion any further by trying again. He'd made a huge mistake. Castro exiled himself off to Mexico, got engaged, claimed he once swam the Rio Grande to meet the exiled Cuban President in a US motel room, then came back and overthrew Batista by the time he was 32.

BUT ALL GREAT DEFEATS CAN EASILY BE REASSIGNED AS STUNNING VICTORIES

The Cuban government's mouthpiece is a paper called Granma. It is named after the yacht which Fidel tried to return from exile on, with a small invasion force. The would-be guerrillas onboard were blown off-course. They ran out of provisions. They were shipwrecked miles from nowhere. They were then spotted by the Cuban airforce, Castro once claimed, and gunned down in an ambush until the entire force consisted of seven armed men.

HE WAS PALS WITH A T-SHIRT SALESMAN

Che Guevara, the Argentinian poster-boy of poster boys, made his name in Cuba. Che fought his way up the island with Castro. He was also president of the national bank and minister for industry, who was instrumental in hooking Cuba up with the Soviets. Increasingly, though, he fell out with the other Cuban leaders, until in 1965 it was suddenly announced he'd left the country. Two years later, he'd be in Bolivia and dead.

HE DIDN'T START OUT VERY COMMUNIST

Castro soon got tagged as the ultimate red, second only to Kim Il Sung in the ardour of his ideology. This was convenient, but untrue. He was no great Marxist theoretician. No great theoretician at all. He left that bullcrap to Che and his brother. He spent a lot of time avoiding being daubed too overtly with the Communist brush, arguing to the press that he would do "whatever works," declaring in 1959: "I have said in a clear and definitive fashion that we are not communists." Accordingly, his first government was pragmatic: they nationalized, tried import substitution, confiscated US property, and rolled out universal healthcare, but the project was as much nationalist as communist. It was only when they hit the skids that they were forced to pay greater attention to ideology. An increasing economic crisis forced the government to seek support, which duly came from the USSR. The Russians bought up all the nation's sugar, and in return sent finished goods, precious foreign currency and a tonne of special advisers. In return, Castro was hidebound to follow Moscow's doctrine.

THOUGH HE MANAGED TO GET IN ON SOME COLD WAR ACTION

In the 70s and 80s, Castro committed troops to battlefields in Angola and Mozambique where, with the Portuguese colonists finally withdrawn, civil war had taken hold. In both cases, they played to bloody and unsatisfactory stalemates against anti-communist guerrillas being armed and aided by highly organized South African Defence Force units.

HE KNEW NOT TO LET OPPORTUNITY GO BEGGING

In 1980, Castro briefly opened up the Port of Mariel, to allow Cuban exiles living in America to "claim their relatives." In all, more than 120,000 people were sucked off the island in a window of a few months. Unknown to most at the time, Castro had also made sure to load the boats with prison inmates, mental patients, and a host of others classed as "undesirables," in what must rate as one of history's greatest acts of illegal dumping.

HE HURT ONE OF HIS COUNTRY'S PRIME EXPORTS

Cigar Afficionado's Man Of The Year since the dawn of time, Fidel finally gave up his stogies in 1985. "The best thing you could do with a box of cigars is give them to your enemy," he said at the time. And a hundred old women hand-rolling Havanas were retrenched...

HE PUT ALL HIS EGGS IN ONE ROTTEN BASKET

The USSR saved Castro from his own economic follies year-in and year-out. So when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba nose-dived along with it. Cuba's GDP declined by 33 percent between 1990 and 1993. So it went on. The results were catastrophic. A major fuel shortage brought the economy grinding to a halt. After 30 years of good harvests, even food became scarce: malnutrition finally returned to the island. This time was euphemistically referred to as the "special period." For doctors looking to study the effects of rapid population weight loss on lifestyle diseases like diabetes, it was one of history's golden moments. For everyone else, it was a bleak and bitter period where the little hope they had sank from view.

HE ENJOYED LISTENING TO THE MANIC STREET PREACHERS

At one point during their 2001 concert at Havana's Karl Marx Theatre, he stood and applauded during their song about Elian Gonzalez.

THE SEQUEL TO THE REVOLUTION IS POSTPONED UNTIL 2017

That's when the geriocracy will finally have to make way for some new blood: the self-declared end of Raul Castro's nightwatchman stint, and, if all goes to plan, the moment Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermúdez steps onto the world stage (while hopefully also shortening his own name). Diaz-Canel Bermúdez is the anointed heir of the Castros, and seems quite likeable. He's a cyclist. Which is always nice. He's an ex-university professor. And they tend to be mild-mannered folk who don't garotte too many dissidents. He was the youngest ever member of the Politburo. And that suggests he's a bit charismatic and go-get'em.

And he is, on Cuban terms, a liberalizer: bringing things back into private ownership, and supporting a range of recent market reforms. This will mark the first moment when real detente can happen between the US and this ageing yet unshakeable regime.

ACCORDING TO CELEBRITYNETWORTH.COM, 'FIDEL CASTRO IS A CUBAN-BORN POLITICAL LEADER AND SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARY WITH AN ESTIMATED NET WORTH OF $900 MILLION DOLLARS'

And that, surely, should be his final testament.

@gavhaynes