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Photos by Stacy Kranitz

For an entire weekend, I lived at the Sausage Castle, a compound in the Florida swamps where your wildest sexual fantasies can come true. It's run by Mike Busey, a jolly fat guy with bleach-blond hair and a small dick who lives with a group of hot girls known as the Busey Beauties. Like a strip club or casino, time seems to stops once you're inside the Sausage Castle—all the fake vaginas, poop, and barbecue start to blend together into one great Juggalo fever dream. Luckily, photographer Stacy Kranitz accompanied me on my adventure so I could be certain every crazy thing I thought I saw was in fact real.

Stacy's an artist with a capital A. She embeds with communities for a long, long of time for her photo projects, capturing her subjects' lives in the process. Her photos are realistic, lyrical, and earnest, which makes her the perfect photographer to study the Sausage Castle. She took hundreds of photos, and like everything Stacy creates, they were fucking incredible. Here are my favorite photos from our weekend at the Sausage Castle.

Want more sausage? Read my feature story "Welcome to the Sausage Castle" and visit Mike Busey's website, Instagram, YouTube page, and Twitter.

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Photo via Flickr user US Air Force

Earlier today, President Barack Obama gave a speech at the Federal Trade Commission Offices in Washington about improving cybersecurity. It was a big deal given the recent Sony hacks and his administration's reputation for being so antiquated it sometimes even relies on floppy disks.

Apparently, Islamic State supporters—or trolls pretending to be them—are not averse to irony. A group calling itself the CyberCaliphate hacked some of the US Central Command's (CENTCOM) social media accounts and used them to disseminate military documents and pro–Islamic State messages just as Obama was delivering his remarks.

It's worth noting that most of the documents were already public record, and some of them could be found readily on the Department of Defense website. And the supposedly threatening rhetoric included fuzzy statements like, "i love you isis."

That isn't to say at least some of the tweets weren't menacing. Although the account is now suspended, at one point it displayed a tweet that read: "AMERICAN SOLDIERS, WE ARE COMING, WATCH YOUR BACK. ISIS." The CENTCOM YouTube account was also hacked.

It's unclear whether the people behind the hacks are legitimately affiliated with the Islamic State. As Business Insider reported at the time, hackers referring to themselves as Cyber Caliphate broke into a few local news outlets' accounts about a week ago.

Some have been quick to point out that Islamic State members never refer to themselves as being part of "ISIS," which means the hackers are probably just pranksters or wannabes. But the fact that anyone could break into two high-profile government social media accounts is disconcerting. Timing it to coincide with Obama's speech just added insult to injury.

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Richard Nixon is a disgrace. This might be one of the least controversial statements you can make regarding American politics: In the wake of his resignation following the Watergate scandal, the 37th president's legacy was pretty much established. The Oval Office hasn't exactly seen a parade of saints, and yet Nixon's the only one to ever leave office because of the sins he committed. That's a remarkable achievement, sort of like being the wettest fish in the aquarium.

Despite his postlapsarian status as a grim historical punchline and occasional artistic muse, Nixon is still a former president. And like all former presidents, he gets a library. The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum is in Yorba Linda, California, a pleasant town of just under 70,000 in northeast Orange County. I went to the Nixon Library with one question in mind: How exactly do you memorialize the country's biggest inside joke?

The answer starts outside, with a fountain.

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Aided by the natural beauty of California—it was 70 degrees on the January day I visited—the first impression of the Nixon Library is extremely pleasantness. It feels like a library—the kind that holds books you'd want to read, not pictures of Richard Nixon's face.

Once you purchase your ticket—at the low, low price of $11.95—the first thing that greets you, aside from the docent who kindly explains how the museum works, is an astronaut.

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The astronaut serves as a helpful primer, because he teases at the onslaught of shit you're about to encounter on your trip through the museum. Unlike the George W. Bush Museum, Nixon's library doesn't have any games that turn 9/11 into a Choose Your Own Adventure book, and there are no paintings of Vladimir Putin to turn a disgraced leader of the free world into your kindly weird uncle. Instead, the Nixon museum avoids being a three-dimensional version of a Wikipedia article by flooding you with miscellany: buttons from his campaigns, letters he wrote, campaign thimbles.

Curious how Nixon looked on the campaign trail? He looked like this:

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By the end of your visit, you feel like you've been stabbed in the gut, over and over, by Tricky Dick's shovel-blade grin.

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The museum progresses chronologically through Nixon's political career, with a particularly bizarre stop at the Alger Hiss trials. This is the first, though not the only, hint that maybe the museum curators were a little too sympathetic toward the life and times of Nixon: Hiss is derided as a liar and a Communist—a position that has historical credibility—but makes no mention of the fact that the House Un-American Activities Committee wasn't the best contribution to our national legacy. Instead, Nixon's role in HUAC is treated as just a stepping stone for his career—like presiding over Congress, except with more naming names.

At about this point, I had the good fortune of falling into the orbit of a tour. The guide was telling his wards about the Hiss trials. "Alger Hiss was favored by the news media, and from that point until the time he died, the media was against Richard Nixon," the guide said. I wanted to shout the words "Woodward and Bernstein" just to see how he'd react, but I decided that it would be better to let him keep rolling.

And roll he did. A few teens on the tour hung back to look at the exhibit. Pointing them out to the rest of the tour, the guide said, "That's one of our country's problems—these kids don't want to learn about history."

An adult, possibly their mother, chimed in: "Actually, they're just reading more into the stuff we skipped."

"Oh," the guide responded. Another person bailed him out: "It says here that California used to only have 30-something electoral votes. Doesn't it have more now? Must be because the population's higher."

"That's because we got all these illegals now," the guide said. I figured it might be time for me to get moving.

I walked past an antique TV setup showing the Kennedy–Nixon debate from 1960—"people listening on the radio thought Nixon won," I heard the guide say in the background, really earning his pay —and into what could only be described as "Touring the World with Richard Nixon."

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Dedicated to Nixon's international statesmanship, the all-black room was filled with memorials to the Berlin Wall, Vietnam, his meeting with Mao, and so on. Another room featured busts of Nixon and all the other world leaders that factored into his career, plus a disclaimer saying that the museum wasn't making any sort of comment on the legacy of these leaders. Because nothing says "Communism is dope" like a statue of Nikita Khrushchev.

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"Hey! Who wants to ghost-ride Nixon's whip!" This is what I would have said out loud if I had anyone to say it out loud to. Instead, I was alone in the Nixon Library at 11 AM.

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At this point, I was ready for the sweet schadenfreude of Watergate, and on that front, the museum didn't disappoint. It was the best of both worlds: on the one hand, a thorough and impressive explanation of the scandals put together by the National Archives; on the other, a little caption from the museum that said, "Watergate has produced many books and conflicting interpretations. Ultimately, it is up to you to decide how well our system of government worked back then and what, if any, lessons there are for us today."

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In a way, this disclaimer, even more than the Cliven Bundy–esque tour guide and countless Nixonfaces, was what I'd come to the museum looking for. As our national politics strays farther and farther away from trifling annoyances like facts and evidence and replaces them with the astounding lie that history is open for your personal interpretation, even Watergate, one of the grossest and least debatable abuses of power in American history can be turned into a judgment call. You could practically hear folks leaving the museum and saying to each other, "I mean, can you blame him?"

Wandering through the rest of the grounds, I found a bust of Nixon's head that looked like it was made out of caramel, a huge ballroom with comically large chandeliers, and a couple who seemed to be considering the Library as a possible location for their wedding.

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The two final pieces of Nixon memorabilia were his birthplace, which the Museum has preserved, and his helicopter, made famous for ferrying him out right after he gave the double peace-signs. The birthplace was... a house. A small house. It was yellow. Would I move into Nixon's house? Probably not, but if you lived there, I'd visit.

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And finally, the helicopter. As I approached, a kind, elderly tour guide asked me how much time I had. I said I was in a rush, because I had to get back to Los Angeles to meet some people for lunch, and also because if I spent any more time thinking about Richard Nixon, I'd probably end up running into the Pacific Ocean. She led me through the helicopter, which looked like a 60s-era rec room stuffed into a large tin can.

As we exited, she asked if I wanted a picture in front of the helicopter. I said sure. She took one. Then she said, "Now do one with the Nixon peace sign!" I hesitated. She goaded me on, like someone trying to get you to take a shot.

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History will judge us all.

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A still from 'Inherent Vice'

Paul Thomas Anderson isn't only one of the most talented film directors alive, but also apparently one of the most chilled out. He's the mastermind behind Boogie Nights, Magnolia and The Master—all heavy, complex films in their own right—but his sets have been described as relaxed to the point of chaotic. In person, unshaven, grinning, and smoking out of the hotel window, he puts me totally and utterly at ease.

His new film, Inherent Vice, hits cinemas later this month, telling the story of Doc Sportello (played by Joaquin Phoenix), a stoner private investigator on a mysterious kidnapping case in 1970s California. From the very first scene, when a slow stream of weed smoke drifts out of Phoenix's mouth, you're bundled along on a heady and convoluted adventure, encountering neo-Nazi bikers, Black Panthers, and murderous loan sharks, all in a climate of post-Manson murder paranoia.

I talked to Paul Thomas Anderson about the movie, its music, and some of the films that inspire him as a director.

VICE: So, firstly, what does Inherent Vice mean?
Paul Thomas Anderson: It's everything you can't avoid. You know: eggs break, chocolate melts, glass shatters. There are these built-in defects in everything—particularly in human beings, I suppose.

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You've told us about why you decided to adapt Thomas Pynchon's novel of the same name. It's a pretty thick plot. Was it ever a concern that Inherent Vice might completely confuse your audience, as opposed to confusing them a little bit, which seems to be Pynchon's intention?
There are some people who are much smarter than me, and they can watch it and feel like they just get it. That's shocking to me because I'm still trying to catch up with all the information. I think it can be frustrating. We've got to try to find a way to try to get people to come and see the movie and just go with the flow and the rhythm and not try to think that, if they miss some crucial piece, that they're not going to get it.

It's about the ride.
Right. I think it's good to think of the film as, like, that moment when you wake up in the morning and you've been drinking the night before, but for a fraction of a second you're completely fine, and then you suddenly remember and think, Wait a minute, what did I do last night? And then you're hungover. Have you ever had that?

Yeah, although sometimes it last a few hours. The film itself was intoxicating in that way, though. I felt drunk from the second that Can song came on at the beginning. Did you choose that?
I did choose that song. Who's not obsessed with Can? I don't know anybody who isn't. That was a good way of starting the movie with a little bit of excitement and energy, and there's a really groovy paranoia to it and an engine to it. It was good to get the movie started that way. Jonny [Greenwood, of Radiohead, who soundtracked the film] is obsessed with them, too, and has been for a while.

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And Neil Young. What do you think his music brings to the film?
I listen to Neil Young all the time anyway, but I really put it on double play when I was writing and making the movie. It does a few things—it adds a sweet melancholy to it. It helps people feel a little safe when they hear Neil Young; it kind of brings you back to shore. It's familiar.

We tried to make Doc look like Neil Young even; he's got that kind of 1970s look with the chops and the fucking hair and the hat and the army jacket. I mean, it's all Neil Young wardrobe—like, straight up lifted from Neil Young.

A bit grizzly. Joaquin Phoenix really suits that look, but I heard you were going to cast Robert Downey Junior first?
That was something that was reported... We were talking about doing a movie together, or just working together, and it was one possibility that kind of got picked up by the press. It's that weird thing—like, it was never super serious at all. But he wouldn't have been right. He can do anything, but I think it was better to have Joaquin.

What about Katherine Waterson, who plays one of the female leads? What else had you seen her in?
I saw her in this movie The Babysitter. It's a movie about these girls who are babysitters but who are also running a call girl agency. Maybe that premise sounds a bit horse shit, but it really is not—it's a really interesting film. You should check it out. She's great in it.

You tend to work with an ensemble cast, like in Boogie Nights, Magnolia and nowInherent Vice. There are a lot of big names. How does that affect the way you work?
Yeah, Magnolia was like that, but at the time—well, Tom Cruise was a big star obviously, but we'd just come from making Boogie Nights, so it was a lot of the same people from that, and there were a lot of people who became quite famous from making Boogie Nights.

Inherent Vice was great because people would just come in for, like, two or three days. Nobody had that much to do except Joaquin. Joaquin was there for everything. Katherine had a lot to do, too. It's great to work with stars. You'll know the people who have bad reputations are—who to stay away from. You just try not to work with those people.

And then, clearly, you work with those same people again if it works well? Like Philip Seymour Hoffman, or Joaquin Phoenix?
Absolutely, yeah.

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What kind of movies inspired you as a filmmaker?
Repo Man, Something Wild, Dr Strange Love, This IsSpinal Tap... too many. There's probably nothing that hasn't been said about Spinal Tap already, and perhaps it's one of those things—it's so quoted, people know it so well, but you can still go back to it and you won't be tired of it. It's so fucking funny.

I remember I was in Westwood, California with my brother when the posters for that came out. They were just these black posters that said "This is Spinal Tap" in this heavy metal font. No one knew what it was, but I'd figured it out because the night before I was watching The David Letterman Show and I saw a clip from it and I figured, "This is not a film about a heavy metal band—this is a gag." And so I took my brother.

There were these other guys in the audience who were complete heavy metal heads who I think had come to see a movie about a heavy metal band that they'd never heard of. They weren't really laughing, but my brother and I were in hysterics. We knew we'd seen the movie that we were going to see over and over and over again.

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There seems to be that gag element to Inherent Vice as well, like, how seriously should you take it? Are you always meant to know what's going on?
2001: A Space Odyssey makes my head spin in the same way. Every time I see it I don't understand what's going on or what the movie's about, and then there's this kind of flash; for like three or four frames I'll get this kind of epiphany about what it's all about, and it's fleeting—it'll just sort of whisk away. I couldn't tell you what that movie's about even if I tried right now. But when watching it, when I'm immersed in it, it's an enjoyable experience and that's a good feeling.

So you're a Kubrick fan. Dr. Strangelove—I haven't seen it, but it's about the Cold War, right? There are lots of side notes about communism in Inherent Vice. Is that something you played upon deliberately?
Yeah, having fun with the absurdity of male macho behavior, you know, guys in war rooms arguing with each other, Russians acting like children, Americans acting like adults who think they know better than the children. It's great. Everything in that film. You've got to see that movie. You've got to fucking see that movie. Seeing characters get really obsessed about their politics is usually pretty funny with a little bit of distance. That's what's great about that movie.

Do you think that manifests in your film?
Yeah, I think so, a little bit, sure. All that stuff that you were talking about. There's a haze of the Golden Fang [a mysterious ship/gang/something that keeps getting mentioned in Inherent Vice]. The Golden Fang is basically a sort of deposit for anything that pisses you off. The Golden Fang is, you know, when your computer's not working. The Golden Fang would be entirely responsible for that. No new climate change laws? That's because the Golden Fang is stopping them. It's everything and anything that's pissing you off, I suppose.

A bit like inherent vice itself?
Right.

Follow Amelia Abraham on Twitter.

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Photo via Flickr user Gwenael Piaser

The backlash against criticism of the police, which began with the tragic assassination of two cops in New York City on December 20, will likely continue after the deaths of Paris police officers last week in connection with the massacre of Charlie Hebdo staff by terrorists.

It's important to acknowledge the heroism of police, both here and abroad. The death of French cop Ahmed Merabet in particular has struck a chord for many, as the Muslim was the first officer to respond to the incident, and his final moments were caught on video. Another French officer, Chief Helric Fredou, committed suicide on Wednesday after being put on the case. These men ought to be remembered for their sacrifices, as should the many cops who die in the line of duty.

As the world watched the manhunt unfold, we saw the full array of French law enforcement hardware on display—helicopters, armored vehicles, officers in full riot gear. It was an active shooter situation that turned into a hostage crisis, so it's hard to argue a robust response wasn't warranted.

But in America, our cops often bring that gear out for narcotics and other routine vice raids. The challenge is to somehow have our cops be ready for the worst without turning them into an occupying army.

That won't be easy, but the US is doing a particularly bad job of it. Last year, the American Civil LIberties Union concluded that only 7 percent of all SWAT deployments were carried out for hostage or active-shooter situations. Sixty-two percent were for narcotics raids, and 80 percent were for serving a simple search warrant. Fundamentally, we need cops who can respond to crises like the one Paris just went through. We do not need cops who act like selling pot is an emergency, or who heighten danger with their guns and their flashbang grenades, instead of easing it.

When it comes to fixing the police, bad laws and petty excuses for profiling and harassment need to be the first to go. These guys should be highly-trained public servants we keep on hand in case of a Charlie Hebdo-style terrorist attack, or even a seriously committed school shooter. They should not be kicking in doors over drugs, or dressing like they're at war when they're checking on a local bar's liquor license.

To say that police have had a problem with mission creep, which can and must be checked, is not to insult the best of them. Nor do such critiques mean we have to go without saluting police bravery when it makes a difference.

Now onto this week's bad cops:

-The FBI has been piggy-backing on NSA spying programs like PRISM, the New York Times reported this weekend. Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request, the paper's Charlie Savage got his hands on a 231-page report prepared by the Justice Department's inspector general, which suggests the Bureau has been a key player in the warrantless surveillance racket. Tack on backdoor searches the FBI has been conducting without accountability, and it's safe to say the FBI is giving the NSA a run for its money when it comes to claiming the mantle of America's most dystopian agency.

-NYPD Police Commissioner Bill Bratton confirmed on Friday what everyone already had figured out: City cops have been holding back since their two comrades were slain, with their arrest numbers way down. But after nudging from union leaders and commanders, arrests are already on the way up again.

-On January 7, Northeast Ohio Media Group released video of the shooting of Tamir Rice, the 12-year-old boy who was shot over his toy gun. Reports that Rice's 14-year-sister was handcuffed when she tried to rush to the scene turned out to be quite true. Officer Timothy Loehmann's partner threw Rice's sister down, then put her in the back of their squad car. Law enforcement also failed to render medical aid for the first four minutes of the video. After 13 minutes, paramedics arrived to take Rice away. Be warned if you follow that link: The video makes for grim viewing.

-On Tuesday, a Burlington, Iowa, Police Department Officer reportedly fatally shot a woman during a domestic violence incident. Officer Jesse Hill was either escorting Autumn Steele home after she was jailed—so that she could gather some belongings—or else he arrived on the scene some time later. In any case, at some point Steele got into another argument with husband, and her dog approached the officer. Hill felt threatened—he was reportedly bitten— and shot at the dog twice, somehow hitting Steele instead.

-On Friday, a member of the Albuquerque Police Department was shot by a uniformed lieutenant during a $60 meth sting. The officer was shot in a McDonald's parking lot, and has already undergone several surgeries (he currently remains in intensive care). Another unnamed officer was slightly injured. Police work is always going to have its dangers, but to risk lives over small-time drug busts is absurd.

-Also on Friday, Derrick Hamilton—who spent 20 years in prison—was officially exonerated for murder. Hamilton was put away thanks to former NYPD officer Louis Scarcella, who allegedly forced a witness into identifying Hamilton. Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson is looking at over 70 other convictions secured by Scarcella for any signs of similarly shady tactics.

-Last week, Victoria, Texas, Police Officer Nathanial Robinson was fired over a December 11 traffic stop during which the 26-year-old threw 76-year-old Pete Vasquez on the ground and Tasered him twice. Robinson also apparently violated department policy by arresting Vasquez without a warrant. On Sunday, Robinson appealed his termination. His lawyer says the Vasquez kicked Robinson, and that the man wasn't injured anyway.

-Our Good Cop of the Week is Brick Township, New Jersey, Police Officer James Albanese. The phrase "split-second reaction" usually comes up when a cop fatally shoots someone, but in Albanese's case, it meant not hesitating when he swam into freezing water to rescue an unconscious woman who had been trying to commit suicide. The woman will likely be OK, and Albanese was released after a brief hospital trip. Not waffling when a woman was in trouble makes Albanese a very good cop indeed.

Follow Lucy Steigerwald on Twitter.

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This article originally appeared on VICE UK

When they travel abroad, fans of the Scottish national football (a.k.a. soccer) team have the best reputation in the world for drinking herculean amounts of booze while maintaining their good humor. Local police cheerfully pose for pictures with sozzled, kilt-wearing groups of Tartan Army members, smiling as they are draped in a saltire or lion rampant. Bar and nightclub owners actively encourage them into their premises. Whether in Trafalgar Square or the Grand Place, Zagreb or Vilnius, people trust them to drink beer without feeling the need to glass anybody with their empty vessels afterwards.

It's a different matter when Scottish fans go to support their local club team. Typically clad in jeans, trainers and windbreakers, they look much the same as any other supporters in the UK. The pantomime nationalism is gone and with it any assumption that they're nice people.

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Many of the stadiums they call home wouldn't look out of place in the lower-end of the English Premier League or Championship. The concourses at Tynecastle have the same smell of piss and pies as they do at Oakwell or Selhurst Park. But club fans in Scotland are treated differently to those in England and Wales in one important aspect: They can't buy alcohol at grounds. Visit Carlisle United and you can choose to wash down your hot dog with a plastic pint glass of weak lager, while across the border at Dundee United you can order nothing stronger than a Bovril.

The only way around the ban is to stump up the extra cash required for a hospitality seat, which allows you access to corporate suites with no view of the pitch where drink can be sold before and after the game. Obviously not everyone can afford to do that, and it's hardly a proper match day experience anyway.

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On Saturday I decided to test opinion among supporters about the ban by visiting several bars in the vicinity of Easter Road, home of perennially underachieving Edinburgh side Hibernian, on Saturday. They were at home to Falkirk, one of the second tier's better-supported teams, and it seemed a sensible location—there are more boozers within walking distance of the ground than any other in Scotland.

I started off in Middleton's, a traditional bar that occupies the entire ground floor of one of Edinburgh's seemingly endless tenements. Jim and Gordon, two Hibs fans in their 50s, could well remember the days when it was accepted practice to drink a a six-pack of McEwen's Export while you stood on an uncovered terrace in whatever pre-war hovel your club had the nerve to call a stadium. "Older guys would have a wee half bottle in their pocket, it was a common thing," said Gordon. "Then in the 70s, that's when fans started throwing cans at each other."

Neither was fussed about the ban. I asked how they would feel if the ban was scrapped. "It would depend on how it was done—no one would want to go back to how it was before," said Jim.

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The ban on the sale or consumption of alcohol at Scottish stadiums was introduced when Jim and Gordon were young men. Margaret Thatcher's first Tory Government cracked down in the wake of the infamous 1980 Scottish Cup final, when a typically bad-tempered Old Firm match was settled by a late extra-time winner for Celtic. Fans of both sides invaded the pitch at full-time and the violence that followed was broadcast live into living rooms across the country. But that was 35 years ago and the game has changed immeasurably on and off the park, while this restrictive law has not.

The booze ban might well have carried on in perpetuity if plain talking Cockney and celebrity sports promoter Barry Hearn hadn't been invited to address Scottish Football Association bosses at Hampden Park last month. "If you worked for me, you'd be sacked," he reportedly announced in an unflinching speech about the state of the Scottish game.

"You have so much good in Scottish football, so many positive things, but you don't sell yourself. You don't do enough for yourselves. I'm seeing too much self-pity."

He added: "It's archaic in today's world for a customer not to be able to buy an alcoholic beverage at a function or a sporting event." The booze-ban, he said, is "obscene. It's actually insulting for people who go to a football match. And don't say 'I served a beer and there was trouble' because it's your job to make sure there is no trouble. People will be people, but the customer experience is all part and parcel of why your gates are dropping."

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Days later, newly elected Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy—himself a teetotaller—announced his support for the limited sale of alcohol at grounds on a trial basis. "Our sport in Scotland is stuck in a class mentality that says if you're middle class and want to go to rugby you can drink," he said. "I don't think we want people drinking from 9 AM to 3 PM, but I'm interested in trialling people being allowed to drink in the stadium for maybe an hour before the game."

Even Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson is open to a new approach. "It's essential we have a pilot scheme to see if alcohol can be brought back to Scottish football on a permanent basis," she said. "If we don't, we are telling fans they have to be treated differently from supporters across the rest of the UK and Europe."

While you might expect an SNP Government to favour scrapping a piece of Thatcherite legislation, it shows little interest in doing so. "Decisions on the matter are informed by Police Scotland," said a spokeswoman. "Police Scotland have previously confirmed they are not at this stage minded to seek a relaxation of the controls on alcohol at football."

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Back in Middlelton's, Neil, a 39-year-old originally from the south coast of England, found the ban ridiculous. "Portsmouth fans can get sold beer in the Brighton away end," he said. "You can drink everywhere else in Scotland, so why not at football?

Ken, an Edinburgh native, agreed. "It's discriminating against a particular sport if you can drink at games down south and at the rugby, but not at football."

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Fifty yards down the road, the Four in Hand was almost full by 2:15 PM. The half-dozen bar staff on duty, including landlord Paul Kane—a former Hibs player—were working flat out. The atmosphere was lively but far from boisterous. Jon Henry was watching the Liverpool game on TV with his brother Ric, drinking cokes as part of a self-imposed dry January. "There are numerous positives to lifting the ban," he said. "It would offer greater convenience for supporters and a considerable boost to clubs' finances. Scottish football needs to catch up with the world's best leagues in its match day offering."

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With kick-off fast approaching, there was just time to visit Tamsons Bar for a chat with staff on how they would react to having another competitor nearby. "Lifting the ban wouldn't have any particular impact on us," said Kate, who was still busily pouring pints at 2:55 PM alongside bar manager Sonia. "This is a meeting place for people to socialize. Plus, price-wise, we would always be cheaper than anything sold at the ground." Several Hibs fans propping up the bar murmured in agreement.

As I made my way back to the stadium, a sleet storm blowed around me. People shivered and put their hoods up as they queued to enter the ground. It was clear that it will take more than just scrapping the booze ban to boost attendances in the depths of a Scottish winter. That said, I can't think of any other football fans who are more deserving of a beer jacket to help them through games, and surely they should to be treated the same as English fans.

Follow Chris McCall on Twitter.

[body_image width='614' height='720' path='images/content-images/2015/01/12/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/12/' filename='help-find-the-fried-egg-thief-of-scilly-909-body-image-1421068946.jpg' id='17364']A policewoman points at an egg. Image via Isles of Scilly Police

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

A fried egg has baffled police on the Isles of Scilly in Great Britain. How? By appearing at the crime scene of what seems, at first glance, like a standard shed break-in.

A policeman who identifies himself only as "Colin" took to Facebook to ask for help re: figuring out what all this egg business is about, after what looks like some kids broke into a shed to steal a football for a kickabout.

"Somebody has forced open the door to the Football Club shed at the playing field next to the school," read the statement Colin posted at the Isles of Scilly police Facebook page. "It is fairly evident that this was done sometime over Tuesday evening and most probably to get a football out for a kick around. Regrettably, however, the door was damaged in the process as can be seen in the picture with the bottom of the door split. There are few clues as to how this came to happen other than a fried egg was left at the scene.

"In case you missed any of the salient points above," Colin continued, "I'll summarize:
– Low key investigation with amicable resolution if admitted.
– A fried egg was left at the scene. "

As a result, students at Five Islands school will presumably have sat down for a very sincere assembly Friday where a policeman came in and held up a cold floppy egg accusingly at them and they will have had to not laugh. "I will be attending school tomorrow to ask at assembly if anyone knows anything about this," Colin added. "We are just looking for the person responsible to own up and this can all be dealt with quite amicably which is the request of the shed owners."

Thing is: I'm trying to think about a situation in which you might be holding a fried egg—no bread was found at the scene, so it definitely wasn't the component of a sandwich, nor was there any bean juice or black pudding laying around, so it wasn't part of a fry up, either—and then you might put the fried egg on the ground and just leave it there.

But no such situation exists. Like, you've gone to the trouble to fry an egg. You've somehow cooled it to a temperature where you might take it outside with you as a handheld protein-rich snack. And then you leave it by a shed for the police to find. What kind of deranged maniac are the Isles of Scilly police dealing with, here? Do they know what they're getting into? Do they have enough riot gear? And is the egg in question currently sitting in a Ziploc bag in a police-owned mini fridge? So many questions, doomed to go unanswered.

Unless... Unless the chat at the school was able to shed some light on this unsettling mystery. We'll keep you posted.

Follow Joel Golby on Twitter.

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Loss, grief, heartache: Breakups are no less painful when you're doing it with a bridge. Or a pylon. Or a wooden fence. Or the Eiffel Tower.

So argues Erika Eiffel, the tower crane operator and former award-winning archer made famous by the documentary Married to the Eiffel Tower. Erika is one of the few public objectum sexuals—people with a love orientation towards objects—and,in addition to holding a commitment ceremony with the 186-year-old French iron tower, has fallen for fighter jets, fencing, and is currently in a relationship with a crane. She also runs the support website Object Sexuality Internationale.

We don't know how many objectum sexuals there are in the world—not enough data has been gathered and people are, understandably, reluctant to identify their orientation in such a climate of distrust and misinformation. We do, however, know that objectum sexuality is found in both men and women across the world. In 2010, the clinical sexologist Dr. Amy Marsh wrote in the Electronic Journal of Human Sexuality that, while it is often assumed that OS is "a pathology" or related to "a history of sexual trauma," there is, in fact, no data to support such a claim and that "OS appears to be a genuine—though rare—sexual orientation."

There is very little data on the subject altogether—the Oxford English Dictionary doesn't even carry a definition of objectum sexuality. So it's perhaps unsurprising that so many non-OS people lump a love orientation towards objects in with autism and sexual trauma at one end, and fetishism and paraphilia at the other.

The hot tang of heartache was no less real for Erika Eiffel when she broke up with her "greatest love" because, for her, objectum sexuality is "not an affliction or an addiction; it's an orientation, the way we are inclined." And while it is one thing to have your heart broken by something as unruly, as unpredictable, and as flawed as a person, it must be quite another to lose something as stable, as unmoving, as apparently constant as the Eiffel Tower.

Of course, objectum sexuality is viewed by most as a kink, at best. The image of someone getting sweaty-palmed over a balustrade, a wall, a fairground ride, or a semi truck is ludicrous, laughable. At worst it's a dangerous perversion—a symptom of mental illness. And yet, as someone who once dreamed her baby was an orange plastic extractor fan or can be brought to tears just by thinking of my grandparents' old, paint-peeling garage doors, I can well understand the capacity objects have to evoke in us very human emotional reactions.

"I believe that everyone is animus as a child, that it's innate," says Erika on the phone from her apartment in Berlin. "Children are picking up on all these sensations from everything around them. But as they get older that is unlearned. They're told, 'This is an it.' As a child I was always very connected to objects. I used to carry this little plank of wood with me everywhere I went and as a kid people think that's cute. But as you get older, their view changes." For many OS people, their particular love orientation isn't something that comes on during the trauma of adolescence—it's something that the world around them grows out of.

Playwright Chloe Mashiter interviewed eight objectum sexuals to write Object Love, which opens at London's Vault Festival this month. While each interviewee had their own private relationship to the objects of their affection, Mashiter did pick out certain common themes: "Not really liking plastics was something that came up a lot. Also, not liking medical objects or objects associated with death or hospitals."

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Image via Wikimedia Commons

Mashiter wrote to people who'd fallen in love with cars, bridges, even the folding armrest of a desk chair. "There's an English woman who's in a relationship with the Statue of Liberty who also has a human boyfriend, and he seems very supportive," she says. "But there are cases of families trying to get OS people to have counseling or even get [committed to a mental hospital]."

For non-OS people the sticking point with objectum sexuality is, often, sex. "I understand that people are going to get visuals in their head and they are going to have questions about sex," says Erika. "When you see a building and a person you have questions, just like when you see a very tall person and a very short person together. You wonder how the mechanics work. But you wouldn't go up to those people and ask, 'How do you do it when you're so tall and she's so short?' The fact that people ask us those questions just shows how little they respect us."

Erika was disowned by her mother for her objectum sexuality, lost almost all her archery sponsors after admitting to a relationship to her bow and is has been publicly vilified for her sexual orientation. "The greatest heartbreak that I ever experienced was due to the media," she tells me. "A year after my commitment ceremony with the Eiffel Tower, a British documentary-maker approached me saying they wanted to cover it. I thought she was kind, but she kept pushing the sexual aspect."

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Erika in her archery days. Image via Wikimedia Commons

In one pivotal scene Erika is seen sitting astride one of the tower's great iron girders, euphoric in her proximity to her partner. The scene cuts to a shot of Erika adjusting a stocking; we see her naked leg and infer that she's consummating her commitment. "It was horrifying," says Erika. Once the documentary aired in France, the staff at the Eiffel Tower "wanted nothing to do with me." Erika felt torn from her partner, estranged. "I don't even know how to articulate a heartbreak like that. It just wrecked me. It was this final blow and I just had to withdraw."

Erika, like lots of broken-hearted people, retreated to the comfort and security of an old companion. Only in this case, that companion was—somewhat controversially—the Berlin Wall.

"The Berlin Wall picked me up off my feet," she explains. "It was an object that was hated for being who he is. In the 1980s I felt empathy for him; he can't help where he was built. They focused their hatred on the wall, rather than the politics behind it. I felt like I was suffering in the same way. I went through a lot of rejection when I was younger because of my orientation."

"People think I can just point at an object and decide to love it. They think I can't develop relationships with people so choose objects so I can have control. But I had no control over my relationship to the Eiffel Tower. If this was all about control, I'd love my toaster, you know?" – Erika Eiffel

This animosity, argues Erika, is a specifically Western phenomena. "I lived in Japan for ten years and was very open in how I interacted with objects. People just accepted me. Shinto is an animist religion—if you have a headache, you'll rub the Buddha's head and then rub your own; it's an exchange of energy. Here in Germany, I'll refer to my partner as 'my big love.' The only places where I have problems are the USA, England, and Australia. It's the puritanical basis of the way people think in these countries that's made me suffer a great deal. I've lost jobs, I've lost family, and I lost my greatest love."

During the course of research, Mashiter heard a lot of breakup stories. "There have been instances where people have started to fall for another object. There are relationships where the communication breaks down. I've also heard of cases where the object ended the relationship; where the person feels like they're doing everything that they can but aren't getting anything back. And there are cases where the object is destroyed."

Even when you invest your affection in bricks and mortar, iron and steel, wood and hinges, that love is, it seems, far from secure. "People think I can just point at an object and decide to love it," says Erika. "They think I can't develop relationships with people so choose objects so I can have control. But I had no control over my relationship to the Eiffel Tower. If this was all about control, I'd love my toaster, you know?"

Erika is now working as a tower crane operator and, hundreds of feet in the air, is slowly building a new relationship with her crane. "It took me a very long time to accept that maybe it's OK to start another relationship," she explains, echoing the sentiments of widows and divorcees across the world. "I thought I'd never fall in love again. But, being a tower crane operator, no one can question or bar me from getting to know this object. I feel like the buildings we're creating together are almost like children."

Of course, a German tower crane is never going to replace the world's most famous monument to romance. But maybe that alright. "Everyone has an ideal in their head, but if you only look for that ideal then you'll probably end up being very lonely. It's like always lusting after a blonde with blue eyes, but you end up with a redhead who has green eyes. I'm still in a cautious stage with tower cranes because my heart is still broken. I can't have the perfect relationship. I have to accept that."

I can't pretend to share Erika's orientation. I am from a family that constructs buildings—not kisses them. I've nailed down plenty of rafters without once losing myself in a reverie of affection. Submarines may evoke terror, cooling towers may make my bowels tremble, and I may stand back and admire the engineering of a well-built key stone bridge, but it feels a stretch to call that a persuasion.

And yet, when it comes to her descriptions of love, attachment and heartbreak—of losing intimacy and seeking comfort in old companions—maybe we're closer than you think.

Follow Nell Frizzell on Twitter.

Beth LaFata left her stationary life to become an Amazon workamper. Photos by Lara Shipley

In early September, at a campground called Buckeye Mobile / RV Estates on the outskirts of Coffeyville, Kansas, a strong thunderstorm awoke Beth LaFata. It was around midnight and rain was hammering the roof of her home, a faded blue 1979 Dodge camper van. In six hours she would have to clock in for a long day of work at a nearby Amazon warehouse. It only took LaFata a few moments to realize the rain was coming straight through her roof and onto her bed. She was becoming drenched, and within minutes her entire one-room dwelling would flood.

"It was raining inside the van as much as it was raining outside," LaFata said. "My bed was soaked. There was nothing I could do but sit there and cry until I had to go to work."

WORKAMPERS
Migrant workers who have taken to the road in RVs and camper vans in pursuit of temporary jobs to make ends meet

LaFata was parked at Buckeye that night because she had just recently joined what might be America's most mobile labor force. "Workampers" are mostly retirement-age migrant workers who have taken to the road in RVs and camper vans in pursuit of temporary jobs to make ends meet. Just like their truly retired counterparts, these workers travel the country, sightseeing and staying overnight in RV parks. But many workampers also depend on low-wage temp jobs like overseeing campgrounds, selling tickets at NASCAR races, or—as in LaFata's case—spending long nights packing boxes for the planet's largest e-commerce corporation.

In 2010, after being laid off from her job delivering food for Meals on Wheels outside Dallas, LaFata, then 44, embarked on a desperate job hunt. Having spent 18 years as a paralegal, she was stunned at the difficulty of finding work in the down economy. She was being rejected for jobs that would have once been considered beneath her. A number of fast-food chains like McDonald's had passed her up for cashier jobs, and her unemployment benefits were running out fast. "I sent out hundreds of applications," she told me. "I was applying everywhere—absolutely everywhere—and you can only go back so many times when they keep telling you no."

LaFata gave up the job hunt only when she managed to leave her $600-a-month apartment outside Houston for a nine-month-long housesitting stint and began making a few hundred dollars a month on freelance gigs booking bands. Yet as the months of housesitting came to an end, the idea of living in a home for which she would have to pay rent was less and less appealing. LaFata had always dreamed of life on the open road, so late in 2013 she traded her last major possession—a '92 Pontiac Firebird convertible—for the camper van she now lives in. Last Valentine's Day, her first day on the road, she slept in a Walmart parking lot.

The mobility made it immediately easier to find work. LaFata could travel to wherever a gig made itself available, and she quickly settled into a minimum-wage temp job tidying up parking spots and cleaning restrooms at a campground outside Austin. While there, she was hired months in advance by Amazon and for a major beet harvest administered by American Crystal Sugar, a company that has in recent years used temporary workers to edge out its unionized labor force. LaFata planned to work the beet harvest's grueling 12-hour days for a few weeks, then head to Kansas in October for the rest of the season. In the last week of July, when Amazon called to tell her its Coffeyville warehouse was immediately taking workampers, LaFata calculated that foregoing the beet harvest altogether would save her several hundred dollars in gas. On August 11, she arrived in Coffeyville.

The financial crisis of 2008 blindsided millions of retirement-age workers. Some saw decades' worth of savings in their 401(k)'s shrink overnight. Others who had been laid off and hadn't updated their résumés in years struggled to find anything resembling a career path amid competition from younger applicants. With so many seeking work, companies no longer needed to offer the traditional perks of stable employment or decent salaries to attract help. Since the recession, temporary work has accounted for a major portion of job gains as millions of Americans, including thousands of workampers across the country, have begun to rely on the new gig economy.

Just as the economy was collapsing, Amazon launched a pilot program in Coffeyville called CamperForce. The company had been expanding quickly and was struggling to find enough temporary workers among the local population to staff its warehouse. For more than two decades a small community of RVers had called themselves workampers, but never before had such a powerful company sought to harness their labor. The Coffeyville pilot program proved a success, and Amazon has since extended CamperForce to its warehouses in Campbellsville, Kentucky; Murfreesboro, Tennessee; and Fernley, Nevada. Amazon has made efforts to reach workampers in the field by sending recruiters to solicit new hires at RV conventions. By the time LaFata arrived in Coffeyville, Amazon's warehouse work had become a simple fact of the lifestyle for workampers.

For most of the laborers in Coffeyville, Amazon's $10.50-an-hour day-shift pay (or $11 an hour for night shifts) was a key draw for the long haul to Kansas. Amazon also provides workers with a free RV parking spot, and those who complete the season receive a bonus of one additional dollar for every hour they work. While workamping gigs almost always provide a comped RV spot, Amazon's base pay is among the best in the sector—a significant edge over the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour that many of the gigs offer.

Because it was early in Amazon's peak season when I visited this autumn, the warehouse was still in the process of ingesting massive batches of inventory in preparation for the wave of Christmas orders coming after Thanksgiving. In September, the workampers' nights would still be devoted to receiving and stowing this inbound freight. As Christmas neared, their jobs would shift to packing and moving a galaxy of products out of the warehouse and bound for households across the country.

Although workampers' schedules can be grueling, they are quick to express appreciation for the community and sense of belonging that their migratory life offers them. The workers at Buckeye not only lived and worked together but formed close bonds and shared a fierce camaraderie. With much help from her workamper neighbors, LaFata recently moved into a rented mobile home while she makes several much-needed repairs on her van.

Workampers' zeal for the lifestyle can become almost evangelical. On my first afternoon with LaFata, we spoke until nearly 5:00 PM, when Buckeye's dusty lanes became busy with trucks heading out for the night shift. Jeanne Pitts, a slight but intensely engaging Amazon worker, walked up clad in an orange vest from which her Amazon ID dangled. When Pitts learned I was an outsider, she urged me to cast off the burdensome things that tied me to life in New York. "You need to just get in the RV and explore. You won't get rich doing it, but you get a lot of experiences and you meet the greatest people," Pitts said, gesturing to the surrounding RV park. "And you're happy because you're not in a bad mood."

Many workampers I met in Coffeyville were not just holding on but living with a very particular sort of alacrity, an almost aggressive good cheer that was frankly hard for me to reconcile with the apparent difficulty of their financial realities. A recent cover story in Harper's Magazine had dismissed workampers' cheery-eyed professions of happiness on the road as simple self-deception deployed to gloss over the strain of RV-borne migrant work. Yet a different and deeper force seemed present among the people I spoke with at Buckeye. If the workampers' relentless optimism is a collective lie, it is a sort of fiction that most everyone can relate to. It is a scaffold of meaning built to make sense of things, or, in the case of workampers, explain a lifestyle that so brilliantly conforms to the demands of America's new temp economy.

The harshest words for Amazon's labor practices in Coffeyville I heard came not from a workamper but from a local who told me that, on his first and only day of working at the warehouse, he was almost overcome by a seizure from Amazon's alien regime of computerized discipline. Perhaps Amazon spotted a certain cultural value in workampers back in 2008. In identifying this new labor force, Amazon has certainly achieved a feat of modern human resources: Workampers have formed a culture that, through exalting the American ideal of adventure on the open road, can embrace and elevate the often-frowned-upon temp jobs that have become so central to Amazon's business model.

Unfailingly, workampers refer to permanent homes as "stick-and-brick" houses. They say it almost as a slur. After a few days at Buckeye, I began to realize that this phrase refers not to the physical structures themselves, or even the stationary lifestyle, but to the entire orders of value that workampers have left behind. Nothing made me feel more like a stick-and-brick operative than asking the workampers where their extended journeys would end—when, if ever, they would settle back down for good.

Most workampers seem to be focused more on the near term. LaFata told me that she plans to work until she dies. After Amazon, she will head to a huge RV gathering in Quartzsite, Arizona, where she has already lined up a temporary job waiting tables at a comfort-food restaurant. She'll return to Amazon for next year's peak season. Beyond that, she is driven only by her van's primitive climate-control system, which forces her to chase not just income but fair weather as well.

"If it gets too hot, I'll go up north," LaFata told me with a clear note of pride. "If it gets too cold, I'll head down south."

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Image via Wikicommons

At least 69 people have died and 169 remain hospitalized in the Tete province of Mozambique after drinking tainted phombe, a local homebrew beer, at a funeral in the town of Songo on Saturday. According to local director of Health, Women, and Social Action Paula Bernardo, the victims' symptoms included diarrhea and muscle aches. While that's not much to go on, officials are already speculating that the 210 liter drum of booze was spiked with crocodile bile, locally feared as a potent poison whose actual toxicity is highly questionable.

The Mozambique government on Sunday declared three days of national mourning for the victims, while local actors have taken up a clothes and food drive for victims and their families. But exactly what the hell happened, as well as who is responsible, is still unclear. The woman who brewed the hot batch of phombe is among the dead, as are several members of her family, meaning it's unlikely she had anything to do with it. Beer and blood samples have been sent to the capital of Maputo and South Africa for laboratory analysis, as no equipment was available to examine the substance in Tete.

While it might not be the most likely culprit, crocodile bile is by far the most intriguing suspect for the deaths. Extracted from the gall bladder of a slaughtered crocodile and rendered into a powder, it is a notorious ingredient in traditional poisons throughout Africa. In 1996's African Ethnobotnay: Poisons and Drugs, Dr. Hans Dieter Neuwinger writes about traditional uses of the bile, mixed with other allegedly toxic substances, in arrow-tips and other poisons in Ghana, Liberia, and Togo in West Africa, and throughout the African Great Lakes region (including Mozambique and Zimbabwe).

"It is widely believed that bile from the gall bladder of a crocodile is very poisonous," writes Neuwinger in African Ethnobotany. "Thus in several African countries, it is added to beer or porridge of an unsuspecting person, the victim is supposed to die within 24 hours [sic]."

Belief in the poison remains strong. In 1997, locals blamed the death of Kenyan Police Commissioner Philip Kilonzo on crocodile bile, claiming it killed him in seconds and left no traces. In 2012's Encounters with Witchcraft: Field Notes from Africa, Norman N. Miller states that crocodile hunters on Lake Victoria have to burn the animals' organs and throw them into the water to show they did not intend to use or sell bile for witchcraft or poison.

But is it all bullshit? Crocodile bile is also commonly used in Asian medicinal traditions. Chinese herbalists mix the bile powder with other substances to treat asthma by supposedly transforming phlegm, nourishing lung ying, and clearing heat. Thai medicine uses the same substance to treat low immunity and energy, fainting, and vertigo, especially for women after pregnancy. Other animals' bile is likewise commonly consumed in moderate doses with no toxic side effects.

In 1984, N.Z. Nyazema of the University of Zimbabwe took a skeptical look at claims of swift lethality in "Crocodile Bile, A Poison: Myth or Reality," published in the Central African Journal of Medicine. Using ten gall bladders provided by a nearby crocodile farm, he tested moderate concentrations of the substance on several mice and a baboon over a week and found no signs of toxicity, much less death. This has led many to speculate that other substances carry the toxic load in local poisons, while non-toxic crocodile bile gets a bad rap.

But in a highly concentrated dose, bile could indeed be poisonous. Studies more recent than Nyazema's have found toxicity (like liver damage) and death when administering higher concentrations of crocodile bile to animals, suggesting that perhaps his tests just used sub-toxic concentrations to test local traditions that implied one needed only a drop of the stuff to kill a man.

Locals also believe that the bile's toxicity can be activated by interactions with other substances. Miller recounts the story of a Dutch crocodile hunter in the African Great Lakes, Eric van der Whipple, who told him that a London lab tested crocodile bile on its own and found it non-toxic, but when a fisherman mixed it with local plant powders it came back extremely poisonous.

"Apparently the roots combine with the liver and bile to cause a chemical change," van der Whipple told Miller. "It is beyond me, but that's what I understand."

Crocodile expert Paul Moler of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is skeptical of the Mozambique story. "It's hard to imagine why anyone would think it was crocodile bile," Moler told VICE. "Even if croc bile were toxic (which it isn't), you would be hard pressed to get enough to poison that many people."

While finding enough to poison 200 people is unlikely, there is a bunch of crocodile bile in Mozambique. Between 2011 and 2012 the government had to organize a cull of 250 crocodiles after 47 people were killed by the beasts in a year. And near the Cahora Bassa Lake, close to Songo in Tete, there is a large crocodile ranch collecting 50,000 eggs per year and regularly slaughtering animals to export skins, working regularly with locals plying the waterways.

Yet it's probably more likely that some other form of poisoning is to blame. Contamination (accidental or otherwise) of homebrew alcohol is common in Africa, with about 80 killed earlier this year alone in a Kenyan beer poisoning. Crocodile bile gets blamed because of its notoriety in local poison traditions and lore. But before we credit the broad symptoms (possibly made more dire for a lack of local services) to one toxin or another, we'll have to await results from the labs.

Follow Mark Hay on Twitter.

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Illustration courtesy of the author

I've always fantasized about moving to France. I've visited often and even lived at times with friends in Paris and various towns around the country. Most of my books have been published there, and the comics community in France is a family. Everyone knows everyone. At the many comic shops and festivals I've been to over the years I have consistently received warm welcomes. I suppose you could say I'm a Francophile when it comes to comics.

One month ago I was having a signing at a little comic-book shop in the 11th arrondissement in Paris. It was rainy out and not a lot of people showed up, but the mood was good, and the shop owner was more than hospitable. There was another American author there, cosplaying as "unemployed man." We were both signing, drawing, and chatting with the shop's clients. After the signing we all headed to a little Korean restaurant nearby to talk comics and drink Korean beer. It was a good time, something that seems to happen often when I'm in that city in the company of other comic-book lovers.

The following day I met up with my friend Nicolas in the same neighborhood. We walked down the little boulevards and sleepy alleyways talking comics. During the stroll we passed through the narrow Rue Nicolas Appert. A month later, terrorists would come to that same street, shouting praise to Allah and executing their victims. I had no idea at the time that we were walking right below the editorial offices of Charlie Hebdo. My friend told me all that later.

The methodical, horrific murder of the Charlie Hebdo team is a bigger deal for the French than most of us realize. The French live and breath comics; they have a special relationship with them, a relationship that goes back to childhood, when they were reading Asterix and Tintin—Franco-Belgian staples of the medium. This massacre, for some, was like seeing a beloved part of their childhood assassinated.

Cabu, one of the slain cartoonists, was part of a popular 80s TV show for kids called Récrée A2, where he would do live drawings on air about daily topics. Almost everyone in France who grew up during that time watched it. Cabu also created the popular comic book series Le Grand Duduche, which many in that country read in their youth. George Wolinski had a popular weekly cartoon in the magazine Paris Match, and created the famous erotic comic series Paulette. And Charb, the magazine editor, had his own popular cartoon strip Maurice et Patapon. This is not just a random group of people who were killed, but beloved celebrities. Yes, in France cartoonists are celebrities!

In addition to being comics lovers, there's one other thing that the French are—opinionated. The general PC attitude that turns a lot of conversations in the US stale doesn't really exist over there. Charlie Hebdo was part of that no PC bullshit French attitude—we have opinions and we are going to state them—with humor! In fact, their main agenda was to mock every sacred cow they could set their sights on.

But the tides are changing, even in the old country; certain subjects are becoming taboo, and all things Muslim are falling into that category. You can discuss some political subjects, but others are out of bounds. People are afraid of stepping on some big religious toes, or sometimes they prefer to look the other way. But the Charlie Hebdo team wasn't afraid.

My friend, who has been working in the French comics industry for more than 12 years, helped explain to me the scope of this event. According to him, everyone in France knew Charlie Hebdo. Some loved it and some hated it, but it was a permanent part of the landscape, like a giant steel hand giving the Eiffel tower the middle finger from the other side of the Seine. The magazine's editorial team was fearless; there was no subject they dared not tackle, often in graphic and hilarious ways. The magazine's editor explained in 2011: "We are against all religious fundamentalism but we are not against practicing Muslims. We are for the Arab Spring, and against the winter of fanatics."

But Charlie Hebdo is hardly a pioneer. It is part of a long tradition of satirical cartoons in France—Honoré Daumier contributed timeless satirical illustrations to the magazine La Caricature in the early 1800s, but even his relentless attacks of King Louis Philippe did not lead to his assassination. Is humanity regressing?

In 2011 a firebomb was thrown into the Charlie Hebdo offices in retaliation for an issue they had printed earlier that year featuring Muhammad on the cover as the "guest editor" and promising "100 lashes if you don't die laughing." Even after this terrifying attack the magazine team kept on producing sharp satire, undeterred by the threat. Four years later, they ended up paying a dire price for their bravery. As a cartoonist, I truly hope that their deaths will resonate in the proliferation of daring, opinionated cartoons and not lead to more fear and silence. As for Charlie Hebdo, the magazine will once again lead that charge when it publishes 3 million copies of its latest issue on Wednesday.

Koren Shadmi is an illustrator and cartoonist whose graphic novels have been published in France, Italy, Spain, Israel, and the US. His illustrations have won several awards from the Society of Illustrators, and his book, MIKE'S PLACE: A True Story of Love, Blues, and Terror in Tel Aviv, will be released this spring with First Second Comics.

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_{Photo of Max Blumenthal via his official website.}

For pretty much its entire existence, Israel has been torn apart by violence and rage, as you might expect when two groups who hate each other share a sliver of land that's smaller than New Jersey. One side of the conflict sees the Palestinians as being governed by extremist groups who want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth; the other side views Israel as an apartheid state where Palestinians are brutalized and treated like animals. Journalist Max Blumenthal sits firmly in the latter camp.

Blumenthal has written for outlets including the Daily Beast and Al Akhbar and is the author of Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party. In 2013, he published Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel, an exhaustive and depressing look at the deteriorating situation in the region.

In America, even light criticism of Israel is accused of being an assault on the Jewish people, and Blumenthal is a pretty aggressive critic of the country. (One of the chapters is titled "the Concentration Camp.") So naturally he's been called all sorts of names from all across the political spectrum. After the publication of Goliath, the Simon Weisenthal Center said the book was anti-Semitic; in a piece for the Nation, noted liberal writer Eric Alterman called the book "The Anti-Israel Handbook" and said that the "book could have been a selection of a hypothetical Hamas Book of the Month Club." And it hasn't helped his image that nutjobs on the radical right have started to praise his work.

More recently, a New York Times op-ed he wrote last month regarding Israel's policies toward its minority citizens was attacked all over the place, with critics claiming that he distorted facts to paint a picture sympathetic to the Palestinians due to his supposed bias.

I recently called Blumenthal to talk about the book, the future of Israel, and the charges that continue to be lobbed against him.

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VICE: So, Max. Can you take me through how—
Max Blumenthal: Hold on. I'm in a coffee shop, and if I start talking about Israel/Palestine... You never know how people will react.

Is that a common problem?
When I'm on an airplane, one of my least favorite questions is, "What do you do?" I tell them I'm a journalist, I write about the Middle East. Usually people are pretty interested in what I have to say. And if they haven't been indoctrinated to a pro-Israel position, they're pretty sympathetic.

What was the process of writing Goliath?
I didn't want to take the privileges that are given to me because I'm a Jew, like a work visa or citizenship. So I got three-month visas. I spent over a year on the ground. It took me four or five years to write the book, partly because I wanted to see the situation all the way through another election, and partly because I wanted to present something that was really comprehensive, historically and journalistically.

Did you know a lot about Israel before delving into the project?
Growing up an American Jew, it kind of imposes itself on you—Zionism calls on you. You get invited to participate in all kinds of events around Israel if you're raised in a remotely Jewish environment. I went on the Israel Birthright trip, so I had a curiosity about the issue. And in 2008, when Israel attacked in Operation Cast Lead, that was a breaking point for me. I decided I wanted to invest a lot of my journalistic energy into the subject.

Were you prepared for what you witnessed over there?
I wasn't shocked. I was prepared intellectually for what I was going to witness. I wasn't prepared emotionally or psychologically, but you learn to adjust. What surprised me the most was how normalized the conditions of occupation and the sense of creeping fascism had become... Just how openly expressed the racism was, how immunized people were to what was happening within Israeli society, how routine violence was in the West Bank.

After several months of being in that environment, it becomes normal to you, and you have a struggle against that. You become accustomed to the violence, accustomed to the racism. You have to remind yourself that it's shocking, and allow yourself to be disturbed in order to produce journalism to the outside world that will further their sense of outrage and indignation.

Were you prepared to be attacked for the book?
The book became a vehicle for a movement that's growing in the United States of people who are indignant about what's happening. So obviously I became a target. I was a hard target, not only because I'm Jewish, but because it was difficult to define me as an extremist. So the campaigns you see directed against me grow increasingly desperate. One of the most recent was an attempt to paint me as the inspiration for the white supremacist who went on a shooting spree in Kansas City and attacked a Jewish center. It was ultimately discredited, but not until Rush Limbaugh went on the air saying basically that I had convinced some racist to stab Jews. In fact, no Jews were stabbed. But on the largest radio show in America, I was identified as the inspiration.

What have been some of the other attacks?
There's a flurry of articles painting me as an anti-Semite because I've been published in the New York Times. It makes the assailants who represent the right wing of the Israeli lobby feel like their attacks have failed because The Times is taking me seriously, so all they have left is this allegation of anti-Semitism. They don't care whether I keep kosher or not, whether I go to synagogues. All they care about is my relationship to Israel, and my opposition to a religiously and ethnically exclusive state. I went to Germany to speak recently, a country where there really isn't any distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. Germany has kind of absolved itself of its Holocaust guilt through its support of Israel. So I was targeted there.

Before that, Eric Alterman, who is probably the only liberal who's attacked me in a really aggressive way, wrote nine vitriolic personal attacks on the Nation website painting me as some kind of neo-Nazi. I can't say I wasn't prepared. I am a little bit surprised at how desperate and rabid the attacks are. But it's sort of amusing. I live in the New York area, and I get recognized on the street a decent amount, and strangers shake my hand and make conversation. So there's a lot of encouragement I'm getting, too.

It seems like the mood has been shifting over the past few years.
The New York Times inviting me to write after basically refusing to review my book is a sign of the times. Jim Fallows, the editor in chief of the Atlantic, wrote a really rousing defense of my book. The New York Review of Books finally published a positive review of my book. You're seeing a major shifting in the debate. David Remnick of the New Yorker, who's been a liberal Zionist his whole life, wrote a piece basically throwing in the towel on the two-state solution, suggesting we have to start exploring solutions that deal with the issue of rights rather than land. So it's kind of gone mainstream in a way. But what hasn't been challenged enough is the issue of Zionism, and whether anti-Zionism is an acceptable opinion, what is anti-Semitism, who is an anti-Semite.

Have you ever feared for your safety?
I can tell you there have been more than published attacks. But I live completely without any fear and I don't do anything in my daily life or my personal life differently than I would do otherwise.

Did you plan on shifting over from journalism into a kind of activist?
I wouldn't have any shame in calling myself an advocacy journalist. I think the idea of journalistic objectivity is completely false. It's nonexistent. Everyone brings their prejudices and their experiences to their work, so I'm just being open about my perspective. But my work rises and falls on journalistic quality. Meaning, if it's not factual, it won't have any traction.

What about becoming pigeonholed as a one-issue journalist?
It's increasingly hard to get out of the Israeli box, for two reasons. One is because I'm one of the few people with my forum doing it. But the second reason is once you really start going into the issue, you start seeing things in a different way. My perspective has been sharpened on issues like police brutality, the militarization of police, American politics in the Middle East.

When you're looking at Israel, you're seeing the West's most severe image of itself, the only active settler colonial entity in the world. And when you look at Palestine, particularly Gaza, you're seeing the most severe image of what can happen to those who are deemed to be surplus humanity. It's impossible not to see things in such a stark way after going into this issue. And when I look at the Republican Party, I'm seeing the future base of pro-Israel support in the US.

Why would Republicans be more inclined to support Israel?
It's often about eschatology, about Israel being the future landing pad of the Messiah. But it's also about Israel being the only country in the West that has a clear ethnic and religious criteria for who can be a citizen. So, for those who think America should be a white, Christian nation, Israel provides a great model. Israel is what they see as the Fort Apache on the front lines in the clash of civilization.

Looking forward, what's going to happen with Israel and American relations?
You can look at both of my books as a guide. In my first book, [Republican Gomorrah], I explain why Republicans are going to have a huge challenge holding executive power in the United States because they've moved so far to the right. The right wing of the party has prevented the GOP from winning over centrist voters. So, you're looking at Democrats holding the White House for the next ten years. Probably. I mean, anything can happen, external events could affect things. But let's assume there's a Democrat in office for the next eight years.

Then, if you look at Goliath, in Israel I'm projecting right-wing trends for the rest of its existence, primarily because of the militarization of Israeli society and the rising influence of religious nationalist elements. All opinion polls show rising racism among Jewish Israeli youth. So, the clash between the US and Israel is going to become more open. Which means more lobbyist pressure on the president, more generals and joint chiefs complaining about Israel harming US interests, the mainstreaming of BDS, and the mainstreaming of the narrative I've been presenting through my book and public talks.

Have you been back to Israel since the book was published? Do they let you back in?
I haven't had any trouble getting in. I was able to go to the Gaza Strip for the first time this summer and was inspired by the place, and by the way people are able to maintain resilience and high spirits in a place that's uninhabitable, in a situation that's increasingly unbearable. But you never know when you're going to wind up on some list. So many of my friends, including a lot of my Jewish friends, have been denied entry and deported for ten years. You have to be prepared. The Israeli government doesn't pay attention to critical journalism... Unless it appears in a place like the New York Times.

Follow Rick Paulas on Twitter.

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Artist Anthea Polkroy and some of her "collection" of gingers

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

Kiss a Ginger Day was yesterday. As a "ranger," if I met the dumbass ginger comedian who thought getting me sexually assaulted could help his career, kissing him is not what I would do. Set up as a "karmic counter-event" to the 2008 Kick a Ginger campaign, comedian Derek Forgie decided to put the world to rights through this awful social media campaign. Instead of violently attacking redheads why don't we just set up a day to sexually assault them? Yay Derek!

In Ireland—a country with the second highest percentage of redheads in the world—the day is taken as semi-legitimate, with serious newspapers setting up photoblogs to mark the day. Yesterday, as I meandered around Dublin I got, "Hey Foxy Box!" from one enthused cyclist, and the old classic, "Hey Fanta Pants!" from a 12-year-old in his uniform. Last year's Kick a Ginger Day resulted in attacks on school children, so it clearly has to be countered. But this year Kiss a Ginger Day got me bullied by a child, which I'm not convinced is the opposite.

I've always been really proud of my hair. In the true spirit of redhead unity, I think we're sexy rarities. In fact, I'm so into redheads I dated another redhead. Which you wouldn't think was worth mentioning, except that everyone else seemed to think it was. To this day I think if it wasn't for my ex's slightly menacing stature we would have endured much worse than the creepy shit that we had to put up with daily. It ranged from people stopping on busy pedestrian streets to stare at us slack-jawed to—I kid you not—a pervert asking if we were related while rubbing his thighs.

I'm from a country that's not very ethnically diverse, so I can imagine when black people first came to Ireland people might have stopped what they were doing to stare.

"Look Michael. A black man! And not on television!"

That must have been weird and alienating, but I get it. I don't get why me and my ginger boyfriend became such show stoppers in a country where the national stereotype is ginger.

It's all the more odd because I have a lot of red-haired female friends and being seen in public with them never caused anybody to stop and stare. I've come to the conclusion it says more about our societal attitudes to red-haired men than it does about our attitudes to redhead women. Ginger women can be "foxy" like Jessica Rabbit or Joan from Mad Men, but for guys, people think it's Mick Hucknall or bust.

Thomas Knight's "Red Hot" campaign tried to sort all this out and "rebrand the male stereotype" by showing us images of red-haired men who were—surprise!—not ugly, posing like fleshy mannequins. Everyone from the Guardian to the NY Times raved about it. The campaign eventually turned into a book called the Red Hot 100. I'm still trying to work out how this is all that different from the FHM Top 100.

I remember once I got with this guy who told me very tenderly, mid-embrace, "ah but you're not that ginger, not like a manky carrot top or anything." Somehow the stars weren't aligned correctly and it wasn't to be. I don't think Kiss a Ginger Day is the antidote to the silver-tongued Lothario who I sent packing. A public "day" provides a weird, socially approved infrastructure to reduce redheads to one-dimensional caricatures to be fetishized or slagged. Ginger appreciation—at least insincere public appreciation—is just the other side of the same patronizing coin.

Perhaps more importantly, it gives people the excuse to perve on me. It's not nice to go into your local Tesco and have some creep come over to tell you "your hair is lovely" while he inhales deeply. What's worse is this happening because of an unofficial "day" where people are encouraged to annoy me. So, even though I should be thankful for the attention and the fact that it's not the designated day for kicking me, I'm not. I'm guess just ungrateful like that.

CJ Grisham was driving with his 15-year-old son in Temple, Texas, when a cop pulled up behind him. "Some reason why you have this?" the cop asked about the AR-15 strapped to his back. He grabbed the gun and started examining it without invitation. "Because I can," Grisham, a strapped veteran, shot back. In a matter of moments, the situation devolved from terse remarks into a tug-of-war over the deadly weapon. As dashcam footage shows, Grisham was ultimately thrown on the hood of Officer Steven Ermis's car, handcuffed, and arrested.

On November 19, 2013, Grisham was found guilty of "interference with duties of a public servant." Summarily, gun activists across the country went nuts, particularly in Texas, a state that despite being full of Second Amendment enthusiasts, is one of one of only six states in America in which citizens are not allowed to openly carry a modern handgun.

"That was something I seized upon as being not right," says Murdoch Pizgatti, who's behind the controversial guns-rights group Come and Take It Texas. "It was an unjustified attack on this person's rights. I realized the big mess we were in, and that started the whole course down this road."

Pizgatti is referring to Texas' open carry movement, which aims to pass a bill allowing the open carrying of handguns during this year's state legislative session. To drum up support, Pizgatti plans on bringing 1,500 people to the steps of the Texas Capitol building in Austin this morning for a demonstration featuring the first-ever Ghost Runner—a new gun making machine built by 26-year-old cryptoanarchist Cody Wilson, who Wired considers one of the most dangerous people on the Internet, along with Edward Snowden and Kim Jong-un.

In a recent editorial, the New York Times called the open carry movement "the latest barometer of the nation's gun culture," in which is apt. "I believe that open carrying is a deterrent for criminals and will prevent crime from happening, whereas a concealed weapons is only reactive," Pizgatti tells me. "An open carry will cause a criminal to do a risk assessment upon entering a place to rob."

While Pizgatti's argument is typical of guns rights advocates—good guys need guns too—the movement itself has been very divisive, causing a stir last spring when open carry protestors started showing up at Chipotle and Chili's with their semi-automatic assault rifles, a move the NRA called "downright weird" (the gun lobby later retracted its criticism).

Grisham, the man who inspired Pizgatti, is distancing himself from Pizgatti's demonstration. He's behind a group called Open Carry Texas, and does not support storming the state capitol with guns. "I don't understand the purpose of it," Grisham told the Texas Tribune last week. "It seems confrontational, and really, needless."

Grisham has a point. It does sound a little scary. According to the event's Facebook page, Pizgatti's group plans to visit all 181 legislator's offices, presumably while a large group of people stands outside with brand new 3D guns.

The weapons are courtesy of Wilson, who is most famous for making a contraption that 3D prints plastic firearms. His latest invention, the Ghost Gunner, takes partially built guns—which can be sold without a firearms dealing license— and makes them functional. "It's the opposite of 3D printing," Wilson told me. "It's milling."

Anyone can buy what's known as an "80 percent lower" online for less than $100. After 15 minutes in Wilson's machine, which costs $1,200, they become full-fledged guns. The machine's a great value for anyone who wants to mass produce guns—it's relatively cheap and it turns cheap hunks of metal into expensive weapons. But is that what Wilson intended his invention to be used for? The question—and the idea of open-carry at all – seems beneath Wilson. He said he has no specific intention for the Ghost Gunner's use, but calls the protestors and their political squabbles "provincial."

"They said they were gonna use it for this, and I said 'jolly good, you can have one,'" he says. "But I don't know how they'll achieve their objectives by alienating everyone up there."

Follow Allie on Twitter

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The author shaving his head after receiving chemotherapy

This article originally appeared on VICE UK

"In some ways, what you have is treatable—though we don't really use the term 'cure,'" sighed the hematologist. "'Remission' is much more appropriate."

There I was, listening to my consultant ramble on about semantics, waiting to hear whether or not I was going to die. I was another 20-year-old winner of the cancer lottery, one of the seven young people diagnosed with cancer in the UK every day. This was my day. What had previously been a statistic on a GP's waiting room wall had become my reality. My frankly very disappointing reality.

Aside from the whole life-threatening disease thing, everything had actually been going pretty well for me. I'd been in my first serious relationship for three-and-a-half months and had settled happily into British life as an exchange student, over from my native France.

In retrospect, this probably made the news slightly harder to stomach. For the first time I had someone whose happiness I valued over my own, compounding the anxiety I was already feeling. I also had an inkling that the impending treatment might put the stoppers on my usual regime of going to house parties and generally having fun without having to think about what was coming the next morning—whether it would involve a needle in my arm or a scalpel or a massive machine making loud clicking noises while I laid inside, acutely aware of my own mortality.

And to think of how I'd ended up there: first, it was the swelling of a lymph node on the first day of summer. Then the local GP failing to acknowledge that something was wrong. Twice.

Then I did the sensible thing and tried to diagnose myself on the internet. For once, what I read was reassuring: nine times out of ten, said faceless strangers on a forum, swelling is just a symptom of a benign infection. However, just for peace of mind, I thought I'd pay one last visit to my GP to check that Dr. Google wasn't bullshitting me—that there really wasn't anything wrong with this ugly growth that had started to annex my neck.

I was eventually referred to A&E, where I underwent a couple of infection-related tests. A fortnight later, a phone call summoned me to the hospital. The results were negative. Serious causes would have to be considered. To properly consider these serious causes, it transpired, I'd have to spend extended periods of time under anesthetic/wearing ass-revealing hospital gowns/having bits of tissue cut out of me.

[body_image width='1200' height='781' path='images/content-images/2015/01/13/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/13/' filename='this-is-what-it-feels-like-to-have-cancer-at-20-years-old-839-body-image-1421155081.jpg' id='17698']The author after a biopsy on his swollen lymph node

Weeks later, after being referred to a specialist in France, I was finally told what I could never resign myself to face, despite the fact the idea had been pawing away at the back of my mind for some time.

"It appears we have found abnormal cells during the biopsy. These are called Non-Hodgkin lymphoma cells. There are many different types of lymphoma. Yours is called diffuse large B-Cell."

The C word was dropped, uneasily.

My heart was pounding. I didn't really know what to think or say or do. Because what do you do when a doctor gives you the diagnosis you've been waiting weeks to hear, but which you'd really rather never hear in the first place? Thank them? That would have been weird. Instead, I just sat there and felt the life drain out of my body.

After nodding a bit while she reassured me that lymphoma is the cancer for which treatment is usually the most effective, I couldn't help but feel I was being punished for something beyond my understanding. I suddenly couldn't comprehend any kind of future, blurred as it was by the prospect of death. I was clueless as to how to announce the news to my friends and family. I found the idea of imposing my burden on others—especially my girlfriend—selfish. The thought of breaking up to spare her months of unnecessary pain even crossed my mind.

The weeks that followed revolved around further nerve-wracking tests that would tell me more about which stage my cancer was at, including MRI, PET scans, fertility tests, and surgery. While I managed to keep a brave face in front of my loved ones, I spent the nights terrified, fixated on the prospect of leaving the world now, like this, at such short notice.

[body_image width='1200' height='900' path='images/content-images/2015/01/13/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/13/' filename='this-is-what-it-feels-like-to-have-cancer-at-20-years-old-839-body-image-1421155211.jpg' id='17701']The author after his first round of chemotherapy

Then I started chemotherapy. I couldn't stand the idea of my hair falling out. I mean, who's bald at 20? I feared the worst: looking like the 2015 John Travolta. I even contemplated having a wig made. I despised my own shallowness for having those thoughts, but I was scared that my girlfriend would no longer find me attractive. I worried that losing my hair was almost like losing my identity.

One morning, I woke up covered in the hair I'd lost overnight, so I borrowed a razor and shaved off the few remaining tufts. I got used to the look pretty quickly and dropped the hat I'd previously had glued to my head, worried the baldness might attract pity from my peers. But I put things into perspective: What's the loss of some hair compared to the loss of my life? To the few people I'd confirmed my diagnosis to, I was the victim of some cruel fate; to others, a bald guy. Maybe a gabber or a skinhead without the bovver boots, which isn't so bad. I accepted both definitions with a sort of contemptuous resignation.

The most devastating thing about my cancer was that I couldn't really do anything concrete to fight it. There are all those theories about cranberry and mango juice definitely saving your life, but as much as I tried, I couldn't help but swat them off as hopeless optimism. The cancer itself wasn't too hard to deal with physically. I experienced the nausea I'd been warned about, but luckily none of the vomiting.

The waiting was also incredibly stressful—first, how long it would be until I heard the words, "You are cancer-free"; and secondly, the wait to finally see those I loved in the UK. Stuck back in France, the cancer had put a physical distance between myself and the friends I'd made. While they were spending their money leisurely, I was squandering mine on the rent of a house I no longer lived in, as well as two-day return trips to England—my way to fight back against the disease, ensuring it wouldn't ruin my life.

I also felt distanced from the rest of the world. I couldn't find the words to talk to my family about it; I tried speaking to counsellors and a psychologist, but got the very distinct feeling the were just nodding at whatever I had to say; and there was no way I could express my feelings to the doctors. How could I expect to be understood by a bunch of people who'd shoot down the questions I desperately needed answering as mere platitudes, making me feel like an idiot to have asked?

Specialists know a lot about treatment, prognosis, and chemotherapy. What they don't know—or decide not to tell you—is how lonely you'll feel, trapped in that hairless body of yours; how people look at you with clumsily disguised pity; how, in the end, you're just alone with your fears.

Most of the people affected by cancer I've spoken to adopted a similar mindset: they want to be looked at as normal human beings, not as poor, dying souls. Which makes a lot of sense when you think about it, because that idea defines how the world wrongly looks at cancer. The first question I was asked when I told people of my illness was whether I was OK—code for, "Are you dying?"—as though I was condemned, as though I had the words "terminally ill" tattooed across my eyelids.

[body_image width='1200' height='900' path='images/content-images/2015/01/13/' crop='images/content-images-crops/2015/01/13/' filename='this-is-what-it-feels-like-to-have-cancer-at-20-years-old-839-body-image-1421155151.jpg' id='17700']The author with his girlfriend

In the end, after four sessions of chemotherapy spread over a period of three-and-a-half months, remission was declared. I had survived cancer, and the hospital's horrendous food. A year and a half later, I'm back to my normal life and, most importantly, to my girlfriend, away from the needles and the hospitals beds and the exhibitionist gowns.

However, before I can be declared "cured," I still need to get through trimestral check-ups for another three-and-a-half years.

Today, people tell me I was strong and brave to have fought cancer at 20. I guess it's what's expected of them, but it still jars with me. I wasn't so much brave as lucky to have had people surrounding me as I went through the process. Lucky that I was able to travel when I was ill, that the promise of a reunion with the girl I love kept my spirits up. Lucky that the chemo worked on me.

I'm not sure what I've done to earn the epithet "brave," and it makes me feel uncomfortable. I never have been—and probably never will be—brave. I was shit-scared. Absolutely fucking terrified. I just did what I'd imagine most in a similar condition would have done: hung on to hope.

The biggest question now playing on my mind is, "How do I live a normal life again?" How do I envisage the future when the chance of a relapse is always there? How do I breach the topic of starting a family when chemotherapy has pretty much ruined any chance I had of having kids?

I guess, for me, the best way to deal with it—to keep these questions from constantly plaguing me—is to write about them. It's much easier to express my feelings on the page than with my voice, and working through them in articles like this—letters to myself, essentially—I'm able to put things in perspective.

But I'm still scared. Because really, what else can be done but wait to see how things turn out? All I know is that I'm grateful to be alive.

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