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Dodgy Adverts:
How I got rich:
How you can
get rich:
Because you're
worth it:
Because I'm
worth it:
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 Well,
to say that I'm frequently asked these questions might be
a little presumptuous, but "Sometimes - asked - in -
those - pauses - in - conversation - when - nobody - can -
think - of - anything - to - say - so - they - make - up -
some - shite - to - fill - the - silence Asked Questions"
simply doesn't have the same ring to it.
(SAITPICWNCTOATSSTMUSSTFTSAQ)
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| Q: |
Why the name Dodgy Barnet? |
| A: |
There are some things a man
has just gotta do in his lifetime: Ride a Harley, build something,
not wash for a week, drink his own bodyweight in tequila…
etc.
Now just before Uni' I tried one of the easier tasks, and
grew my hair long to see what it would look like. The result?
I looked like an ugly girl - not a good look for a horny fresher
trying to meet women.
As you may have seen, at the top of every
page on this website there is a little dictionary knowledge
for you: Dodgy Barnet means "Bad Haircut", and that's
certainly what I had.
Unfortunately up in Edinburgh my new friends
didn't speak cockney so couldn't understand that when I said
"I gotta do sumfink about me barnet". They had no
idea what I was on about.
Lucy, a particularly rowdy friend of mine,
thought this was hilarious and decided to call me Barnet from
then on. The name stuck and there's still a group of my Uni'
friends who call me Barnet to this day.
Photo evidence of the Barnet circa 1996:
Dressed up for the town
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L'Oreal: because I'm
worth it.
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Photo evidence of the Barnet circa early 1980s:
Why can't I still be this cute? |
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| Q: |
So, where are you now then? |
| A: |
As I'm always travelling around, your best bet is to
read about my current shenanigans here. |
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| Q: |
Just what do you think you're doing
gallivanting around the world having a good time when you
should be at home getting a proper job, receiving middle
management abuse, paying a mortgage, commuting to work for
3 hours a day, spending weekday evenings so knackered that
you're only able to watch crappy "lifestyle" TV
shows but then getting wankered on a Friday night only to
spend Saturday hung over and Sunday spent washing clothes
and fixing shelves etc etc …
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| A: |
Hmmm… Sounds like I'm really missing
out. Sorry, but I don't think I'm quite ready to be that
unhappy. Oh well, the life of an International Playboy is
tough, but someone's got to do it. Visiting exotic countries,
meeting new people, having new and exciting experiences…
Living la vida loca is more my style thanks.
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|
| Q: |
So when exactly are you coming
back to the UK to settle down?
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| A: |
Well that's a good question.
I've been traveling pretty much constantly since 2000 and
I'm not in any hurry to settle anywhere yet. My Big
Plan still puts me traveling around the world for
the next few years yet. You can view my current plan to get a better idea of exactly what I intend to do with myself. |
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| Q: |
Who is DodgyBarnet.com for? Are you targeting everyone or just friends and family?
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| A: |
Friends, family, random people
who typed "boobies"
into Google and somehow stumbled onto my site…
It's certainly not a private endeavour - the Internet is hardly
a place to put secrets, although being nestled in a bazillion
other personal sites does still give one some anonymity. |
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| Q: |
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| A: |
Firstly off, I built it to
let my family/friends back at home know where I was and what
I was up to. As I'm never in one place for long it gets confusing
for people to keep tabs on me.
Secondly, I just thought it'd be a laugh to make a small insignificant
mark on the world to celebrate being a small insignificant
nutter with a Dodgy Barnet. If I can make people laugh along
the way, so much the better!
One day I want to bolt on a more professional part of the
site to sell my photos,
but I'll wait till I actually have some worth selling first! |
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| Q: |
Your site looks, um… "unique".
Did you make it yourself?
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| A: |
Yep - it's 100% Dodgy!
The site may be a bit graphics-heavy and cobbled together
in a bit of a MacGyver-esk manner, but it's all mine.
What you see today is Version 4 of my opus which has been
evolving since 2001 when I first dabbled with the craptastic
design tool that is MS Frontpage. In 2002 I taught myself
HTML and hand-coded a newer version that still sucked, although
less so than the previous incarnation.
2004 saw the purchase of a decent laptop with Dreamweaver
which I taught myself to use through plenty of trials and
errors.
As I see it there are really only three different types of
Websites out there:
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Blogs;
most of which using off-the-shelf kits that allow
some personalisation, but which all basically look
the same.
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I'd like to think that DodgyBarnet.com offers something different: not as slick and impersonal as
a professional site; not as cookie-cutter as a Blog; and slightly
less crap than the usual home-made offering. |
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| Q: |
I'm really jealous of your trip /
Playboy lifestyle. Are you a wealthy bastard to afford this?
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| A: |
No. I may be many things, but not a wealthy
one of those things. ANYONE can go traveling around the
world. I've met many many people travelin' who lived in
the "real world" and realised just how cack it
was, so up'd and left. You too can live out your dreams
of Wanderlust by simply following these simple steps:
- Get a nice fat loan from the government / bank
/ Knuckles McTavish the Loan Shark.
- Actually save some money from your crappy
job.
- Break up with your partner (hey - they're probably
gonna dump you soon anyway).
- Say goodbye to your friends (they're probably
gonna tell you to piss-off soon as well).
- Sell your parents house when they're not watching (they're probably gonna… you get the picture).
- Put all your possessions into boxes.
- Fuck off… to somewhere better, to
somewhere that isn't your office, to somewhere that
isn't London.
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It really isn't that hard. |
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| Q: |
So what's all this about you wanting
to be a photographer then?
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| A: |
Well, it sounds like a laugh.
I really enjoy photography, and although I might not be David
Bailey just yet, it'd be nice to try my hand at selling some
of me shots.
In fact selling my photos is my Plan
B… The way I see it you see, is that you've
got your Plan A which pays for your mortgage
and big costs, and then there's your Plan B which
pays for beer money and other interests.
Sure, I'd love for photography to be my
main job but that's just really unlikely. Being a photographer
is like being a musician/actor/artist - the number of people
who end up being the next Moby or Brad Pitt is extremely small.
So I'll be happy to sell me photos and get a few tax-free
quid out of it at the end of the day.
The main reason I take photos though is so
that when I'm 70 I can look back and use the photos to remind
my senile old brain about all the crazy shenanigans I got
up to, and the things I saw along the way. If I can make a
few quid from that on the side so much the better. You can
see my travel photography here and judge for yourself whether it's Plan A or B material. |
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| Q: |
So what's all this about you wanting
to be a TEFL teacher then?
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| A: |
I came up with the idea a
while back (the 90's) as it's the perfect job for a roaming traveler
like me: a transferable skill you can use around the world.
In most countries you don't earn much teaching
- just enough to survive - but that's fine with me as it allows
a more realistic experience of a country. For when you backpack
through a place you only get to see a mere fraction of it's
culture, whilst living and working there is a totally different
experience that gives you a much deeper understanding of the
place.
On a less hippy, ethno-trendy note, teaching
also allows me to pay my way around the world, allowing
me to travel, take photos, and work all at the same time.
Sure, in some parts of the world you earn peanuts, but that's
not the case in areas like East Asia, hence my addiction to working in Korea
where you can save over £800 a month easily.
One day I could even come back and work in the west, as there's
plenty of language schools to be found in the big cities.
You can read more about my experiences of
teaching in Korea here,
but the way it generaly goes is to work there for a year, save
a bucket of cash, then travel on some more.
So that covers travel ethics and monetary
concerns, but the final reason is a bit more personal: I don't
like kids.
"Huh?"
Well teaching normally involves large
classes of kiddies, and this is the idea that is less than
appealing to me. It's not that I fear speaking in front of
50 people staring at me, or am apprehensive of the actual
process of teaching - I'm good at those things - it's the
idea of having to keep control over a rabble of 50 kids who
can plot and scheme in a language that I can't understand.
You see, I'm a relaxed kinda guy. I've spent
my life living up to slacker ideals; I'm not someone who gets
a kick out of ordering people about. I've never had aspirations
of being a leader of men, to have a troupe of minions doing
my bidding, but then again I've never enjoyed being told what
to do either. I'm independent, as it were.
This is why I teach adults,
and as such have very-cunningly avoided the whole quagmire
that is teaching wee little terrors. This doesn't mean that
it's all a walk in the park, as all the regular
teaching nightmares still apply, but I guess I've avoided the
kiddy problems for the time being. |
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| Q: |
You realise that you're never gonna
get a decent job if you get back to the UK aged 30 and tell
employers that for the last umpteen years you've been swanning
around the globe having a good time whilst everyone else
has been working in a stuffy office complex with sick-building-syndrome,
working under a boss with a Little-Hitler complex, and sharing
a workstation with a colleague with dubious bodily hygiene.
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| A: |
Pa! I'll deal with that when
it comes. As mentioned above, I'm thinking that the TEFL teaching
gig will pay my way in life. I realise that I'm getting older,
so should sort out a career sharpish as I won't be able to
simply breeze into a hostel to get work when I'm 50.
If I do fail though, then I think a much
used quote of mine might be appropriate: "I hear
MacDonald's is hiring". |
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| Q: |
How can you reconcile the juxtaposition
between having a Dodgy Barnet, yet also being THE International
Playboy - surely the two are mutually exclusive?
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| A: |
Well apart from posing a wanky
question you have missed the point entirely, as the Dodgy
Barnet is part-and-parcel of my Playboy persona. After having
visiting the 2 epicentres of "the Mullet" - Australia
and the Slovakia - I have come to cherish the true value of
Dodgy Barnets in general. |
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| Q: |
What are you going
to do about your Barnet? |
| A: |
My Barnet and I are very happy thank
you. Think of it as a Samson-like parable thingy, except
that my Barnet, rather than supplying me with superhuman
strength, instead provides a talking point at parties, a
rather sexy internet persona, and it "gets the chicks".
Maybe.
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| Q: |
Who's your Daddy? |
| A: |
I'm yer Daddy biatch. |
Got a question to ask? Well then email me one!
Questions Emailed in so far:
| Dolores Whiplash writes: |
| Q: |
"My God DB, you are the sexiest
International Playboy ever!"
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| A: |
Thanks for the email Dolores, but as
astute as your opinions may be, that was a statement not
a question.
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| Knuckles McTavish writes: |
| Q: |
You're an unfunny twat. |
| A: |
Fair point. |
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