Just when you think you are going to have a quiet week where nothing much happens, how else can you explain the current media obsession with the athlete’s accommodation in India for the Commonwealth Games, then up steps a World leader and World leading loon.
Thursday saw the opening of the new session of the UN in New York and this is a good time, if you are a loony World leader who is still allowed in the UN building, to make a bit of a name for yourself.
Many fondly remember Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, friend of Cuba, hater of America, lover of Power, Oliver Stone documentaries and really long Presidential broadcasts, taking to the podium sometime after President George W Bush and declaring that he could still smell the sulphur.
So the parking was terrible, as usual (it’s quite a popular event), and the Central hall at the UN was a buzz. Who would be the star turn? Would Chavez do his old “US devil” material? Would Raul Castro be as funny as his brother whose Donald Duck impression is legendary? Has Mugabe moved beyond, slightly dodgy, close up magic ending with his rousing version of “My Way”?
There was palpable excitement as former Miss Tehran, semi-finalist on “Fundamentalists Got Talent (for denying the Holocaust)” and, now, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad strode purposely to the lectern.
Mahmoud, 36, 24, 36, is best known in diplomatic circles for his after dinner speaking with which he makes enough money to fund on orphanage for injured sheep in down town Jerusalem, which he swears blind doesn’t exist. His usual subject is great cricket anecdotes 1975 to 2005 so many were keen to hear his take on the recent brouhaha between England and Pakistan, which, if you are interested, started after a disputed prawn cocktail at the 2 teams' pre-series curry and fish and chips night. Why people can’t just split the bill 50/50 is beyond me. That’s how the Boer War started you know, well that and an argument over tipping. William Gladstone said 10% and Paul Kruger said 15; the rest is made up history.
Anyway, the President began strongly. A string of fantastic one liners about Iran being ready for dialogue based on “respect and justice” and that the “UN was loosing credibility with its continued sanctions against his country.”
However the real fireworks of the act came when the beats kicked in. His recent conversion to the joys of hip hop was one of his states better kept secrets but it soon became clear, as his DJ dropped some phat grooves, that he has skills.
As the bass boomed out the US, British and several EU delegations show that they were no fans of Public Enemy. He worked through a selection of their hits but it was his reworking of “911 is a joke” that really blow the roof of the joint.
As people walked out his rhyming became really creative, “inside job” and “Mohammed is God”, and “Secret plot to support Israel” with “your plans for getting us to give up our nuclear aspirations will fail.”
As the rhythms faded and the dry ice cleared Ahmadinejad collapsed to his knees as an assistant came out and placed a cape across his shoulders. He then leapt back on to his feet and stood with his fist in the air. The band struck up, a surprising tight horn section now you ask, and he left the stage with a glint in his eye and the look of a man who had made his point.
Most of the audience, that stayed, agreed that he was hell of a showman but many said that the reasonable points he made, such as comparing the nearly 3000 people that died in the attack on the twin towers with the hundreds of thousands who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, were some what lost in the paranoid rhymes.
I said it before, maybe not on here, but if you don't like MIA (A little more on her later) you are wrong. She is fantastic and her songs are brilliant. Her new video, however, is a little, I believe media types would say, edgy. It has been removed from YouTube because of it's nastiness and oh my, it is nasty.
I think that I have become a little bogged down in trying to be serious and informative in the last few weeks and I’m not very good at it. I’m trying to be more light-hearted this week.
Those of you reading this the UK have to go out and vote on Thursday (if you can be arsed, which of course you can) but we haven't cover all the parties.
We all know that there are some fringe parties who have as silly policies such as the Cure (Citizens for Undead Rights and Equality) Party, The New Millennium Bean Party and Ukip.
These people are, however, new at this and, therefore, not so practised at the funny. For proper laugh out loud funny ideas I give you the Monster Raving William Hill Loony party (formerly the Monster Raving Loony Party, they are currently sponsored).
Some of their policies include,
• All socks to be sold in packs of 3 as a precaution against losing one
• Make it illegal for superheroes to use their powers for evil
• Ban all terrorists from having beards as they look scary
• Change the English symbol of three lions to 3 badgers
• School dinners must be regularly checked for radioactivity
• Add the Loch Ness Monster to the endangered species list
• Dedicated pogo stick lanes on routes to centres of work
• And a 99p pence coin to cut down on change.
Oh come on, those are proper funny. That is years of practised writing right there.
Anyone remember Sarah Palin? She once said something sensible and well thought through. Oh no, my mistake, it was “Drill baby, Drill”.
Like everything that dribbles out of this barely sentient, moose killing, rabble rousing, gleefully, unashamedly ignorant distorter of facts whose lack of understand of science is revealed every time she opens her mouth (some on Twitter said that I should call her a bigot but wasn't sure if if I'd be forced to go to her house and apologise. Alaska is an awfully long way away), it was designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator in Right Wing US politics, now we can see how wrong she was (although to be fair President Obama did say that they would allow some new off-shore drilling).
Last week an oil rig exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico and now the oil that is leaking from the well has started to arrive on the shores of the US.
The US Coastguard estimate that 5 times as much oil as first thought is escaping in to the sea. The oil slick currently has a circumference of about 600 miles (970km) and covers about 28,600 sq miles (74,100 sq km) and heading for the delicate eco-systems of the Gulf coast, home to brown pelican, many species of duck, turtles, and whales.
Many options have been considered for trying to prevent the oil making land fall including booming, literally penning it in, dispersal, spraying chemicals on to it, and, my personal favourite, burning it off. “Mummy can we go and watch the sea burn again today?”
This disaster has had one very slight upside, the Obama administration has banned any new drilling until a complete investigation in to the explosion, fire and spill. This, however, is seen by the dictionary definition of uber-twat Rush Limbaugh as proof that the Obama people blew up the rig themselves, killing 11 workers in the process by the way, so that they could reverse their decision to allow off shore drilling.
Is Tin Tin racist? Well yes it is. It's depictions of black Africans are fucking awful but should it be banned?
Bienvenu Mbutu, who is from the Congo, is trying to get Tin Tin removed from the shelves in it's home country of Belgium because he claims the Congolese are portrayed as "stupid and without qualities".
No, of course it shouldn't, as no book or film or pretty much anything else should. Yes it is racist but it is of it's time. This is not cultural relativism (I have learned that this was a folly of my youth, well it's ok because it's their culture) but it does show the genuine attitudes of the that period of history and that's the point, it's a historically document. It shows us what people at that time thought. It may offend our delicate, liberal eyes but that was how it was.
If you ban this you then have to ban many other proper books (I hate Tin Tin), Sherlock Holmes, Moby Dick, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, all of these have poor racial stereotypes in, as do many, many other books. And were will it end? Then anything that offends various religious groups could be banned (and sometimes is in Britain), then Americans are offended by unflattering portrayals and try and get these things banned. Then before you know it the MIA video at the beginning of today's piece is being taken down from Youtube and an anti-bullying charity is saying that it could promote discrimination against gingers! “Quick! We can be offended and get our names on the news despite the fact that we completely missed the point!”
Do films about the Holocaust encourage bullying of Jews? Of course they don't, these people are just idiots.
Some Awards now,
The Award for Slightly Obscure British Sporting Success,
We have a European Mens Gymnastic Champion! Now, this may not be the greatest sporting news you have ever heard, obviously that was Bournemouth getting promoted last Saturday, but Britain has never had one before so very well done to Daniel Keatings. He won Sunday's pommel horse final in Birmingham by edging team-mate Louis Smith into second place.
The Award for Things That Are Unlikely To Work,
Hugo Chavez is now on twitter. That is Hugo “Live TV show that goes on for hours” Chavez. This is never going to work. 140 Characters? Him? This is never going to work. Unless, of course, it maybe one continuous message, typed in by some poor IT assistant, that goes on for tweet after tweet. Like Ulysses broken up into tiny, tiny parts.
The Award for Making Me Fell Uncomfortable For Agreeing With Someone That I Usually Think Is A Bully,
Damn you BBC! Frankie Boyle made a joke in 2008 on a Radio 4 program called “Political Animal”. The joke went like this “I've been studying Israeli army martial arts. I now know 16 ways to kick a Palestinian woman in the back. People think that the Middle East is very complex but I have an analogy that sums it up quite well. If you imagine that Palestine is a big cake, well … that cake is being punched to pieces by a very angry Jew.”
One person complained. One person. Not a huge amount of people, this was not Ross/Brand, this was not Jan Moir writing homophobic bile, this was one person and the BBC caved in. For the love of Twosh, what is wrong with these people?
The person who complained said that the joke was anti-Semitic, which it quite clearly isn't. Criticising Israel is not anti-Semitic; it is having a go at a Country that is illegally occupying the territory of another.
Mr Boyle has written an open letter to the BBC on the Chortle.co.uk website in which he describes the broadcaster as “now cravenly afraid of giving offence and vulnerable to any kind of well-drilled lobbying”. He's get a point there I think.
I want to leave you to your bank holiday weekend (only in the UK) with a song. Because I haven’t had to mention the Catholic Church this week, here is a song dedicated to them. It’s childish and it's rude and it is very, very sweary, Ladies and Gentleman, I give you Tim Minchin's Pope Song,
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How lucky am I?
As we all know there are some spectacularly entertaining world leaders, Colonel Gaddafi for instance. A man who has a protection squad made up of only Amazonian proportioned woman and, when making what was supposed to be a 15 minute speech to the UN, went on for so long that he went through 2 translators.
Then there is President Chevaz of Venezuela. He host a live program on the state owned Television company on which he holds forth on the subjects of the day and takes phone calls from the public. This show, called “Hello, President!”, can often last 5 hours. Then, of course, he said that he could still smell the sulphur when he took the podium so time after George W Bush, again at the UN. What is it with the UN and great comedy performances? See also Colin Powell in front of the Security Council trying to convince them that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, “See this document proves that Saddam tried to buy nuclear material from Africa.”
“Then can you explain Mr Secretary why, in this document, that Saddam Hussein is President of Iran and “nuclear” is spelt incorrectly?”
But by far the most amusing is Silvio Belesconi. Late last year I felt a tremor in the comedy force. It was if a million people laughed out loud at once and were then silent. I had to find out what had caused this mass chuckle. To the News Channels! Economics, no, Sport, no that's' not it, what can it be? “And now the headlines. The curiously smooth fore headed Prime Minister of Italy has been struck in the face by a small, ceramic model of a cathedral” Oh that will be it then.
I didn't think that this story could get any funnier but hurray for the Italian Judiciary. Italian Judges are not fans of the sex addicted convicted fraudster and have been accused of trying to bring down the President by prosecuting him for various things.
At the moment they are deciding what to charge the man who lobbed the statuette in his general direction with and Italian Law is quite specific about this. If the injury deemed to need less than 40 days recovery then he will be charged with wounding. Any longer and the more serious charge of wounding with intent comes into play. Mr Berusconi seemed to get better in about 21 days despite his Doctor saying it would take 90 so the Prosecutor Armando Spataro ,who is investigating the case, has asked for two facial specialists doctors to examine Berlusconi next week and give a report. There is much talk that they think it was a stunt.
Is that possible? Could he have colluded in this? How would this have been bought up at a meeting? “Umm, I was wondering,” (oh and please read this with a comedy Italian accent, whether out loud or in you head) “It seems the people are not so keen on you, our President.”
“Well why not? I own half the press and control most of the news. Many of them only hear what I want them to hear.”
“Well Sir, it may be your fraud conviction or that you are a bit of an international embarrassment, what with the divorce and the alleged sex addiction.”
“Well obviously it isn't either those things but I will humour you. How would you make me more popular with the ungrateful Italian public?”
“Well Sir, first we need a small china church and someone with a great right arm.”
“Go on....”
This week I have complained to the Advertising Standards Agency about the Daily Express. It describes it's self as “The Worlds Greatest Newspaper”, it isn't. Unfortunately they rejected my complaint.
And so to the much-more-glamorous-than-the-Golden-Globe Awards (You should see the frock I’m wearing),
The Award for Least Relevant Mention of a Favoured Subject,
Usually we don't have the same award 2 weeks in a row but I think we can cope. Not only is it the same award, it is the same paper and the same favoured subject.
The deputy headmaster of a school in Kent has been arrested and charged with possessing child pornography. Can you guess who used to go to this school? Yes it was Princess Diana.
The Award for Thinking Someone is Much More Important Than They are,
The live subtitles on Sky News are always amusing, as I have said before, but on Monday evening they excelled themselves, “Boyzone to carry on For Peace”. Really? They think that they can bring about world peace? Umm, no. It was later changed to “Boyzone to carry on as a four piece”.
The Aware For Just Being A Little Bit Brilliant,
The Dorchester restaurant Sienna has been awarded a Michelin Star. It is the first establishment in our town to have this honour bestowed upon them for 20 years. I can assure you that this isn’t an advert for them (although they can pay me with free meals if they want to, I want to be corrupted) but I had to best food I have ever tasted there. Has food ever bought a tear to your eye because it was so good?
The Award for Thinking That YOU Are More Important Than You Are,
This really has to go to the BNP just about ever week but this week they have, at least, put some effort in.
They are attempting invoked the 1872 Ballot Act (well it proves that at least one of them can read I suppose). They are worried about vote rigging or ballot stuffing because they think everyone is against them (well they are) so, under a clause in this law they can have their own seal on the ballot box. They will also require a member of their party to be present at the opening of the box to check the seal.
Well done the BBC for bringing this to my attention. If it hadn’t been for you reporting it and having their spokesman on a prime-time news program I would never have heard about it this self promoting stunt. Another attempt to cast themselves as victims. Well done and thank you.
Sadly the rugby commentator Bill Mclaren has died and just before the start of the new 6 Nations tournament. Nature can be so cruel. Anyway, just a brief Youtube “His best bits” thing (I feel like Davina but with out the shiny, flowing, chestnutty locks),
See how the new regime of a shorter, more concise Sunday blog has fallen down at the second hurdle, sorry about that. Although, in my defence, there was lots I wanted to mention like the crime rate was down 8% yet David Cameron gave a speech on Friday about how bad crime was in Britain. Good fact ignoring there. Oh and that unemployment down as well. Fingers crossed for a bit a Labour recovery. Please don’t vote Tory.
