Chile rejoices
We’ve all seen the wonderful scenes of joy and jubilation as the Chilean miners were brought to the surface after their 70 day ordeal trapped 700m underground. Like many, I watched with a big smile on my face as the miners reached the surface. One thought that jumped into my head uninvited was what number I would like to have gone in the rescue sequence; definitely not first, thirteenth or last. Number three would be about the perfect position, one is the guinea pig, two proves getting the first one out wasn’t a bit of luck and three gets out nice and early. Having resolved this dilemma I watched one of the miners carefully as he stepped out of the capsule that had brought him successfully to the surface. Considering what he had been through, an unimaginably traumatic and physically demanding experience that is difficult for us surface dwellers to fully comprehend, he looked remarkably perky. Well groomed, clean-shaven, beaming smile, saluting the crowd, hugging friends, family and of course the Chilean President. After about five minutes of this he suddenly lay down on a stretcher and was carted off still waving furiously to the assembled crowd and media audience. I really didn’t get that bit, it was like a rewind of a football match where a player rolls around in agony and then when the stretcher appears miraculously bounces back to his feet.
Is it all a conspiracy?
With this image lingering my thoughts switched to the horrid leader of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Having tried to re-write history by denying the holocaust he has announced that the Twin Towers attack was orchestrated by President Bush. Now I’m not a fan of Bush in any way shape or form and I have heard these crazy claims before, but ultimately how can people be so stupid to actually believe this sort of stuff. If Bush had ordered the attack on the World Trade Centre how many people would have been involved? Forget whistle blowing, one of them would have started the vuvuzela craze well before the World Cup in South Africa.
Now all I am waiting for is someone to associate the apparent wellness of the miners with a conspiracy theory that the Chilean President ordered the whole episode to boost his popularity! Similarly the Americans never did get to the moon and J.F.K was killed by the FBI who later went on to take out Marilyn Munroe and Jimi Hendrix. Shame MI6 never had time to find the weapons of mass destruction and get Tony Blair off the hook.
Spies in Dubai?
Which brings me neatly to Spooks, a UK TV series that dreams up doomsday scenarios with danger averted by the brilliance of the UK intelligence service despite the best efforts of the Americans, Russians and Chinese to out-intelligence them. I watched a recent episode from the new series and there were some seriously bad people trying to out-bad each other. In amongst a cast of naughty Nigerians and unpleasant Ukrainians was an English super baddy who was double-crossing everyone. To catch all of the other baddies MI6 did a deal with the English baddy (keep up at the back) who ended up requesting a first class flight and new identity in Dubai!
Top sportsman clowns around
The Commonwealth Games went off rather well I thought and come the end everyone was happy including the media who had a bad news story to play with for a few weeks during the build up. My prize to the most colourful character goes to Australian diver Matthew Mitcham. Not only was he one of the few openly gay athletes at the Games, and entirely comfortable in his position as role model (“I want to do the best job I can because I believe it is important to have someone who is happy to be themselves”) but he had a back-story to make nonsense of the stereotype of the one-dimensional professional sportsman.
Mitcham once paid off his debts by working as a clown, diving from a tower into a small tank to amuse children. Having being called a clown a few times in my life, respect goes to Matthew for walking the walk.
A common-sense Gap
Hopefully more people will now dress up as clowns starting with the marketing team at GAP who to be fair at least have the good sense to read my blog. You may remember I dismissed GAP’s new logo in my last post and it obviously did the trick – they have binned it. For a lesson in spin take a look at the linked article, apparently it’s all about listening to your customers.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gaps-logo-back-to-blue-after-apf-3578440916.html?x=0
In my last post I also expressed that I wasn’t a big fan of the hugely popular Old Spice ads. Click here for Sesame Street’s excellent version, much better and it will make you chuckle.
Rip-offs and rewards
As my price watch is proving a big hit with at least one of my readers (thank you Paddy McGrath) my latest revelation is the price of a Nikon SLR, over AED 3,000 (on offer) in Sharaf DG, £460 on Amazon! The reverse side of the coin is Air Miles 50% offer in Damas Pavilion, Bur Juman. Just flash your Air Miles card and get 50% off plus Air Miles – use your HSBC credit card and get even more Air Miles. Triple whammy, this offer was forwarded to me by a trigger happy Mrs P who managed to get her blow in seconds before the e-mail arrived from Air Miles.
Bands that should be banned
One subject I’ve neglected recently is what I’m listening to, notably a brilliant album from Biffy Cyro that was released at the end of 2009 and a spanking brand new album from the Klaxons. This leads me neatly to my top 5s via an article I read in The Guardian reporting that Weezer have been offered $6 million by their fans to break up on the basis that after a promising start they have resorted to churning out rubbish. Top five bands/artists I would pay lots for them to break up (Oasis just beat me to the punch).
- U2
- Guns n Roses
- Rolling Stones
- Paul McCartney
- AC/DC
Which formerly great artist(s) should be ejected from the recording studio forever? For this or to pitch in about any other subject use the comments box below.
Somethingtochew0n 