Month: July 2004

stinky salami ?

Apparently, a poster campaign urging people not to eat smelly foods on London’s overcrowded tube has sparked a diplomatic spat with Italy.

The poster shows a fat Italian-looking man lounging on a tube train surrounded by salamis, cured hams and strings of whiffy garlic.

This was deemed so offensive that it triggered a torrent of letters and complaints from angry Italians. The Italian ambassador is even rumoured to have waded into the feud !

We might shrug in bemusement at Italian sensibilities. But imagine if an Italian poster showed a group of pale, drunken English football hooligans covered in George Crosses and surrounded by beer cans with a slogan that read, ‘Drunken behaviour will not be tolerated’.

The English would be up in arms and the tabloids would be beside themselves with rabid anti-European fury.

file attachments…..

Ok, here’s how it works… download this, attach it to an email and send it to your boss with the subject line: please look at this file and let me know what you think….

*ba-dum-tssssch !**

Kerry vs Bush

On the eve of the Democratic Party Convention in Boston and with only 99 days to go, the polls put Bush and Kerry on a 47-47 point knife-edge. The electorate and the country are split right down the middle.

The majority have already made up their mind. Both parties will now target all their efforts, strategies and cash at a small slice of undecided voters in those crucial swing states.

In this precarious condition, the election is extremely vulnerable to what Macmillian condescendingly described as, “events, dear boy, events”. Commentators are openly speculating on the impact of an al-Qaeda attack on the election. Could it force a decisive swing in Bush’s favour ? As the terrible Madrid bombings suggest, a well timed attack can change everything.

This must be the worst nightmare for Democratic strtategists and party managers. A terrorist attack on America would wipe them off the map and plunge America into deep, deep crisis…

The amazing thing here is that every vote really counts. Some people in those swing states have the power to decide who gets the White House. They probably know who they are. You can bet the two parties do…

I wonder what the Democrats and Republicans are actually doing to try and cajole and convince those swing voters one way or another. Is anyone engaged in a spot of gerrymandering I wonder ? That’s an investigation waiting to happen. Remember the hanging chad fiasco of the last election with laywers inspecting voting slips with tweezers in an attempt to discern whether the paper had actually been punctured or not… That was just embarrasing !

It’s interesting to speculate on how America would respond to a hung vote. What would happen if it was a 50-50 split and there was no outright winner ? They sure got close in the last election.

What mechanisms does the US constitutional system have to ejudicate a hung election ? How would the Americans decide if the result was a dead heat ? Sure we’d get recounts, local disputes and lawyers a plenty. Party elders and statesmen would pontificate and offer advice.

But how would they actually decide who gets the ultimate prize without driving a terrible wedge through the heart of America ? Could ‘one Nation under God, indivisible…‘, become a country split by its own politics… we have 99+ days to find out.

gym

went to the gym today. Oh my God how I ache !!

Was fantastic to work out, swim in the pool, flop about in the jacuzzi and sweat it out in the steam room and sauna. A free gym pass does wonders for the body and soul !

Spiderman

Saw Spiderman II last night. Great film. Alfred Molina was excellent as the demented Doc Ock and Tobey Maguire played a convincingly geeky Peter Parker.

The story was a little convoluted, but soon stabilised into a classic doubting superhero beats the baddie and gets the girl flick.

Peter Parker is a geek. Weedy, always late, overlooked, under-performing and a low achiever. But, pull on the Spiderman mask and he’s a superhero. Rescuing children from speeding trucks, catching bad guys and saving the city.

A cod-science nuclear accident turns the preening Dr Otto Octavius into a tentacled monster who’s out to get our hero. A superhuman battle rages across the city as the two fight it out.

On one level the film is a comic-strip superhero romp. A piece of fantasy fun. The film also manages to touch on the secrets people keep, and the masks people wear. We all fulfill different roles, each with a different public mask. Peter Parker is a nerd whose secret is that he’s spiderman. Put on a webbed body suit and a spider mask and he’s miraculously transformed into a superhero.

There’s a classic scene where spidey stops a runaway city train. He spins his webs of steel and, while straining to halt the catastrophe, loses his Spiderman hood. Peter Parker, the boy behind the mask is revealed. He wakes, surrounded by astonished passengers. He’s immediately overtaken by self-consciousness and is horrified to be exposed. It drains his superhuman powers.

The assembled crowd reassured him that it’s OK, and they unanimously agree, ‘not to tell anyone’ before returning his discarded mask. This re-energises him and he dashes off to track down his evil foe.

The subtext, albeit a little obvious, is it’s Ok to be yourself. There’s no need to wear masks, keep destructive secrets or assume disguises.

It’s OK to be you.

Spiderman is ‘outed’ as Peter Parker and it’s just fine !

After all he’s a superhero with a job to do and a city to save….

90 years ago…

90 years ago today, on 23 July 1914, Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia following the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by a Serb assassin…..the dispute led to World War I.

Bill’s billions….

Microsoft have just announced a record-breaking dividend of $32bn. Wow…..

A while ago, I indulged in some idle speculation on what they might do with all their money. Seems they decided not to buy up SAP and have agreed on a whopping dividend instead. Apparently the payout is roughly the equivalent of Chile’s entire GDP last year….!

The guys at the top of the Microsoft tree, especially Gates and Ballmer stand to make billions….

Bill, bless his heart, will give it all to his foundation.

Bush, bin laden and the election

Osama Bin Laden OK, here’s one to watch….. apparently, the ISI, Pakistan’s infamous secret intelligence service, have already got Osama Bin Laden and/or Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Rumours and whispers suggest they are secretly conspiring with the Bush administration to ensure the capture will hit the headlines on 26-28 July. Perfectly timed to eclipse John Kerry’s Democratic Party convention in Boston and deliver Bush a second term….

According to some dubious sources, a Pakistani General, on a recent trip to DC, is rumoured to have quipped, “If we don’t find these guys by the election, they’re going to stick this whole nuclear mess up our asshole“.

Conspiracy theorist are appalled by the nightmare of Bush and his cronies using the war on terror to rig yet another US election….

Could American politics have really sunk this low ? This is Nixon era stuff. No, it’s worse… There’s something about the American right, the Republican Party and power. Watergate, Iran-Contra, the fiasco of Kenneth Starr’s vindictive enquiry into the Clintons, fraud in the 2000 election and that’s before you even get to WMD and Iraq ! The list under Bush goes on…

Doesn’t it just remind you of Lord Acton’s famous line, ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely…’

Vote Kerry !