Oh Gordy – Sorry, Prime Minister

More on Sarko (despite the picture being of G Brown) - Last week old Sarko went on French telly to tell the nation how he was going to save them from the world-wide recession. He commandeered the three most popular TV channels and broadcast to the 15 million people who tuned in, either by design or by accident. He was quizzed by four specially selected (i.e. soft) journalists, one of whom was Laurence Ferrari, who good old Sarko had ‘romanced’ after he split from his last missus. Apparently of the four journalists, Mme Ferrari, was particularly benign, smiling more than snarling.

It made me think what would happen if Gordon Brown (Britain’s Prime Minister for my foreign readers) was being interviewed by a well know lady journalist (let’s call her ‘J’) whom he had ‘romanced’, when he was Chancellor but before he was promoted to his absolute level of incompetence and became the most useless Prime Minister the UK has ever had.

J – Gordy. Sorry Prime Minister. Could you tell us how you plan to save the world as you said you would do in Parliament recently?

PM – well Honeybunch. Sorry Miss Reid. ….. you know the recession is world-wide but the UK is better placed because of my strict stewardship of the nation’s purse strings …. blah blah blah….goes on and on for 20 minutes. Yawn!

J - Oh Gordy – sorry Prime Minister. I know you’re the strong silent type but you do have moments of real passion, especially about the UK economy, indeed I remember you playing with my bra straps one night and loosening them. Is that what you meant by freeing up the economy and letting the nation’s assets work for you?

PM – well my little squidgy toes –  oh sorry. Well Miss Reid. If you remember, I did say that night that fiscal stimulus was key to recovering the situation but it was quite obvious that you had a different idea of stimulus. Indeed my Red Box went pale pink that night. But getting back to the economy, the UK is best placed blah blah blah….

J – Oh Gordy – I do remember. The public just don’t appreciate you. If only they could have seen you devouring the IMF forecasts in bed each night. Do you think the IMF are right to criticise your fiscal policies?

PM – well my little potato scone – sorry Miss Reid. The IMF are a very respected organisation, and I never turn a blind eye to what they say. If only they recognised the fact that the UK is best placed ………blah blah blah.

J – Oh Gordy – you are such a man. I know they call you ‘the clunking fist’ but what the public don’t see is your tenderness. If only they could see how you caress my – ooops sorry - caress the UK’s economic forecasts.

PM – now, now my little lorne sausage. We must keep this discussion on track. Not too much pillow talk – eh?

J – Oh Gordy – I hear lots of talk about ‘qunatitative easing’ and increasing liquidity. Is that what you did to me that night ………. Oooh I feel all faint Gordy.

PM – next question please.

J – Oh Gordy – I heard you on the radio the other day being interrogated by that awful John Humpreys and he was talking about the problem with ‘over the counter’ activities. You didn’t say that you’d practised ‘over the counter’ with me.

PM – next question please.

J – Oh Gordy – can I ask your reaction to that horrid Jeremy Clarkson calling you a ‘one-eyed, Scottish idiot’

PM – you know – I just didn’t see that one coming. It came from left field.

J – Oh Gordy – the press do criticise Sarah’s dress sense saying that she looks like a frumpy minister’s wife. Does that hurt you?

PM – well my little single malt – no it does not hurt me. I take immense pride from the fact that Sarah buys her clothes from Oxfam. Of course if we have a special occasion, such as when I will have to go to the Queen to tender my resignation, we will splash out on a nice frock and we’ll go to Primark together to choose it.

J – Oh Gordy – just like me – the nation is safe in your hands.   

Sarkozy – The Duracell Bunny

Is he on drugs? Maybe he’s got Duracell batteries fitted? It could be that he’s still trying to impress his relatively new wife? Maybe he’s just got a good press? After all, he got most of the commentators, both on TV and in the newspapers, their jobs, and in France, you definitely don’t bite the Presidential hand which feeds you.

Sarkozy, of course, has just finished his six month stint as President of the EEC and was unstinting in his praise ……. for the job HE did! He reckoned he, single-handedly, dragged the EEC into the 21^st century. He resolved several major world issues on his own and was the architect behind France surviving the world-wide credit crunch. Within the last week he has lambasted Gordon Brown, who thought he was a bit of an ally, for his custodianship of the UK economy, claiming his fiscal measures to bump-start the UK into spending again were a complete waste of time. No nice wishy-washy diplomatic language here. Indeed. he's still being feted for telling an unwelcome member of the public who approached him on a walkabout to (and I paraphrase here)....'piss off you arsehole'.  He’s a bit of a boy is old Sarky.

He's been trying a different political reform each day in France (or so it seems) without too much success. As soon as the teachers, judges, transport workers or students hear what he's up to, they go on strike, or in the case of the students, they stop studying (so what's new?), and he caves in. But, give him his due, he's exhausting all the other political leaders and keeping them quiet which is not a bad thing.

The latest bit of news on Sarky is a book by another one of his ‘old friends’ which purported to relay the conversation, and the attempted canoodling, when Sarky met Carla Bruni at his dinner party. Sarky was, of course, on the rebound from his marriage to Cécilia who seems to now despise him with only the vengeance a bitter ex-wife, who lost out on the chance to be France’s ‘First Lady’, can muster, branding him a "stingy philanderer" with a "behavioural problem" who is an "unworthy president" of France. Ouch!  

Apparently, at this dinner, Sarky was ‘onto’ Carla within 30 seconds of arriving. He dared her to ‘kiss him on the lips’ within 2 minutes of starting to talk to her and suggested, within a further 20 minutes of chat-up that they could be the new John F and Jackie Kennedy and asked her to marry him. Wise to his legendary philandering however, she rebuffed him by stating she knew all about his ‘ways with women’, to which he replied that her track-record with ‘skinny guys like Mick Jagger’ and 'druggies like Eric Clapton', was nothing to be proud of.

And from those humble, cringeworthy beginnings, and despite all the odds, old Sarky and Carla managed to get it together and the rest is history. The public canoodling (I like that word) even when on a state visit to the UK. Her wearing pumps which do absolutely nothing for her gorgeous legs. His wearing of stacked Cuban heels to try and reach her shoulders. His unwavering public support for her re-launched singing career (actually my cats sound better than she does when they’ve got a thorn in their paw) and her utter devotion to him when in the public gaze. See picture.

The word on the street however, is that as soon as his Presidency ends, she’ll be off. My view is that as soon as she gets her high heels out, the writing will be on the wall.

Here’s a video of Carla – la chanteuse. I didn’t know she could play the guitar!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMUedRUJ_HA

And Not A Woman Driver In Sight

Satellites crash in space. Did you read about it last week? Just happened to be a Russian satellite crashing into an American one. I bet the insurance claim will be interesting.

Please explain details of accident

I was travelling at approximately 15,000 miles per hour when this satellite who must have been doing at least 17,500 mph just came straight at me from the side. I never saw it until it came right into my side. He never looked. The damage is appalling – I reckon it’s a write-off. I reckon he might have been on his laptop at the time because I saw some diodes flashing just before he hit me.

What was the weather like at the time?

The sun was just rising behind the earth but there was a solar flare at around this time so maybe it blinded the other guy. It was quite bright – it must’ve been at least 200 trillion candle power.

Name and Details of Drivers Involved in Accident

My satellite was being ‘driven’ by NASA. I didn’t get details of the other guy because he shot off before exchanging any information, but he had some funny symbols on the side – maybe Russian? CCCP – does that mean anything?

Any Other Factors Worth Mentioning?

Well I was supposed to be the only satellite in this orbit. What the other guy was doing there I don’t know.

Estimated Cost of Damage

$150 million for mine. Don’t know about the other guy.

 

The picture accompanying this blog posting is a NASA representation of the estimated 10,000 items floating around in space. I’d always wondered how long it would be before some of these bit and pieces, which comprise rocket boosters, discarded space material (whatever that might be), scrap metal discarded during space repairs and of course the lady astronaut’s handbag (see blog posting of 1^st December), would start crashing into one another. The ‘experts’ said it would never happen because space is so vast but they seemingly forgot that whilst space, is indeed vast, all of these things are floating around in orbits which are quite close together. What’s a couple of million miles between friends?

The danger is, of course, that if any of the debris from these two satellites which were both utterly destroyed, with a combined speed of impact of about 30,000 miles per hour, hits any of our brave astronauts,  it’s goodnight midnight. Apparently, a fleck of paint whizzing around at 17,000 miles per hour is enough to go right through a space suit and the body within it, but again, that’s not quite right, because when astronauts are in space they are actually travelling at 17,000 mph so unless the fleck of paint is coming the other way, they should be ok! However, rather them than me.

Anyway – I’m only having a bit of fun. NASA must be a great place to work. The only thing is I always got bored on long-term projects and of course, some of these guys spend a complete lifetime’s work on a single ‘mission’. Remember the poor guys in the UK who got NASA to send their little buggy off to Mars. You work for 15 years getting the thing all ready. You get good old NASA to send it up into space and then you wait for 3 years whilst it flies there, only to find that the thing crashes when it’s landing upon the Martian surface, never to send as much as a distorted beep back to earth!

Here’s a great NASA site for those interested in some pictures you might never see otherwise.

 http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/

A Couple of Woosies

The plan was set. Alex and Sonia had called us on Sunday night. The forecast for Monday was sun, sun and sun. Perfect weather for skiing.

Up at 6.30 to cook the kids’ breakfast. Take them to the school bus stop and then back home to get ready.

Looked out of the bedroom window and there she was. Rising up out of the Med, some 50 miles away with its mountains cutting into the golden morning sky. Corsica. Due south and only visible from the Nice coast on about six days in the year, and this was obviously one of them. Within 15 minutes she had disappeared into that atmospheric conundrum. How come when she’s visible like that, standing like a huge rock off the coast, she just goes within minutes? Where does she go to? Why can’t we see her on those crystal clear sunny days in summer? Somebody must know – anybody?

J looked at the Vence forecast which had been promising sunny weather for all of this week. Showers! Only last night it had been the opposite – sun! I looked at my satellite map and although there were a few wispy clouds about, it looked clear. J looked up at the mountain behind the house. There were a few greyish clouds but nothing too threatening. A quick call to Alex to make sure they were still up for it.

We’ve been trying for over a year to go skiing with Alex and Sonia and a combination of various insurmountables has prevented us from doing so. My dodgy knee. The kids school being closed or closing early. Visitors to the house. Etc etc etc.

We probably left the house about 8.45am and 45 minutes later I was picking up the ski passes. We’d have been there earlier but for a convoy of three coaches who trundled up the road at approximately 20 kilometres per hour. The Frenchies didn’t bother. Blind bends with a 2000 foot drop on one side is just another little challenge to them and one by one, the little white Clios and Peugeots roared past us with the passing of the coaches their only objective. Unfortunately, none of them went over the edge!

At Gréolières the sky was clear. Not a single cloud in sight and being a Monday, not too many people either. The chairlift wasn’t working and was destined to be idle all day so we took the drag lift up the first slope and by 9.45am we were heading down a pristine piste untouched by anybody that morning apart from the piste checkers (see picture). Indeed, it was so quiet I asked J if the run was actually closed. A couple of runs later we bumped into Alex and Sonia and a couple of their friends at exactly the agreed time and place.

Back up the drag lift which I hate because the smells from the restaurant waft over it and irrespective of the breakfast you’ve had, you just can’t wait to get there for lunch. Another couple of runs and I looked at J and she looked at me and we both said at exactly the same time, ‘it’s a bit cold isn’t it?’ It was 11.30am and despite the fact that the sky was cloudless, it was bitterly cold. J’s feet were numb and my head hurt and in the final run down to the car, I actually felt my brain freeze just like it does when you eat ice cream too fast.

We called it a day, changed in the car (well I did) and then headed for the restaurant where we were to have lunch, but at 11.45 it was way too early, and given our friends were only on their 2^nd or 3^rd run of the morning and were likely to ski until at least 1pm when the morning pass expired, we didn’t fancy hanging around for another hour plus. And so we left  Gréolières to the keen, hardy skiers and headed home to get a fire on.

I’m sure Alex and Sonia think we’re a couple of woosies, but I hate the cold and J hates it even more!        

 

No Mean City

It’s like something out of the Mafia days in New York where each person has a moniker.

I’m talking about the gangland/mobster culture in Glasgow where each of the ‘personalities’ has his or her own moniker.

I suppose that’s when you’ve made it gangland Glasgow – when somebody uses your most obvious trait to replace your name.

Me – I’d be Tam ‘The Punter’ Cupples for my liking of playing the stock market. J would be Julie ‘The Wardrobe’ Hellon ….. for obvious reasons. Guy would be Guy ‘HTML’ Evans whilst Kitty would be Kitty ‘The Designer’ Evans.

So where did all this come from on a Monday morning? It came from last Friday’s Glasgow Daily Record, which I only read for two reasons; (a) to keep up with my team (Rangers) and (b) to see what mobster has done what this week.

On Friday there was this hilarious story about the widow of an infamous Glaswegian gangster getting married. If the monikers had been left out, it would not have been worth reading but here is a summary of the story with monikers included.

The widow of millionaire mobster Tam "The Licensee" McGraw will wed her drug dealer boyfriend this weekend in a lavish £50,000 bash. The Licensee got his nickname because his ‘legitimate’ businesses included pubs and clubs but his enemies, including Ian “Blink” McDonald (would kill in the blink of an eye) and Paul “Gunner” Ferris (who was a gun runner) also christened him “The Licensee” due to the fact that he had been given a licence by the Glasgow police to carry on his criminal activities. Margaret “The Jeweller” McGraw and lover Jim “Golddigger” McMinimee are splashing her late husband's cash on a dream wedding at a posh hotel.

The glamorous 55-year-old granny has invited 30 "special guests" to an all-expenses-paid weekend at the plush Bothwell Bridge Hotel in Lanarkshire. Last week, the Record revealed the hotel's manager, Luigi “Italian Stallion” Gustinelli, had been fired after gangsters went to his boss's home and made threats over gambling debts. Luigi Gustinelli was awarded £42,000 in an unfair sacking case against hotel owner Luigi  “The Godfather” Martalo.

Margaret, nicknamed "The Jeweller" after her love of gold, was delighted when sleazy partner  “Golddigger” McMinimee, 49, proposed last year - just months after she cremated her husband of 36 years. They admitted they had been in love for years.

Among those expected to attend the wedding are security bosses, Michael "Benji" Bennett and Stephen "Scudder" Scullion. Both associates of The Licensee, they were present in the Royal Oak pub in 2004 when Craig “Big Man” Devlin and John "Joker" McCartney, another expected guest at the wedding, were shot.

Other guests who got the call but who couldn’t make it were Robert “The Birdman” O’Hara  (???), a regular at the New Morven Bar run by Arthur “The Godfather” Thompson and latterly by “Gunner” Ferris, and Jamie “The Bull” Stevenson.

You couldn’t make it up.

The picture is of a book cover using the title, 'No Mean City', a term which plagued Glasgow for decades.