Sunday 17 June 2012

Homeland

Those of you who have watched the very excellent Homeland starring the eye candy that is Damian Lewis (never thought I would say that a ginger man is attractive, but there is just something about him....) will appreciate that the US is extremely hot on homeland security and rightly so, given their experiences at the hands of Al Qaeda.  However, it's arguable that they might be overdoing it.  Just a teeny tiny bit. Just occasionally.


The Shah has a friend with whom he plays footie every week. (Don't start me on footie - every feckin' night on TV, feckin' Euro feckin' 2012). Let's call this friend Doug.  Because that's his name.  


Now Doug has occasion to travel to Las Vegas every year for a business convention.  This year he travelled with a colleague.  A fair haired, blue-eyed colleague.  (It's relevant, I promise). Let's call him Mike Jones (because I haven't a clue what his name really is).  They board their flight and all is uneventful until they land in Nevada.  Doug sashays through immigration, no problem.  Mike is stopped by an unsmiling official. 


"You Mike Jones?" he is asked
"Yeah, sure" he agrees.
"We've been waiting for you.  Come this way."


Puzzled, he is led off.  Several hours later, he has been divested of his clothes and given a Government-issue boiler suit to wear.  He has had his passport, his luggage and his mobile phone removed.  He has experienced a full body search.  He has been given no information or explanation as to why he has been detained, except that he has been relentlessly questioned about his supposed terrorist activities (none).  He is, to put it mildly, bemused.


After several hours of this shenanigans, one of the officious officials reappears, with Mike's passport in his hand.  He opens it, looks at the photo and looks at Mike for several, long minutes.  Eventually, he comes out with the killer question.


"Hey, you ever been black?"


Oh yes.  The Mike Jones they were after was of African origin but their hair-trigger reaction had led them to detain an Anglo Saxon and not notice.


We're off to the States later this year.  We'll be holding our breath as we go through immigration....

Monday 4 June 2012

Long to rain over us

I'm no massive royalist and, frankly, most of the Queen's offspring have ably demonstrated that they deserve nothing better than to be sent to the Tower on many fronts. But it's difficult not to respect the stoicism and fortitude of someone who never had any expectation of acceding to the throne but got on with it for the next 60 years on a 'never explain, never complain' basis. She has put up with the shenanigans of the Diana years and the creeping over-familiarity and diminishing respect for her station. Indeed Stevie Wonder, who's due to play at tonight's Jubilee Concert (why? Don't we have enough home-grown talent? Sorry, but Stevie Wonder??) is reported as announcing grandiosely that the time is "long overdue" for him to meet the Queen. WTF? Exactly who does he think he is?  Deluded is what he is. 


Source: FreakingNews.com
Amidst reports of people (including the CNN correspondent) being taken to hospital suffering from hypothermia (good old British weather) after yesterday's river pageant, Her Maj and Phil stood on the deck of the Royal Barge for hours on end - her only concession to the temperature being to wrap a bit of a scarf round her shoulders. this has, of course, led to the usual Nanny-state witterers rushing to our TV screens to tell us to "make sure to wrap up warm" in the current inclement weather.  Oh pur-lease!  I thought a t-shirt and shorts would be perfectly adequate in 12 degrees?


This afternoon brings the news that the 90 year old Duke of Ed has been taken to hospital with a suspected infection - either he caught a chill yesterday or he's having trouble with the royal wee. Or is he just trying avoid Stevie, I wonder?