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FRANCE
The academic intelligentsia are nursing
damaged egos. Their celebrity
intellectual, Bernard-Henri Levy,
extensively quotes philosopher Jean
Baptiste Botul to support his theories.
Botul is now revealed as a fictional
comic character created by a journo
working for a satirical magazine. So
Hans Christian Andersen’s The
Emperor’s Clothes was a skit on
pretentiousness.
GERMANY
A thief in the town of Hamelin (of Pied
Piper lore) escaped with the loot after
threatening the cashier of an
amusement arcade with a piping hot
cup of coffee. In usual understatement
a cop spokesman says: “We don’t want
to encourage others to try this.”
ABSURDISTAN
Did the CIA take London’s Daily Mail for
a ride? February 11 was Iran’s 31st
anniversary; the equivalent to
America’s 4th July. The story attracted
257 reader comments of which 152
were American; 95% being pro-war
despite 2/3rd of American people
rejecting war as a solution. Many Brits
were excluded from commenting. As
Senator Hiram Johnson (1917) said:
“The first casualty when war comes is
truth.”
NORTHERN IRELAND
First Minister, Peter Robinson,
concluding marathon talks that
narrowly avoided a crisis quips: “If
negotiating were an Olympic sport, the
province’s politicians would win a gold
medal and then we shall enter
negotiations about what flag and
anthem we will use.” The flag won’t be
white and the anthem will certainly not
be Chopin’s Minute Waltz.
SPAIN
People were not bored, the matador
says after fighting in an arena where
you’re more likely to be gored. 16-year
old matador, Jairo Miguel, is up there
with the stars after slaying six bulls in
an afternoon. Revenge? The lad nearly
died from a horrific goring in Mexico in
2007. The average age for bullfighters
is 25 – 30 but Jairo dodged the 16-years
old age limitation by learning his trade
in Latin America. There are about 800
professional bullfighters in Spain but
few match Jairo’s kill rate.
LATVIA
A former Red Army garrison town is
auctioned off, ironically to a Russian
firm, for 2.2m€; ten times its list price.
The package includes 10 apartment
blocks, two nightclubs, a shopping
centre, kindergarten, barracks and
sauna. It is not clear what it will be used
for. Billy Butlin, Britain’s ‘good life’
entrepreneur used obsolete army
camps to launch his holiday camps.
ITALY
The emergency services are called to
attend people suffering from panic
attacks and palpitations after watching
the movie Paranormal Activity. One 14-
year old girl was in such a state of shock
after watching a young couple trying to
capture video evidence of paranormal
activity she had to be given oxygen.
The low budget movie has become an
international hit, especially with young
people.
UKRAINE
Enough raping of our democracy! Four
young ladies, protesting against the
hijacking and rape of politics by selfserving
politicians, make a clean breast
of it. The topless babes stormed a Kiev
polling station immediately before the
arrival of a political contender. Who
said politics is not attractive?
THE VATICAN
The pontiff is hopping mad after it was
admitted that Vittorio Feltri, editor of Il
Giornale; one of Italian Premier
Berlusconi’s tabloids, used forged
documents to mount a smear
campaign to oust Dino Boffo, editor of
a Vatican newspaper. Boffo had
criticised the Italian premier’s bedhopping
debauchery. Maybe those
young Ukrainian ladies do have a point
(or two).
POLAND
We want to show that the church is not
a boring, sad place; that young people
can have a nice time among monks: So
says Damian Pakowiak, the priest
responsible for recruiting youngsters to
the Roman Catholic orders Salvatoris. I
rest my case.
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