RUSSIAN prime minister (and former president) Vladimir Putin continues
to upstage his western counterparts in macho Action Man stuff. He's
been filmed darting a Siberian tiger, darting a whale, riding a
Harley-Davidson, riding bare-chested on horseback, scuba diving,
driving a racing car and flying a fighter plane.
Now he's been filmed playing ice hockey – and with some skill. He
joined a whole lot of hockey stars on the ice, played for 40 minutes
and scored a goal.
What are Obama, Cameron and Sarkozy doing? Wringing their hands over
the meltdown and the crisis in Europe.
Russia went bust long ago, sort of recovered and the leadership are
now having fun. There's life after meltdown.
Definitely better
MEANWHILE, it seems things have definitely changed for the better in
Russia. Current president Dmitry Medvedev is quoted by the Russian
news agencies as joking that he sometimes "itches" to execute civil
servants who are convicted of corruption.
In Stalin's day, that would not have been a joke.
Fine of pigs
MIKE Tindall got fined £25 000 for bad behaviour during the Rugby
World Cup in New Zealand and lost his captaincy and membership of the
England squad. Tuala Vaea, manager of the Samoan team, has been fined
100 pigs.
The fine of pigs – worth about $1 800 – was imposed by Vaea's village
council. It follows a complaint by Samoa's captain, Mahonri Schwalger,
to the prime minister about Vaea's behaviour on tour. He and other
senior officials had treated the tour as a holiday and went drinking
with friends, often for days at a time, Schwalger said. Vaea is no
longer team manager.
Oh well, boys will be boys.
All not quiet
TENSIONS are rising in Europe as Britain and Germany armwrestle over
who should pick up the tab for bailing out the Greeks – and possibly
also the Spaniards , the Portuguese, the Italians and whoever else
might go broke.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has given it an extra edge by telling David
Cameron that today Europe is "speaking German". She meant it in the
sense of supporting the German position on the Euro and the bail-out,
but it wakens all kinds of old memories.
And now, suddenly, the Germans are demanding that a handful of Belgian
survivors of the Nazi slave labour camps of World War II should pay
tax on reparations that were made to them a few years ago.
Nazi Germany enslaved more than 13 million people to work on munitions
plants as labourers and as farm and kitchen hands.
The Belgians are furious, finance minister Didier Reynders describing
the demand as "morally indefensible."
It sounds very much like a bureaucratic snarl-up, but it could hardly
come at a worse time. All is not quiet on the western front.
Chase sequence
KEYSTONE Kops. Police at Highton, in Merseyside, England, took to
golf buggies to pursue a criminal who had run onto a golf course after
breaking into two houses and attacking elderly women.
It would make a great chase scene for a movie or TV series. But, er
... doesn't a man on foot run quite a bit faster than any golf buggy?
The criminal got away and is still at large. Surprise, surprise!
Eurocrats
BANANAS that don't have the right curvature; strawberries that are
"too square" ... The European Union has now directed that a producer
of bottled water may not advertise that "drinking water can prevent
dehydration". This is because the scientific validity of the statement
is in doubt.
What should people drink then to avoid dehydration? Beer? Vino? Scotch whisky?
The Euro is imploding as a currency but the Eurocrats still have their
nutty priorities.
Highland Spring, the Scottish bottler in question, has decided not to
fight the edict, simply to ignore it. It seems the most sensible
course.
Pickled
REPORTS come in of a nasty accident in a fish and chip shop when a
customer tipped vinegar into his ear. It's a bad case of pickled
hearing.
Tailpiece
"DID YOU HEAR the bad news about Rogers?"
"What about Rogers?"
"He got home late from golf the other night and his wife went mad and
battered him to death with one of his own golf clubs."
"I say!" (Pause). "How many strokes?"
Last word
Sometimes I get the feeling the whole world is against me, but deep
down I know that's not true. Some smaller countries are neutral.
Robert Orben
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