Lookee likee #2

Here’s David Beckham:

And here’s Vladimir Putin:

Confusing? No?

Putin on the Ritz

Every now and then a news story comes along that gets me reaching for the calendar to check if it’s April Fools Day and I haven’t realised the fact.

Here’s one such story.

Putin denies dancing to Abba hits

Bjorn Again’s manager Rod Stephen and other band members said Mr Putin danced to Abba hits and shouted “Bravo!”

The PM’s spokesman denied the claim. Mr Putin – a former KGB spy who has a black belt in judo – is known in Russia and the West for his macho image.

Here’s Vlad being macho:

(He obviously goes to Simon Cowell’s tailor.)

Now, I have nothing against gay people whatsoever, so I really don’t give a rat’s if Putin is gay, but that pose definitely looks gay to me.

Maybe it’s the difference between the Russian and British mindsets.

Maybe a Russian will look at that and think – my, there’s a macho chap…

But I look at it and think – how gay is that?

Whatever, in the interests of even-handedness and after having panned our own Glorious Leader, I feel bound to say that Putin scares the crap out of me.

If ever there was a ruthless arsehole the free world should be wary of, it’s Putin.

Get on his tits – and what fine, masculine tits they are, Vlad baby – and you’ll be puking up radiocative shit all over London.

So, whilst he might look gay, he’s quite capable of pissing on everyone’s French fries…

No tomorrow for ‘Yesterday’s Men’

Interesting…demonstrations and other acts of civil and industrial unrest in Russia, Greece, the Republic of Ireland, France and now the UK.

We have wildcat strikes here.

But it’s OK, Gordon has spoken:

Speaking from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, Mr Brown said instead of spontaneous strike action, “what we’ve got to do over time, as I’ve always said, is that where there are jobs in this country, we need people with the skills, developed in this country”.

Tackled about his 2007 Labour conference pledge to create “British jobs for British workers” – a slogan used by the striking refinery workers – Mr Brown said: “Well, we are part of a single European market but I have always understood the worries that people have.

“They look round and say, well, why can’t we do these jobs, jobs ourselves, these are jobs that we can do.

“When, when I talked about British jobs, I was taking about giving people in Britain the skills, so that they have the ability to get jobs which were at present going to people from abroad.”

Mr Brown added: “You’ll find that no government in history is doing more to try and find ways that we can help people who are unemployed back in to work as quickly as possible.”

What’s he actually said though?

Ah…he wasn’t talking about jobs for British workers, he was talking about skills all along.

Now, given that we already have an alarmingly high rate of adult illiteracy in this country – something that has its causes rooted in past decades of  tinkering about with our education system – how he can think that his words can be of any comfort is beyond me.

He wants to get people back to work as soon as possible…with these new skills that they don’t have yet?…into what sort of employment?…where’s the money coming from to keep the businesses going that are going to employ these people?

Maybe there are no words of comfort that Brown can inspire us with because maybe we really are screwed this time, but he doesn’t have to insult people’s intelligence.

I have to confess to not having a great deal of faith in the nation’s intelligence on the whole – the success of Big Brother and the X-Factor is evidence enough for me – but you don’t have to be an Einstein to look at the nature of our economy, the unregulated augmentation of our population and the swift and dire effects of unemployment on the lives of ordinary people to realise that talk of creating jobs for people is just that…talk…

New skills take time to learn and they don’t pay the mortgage or fill the shopping trolley at Tesco.

Looking at the list of countries which are experiencing unrest, it’s just struck me that a) their leaders seem to look more like yesterday’s men with every passing day and b) the US is conspicuous by its absence.

Could it be that there’s an ‘Obama factor’ at work here?

Perhaps Europe needs new blood before we can rise to the daunting challenge of reconstructing economic stability here.

Shame the blood bank’s gone bust though…