Posts Tagged ‘sex’

The love that dare not speak its name

April 20, 2016

No, not that kind.

A new kind of what the Chinese government calls ‘dangerous love’ (?????).

Last week we had China’s first National Security Education Day. It turns out that the nemesis of 19th-century Asia – the red-headed foreigner – is once again stalking the land, seducing Chinese women and convincing them to reveal Chinese state secrets. This unconscionable sexual espionage must be stopped.

Here is the Chinese poster campaign, with English translation. I hope that readers of this blog will not show ‘a very shallow understanding of secrecy’. If you know any red-heads, out them now.

 

 

Tits and bums

November 24, 2014

Oh, so now you’re paying attention.

In the past couple of weeks I have posted blogs that seemed to me important. About the Xi Jinping-Obama understanding on emissions that paves the way for a global deal to arrest climate change in Paris next year. And about Adair Turner’s argument that governments may have to print money to pay for fiscal expenditure and monetise part of their debts if we are to head off another asset bubble by raising interest rates while at the same time avoiding global economic depression.

Well, these momentous developments have garnered little more than the usual rate of traffic on this blog. So, looking at email addresses of the several hundred people who now subscribe to every single post (dear oh dear), I note that most of you are academics, researchers, money managers, NGO-types and ‘activists’. So it occurs that what you really want is a bit of gratuitous demi-porn to take the edge off your lives of monotonous intellectual mind-wrestling.

Fortunately I am in a position to indulge you. The peg is the recent APEC summit in Beijing, which was important not just for an apparent meeting of minds between the Chinese and US presidents, but also for an alleged pass made by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, at Xi Jinping’s wife.

Personally, I don’t think there is much to it, although Putin is now officially a single man, which puts him (even more) firmly in the frame in terms of motive. However the extraordinary reaction of Chinese censors, who moved immediately to expunge any trace of Vlad’s let-me-get-your-coat-darling moment from the Chinese Interweb, reminds us that in Chinese Communist Party cultural terms Vlad was indeed on quite thin ice. Here, side by side, are the photo (similar to the one below) briefly posted by Chinese state news agency Xinhua and, to the right, the notice you got shortly after/still get at the same URL saying in Chinese that the page has been deleted.

Obama to Xi: 'Looks like Ukraine is not the only thing Vladimir wants to get into.'

Obama to Xi: ‘Looks like Ukraine is not the only thing Vladimir wants to get into.’

And here is a brief story from Foreign Policy about the whole incident, including a link to video if you really want more.

The Putin-Peng Liyuan (yes, she has a name) frisson got me thinking, as I am sure it has you, about the broader subject of global leaders hitting on other leaders, their wives and partners. So here, in no particular order, are some memorable moments I have been able to come up with:

 

1. Henry Kissinger’s ever-penetrating analysis. These must surely be among the most famous images of the genre, as Henry first enjoys a full frontal review of Lady Diana’s strategic assets, and then follows up from behind with a sly ass-check.

kissinger Di 1 kissinger Di 2

 

 

 

2. The Brezhnev. But did you know that back in 1973 Kissinger’s own date, former Bond girl Jill St. John, was subjected a famous occular eye-over by the leader of the Unfree World, Leonid Brezhnev? In the photo below you can almost see Brezhnev calculating out the potential upside of detente with the Americans. Coincidentally, it was in 1973 that Kissinger was quoted in the New York Times saying that: ‘Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.’

Brezhnev Jill St John 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a shot that shows Kissinger (back to camera) and Jill as another guy (described in Walter Isaacson’s Kissinger biography as a ‘naval aide’) gives Jill’s ass a caressing gaze too.

Brezhnev and Jill St. John at Nixon Pool Party

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

3. Size doesn’t matter. Deng Xiaoping. There is no killer photo here, just various official ones like that below. However, when Ronald and Nancy Reagan visited China in 1984 and were received in the Great Hall of the People, Deng said to Nancy (in range of the foreign press corps): ‘I hope you’ ll come the next time and leave the president home.’ After translation, the ever-cool Ron batted the remark away.

Deng XP Nancy R and Ron R

 

 

 

 

 


 

4. Obama-Gucci Helle. These images are so recently famous they hardly bear posting. Except to tee up the less well-known 5., below. Here Obama flirts with Danish prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, known to her countrymen as Gucci Helle for her rather un-Danish love of branded designer clothing.

obama helle 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here is the US president after a bollocking from his wife, who was sitting on the other side of him all along. (There is another image of Brave Dave Cameron forcing his way into Helle and Obama’s selfie, but it is just too depressing to post.)

obama no-helle michelle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5. Obabma and Lil sis’ Yingluck. Now here is the collector’s item. It is Obama and Thaksin’s little sister Yingluck, who was running Thailand after Thaksin was thrown out in a coup, at least until Yingluck was also thrown out in a coup. What was that song about ‘One night in Bangkok’?

Obama Yingluck

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be fair to Obama, however, I think the story may have been that it was young Yingluck who was providing the come-on.

Obama Yingluck 2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parenting-mare

September 2, 2014

So here is the last blog post of the holiday season. Turn away now if you cannot cope with the f-word. 

What follows is a verbatim rendering of a conversation that took place last week in the car, driving down to the Isle of Wight. Me driving. Wife in the front. Three kids, 11, 9, 7, in the back.

9 year-old boy: ‘What does fuck mean?’

[pause]

Wife: ‘It’s very rude and you must never say it.’

9 year-old boy: ‘I know that. But what does it mean?’

[pause]

Me: ‘You’ll find out in Year 6 sex education.’

9 year-old boy: ‘But I don’t want to wait for Year 6. Tell me what it means now.’

Wife: ‘Look, I’ll talk to you about it later. We can’t do it now — daddy is driving and I have to do the directions.’

9 year-old boy: ‘Why can’t you just tell me what it means?’

[long pause] 

Worldly-wise 11 year-old sister, feeling very pleased with herself: ‘Look, It’s like a hug.’

[pause]

9 year-old boy, turning to 11 year-old sister: ‘Can I fuck you?’

7 year-old girl, turning to 11-year old sister: ‘I want to fuck you too.’

………………………………

More:

Here is a funny video I saw this summer, on how to assess the marriageability of women. It is funnier for me because my wife is called Tiffany. It is probably funnier for anyone when you have had a couple of drinks.

Here is a funny song about learning Chinese (in Chinese, so skip it if you don’t speak any). In case you are wondering, it was done in Taipei. Can’t imagine something like this being done on the mainland.

 

Addendum:

Just now in the car…

9 year-old boy: ‘I know what fuck means.’

Me: ‘Oh yes?’

9 year-old boy: ‘It means sex.’

Wife: ‘How do you know that?’

9 year-old boy: ‘X and Y [friends at school] told me.’

[pause]

9 year-old boy: ‘But why can’t you say: “What fuck are you?”.’

 

Fratelli d’Italia

March 17, 2011

The school bus pulls up to reveal our three children waving self-made Italian flags. It can mean only one thing. The official celebration of Italy’s 150th birthday is upon us. This being a thoroughly divided nation, it has of course been dubbed the Festival of Unity.

For months the children have been returning from school singing what must be one of the most improbable choruses of any national anthem: ‘Stringiamoci a coorte / Siamo pronti alla morte / Italia chiamo’ or ‘Let’s all stand together / We are ready to die / Italy has summoned us.’ They do this with their right hands over their hearts and big grins on their faces.

‘It’s absurd,’ observes the eight-year-old. ‘But then so is the British one.’ She has a point. Nonetheless she has learned all the verses, including arcane references to Scipio, the blood of the Poles and so on, and needs little prompting to sing the whole thing over and over.

Italy’s popular president Giorgio Napolitano leads the celebratory tour of Rome, including a visit to the monument to Italy’s hot-headed revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi. Silvio Berlusconi is forced to accompany him and draws whistles and calls of ‘Resign’ and ‘Buffoon’.

This is tame compared with the last day of Carnival — the traditional party to consume all the stuff that cannot be consumed during Lent — in our nearby village of Cornetto. This year, instead of dressing up as cartoon characters, the men of the village regaled themselves as full-bosomed, heavily made-up prostitutes and arrived in a bunga-bunga car, groping anyone they could lay hands on. There then appeared a Berlusconi character, who set up a large table and proceeded to hand out Viagra to residents of the village before being violently and graphically humped by the bunga-bunga ladies.

All this went on, needless to say, while the children of the village were towed around, watching, in a toy train pulled by a tractor. Who says there is no hope for this country? ‘Siam’ pronti alla morte…

Meanwhile:

More leaked phone taps suggest that Silvio’s advice to Ruby was to pretend to be insane. While Silvio would pretend to have believed that she (Moroccan) was Mubarak’s granddaughter. The great thing is that in Italy you can actually say this kind of stuff in court. There is also more detail from Ruby’s first police interview in which the Silvio link came up.

Fragrant harbour

February 1, 2011

I make it five times that Stanley Ho has changed his mind over his inheritance… in the last week. It was ‘You can have it’, ‘No you can’t’, ‘Yes you can’, ‘No you can’t’, and yesterday, 31 January 2011, ‘Oh go on, take it and just leave me alone with my dogs.’ Today, glancing at the headlines, it seems he may have changed his mind again but, frankly, I can’t be bothered.

Instead, here is a bit of commentary on the three videos that have been released on YouTube by Stan’s lawyer (I have used the link posted by David Webb). Let’s meet Stanley at home:

Video 1. Stan opens with: ‘We must get back Lanceford [the holding company he held all his big stuff through]’, speaking like and doing a great facial imitation of the bad guy at the start of an episode of Flash Gordon. Then the lawyer, more on him anon, asks Stan about some further comment for the press to which Stan replies he’s game as ‘I want to make it [the story] very big.’ Stan is already laying into Pansy, the daughter who is seen as both the most capable in business and about whom the most malicious and serious gossip circulates (perhaps these two things go naturally together). Then comes the now-famous: ‘It is something like robbery’ quote. Stanley says he wants to go ahead with legal action. Note the furnishing of Stan’s time-warp mansion on the south-side of HK island. To the left you can just catch a glimpse of a hideous mock-baroque table. The staff, family and nurses sneaking by the camera are also good value. In the foreground is the mandatory Chinese tea flask (must admit I have been caught on film with one of those myself) and a glass of hot water. ‘I want a fair division among my family,’ says Stan, before appearing to be pained by some inconvenient fact inside his head (like he never organised a fair division?).   At around three-and-a-half minutes you get a look at the always-on television, the electronic tombstone of the fading godfather. Stan’s ex partner Henry Fok was a big soccer fan, so at least with him you would get to take in the football. Another of Hong Kong’s octogenarian big boys is a closet Arsenal fan, and even has comfy sofas. Many are the mysteries of Confucianism… At the end Stan thanks the lawyer for having ‘blown up’ the whole affair in the space of a few days. The lawyer jokes about a huge fee to come. Or let’s say he laughs while talking about the huge fee to come; it may just be coincidence.

Video 2. Here Stan is trying to explain why he just withdrew legal proceedings and announced he had fired the lawyer. ‘The problem is Pansy,’ he starts. At this point I begin to become more interested in the lawyer than in Stanley. For one thing, you might argue that the lawyer is leading his client at the point at which he responds to Stanley: ‘To which I say: “So what?”’ The lawyer, Gordon Oldham, has a faded (south) Irish accent, though his profoundly undetailed official biography says only that he arrived ‘from the UK’ in Hong Kong 30 years ago. After Stan says Pansy is the problem, a woman, who for me has a stronger Irish accent, says off-camera: ‘But he [Stanley] is not afraid of her.’ What is going on here? My wildly speculative first thought is that there has long been a wee Irish mafia connected with the dogs and the horse-racing in Macau, but this is indeed wildly speculative. I must check further. The only thing I learn quickly from someone who knows Oldham quite well is that he is ‘a clever fellow’. Meanwhile in the video it is subsequently, I think, the Irish-accented woman off camera who butts in again to say to Stan: ‘Gordon will still represent you, ok?’ I think this is right, but then an ethnic Chinese woman I do not know moves across camera right to left saying ‘They made him, they made him [Stanley sign documents against his will]’. Stanley says he was forced during his television appearance to read ‘the plaque’ [cue card] organised by Pansy and Daisy. The video ends with the lawyer saying: ‘Are you telling me that I can now go ahead with filing and getting back your interests in Lanceford?’ To which Stan responds: ‘I suppose so…That’s what I want.’ The lawyer gesticulates everything to Stan as if he is an idiot. But Stan isn’t an idiot, even at the age of 89. After all, he is the one looking at the silly gweilo. Upshot of video 2. I think the lawyer has definitely got some questions to answer. I find it creepy the way he refers to Stan as Dr. Ho, using the title he never earned. Stan’s slaves, like Henry Fok’s (‘Dr. Ho’s office’, ‘Dr. Fok’s office’!) have long done this, but a self-respecting lawyer does not need to. I would also like to see the written consent from Stan to post this stuff to YouTube; it should have been put up with the postings.

Video 3. Roll on to January 30. Stan says Pansy says he can have his shares back, but it is ‘only words’. Third ‘wife’ Ina, who’s got a bunch of stock, doesn’t want to meet. (Ina was the ailing first wife’s nurse when Stanley got the hots for her. If you have ever seen the UK sit-com Are You Being Served you’ll have a picture in your head at this point.) Note that Stan here is saying he wants to get all the share scrip back and ‘then decide what to do’; do you remember the fair division promised in video 1, Stanley? Not much of interest here. It ends with Stan pointing out what a stand-up guy he has been.

Video 4. (Not yet released). Stan sits in his favourite cardigan looking into a full-length mirror intoning the mantra: ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who has shagged the most among us all?’ From a pair of old speakers the voice of Michael Jackson responds: ‘You have Stanley, you have’, followed by a trademark yelp. At length Stanely picks up a hand-held mirror and quizzes it: ‘Mirror mirror in my hand, who’s the foxiest in the land?’. From another pair of speakers, the double-deep voice of Errol Brown (per his legendary BabyCham add)  replies: ‘You da one, you da one Stan…’ This continues indefinitely.

A note on the lawyer, February 2:

The verdict from various people who know Gordon Oldham, personally and professionally, is that he is by no means the most amoral lawyer in Hong Kong (a warm breeze wafts across the Big Lychee as Ron Arculli, Stephen Cheong, Charles Lee and pals breathe a collective sigh of relief). Perhaps the mid-point of the opinions is one that calls him ‘aggressive and innovative and he doesn’t give a fuck about anything’. The others range from ‘decent guy’ to ‘slipperier than a donkey’s dick’ (the last, I would stress, is from a journalist who has only seen Oldham’s press performances). Anyhow, there does seem to be some consensus that posting Stan to YouTube without publishing his written consent and a full explanation of what is being done begs various question; as — and several people have said this pointedly — does the posting of edited interviews. You will notice there are plenty of cuts in the tapes. Can we have the full tapes please?

Mr Oldham has not responded to an email to the contact address given on his firm’s site yesterday. I will send another one.

Other points of interest: it seems that Oldham has not acted for Stan on other cases (at least ones I know about). Of course Stan, being a godfather, has almost as many lawyers as girlfriends, and so this is hardly surprising. But it does maintain one’s interest in knowing how Oldham got on the roster for this job. Finally, one who knows Oldham claims the accent is northern Irish, tho it sounded poshed up southern to me.

As to Stan’s choice of lawyer, I think it is good. There is an illustrious history of godfathers using gweilos to front for them when they need to do something very public. Remember all KS Li’s public relations problems at Hutchison in the 80s when he paid himelf a huge special dividend he had said he would not take? That was when he hired Simon Murray. Isn’t it great that everyone trusts white people? I think it’s fan-bloody-tastic.

Go and wait for me in the big bed

June 30, 2009

I am not a big fan of newspaper editorials, most of which are underreported and worth even less of your time than regular newspaper copy. And I am not a big fan of the regular newspaper copy of The New York Times, which I think is overrated by people who think The New York Times must be good cos it’s the NYT (notwithstanding occasional brilliance). Yet I am a fan of the editorial content of The New York Times. Strange? Here is a reasonable example of what their columnists do well, week-in and week-out. It’s a nice wrap, and a nice rap, about Our Silvio as opposed to Dear Obama. But before you Fedex Obama a cigarette, read Clive Crook in The FT who fears, as I have since long before he was elected, that Obama is destined to do what the left does best: disappoint. It might make you think that shagging a teenager or somesuch is the sensible middle road. Or not… (Apologies if you require a subscription to access the FT article; I have one and so cannot tell you.)