From Funeral Strippers to Nude Dining
As a columnist, on and off again for thirty years or so, I am often asked the same question, “How do you come up with a different idea each week?” Well, at the risk of giving the secret away, I have to confess it’s easier than it may seem. All you have to do is read two or three newspapers a day, watch the evening news and scan a half dozen magazines. There’s always someone out there doing something stupid.
Mind you some weeks are harder than others. Fortunately, when all else fails, there’s Donald Trump but even chronicling his endless antics, vulgarities, inanities and outright lies can wear a bit thin at times. To give The Donald a break, other politicians are easy targets as well and do their fair share of silly things, just not with the same frequency as the master of the tweet.
This week was a perfect example. It’s hard to resist a headline like the one in yesterday’s National Post, “Government Cracks Down On Funeral Strippers.” It appears in rural China that organizers of funerals are going all out to increase attendance on the theory a big turnout honours the dead and brings them good fortune wherever they’re heading.
Being China, however, means the government is stepping in to end stripteases and other “obscene, pornographic, and vulgar performances” at funerals, weddings and other public affairs. Makes you wonder what else they’re doing. The guardians of moral rectitude have also set up a hotline which offers cash rewards for ratting out family and friends who would rather have a fan dance than two verses of Amazing Grace.
Then there’s the massive shortage of chicken at Britain and Ireland’s 900 Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets. Apparently, the new supplier of roasters hasn’t worked out its delivery system yet leaving only about 300 outlets in operation. According to the report, fast food fans – which is about 90 per cent of Britain’s population – are in a tizzy. Given the fact they have fish and chips shops and some of the best curry take-out joints outside of the sub continent to fall back on, it’s hard to weep for the Colonel’s fans.
One of the big stories of the past week is the outrage being stirred up in the media at the Indian government’s snubbing of Prime Minister Selfie and his family as they tour Asia’s second largest nation. Trudeau the Younger is trying to drum up better business connections with this growing economic power. The Indian government, on the other hand, thinks Trudeau and the Liberal Party are much to cozy with the Sikh community in Canada who it believes harbours many separatists who are actively campaigning for an independent Punjab.
So far it appears that the only government representative Trudeau has met was a tour guide at the Taj Mahal who doubles as a janitor when he’s not greeting heads of foreign states. Always in a search for a better photo op the Prime Minister and his family actually donned traditional Indian clothing with the PM coming across looking like something from a late Beatles album jacket.
Still, the truly oddest article I came across this week was one in The New Yorker dealing with the latest rage in the gastronomical capital of the world, Paris. O’naturel is not, as you possibly think, a rare Irish surname, but the City of Lights’ first nudist restaurant. That’s right. Not clothing optional but mandatory, conceal-nothing, out-front nude dining. Check your hat and of course your pants, shirt, jacket, tie, dress, panty hose, socks and unmentionables in the changing room. You even have to leave your smart phone behind. They do provide you with a pair of comfy, white terry cloth slippers but that’s it.
The restaurant apparently seats forty brave patrons and lacks the cozy ambient lighting of your better dining spots preferring, in the words of the author, “the rousing brightness of a bank manager’s office.” The good news is that French law at least prohibits the kitchen staff and the servers from checking their own clothing before going to work.
So there you have it. As I said from the outset, picking a topic is not a problem because that old adage is as true today as it was yesterday. Truth is indeed far stranger than fiction.