The Chasing iamb

This just in from ResoluteReader who is spitting mad and not falling about laughing like I am . Apparently on Friday after the Big Brother controversy, London Paper, one of the free newspapers circulated in Central London did a helpful double page spread to explain to the goras who Shilpa Shetty is. And here is RR reporting live.

RR: And to help their readers they helpfully gave them their names, and the names of the Hollywood actress they are most like! Betraying ignorance on many levels but firstly -forgetting that a significant proporation of their readership is from the Indian region and probably knows the actresses very well and secondly, thinking that the rest of us care. Do you know what the most important factor about these actresses was, according to the feature? How much they are paid per film. We are expected to gasp at the fact that someone earns £200,000 per film but nothing was made of the fact that the "similar" Hollywood actress would have added a zero to the figure.

So according to the paper, Shilpa Shetty is Sandra Bullock, Kajol is Julia Roberts,  Rani Mukherjee is Nicole Kidman. Preity Zinta is Renee Zellweger, Priyanka Chopra is Cameron Diaz. Kareena Kapoor is Drew Barrymore. 

Sample these nuggets of info: "Priyanka Chopa, 24, a model turned actress who has the power to make any man go weak at the knees - she is the Cameron Diaz of the group. More renowned for her stunning looks than her acting ability, Priyanka like Diaz, has landed a number of plum roles in big films because of her beauty."  "A Bollywood pedigree (the Kapoors are one of the biggest acting famillies in India), she's been in the biz from a young age - a Drew Barrymore without the druggie years. But baffingly, the busty beauty regularly gets flooded with offers despite being inconsistent at the box office."  And so it goes on. It's like we're discussing race horses or dogs, fumed RR.

RR wants me to make it very clear that his attitude is one of lip curled cynicism as it befits a good socialist. He does not want his reputation tarnished by the idea that he spend his tube journeys looking at pictures of attractive asian actresses.

Note: I can at least bear witness to his ignorance and general disinterest in anyone but a certain hot socialist.

Spellcheck just bought me a copy of Satrapi's Embroideries  I opened the door to the courier and there it was. Grin. Grin.

Also: I have decided that if Terry Pratchett ever stops writing or stops giving us names like Visits-Infidels-With-Cunning-Arguments then we can always turn to the Korean Central News Agency.

Today in Pyongyang :
"  Great Vitality of Music-based Politics    Pyongyang, January 18 (KCNA) -- The music-based politics of the Workers' Party of Korea has brought about a great turn in the development of the Korean revolution and its validity and indestructible vitality is being displayed to the fuller as the days go by. Kim Jong Il, who set forth a unique idea that a genuine music should meet the demand of the times and contribute to the mission of the times in the early period of his revolutionary activities, has wisely led the work of creating famous art pieces representing the times at each stage of the revolutionary development.
    There are many famous songs including "Blue Sky over My Country," "We Will Advance with Confidence," "The Road of Victory" and "All Servicepersons and People Will Become Human Bullets and Bombs." For their high ideological and artistic value, they infuse confidence and optimism into the Korean people.
    The contest of artistic groups of KPA officers’ wives which shows a new chapter of the revolutionary soldiers' culture and the national singing contest of working people are held annually amid his concern, giving a revolutionary stamina and enthusiasm to the servicepersons and working people.
    The vitality of the music-based politics is being manifested more clearly in the Songun era.
    The Korean people, loudly singing songs, have won victory after victory in the fierce showdown with the U.S. imperialists without gun-firing and opened up a broad vista for building a great, prosperous and powerful nation, successfully undergoing the "Arduous March" and the forced march.
    The Merited State Chorus of the Korean People's Army vigorously aroused the army and people to the struggle for defending socialism in the 1990s when grave situation was created in the country owing to the moves of the imperialists to stifle the DPRK.
    Startling miracles and labor feats are being made in many units from the beginning of the year. These are unthinkable apart from brisk mass cultural and artistic activities.
    The working people of Korea are registering signal successes in all working sites of the socialist construction such as the agricultural and power, coal-mining, metal industry and rail transport sectors, singing louder the songs of struggle and advance.
    The music-based politics is certain to bring earlier the building of a great, prosperous powerful nation. "