Reading this piece talking about Jon Stewart’s new set for The Daily Show is worthwhile. I did raise a smile at “Senior UK and Falkland Islands Correspondent” Rob Corddry’s disgust at the lack of national pride./
C’mon! Where are the bumper stickers, the Union Jack lapel pins, the wanted dead or alive posters?
This American likes his sorrow in t-shirt form!
This immediately me think back to seeing George Bush at the G8 conference last week. As ever, he wore his Stars and Stripes lapel badge. Here’s Bush arriving.
But Bush isn’t alone. Several of the world leaders sported one badge or another. Personally speaking, if I was the US President, I’d hope that my face alone would be enough for most people to recall that I basically ran my country. Having the visual indicator seems a bit too much. Is it something to do with living in an MTV society where we can’t remember anything from one moment to the next?
The photos on the G8 site are a bit too small to see, but what badge is being worn by Mexico’s President Vicente Fox Quesada, the International Energy Agency’s Claude Mandil, the Secretary General of United Nations Kofi Annan, Director of the World Trade Organisation Supachai Panitchpakdi, and James Bond villain and star of The Power of Nightmares, Paul Wolfowitz?
Is it a badge of the G8 meeting itself? Can anyone buy one as a souvenir? I mean, it’s not as though it’s the same as a laminate that gets you back stage at a gig or something. And these people are supposed to be free trade advocates aren’t they, so you’d have thought that they’d have set up a webstore or something. At the very least you should be able to get stuff via Cafe Press. That doesn’t even cost you anything to set up.
There’s a big trade in “pins” as Americans call them, so anyone with any idea would at the very least get theirs on Ebay pronto and clean up (I’ve had a look, and I couldn’t see anything beyond Make Poverty History bands – glad nobody’s profiteering off those then).
Finally, I suppose I really shouldn’t have been surprised to learn that the G8 conference is actually sponsored! It’s true. Look for yourself here. What do Ford, Sun and Diageo get out of it then? Better trading terms in China or something? And does this mean that I can sponsor a term of Parliament perhaps? How much will it cost to get my logo stitched into the breast pocket of Tony Blair’s suit for Prime Minister’s Questions?
