Wednesday, September 22, 2010
Gaddafi's Italian blunder
Colonel Gaddafi must be feeling like a complete ass. On a recent visit to Italy, he invited 700 call girls to listen to him pontificate on women’s problems and his important role in solving them. In a fit of zealous pride, he urged them to migrate to Libya, boasting that the status of women in his country was an example to the world. The call girls naturally took this to mean that prostitutes earned fabulous rates of pay there, and a dozen or so eager beavers flew to Tripoli to make their fortunes.
On arriving, they were shocked to discover that hookers in Libya were paid less than the average shoe-shine boy. When they tried plying their trade in hotel bars frequented by foreign nationals they were shooed away like cats. Nor were they allowed to advertise their services in high-quality periodicals like the Camel Breeder’s Gazette. Enraged by this turn of events, they rushed to berate Gaddafi in his tent, telling him that unless he reimbursed their expenses they would tell everyone that Libya was a shit-hole. Gaddafi had no option but to cough up the cash and apologise for having misled them, which he blamed on a mistranslation of his words. The girls then returned to Italy and told everyone that Libya was a shit-hole.
The actual position of women in Libya is not a topic on which I have reliable information. Certainly, the young ladies in Gaddafi’s bodyguard detail must have a pretty cushy life – a woman who walks around with a semi-automatic weapon slung over her shoulder doesn’t have to take crap from anyone. As for the rest of the female population, who really knows? The Colonel likes to present himself as a progressive revolutionary type, but men in that part of the world are used to wearing the trousers and hogging the poufs. If a wife gets too lippy with her husband she might find herself being bartered for a goat at the souk.
To find out where women are truly respected, one must ignore the rhetoric and look at actual behaviour. Take the recent example of Senor Gustavo Rojas, a candidate for Venezuela’s National Assembly. He is raising funds for his campaign by means of a raffle in which the first-prize is breast enlargement surgery. The fact that he chose such a prize shows his interest in women’s issues and his desire to attract their support – or more particularly, the support of women who want bigger boobs. On getting elected, he will no doubt offer the winner of the raffle a secretarial position in his office.
Now recognising a woman’s right to have big jugs (should she wish to) doesn’t mean a society has dealt with all its gender issues. The political classes in Venezuela should view this as a stepping stone for other equally important rights, such as a firm and peachy butt. But it does make one wonder what Colonel Gaddafi would have to say if he toured Venezuela on a fact-finding mission, meeting the flower of its voluptuous womanhood. I wouldn’t be surprised if his famous eloquence deserted him, and he found himself tripping over his tongue.
Labels: breast implants, Gaddafi, Italian call girls, Venezuela
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Colonel Kooky
An American woman at the safari guesthouse asks me whether Colonel Gaddafi dyes his hair.
“I am not familiar with the contents of his bathroom cabinet, ma’am,” I reply, “but my guess would be that he doesn’t. Mr Gaddafi sleeps in a tent, and humans who favour the camping lifestyle tend to view hair-dying as a decadent affectation.”
“Yeah, it looks like his natural colour,” she agrees. “I always thought he was cute in a kooky kind of way. Back in college I used to have dreams about him.”
“Really? I hope his conduct was gentlemanly.”
“I guess so. I’m like dying of thirst in the desert and Gaddafi drives up in his jeep. He gets out and stares at me while I’m gasping on the ground. Then he puts a bottle of Evian to my lips and says “drink, baby, drink” in this soothing Arab voice. I gulp it down in one go.”
“How very thoughtful of him. Did he do anything else?”
“No, after drinking the water I always wake up and go to the bathroom.
“A wise precaution in the circumstances,” I remark.
She wouldn’t be the first woman to have fallen for Gaddafi’s diabolical charm. His all-female bodyguard detail reputedly adore him. Many have wondered whether those fierce little houris ever visit his tent for a puff on the presidential hookah. My own view is that Gaddafi’s preference for female bodyguards is entirely pragmatic. He doesn’t want some burly fellow throwing him to the ground and shielding his body from would-be assassins. If anyone took a suggestive photo of such an incident, it would be curtains for his political career. The one thing a dictator can never do is get a reputation for taking it up the butt. All the Roman emperors who were exposed as sodomites came to a sticky end soon afterwards.
The turning point in the Libya’s foreign policy came in 1991, when a cabal of old-school Bolsheviks put Gorbachev under house arrest. Unable to contain his glee, Gaddafi sent a congratulatory telegram to the new Soviet junta, lavishing praise on the size of their testicles. He was the only national leader to do so, for a couple of days later the coup plotters were behind bars. This left Gaddafi looking like the biggest chump since Elmer Fudd said “I hate that wabbit!”. Chastened by the experience, he vowed never again to suck up to the fickle Russians, and sucked up to the fickless West instead. To President Clinton, in fact, who was known to appreciate a bit of sucking up.
Almost two decades later, who can deny that Gaddafi has matured with age? Having renounced his military uniform, which made him look like a tin pot dictator, he now wears the more statesmanlike Ali Bongo costume (available at Hamleys Toyshop for 49 pounds sterling). Should I invite him to the jungle for a complimentary safari holiday? I think not. Gaddafi is a nervous, fidgety character who wouldn’t be comfortable near wild animals. The baboons would smell his fear and initiate stalking manoeuvres. It might end in an ugly incident.
Labels: Dreams, Elmer Fudd, Gaddafi, Houris
