“Idiot wind
Blowing every time you move your teeth
You're an idiot, babe
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe”
- Bob Dylan, Idiot Wind, Track 4, Blood on the Tracks, 1975
It seems that an increasing number of VIPs have been struggling in the oxygen uptake business this week. As you enjoy your weekend activities please spare a thought for the poor souls quoted below…it’ll cost you nothing and it may help to steer them away from almost certain asphyxiation and towards a ‘nice lie down’:
The UK:
“In the most extreme circumstances we have made it very clear that you can’t rule out the use of nuclear weapons as a first strike”
- Michael Fallon, UK Minister of Defence; BBC Radio 4, Today Programme, 25th April
“I think it will be very difficult if the United States has a proposal to have some sort of action in response to a chemical weapons attack, and if they come to us and ask for our support, whether it’s with submarine-based cruise missiles in the [Mediterranean], or whatever it happens to be, as was the case back in 2013, it would be in my view, and I know this is also the view of the Prime Minister, it would be very difficult for us to say no”
- Boris Johnson, UK Foreign Secretary; BBC Radio 4, Today Programme, 27th April
By contrast (but please don’t reveal me as your source on this), there was at least one VIP in the UK who maintained her O2 at an acceptable level:
“Phillip, did you hear the Today Programme again this morning? Can’t anybody rid one of those dreadful people? No, not those dreadful people, the bloody cabinet”
- Elizabeth, a resident of Windsor
Russia:
N.B: The following VIP was lapsing in and out of consciousness when he posted the following on Facebook; thus you will notice moments of cogency interspersed with ramblings from the id:
"I think that the statement by the minister of defence of Britain's Michael Fallon deserves a harsh response, and I'm not afraid to push him over the edge. At best this statement should be seen as a certain element of psychological warfare, which looks especially revolting in this context. There is a quite natural question then: what country could be primitively targeted by the UK? If against nuclear power, the United Kingdom, which doesn't have the greatest of territories, will literally be erased from the face of the earth with a retaliatory strike. But if it is targeting a non-nuclear power, this will remind of the US nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But that time has long passed, as has the time of the former greatness of the British Empire"
- Frants Klintsevich, Deputy Head, Russian Federation Council -Committee for Defence and Security; 26th April
North Korea:
“Nobody should doubt the super potency of the magnificent response capability of our glorious revolutionary people’s army of well fed heroes and super dangerous combatants; not to mention our world leading nuclearness and the inter-continentanality of our hugest of missiles”
- On behalf of North Korea by someone in North Korea - it doesn’t matter who because nobody is allowed to disagree anyway. But in the interests of transparency I must add that my ‘Korean’ is not that good, and he may have actually said “Someone get me another box of Wagonwheels”
The US:
From an interview in ‘Politico’, 24th April:
Susan Glasser:
“Are the affections of The Blob so easily won that all Donald Trump has to do is launch 59 Tomahawk missiles and everybody is cheering him?”
Paul Wolfowitz:
“I think there is a fantastic opportunity here. It’s only a first step; it’s only an opportunity. If nothing is done to follow up on it, it will start to seem a little bit silly in retrospect; certainly the enthusiasm will seem silly. But more importantly it will look like a lost opportunity in retrospect. I mean, imagine if we had simply walked away from Bosnia after that first, initial military strike and not done anything and the war then continued. I mean, that would be the model of what not to do in Syria, I think. And it fortunately wasn’t done in Bosnia”
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/24/paul-wolfowitz-the-full-transcript-215060
And finally:
“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets”
- Voltaire
Of course, Voltaire has been dead for some years now, and apparently he was breathing quite normally at the time he said this…so I’m sorry, I’ve no idea how this quote crept in…hey ho…
Have a good weekend, and remember to breathe...