Darwin guy close to getting a Darwin Award

In this blog, here, I’ve already mentioned the prestigious annual Darwin Awards. They’re necessarily posthumous awards, because a winner has to have done something immensely stupid, to such an extent that he kills himself, whereby benefiting humanity through the removal of his ugly chromosomes from the human gene pool. The standards for receiving this award might appear to be excessively high, but the underlying idea is that, if a candidate doesn’t kill himself, then he wasn’t stupid enough to deserve a prize. You might say that such a failed candidate demonstrates, through his survival, that he wasn’t sufficiently altruistic or self-abnegating, with respect to his fellow men, to be a winner.

In the case of the following fellow, with a shirt hiding his face, all I can say is that he came bloody close to getting an award. The ATM [automated teller machine] that he succeeded in blowing up knocked him backwards onto the ground, but the explosion didn’t have quite enough force to blow his stupid head off. Pity.

I was most impressed by the way in which the guy got back up immediately onto his feet, tore the shirt off his face, and headed off away from the camera. When I was a kid in Australia, we had a nice expression that sums up this kind of sporting prowess:
He took off like a bat out of Hell.

This would have been a particularly poignant Darwin Award, because the fellow’s act took place in Winnellie, which happens to be a suburb of the Northern Territory town of Darwin. What a shame he failed.

Incidentally, among the comments of well-wishers who appreciated this fascinating video, I was really pissed off by an American who talked as if our hero were a citizen of God’s Own Country… and moreover a Republican. Bloody pretentious Yanks. It’s time they realized that, Down Under, we’ve got individuals who are just as brilliantly idiotic as the dumbest US specimens.

Bon voyage

I would have liked to publish this blog post yesterday... but (as Bill Shakespeare put it, so succinctly) better late than never. The last time I spoke about links between the French railway system and the city of Sydney in Australia was almost 7 years ago in a blog post entitled Silly sendup of Sydney by French railways [display]. Happily, things have evolved a lot since then. Yesterday morning—on April 1, 2014, a great date in links between France and Australia—the electronic departure board at the train station in Lille, France’s great northern capital near the Belgian border, announced the inauguration of the first-ever train service from France to Sydney, with its departure set for 11h40 (exactly 23 minutes after the departure of the regular train from Lille to Los Angeles).

As a former resident of Sydney, and now a naturalized French citizen, I must admit that I was totally shocked by the absence of our ambassador at Lille, to bid farewell and Bon voyage to the adventurous inaugural passengers. To understand the full meaning of “adventurous”, simply take a look at a map of the world. Fortunately, the trip is remarkably cheap: a mere $1000 for a return trip. If interested travellers care to send me that meagre amount (multiplied, of course, by the number of people in their group), I’ll make a point of obtaining tickets as soon as possible.

New lesbian in heaven

This morning, I accomplished my good Mormon deed of the day. I accessed a recently-created website, http://alldeadmormonsarenowgay.com, that enables kindhearted Internet users such as me to perform a worthy miraculous act. First, I requested that they select for me, automatically, a deceased Mormon... which they did, instantly.

The website supplied me with the name of a dead person about whom I know absolutely nothing... apart from the fact that the individual in question was no doubt a female (since the person's name is Jennifer Lee), and that she was apparently Mormon. I also know nothing whatsoever concerning the actual circumstances in which Jennifer Lee became a baptized member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Was she born that way, or has somebody transported her soul posthumously into the community? Regardless of my substantial ignorance concerning the dead Mormon with whom I was dealing, I acted swiftly. I clicked the conversion button... and the late Jennifer Lee was transformed instantly into a lesbian. All I can hope for now is that she'll run into a host of nice hot female friends up there in the celestial Mitt Romney Land.

I've just heard on the US news that the Republican's wife Ann claims: "I don't even consider myself wealthy." Jeez, that sentiment worries me. I hope that Jennifer is not trying to screw up my conversion operation by running around up there and telling all the angels: "I don't even consider myself gay." Is it possible that there might be leftover bugs in the conversion software?

BREAKING NEWS: I was disgusted, this morning, to learn that zealous Mormons have wittingly offended countless members and friends of the Jewish community by daring to baptize the Holocaust martyr Anne Frank into their crazy sect.

Action will start in Australia

Here in France, it has just turned midnight. The time in my native land, Australia, is 8 hours in advance of France (since God decided—as explained with mathematical precision in the book of Genesis—that the Sun would rise in the east and set in the west, and that the International Date Line would pass through the middle of the Pacific Ocean). So, at this moment, it's just after 8 o'clock on the final morning: Saturday, May 21, 2001.

My lucky Aussie compatriots will be witnessing the return of King Jesus within roughly 10 hours… but nobody—neither religious leaders, government leaders nor journalists—seems to be in a position to indicate the exact place where the Savior will be making his initial appearance. There's a persistent rumor that this world-shaking event will be taking place in Sydney, maybe on top of the Harbour Bridge, or on the lawns of the Botanic Gardens. But a group of federal politicians has claimed that the only fit site for such a happening would be Canberra, the hub of the nation. Some people are even suggesting that the return of Jesus will be taking place in a country setting, at the easternmost tip of the continent, in the vicinity of Byron Bay.

Whatever the exact site, I'll be tuning into the Internet, first thing tomorrow morning, to dive into Australian media stories concerning the big event. Then we'll spend the day awaiting impatiently the arrival of Jesus in France. Nicolas Sarkozy has already announced that Christ will normally be alighting, as everybody hopes, on the upper platform of the Eiffel Tower, where his arrival will be highlighted by a flyover of air-force jet fighters, followed in the evening by a gigantic fireworks display. But, if ever the wind conditions were excessive, rendering this operation dangerous, it has been suggested that the Rapture will be taking place near the Place de la Concorde, at the lower extremity of the Champs Elysées, at exactly the same place where the final stage of the Tour de France terminates. If this were to be the case, then Jesus would be expected, as usual, to undergo a urine test for doping before being officially welcomed by the president of the République and the mayor of Paris. Accompanied by mounted horsemen of the Garde Républicaine, Jesus would then be driven in a cavalcade up to the Arc de Triomphe, where he would lay a wreath on the tomb of the Unknown Warrior. Finally, if any time remained (a big question mark, to say the least), the Son of God would be invited to a state dinner at the Elysées Palace.

BREAKING NEWS: This extraordinary image by Australian news photographer Mike Angelo reveals the scenes of chaos and panic this afternoon at 6 o'clock at Sydney Airport as heaven-bound Christians collided with tourists and angels in the turmoil of the Rapture.

For the moment, there are no ecclesiastic explanations as to why so many folk are getting around stark naked… which is not particularly pious behavior. Reported sightings of Jesus Christ are being checked by police, air traffic authorities and weather bureau officials.

Silly sendup of Sydney by French railways

Don't ask me why the French railway system, known as the SNCF, is using the Internet to peddle low-budget flight tickets to Sydney. Admittedly, if I were to purchase such a combined rail/air packaged deal, the SNCF would take care of the train trip to the overseas flight terminus, say in Paris. But I still can't understand what the French railway system has to gain by proposing round trips to such a faraway place as Australia.

Be that as it may, the reason I've brought up this matter is to show you how an apparently serious French organization such as voyages-sncf.com attempts to handle the case of Sydney and Australia in lowbrow web publicity that's meant to be funny. This might give you an insight into the way in which some French people imagine Australia... on a par with the Australian image of the French as arrogant frog-eaters wearing berets. But I warn you: this stuff is not particularly funny.

The publicity starts with a banner showing a wooden shed in the fields:

The sign on the shed, Salle des fêtes, might be translated as "festival hall". But the label in italics means "grand opera hall": a facetious allusion to Sydney.

The next banner shows male underclothes on a clothes line, labeled "kangaroos":

To appreciate the intended humor here, you need to know that the old-fashioned style of underpants with a pouch for male genitalia has always been designated in French as the "kangaroo" model of underpants. Subtle, no?

The third banner introduces a welcome sign to a French town called Cidenet:

Now, if you pronounce this alleged place-name in French [in reality, I don't think that any such place exists in France], it sounds a bit like the way that French people say "Sydney". Hilarious, no?

Finally, the fourth banner offers a return flight to Sydney for the low sum of 1014 euros, and it includes the name of the French railways website:

For the moment, I haven't checked to find out whether this low-cost offer is really valid. If so, it's certainly cheap.

Meanwhile, if you click on any of the above banners, you're invited to watch a mediocre series of filmed gags in the same spirit as the banners. The movie starts as follows:

We gather that the guy in shorts with a speleo helmet and lamp, on the outskirts of Cidenet/Sydney, is supposed to be a contestant in a TV game, receiving phone instructions from the organizers concerning a trial he's expected to perform.

Next, we see the contestant in closeup:

We learn that he's supposed to find his way, as quickly as possible, to the Great Barrier Reef.

Then we change to a side-splitting image (?) labeled "kangaroos of Cidenet", showing three individuals carrying their backpacks on their tummies:

The next nondescript landscape is labeled "gateway to the Cidenet desert" (which suggests that the movie creator imagines that the real Sydney is located on the edge of a desert):

Then we are offered an image of a building [no doubt altered by Photoshop] labeled "Cidenet opera house":

To appreciate the next two climactic scenes in this moronic movie, you need to know that the French refer to our Great Barrier Reef as the Coral Barrier. Now, the name "Coral" has been used for ages (I don't know why) to designate the old-fashioned trains still found in the French countryside. And the word "barrier" is used in French to designate a level-crossing. So, if you've grasped all that required background information, you might understand the sense of the image:

Here, the contestant is informing the organizers of the TV game that he has just arrived at the Coral Barrier, in fact a level-crossing on a country line where Coral-type trains run.

The following image then shows our hero wearing flippers and fooling around on a surf board, on the ground alongside the tracks, while the Coral train roars past:

Finally, a curious warning message informs us awkwardly that the film was made using trick cinema (?), and that we should not attempt to copy it:

Three aspects of this stupid presentation remain mysterious:

(a) What's it all about?

(b) Did French railways pay money to get this idiotic stuff produced?

(c) Is their low-cost flight offer valid?

A positive outcome of my encounter with this rubbish is that I now have a revised outlook upon the much talked-about Australian tourism publicity that concludes with an uncouth question: "What the bloody hell are you waiting for?" Not so long ago, I tended to be ironic about this advertising strategy. But, by comparison with the French parody about Sydney, that Aussie spot now appears to me as a pinnacle of refined intelligence, elegant language and sophisticated humor.

Things I don't wish to talk about

Towards the end of my recent post entitled Childhood myths [click here to display it], I said that I didn't wish to use my blog to publicize the moronic thinking of an Aussie expatriate named Ham in the USA who believes that Noah's Ark was a relatively recent reality, and that it carried dinosaurs. Likewise, after weeks of Internet boredom and fatigue due to constant descriptions of an empty-headed bird whose daddy owns big hotels everywhere (according to the latest news, she's now a jailbird), I've reached a state of extreme irritation in which I refuse to even mention the name of the fat-faced wig-wearing Aussie gangster whose story is nevertheless in today's headlines of The Australian. By the same token, I don't intend to comment upon his girlfriend who outsmarted French police, who were supposed to be tracking her, by leading them on a wild goose chase to Disneyland. [It's possible that the French police chief might not have assigned his most brilliant detectives to this international surveillance task.] I'm aware of the fact that no less a man than the prime minister of Australia, John Howard, has thought it fit and necessary to speak about the capture of this gangster, who in turn has thought it fit and necessary to speak about John Howard. As for me, I refuse to use my blog to speak about any of these individuals, not even the prime minister of Australia. In this whole mediocre arena of non-news, the only exception I'm prepared to make consists of guiding you to the latest Nicholson animation, excellent as usual, on the dumb jailbird. Just position your mouse on her stupid face and click as if you were giving her a slap.