TriumphAnt

I think a new standard has just been set for the definition of “stiff upper lip”.

Picture this (and were it not for the fact that it’s a British museum, it would qualify for a scene in any of the “Pink Panther” movies involving the hapless French klutz, Jacques Clouseau):

Some poor museum visitor is shuffling down a staircase in the venerable institution and somehow manages to trip over his own shoelace. (I felt genuine sympathy when I read this, because I’ve actually “fallen” exactly like this – one moment you’re casually descending in stairwalk mode, then suddenly you’re careening downstairs with only one thought – to try to get your feet back underneath you and halt your uncontrolled forward momentum before you kill yourself either by completing the fall onto the stairs, or running full tilt, smack into an immovable object.)

In this case, the falling individual opted for a compromise – running into something that was not quite an immovable object but not quite the stuff of a soft landing either.

What he hit was a trio of 17th century Q’ing dynasty Chinese vases the museum has since characterized as “priceless”. In the process, he shattered all three into “a million pieces”.

Where does the stiff upper lip come in, you ask? Well, afterwards, when it was found that the poor bloke was merely dazed but otherwise uninjured, the museum’s Director said, “It was a most unfortunate and regrettable accident but we are glad that the visitor involved was able to leave the museum unharmed.”

A different museum director might simply have sat at his or her desk, head in hands, and wept inconsolably.

But I also suspect that in the museum’s basement, there’s a small cluster of ceramic conservationist co-workers who high-fived each other when they heard the Director promise the world media (because this story went all around the world) that the vases would be put back together. So when they come into work tomorrow they will be given a large box of Q’ing bits roughly the size of Cheerios and will finally have the chance to do something other than remove microscopic traces of 400-year old dirt from hairline cracks in priceless vases.

(Quotes in the foregoing are all from the mirror.co.UK website for January 30)

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Embezzlement in the news

News item: RCMP lay fraud charges against National Defence contractor
News item: Former Salvation Army accountant admits he stole $2.3 million from charity

What is it about embezzlers that they always seem to overlook the fact that, to the public eye, ostentatious flaunting of excessive wealth might be a clue that something is not quite kosher? In those two stories above, the common thread is just how visibly these clowns lived high off the hog. The National Defence contactor had homes in the Canada and the Turks & Caicos. He claimed he’d hit a run of extraordinarily good luck in the stock market.

The Sally Ann thief was even more obvious. Despite an annual salary of $41,000, he drove two brand new BMWs – one a sport utility vehicle, and lived in a $450,000 home in a high-priced Markham sub-division equipped with two plasma-screen televisions. He didn’t claim anything by way of justification for how he managed his finances. And yet no one seemed to wonder how an accountant for a well-known charitable agency was able to live such an upscale life. (Or if they did wonder, they sure didn’t wonder aloud.)

Now if I were a serious embezzler, you can bet I’d keep my home fairly nondescript on the outside, but on the inside? I would have the single most lavishly equipped basement you’ve ever seen! In fact, I might quite possibly have a multi-storey basement, with a pool and a loft. (Don’t niggle. “Underground lofts” could very well be the next architectural phenom.) But the neighbours would only ever see a patchy front lawn where the grass always seems to struggle to find only the most sporadic of incentives to turn green.

In fact, I would probably pay extra to have the plasma screen televisions delivered in the very early morning hours in a plain white van, and have the packing material hauled away at the same time so I wouldn’t inadvertently have “SPECIAL DISCOUNT FOR 2 GIANT SCREEN PLASMA TVs OFFER” packaging sitting out in plain view at the curb on garbage day.

Who knows? Maybe that’s how “Higher Power” balances things out. The really ugly embezzlers HP might well allow a short time in “high life” mode – but only to make them even more repulsive to the rest of us when their stories break into the public eye. At the same time, he gives them a brain case that contains about 4% organic matter and 96% empty space. And the rest of us, who pre-plan some sort of brilliant plot to avoid advertising the proceeds of our crime, well HP simply endows us with a broad streak of fundamental honesty so our diabolically clever plans, if they leak anywhere beyond our imaginings, only ever make it onto the pages of our diaries.

Or our blogs.

That’s what I’d like to think, anyway.

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I guess it’s a guy thing.

On a recent episode of “Jeopardy”, the category was “’B’ in Fashion” (For anyone unfamiliar with the popular game show, any part of a category that appears within quotation marks must be a part of the answer. If it’s a single letter, as in this case, players know that each answer must begin with the letter “B”).

The clue was, “Item of clothing worn by Madonna that was stolen from the Frederick’s of Hollywood Museum?” and the first contestant to ring in was a guy who answered with what no doubt everyone watching assumed was the correct answer: “bra”.

But instead of rolling on to the next question, quizmaster Alex Trebek next said, “Can you be more specific?”

Now at this point, I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that every guy in the studio and entire viewing audience, confronted with a request to enlarge upon (sorry) “bra”, especially one worn by Madonna, immediately went to his mental thesaurus in search of synonyms like “big”?, “REALLY big”?, “poke-your-eye-out pointy”?, “reinforced to a bursting strength of 1,000 pounds per square inch”?. The hapless (male) contestant clearly had also been brought up short by the request, because his answer was one long sustained, “Uhhhhhhhhhhh…” at which point Alex mercifully interrupted him with “Sorry, time’s up. The answer we were looking for was 'bustier'”.

Now that’s clearly a term which, in print, also applies to Madonna but of course Jeopardy was not about to turn itself into a promo for Hooters, and the word, which Alex confirmed by carefully repeating it aloud, also refers to a specific female undergarment whose name, when spoken, is rendered as “bust-YAY”.

Needless to say, as your ink-stained wretch of a blogger was assembling this item, I of course immediately embarked upon a vigorous Google search for verification of this story’s essential facts. Loyal readers will be pleased to know that I can confirm, in the interests of accurate and thorough reporting, the following facts: 1. Frederick’s of Hollywood does indeed have a Museum, specifically The Frederick’s of Hollywood Lingerie Museum; 2. about a decade ago, a bustier (to be precise, a “bustier with gold-tasseled cups from her video Open Your Heart”), worn by Madonna was indeed stolen from its, uh… collection. Based on the lack of response to date to Frederick’s offer of a $1,000 reward for its return, the thief seems to value this more than the money. Go figger.

And finally, 3. a bustier does indeed incorporate a portion intended to give support to a woman’s (no surprise here) bust. Here’s one definition: “A highly structured garment, which extends from bust to hip. Most bustiers have flexible boning throughout the body of the garment for additional shaping, and close in the back with a long row of hooks and eyes. Additional features may include removable or convertible straps or garters. Smooth bustiers are perfect under special occasion wear as they provide both shaping and uplift.” (From a highly scientific and research-driven website of foundation garment definitions. The accompanying photo is simply to illustrate the product. Really. “Titillation”? Oh, don’t even go there!)

Sheesh! The lengths to which I will go to ensure the factual integrity of this blog… Baby Duck: Not only maintaining the public’s right to know, but also ensuring that what the public knows is correct.

Don’t mention it. Unmentionables, I mean.

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Gratuitous domestic advice.

Wondering how to begin when it comes to cleaning out a peskily stuffed chest freezer? Try this sure-fire, never-fail technique.

1. Invite a sewer company in to run a video camera through your sewer. In the process, have the plumber unplug your freezer for “just a few minutes” while he runs the playback unit on his recorder to show you the whole tour of your sewer line. Then, about ten to 12 days later, open the freezer to pull out a tub of spaghetti sauce. Just for a second, be slightly puzzled by the stream of water that flows off the underside of the lid. “Just for a second”, because that’s the exact amount of time that passes between when you first notice the stream of water before the unbelievable stench roars up your nasal passages and replaces the “Hmmm… I wonder what’s that all about?” with an eyes-watering simultaneous burst of vigorously expressed obscenity that would have drawn appreciative applause from the ramparts of Fort Zinderneuf. Only then do you notice the freezer plug swinging freely beside the receptacle from which it had been removed almost two full weeks earlier.

2. Package an entire freezer’s debilitated contents into several double-thickness heavy-duty garbage bags for disposal at the first upcoming curbside collection. Drench two huge old beach towels with the unspeakably reeking fluids that have pooled inside your now laughably misnamed freezer and immediately fire up a laundry to undo the abuse inflicted on the towels.

Briefly air out the offending appliance, seeking a balance between allowing the stench to drift away from the now empty freezer and restricting its osmosis into every single corner, nook and cranny of the entire house. Apologize to the brace of family cats who each is feverishly pawing her nose while seeking olfactory relief in, of all places, their shared, covered litter box. February temperatures be damned, open the upstairs windows for several minutes.

After not one second more than the very few minutes of this that you can stand (when you can see your breath in the living room), plug your freezer back in. A few minutes later, you will notice that a freezing temperature is a wonderful suppressant of foul smells – the reason, I suppose, for a freezer’s figuring into the occasional episode of the television crime drama, Law and Odour.

And yes, I did that on purpose.

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And finally, file this under “What was he thinking?”

Many, many months ago, on that famous day when Conservative MP Belinda Stronach crossed the floor to an immediate cabinet position with the Liberal government of Paul Martin, Oh my! There was an anguished outcry from the shocked ranks of the Conservatives and their rabid supporters at just how “turned” their rising star’s coat had suddenly become. Conservative (small “c’, that is) bloggers were even more outraged and flung epithets and labels at Ms Stronach that went from the ill-advised to the downright disgusting and personally abusive.

(You just know where this is going, don’t you? So I’ll keep it short.)

In his very first news conference after announcing his first-ever cabinet, newly sworn-in Prime Minister Stephen Harper was asked about the (*ahem*) simultaneous announcement that one of his new cabinet members, David Emerson, was a man elected just days earlier as a Liberal, but who was this day “crossing the floor” and surprise(!) has been given a seat at the Conservative cabinet table (International Trade, if you’re keeping score).

So what does Mr Harper say when asked how he rationalizes this appointment in the face of the howls of outrage that emanated from his side of the floor immediately following the Stronach defection? Well, he’s a man of religion so it shouldn’t surprise anyone to discover that he elected to do a Pontius Pilate: “Well, it's up to Mr. Emerson to explain the situation to his constituents…” (This, despite the fact that the floor-crossing was, by Mr Harper's own admission, instigated at his invitation.)

Meanwhile many of the Tory-supporting bloggers, some of whom either themselves used or, if not, quite tacitly endorsed the label “whore”'s being applied to Ms Stronach all those months ago, have been tying themselves in knots to make sure the shoe can somehow be made to look different when jammed onto a Conservative foot. One of the more widely-read, who blogs under the tag, “Angry in the Great White North”, weaves a veritable Gordian knot of rationalization:

“He will be one of the only people on Stephen Harper's team with any experience in cabinet. So while putting Belinda in cabinet probably lowered the average quality of Paul Martin's cabinet, David Emerson potentially improves it. In other words, all Emerson can offer to Stephen Harper is experience and representation in one of Canada's major cities, both things in short supply in Stephen Harper's Conservatives. Increasing both makes for a better government.”

Uh huh.

What was that eminently quotable bit of middle management advice from the well-known executive search firm, Daltrey, Townsend, Entwhistle and Moon (dec)? Oh yes…

“I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss”