A Kodak Moment Of George W. And Nicolas S.

Ladies and gentlemen, mesdames et messieurs, meine Damen und Herren, ?важаемые го?подины и го?пожа!


Just as we think this world is going to hell, something happens to show us that if even the most powerful men on this planet can fall prey to the most basic of human flaws. We are, afterall, only humans – although the jury is still out in the case of Dubya 😉


Anyways, Someone stole W.’s watch while he was doing the ropes in Albania (the country Greeks and Macedonians call West ;)). Watch carefully… At 3:15, the watch is still on his left wrist, and at 3:06 (it’s a count-down clock) it’s not there anymore… You can see clearly again that is the case at 2:45


Hey, G.W.! What’s the time?


In other news… French president Nicolas Sarkozy provided the undisputable proof that power intoxicates. Namely, his cabinet had made a Belgian TV network apologise for a statement by the anchor that Mr. Sarkozy drank more than just water prior to his G8 newsconference. But the fact that he came to the press conference straight out of a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin strongly suggests that there was vodka involved… See for yourselves:


You want to… burp… ask qest…burp…ions, or do you want a …burp… ment first




It only goes to show that when democratic institutions fail, you can count on the Balkans and Russia to do the right thing and provide one of those Kodak moments 😉


P.S.: This post was inspired by venera’s comment on yesterday’s post.


P.P.S.: A Reuters article claims that Bush’s watch was not stolen… they claim he put it in his pocket.

You can decide who to believe: Reuters or Pengovsky 😀

Published by

pengovsky

Agent provocateur and an occasional scribe.

34 thoughts on “A Kodak Moment Of George W. And Nicolas S.”

  1. Happy to be your inspiration but so unhappy because I cannot see the photos on today’s post. How come?
    OK, I saw Bush’s pic, but this Sarkozy I must go dig out somewhere else. Curiosity is killing this cat.

  2. It’s not a pic… They’re both YouTube videos… They could be so popular that access to them is hindered at times… Then again, you might have Flash-plugin disabled, which prevents you from seeing the videos.

  3. A bit of info on the “Belgian TV vs. Sarkozy” thing (after all, I – still – live here, so I should know, shouldn’t I :P) :

    – The station airing the news was the francophone national broadcasting corporation RTBF, who are (in)famous for taking the mickey out of serious news situations. A few months ago, they even managed to convince our Wallonian brethren and sisters (their audience) that the country had separated by disguising as breaking news a factional documentary they made up about Flanders separating from Wallonia and the king going into exile because Belgium, de facto, had ceased to exist, causing mass anxiety and a few heart attacks south of the language border (yes, we have such a thing, I live about 10 kms from our own version of the Mason – Dixon Line). What it did show was exactly how out of touch with each other both regions are. It created a lot of upheaval.
    – Like now. Because in both cases, neither the Flemish government (we have FIVE governments, by the way) nor president Sarkozy were particularly amused by the story, so in both cases they had to go back on their story, eat humble pie and apologize. Because not all Flemings are separatists (although a lot of us are republicans these days, not in the American sense, mind you), and Sarkozy is reportedly a teetotaler.

    Strike Two for RTBF. What’s next? 😀

  4. But I’m sure they did steal Dubya’s watch, I’m sure of it, because it’s being denied… 😀

  5. I see… However… Sarko is out of breath and rather jolly on the video… I don’t remember any Kodak moments from his campaign. And besides: A teetotalling Frenchman??? Isn’t that like saying a teetotalling Slovene? 😉

  6. Sarkozy, the Teetotaler, came out of a meeting with Putin where the air was so thick with vodka fumes that poor Sarkozy succumbed to Russian Vodkatotalers?
    And Bush, being informed of the favourite pastime of Albanians, though it best to hide his watch for the hand shaking session?
    On Flash-plugin: someone thought me perfectly capable of wrecking my own PC, so I am not the administrator :). No videos for me 🙁

  8. Well, Sarky is of Hungarian descent, which makes him decidedly un- French for starters. It also makes it highly unlikely he would be impartial to alcohol, given his Hungarian roots… 😀

  9. Hehehe… Funny, though, how noone believes the official version of the Bush moment, whereas everyone seem to buy the official French story… That’s the difference between outgoing and fresh president 😉

  10. Another instructive point from Arf: even Belgium has problems! Ignorant outsiders like me imagine Belgium to be one peaceful, problem-free kingdom. Are we to expect new maps being drawn over Belgium? It is nice to know we are all on the same ship and rocking merrily on the rough seas.

  11. Perhaps I should start a blog called ‘Belgium explained to Slovenes’or something,because, boy (or girl), you don’t know half the crap that’s taking place over here. Judging by the clever posts of the ravishing (or so I’ve been told and I trust P’s judgement ;)) Poulette, you’d think all is well here, aside some whistling Walloon construction workers and the lack of Fromageries in Brussels (that’s Brussel sans ‘s’ to us Flemings, to illustrate a – very sore – point :P). But the Fancy Poultry lives, I’m assuming a bit here – in the soft and warm Eurobubble of Belgian Ignorance (no, I’m not trying to offend her, it’s more a posh way of saying that the Euro- community is a society of its own that happens to be here because this is where the EU action is).
    But ever since our inception, Belgium has been a troubled country. We’re pretty much two regions lumped in together without anyone checking if we were compatible and it created and still creates a lot of problems. I’ve been known to say Belgium (well, Flanders anyway) and Slovenija have a lot of similarities and I know that to be true culturally, politically (in a broad sense), as far as the countries sizes go (did you, eg. know that Slovenija is almost exactly 2/3 the size of this country?) and more importantly, their drinking habits? And lots more, even. But it would take me to far to explain all that.
    As for your question about maps needing to be redrawn… Belgian politicians are (in)famous for their knack for compromise (give or take a few intolerant parties), but the winning kartel party, CD&V/NVA has put state reform high on the agenda (state reform in short meaning the split and transfer of certain key federal authorities to the regional governments) which would end up with Wallonia not getting less Flemish money than they do now, because Flanders is the economical bread basket of Belgium and the south, well, isn’t. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? And as you may surmise, the Wallonian politicians don’t happen to like that idea. If I would be a separatist, I’d say something rude like ‘Then they have to work for a living’, because like the common image of the Fleming in Wallonia is that of a hard boiled separatist, a lot of people in this region are pretty much adamant that Walloons are lazy and live on the social security system, which is paid for by ‘us’. And then I haven’t even told you anything about the problems the immigration of Arabs in the 60’s is causing socially these days. Perhaps I should start that blog after all… 😛

  12. ARF!…. What. The. Hell. Are. You. Waiting. For!

    This stuff is so good that it sure deserves to be posted… Would you perhaps like to write a proper post? I’d be more than willing to guest-post it here until you set up your BPB (Belgian Politics Blog)…

    I already see a logo, too 🙂

    which I’m sure you will… 😀

  13. Sounds like a plan! 😀 I’ll give it a stab and mail a first post to you when it’s ready. Could take a few days, though, as I’m as busy as ever(nothing new there ;)).

  14. Thank you for the enjoyable ride into the Belgian hell-hole. (I like to come up with words that probably don’t exist)
    If you will start a blog, do inform me!
    This is all so familiar and so new.

  15. If you think the surface I merely scratched is already a hell hole, you might want to think twice about reading my future blog, venera. 😉 I’m currently to involved into different things to maintain a weblog of my own (let alone mastering WordPress to give it a cool look), so I’ll probably just take up P’s cool offer and do a guest publication and we’ll see where it goes from there… 🙂

  16. You are right, Arf. It is only the tip of the iceberg and I am anxious to get to the root. Can’t wait to read more on Flanders and Wallonians. And, of course, on secret or less secret ties between Slovene politicians and tycoons, which Pengovsky serves daily for breakfast.

  18. Arf, guilty as charged! Your Eurobubble assumptions are indeed spot on. To make matters worse, I watch the BBC and read the Financial Times as opposed to Belgian media. That said, I dare say that I have a slightly better understanding of the Belgian political system than most ex-pats, in that it’s strangely simmilar to the one we had in the former Yugoslavia (funny how things come full circle, non?) – separatist tendencies included. But ignorance is bliss, and I’m quite content not delving into the can of worms that is Belgian politics further – turns out I’ve turned into the type of ex-pat I’ve always despised.
    Still, I do have some beef to take up with you on the Sarko issue – I think you’re mixing apples and oranges when you put the the RTBF mocumentary in the same basket as a sarcastic comment about Sarko’s strange behaviour at the press conference. Whether he was drunk or not, isn’t really the issue – he clearly wasn’t all there that day. I’m mystified as to why the French media – and worse yet, the FOREIGN media – shouldn’t report on this, particularly as I really don’t think this clip served to tarnish his image that drastically. Still, the guys a control freak, so I’m not all that surprised. What I don’t get, however, is why is FLANDERS getting involved in the issue?! And how the hell does a strange press conference of a foreign head of state suddenly become a catalyst for further antagonism between the two regions?

    (NB: I wrote all this super fast, hope it’s understandable!)

  19. As I am at work and have to (sorry, CAN) go home in five minutes, I’ll get back to you on that, Poulette. Suffice it to say for now that you, too, are mixing apples and oranges, as I didn’t really mention the whole Sarky incident being a catalyst for further antagonism between the Belgian regions. But more on that later, from home… 😉

  21. RIGHT! Home is where I reply…

    The reason for putting the mockumentary and the Sarky incident in one basket was for the sole purpose of illustrating the RTBF’s Modus Operandi and how it smacks back in their faces at regular times. I just happened to chose the most recent ones. As I said on my way out of the office, it wasn’t my intention of using the incident becoming a catalyst for antagonism and, even worse, deterioration of communication between Flanders and Wallonia. We have other, far more ‘efficient’ means to do that on both sides of the Language Wall, dear Poulette (you’ll have to wait for the blog to know exactly which ones, venera :P). All this was just considered a non- event here and if anything, there was a CONSENSUS between people in either region that RTBF shouldn’t have apologized for implying Sarky had been hanging on the sauce. By the way, BBC covered – albeit in a small way – the whole row, which probably made it a media event in the first place. But if you go to Youtube and check out the vid of one of our Walloon ministers, d’ Ardenne (yes, that will be a blog post on its own, venera) talking after last year’s municipal elections, you could probably understand where the Sarky Incident came from and why we tend to not take it so seriously as, say, the French… 😀

  26. I think whichever way you slice it, this Dubya thing is bad: either his watch was stolen or he made the assumption that there were thieves in the crowd. The official and unofficial stories are both diplomatic losers.

    As for Sarko, again the same. Either he was drunk and unprofessional or unprofessional for another (too embarassing to mention) reason. Either way, the result is indisputable. I hope there are many more moments like this to come.

    Oh and I agree with everyone that I would love to see an ARF blog and not just Belgium for Slovenes but Belgium for the world, I had no idea about any of this!

  28. lol! Ok, ok, I’ll try to come up with a guest post for this weekend. I have a few ideas and as I’ve talked to SMIRF about this (P., you remember SMIRF, don’t you?) he gave me some more ideas. I could be in for the long haul on this one… 😐

  31. 😯 it is then. 😉 As for capitalizing SMIRF; it’s something that’s analogue to us greeting each other, where we shout each other’s nick name. He’ll yell ‘ARF!!’ and I’ll yell ‘SMIRF!!’ 😆

  32. Oh, and for some reason, smileys don’t work at the beginning of the comment if you don’t preceede them with a blank space 😕

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