Tiny Bit Racist Canada.

You'll be glad to know that yesterday shoppers at an Ikea store in Toronto, Canada came face to face with a Macaque monkey wearing a tiny, tailored sheepskin coat acting like he was people. Having been dubbed the 'IkeaMonkey' he's gone on to become something of an Internet sensation with his own Twitter account and a host of tribute videos on Youtube.

Although you wouldn't think this story could get any more strange I actually think it's a Canadian response to the Rihanna/Chris Brown Reunion that threatened to become a major theme of the COP18/CMP8. More specifically it deals with the 'Rehabilitaton of Rihanna' theme that Britain has been running since the para-Olympic closing ceremony. One of the reasons Britain cited as why Rihanna needs intervention in her life is her habit of appearing in public wearing not very many clothes. The shooting of the "We Found Love" video being a particular example. Looking at photographs of her now in northern European during what is only the beginning of the winter it's hard to not find yourself exclaiming; "Well at least now she knows why in this part of the world people are shocked when they see someone choosing not to wear clothes!" However the point the Canadians seem to be trying to make is that large swathes of the north American continent regularly experience weather as bad if not worse then a northern European winter therefore the exercise is a little meaningless.

The use of the monkey is a reference to a type of 19th century street entertainment that was popular in Europe especially Germany and the Netherlands where a man would play a mechanical organ while a captive Macaque monkey would be forced to dance along. This led to an expression whereby if you wanted to speak to someone's superior or in espionage terms their handler you would ask to speak to the organ grinder rather then the monkey. This seems to be a little Canadian hint to the US that no-one believes that the Rihanna/Brown reunion is spontaneous or a I suppose natural but they are very interested to know why the US is continuing to run an operation that is only going to result in harm to them.

On a related note the viewing figures for last night's UK X-Factor final are in and they show that even bringing out the big guns like Rihanna and her accompanying scandal the show only scraped 9 million viewers which is less then half what you would expect. It's also only almost a third of Rihanna's Twitter followers. So while that does promote a discussion about traditional media versus new media it does serve to underline the fact that even if Rihanna can be provoked into a war with traditional media outlets her career's not going to be disappearing anytime soon meaning the shame will follow the US around for a good while yet.

15:45 on 10/12/12.

Edited at around 19:30 on 10/12/12 to add: I hope the rumours I've been hearing about Rihanna and Chris Brown spending the New Years holiday together in Barbados are just that - rumours. That's because in the current climate I can easily see a small nation like Barbados being squished between the Commonwealth Realm of which it is part and the US over the issue. In fact while it's deliberately complicated and confusing I think an element of Britain's current gay marriage push is them going; "Please don't put us in a position where we have to ask if there's any lawful impediment why these two should not be joined in holy matrimony." There is also a suspicion that the US is trying to engineer circumstances in which Barbados gets so p*ssed off with Rihanna she's encouraged to give up her citizenship and take up US citizenship ending that hot debate about the US denying dual citizenship post-9/11. So if it must happen I'd much prefer it to happen in the US.