Tuesday 19 February 2013

Performance Rih-View Time


It should come as no surprise to learn that Rihanna's recent (15/2/13 - 17/2/13) trip to London, UK to launch her Spring/Summer clothing line for River Island had very little to do with the Autumn/Winter (2013) shows at London Fashion Week (LFW). Instead it was supposed to serve as a test run for Rihanna's forthcoming "Diamonds" music tour. That is to say it provided an opportunity for any problems to be unidentified and possible solutions discussed.

The main issue for the tour is going to be Rihanna's travel plans and transfer between different nation states. This is important because it allows us to know under exactly whose jurisdiction Rihanna is operating at any given point. It will also impact on the spread of rumours such as Rihanna having to cancel her say Belgium concert because she's been locked up in say a Cambodian psychiatric facility. The official announcement from the US (asteroid 2012 DA14) of Rihanna's departure from the US was out by a margin of around five hours. There was no official announcement on Rihanna's arrival in the UK. The official US announcement of Rihanna's departure from the UK (Danica Patrick's Daytona 500 pole position) was out by a margin of some two hours. There was no official announcement of her return to the US.

For her part - under some pressure - Rihanna did eventually take to Twitter to announce her departure from the US. However there was no announcement of her arrival in the UK or her departure from the UK. She did though make a confirmation of her arrival back in the US. However this was done in such a heavily coded manner unless you were really paying attention this would have caused more problems then it solved. The normal method of reporting Rihanna transferring between nation states (airport paparazzi pictures) took place as she left the US but stopped immediately after. This seemed fair because that reporting method is always delayed by several hours, requires people to expose intelligence networks and can disappear entirely when private jets are being used at small airports.

A simpler solution would be to post photographs of airport signs after take off or arrival at the hotel.

The other major issue for the Diamonds tour will be whether Chris Brown intends to join Rihanna. This is important because there are many people on this earth who will quite happily kill Chris Brown. Up until now the US have been intending to have fun with this by using Chris Brown's security as an issue to put pressure on nations hosting the Diamonds tour. However in some of the rougher nations such as Turkey, Morocco and to some extent Poland it genuinely may not be up to the state security services to decide if Brown lives or dies. Not least of the reasons for this is that if I was currently working in US intelligence I'd be very seriously considering putting together a kill team to solve the problem while embarrassing the nation that hosted the actual killing.

For the London trip Chris Brown's Twitter account was used to announce that he wouldn't be joining Rihanna by confirming that he'd be appearing at a concert within the US on the Friday (15/2/13) night. The main problem with this was that no mention was made of Brown's plans for the Saturday and Sunday leaving open the possibility that he could be then flying on to meet Rihanna in London. However if you'd stared closely enough at Jay-Z's face during the NBA Allstars weekender I'm sure you could have picked up clues.

The other major problem was that this method of announcing Brown's intentions also raised the big issue that Brown (or more accurately the Judge) will face at his next court appearance. Namely why he isn't being indicted on multiple counts of fraud and attempting to pervert the course of justice when on multiple occasions paper work has been filed claiming he was performing community service in west Virginia when he was actually being photographed and filmed appearing at industry events in front of thousands of witnesses hundreds of miles away (although I haven't seen the case papers). Rihanna's decision to bring Brown's 'spirit' to London by wearing his jacket on arrival was simply childish.

A simpler solution would be for Chris Brown to be put in prison or at least placed on bail conditions that prevent him contacting Rihanna or leaving the US.

A very London specific issue for the Diamonds tour is Rihanna's apparent friendship with the British model Cara Delevinge. Despite only having been on the scene for less the two years Ms Delevinge has already cemented a reputation for herself as a British informant. That is to say co-operative organisations (in this case the actual Royal Family through Prince Harry) have conspired to create a 'buzz' around Ms Delevinge. This buzz means that she get invited to all the key industry events and gets to meet all the key industry players. She then reports all the gossip back to her handlers because there's nothing like a bit of blackmail to make people co-operative. Hence the term "Rever/Reeva" (see "Firefly" for details). Given Britain's very hostile attitude towards Rihanna I would say this make Ms Delevinge a prime example of a phone number Rihanna could afford to lose.

Also as Ms Delevinge claims to be bisexual photographs of her cavorting with Rihanna and more importantly her friend Melissa Forde only add to the questions about Ms Forde's sexuality. I honestly don't care what the truth about those rumours are but I know that the mere presence of these rumours will cause a lot of problems for nations and people who do not share my liberal attitude towards homosexuality. It will especially cause problems for people who are unable to tell if these rumours are in-fact code for something else.

Therefore serious questions have to be asked about Rihanna's decision to miss the official launch party for her clothing line that was attended by people who could support the product in favour of going on a tour of Soho sex shops and nightclubs with Ms Delevinge. I appreciate through the heat generated by the Oscar Pistorius story would have made it very difficult for Rihanna to politely give Ms Delevinge the slip. However in her drunken state I think that at one point Rihanna honestly thought she was getting the gossip on all the LFW shows that Ms Delevinge was modelling at. At another point Rihanna thought she was getting all the latest gossip on music industry rival Rita Ora who refers to Ms Delevinge as "wifey." At another I think Rihanna genuinely thought she was testing out if Ms Delevinge could give as good account of my life as I could. I also think that at one point Rihanna was genuinely looking for tips to help her in her new career.

I hope Rihanna got all the clues she was looking for. That's because you heard Monday's (18/2/13) wonderful story about the Burberry show which featured items containing RFID tags which when activated by a smart-phone tell the story of the object you would know the price Rihanna has paid for that information is having a big target painted on her back.

For their part Rihanna's handlers in US intelligence were very keen to use the trip to raise possible retaliations people could use in response to Rihanna's aggressive behaviour.

So on the Thursday (14/2/13) prior to the trip Rihanna used her Twitter/Instagram account to treat us to a series of pictures clearly documenting her marijuana use. Funnily enough it turns out that international border posts such airports are specifically designed to catch people who are carrying illegal drugs such as marijuana. Therefore arresting members of the Diamonds tour entourage or simply subjecting them to enhanced searches could be one possible retaliation. The photographs led to a conversation between River Island and Rihanna's management. I believe that the gist of this was rather then worrying and relying on the "Navy" Rihanna should source her drugs through the local tour promoter. Or "Standard Practice" as it's known in the entertainment industry.

On the Saturday (16/2/13) Google (who have been under a lot of US pressure since Egypt) placed age restrictions on Rihanna's "Diamonds" video on YouTube. This led to her fans (The Navy) to mount a Twitter campaign to have the age restrictions removed. This was designed to promote discussion about a possible media blackout. That's because it's not hard for me to imagine a future where the BBC or their equivalents simply do not play Rihanna songs or videos. The live stream of the River Island catwalk show also kept kept cutting out with the sound going on and off. This was supposed to raise speculation that the feed was being hacked because it is possible to enforce a blackout on a media outlet that does not comply willingly.

For their part British intelligence made sure that Rihanna was accosted by a drunk fan on her night out in Soho. While Rihanna herself has not commented on the incident I believe the man threw a plastic bottle at her while shouting abuse about her reunion with Chris Brown. This caused a drunk Rihanna to fall against a metal shop shutter slightly cutting her right knee. Her body guard attempted to catch the man but failed, falling and injuring himself in the process. The Brits were hoping that this would be seen as them issuing a friendly warning to their US counterparts that possible retaliations can quite easily go as far as physical violence or worse and Rihanna's current security detail is clearly not up to the job. However along with the Sunday Times article comparing Rihanna's relationship with Chris Brown to Princess Diana's relationship with Prince Charles this was really intended to make Rihanna's head spin. After all violent confrontations always get the adrenaline pumping and this particular one touched on whether Rihanna actually enjoys getting beaten up and the incident in Barbados over Christmas with the interloper. However I don't think the point the Brits were trying to make is that when incidents like that happen I'm exactly the person you want at the other end of a phone.

So having considered all these factors I would have to class Rihanna's trip to London as a massive failure. It was of course a marked and great improvement on the 777 Tour but it was a massive failure none the less.

Also, obviously Rihanna decided that she didn't want to meet up with me while she was in my home town. This is a problem because if she continues to refuse to co-operate with me my job will become so difficult that it may become impossible.

Fortunately - and perhaps fearful for their brand - River Island have once again attempted to move the heaven and earth required to bring Rihanna back to London to meet me at the retail launch of her collection. It was this that got the age restriction on the "Stay" video lifted although the US tried to cover it with the current LA shooting, However if she wants to enter that particular competition I'm sure she knows the US number she's got to ring.

21:50 on 19/2/13. 

Edited at 22:25 on 19/2/13.

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