Operation Misery: Week 2, Day 7.

I have not yet been provided with a review of Rihanna's concert in Detroit. However from the timing of what I assume are her Twitter postings Rihanna took the the stage close to the scheduled start time of 21:00 (local), performed her usual 100 minute set and then along with her close friend Melissa Forde immediately took to Twitter for a series of not particularly helpful Tweets. This was all done to maximise the pressure on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) that was meeting in New York to discuss Syria in a closed door session.

In order to maximise the pressure both on the social group and the wider world the US then staged a shooting at the Quantico Marine base to co-incide. The Quantico Marine base is of course not to be confused with the Federal Beareu of Investigations (FBI) Quantico base. Rihanna's fan base is know as the "Navy" and while I suspect the SEALS may dispute it I suppose you could describe the Marines as "Elite Navy." Therefore about the Quantico shooting was supposed to create lots of wild speculation about who in Rihanna's core or elite social group was alive, who was dead and who was doing the shooting.

However as at this point it's probably easier to get good quality information about a closed door UNSC meeting than it is to get good quality information about Rihanna's back-stage antics I'll leave this until later.

In the meantime I shall talk about Rihanna's planned visit to the Barrington High School in Chicago later today (22/3/13). Officially this is being done to congratulate Barrington students for winning some competition to make their own version of Rihanna's "Diamonds" video. In reality though it is being done to raise the topic of Rihanna's 'education.'

Basically there are two schools of thought here. Firstly there are those in the diplomatic/espionage world who've been saying for years that Rihanna needs to learn the lay of the land so she can avoid bungling into things like the UK's August 2011 riots and the Egyptian revolution. Then there are those in the entertainment/artistic world who think that Rihanna has the talent to become so much more than she currently is. She just needs to find a way to take that next step.

Of course neither of these groups are calling Rihanna stupid. In fact far from it. It's just that because Rihanna never finished high school the formal education system is the best way to discuss the topic. However as this was originally planned to be a visit to New York University (NYU) the relegation to a high school seems to be an admission that since reuniting with Chris Brown Rihanna certainly seems to require a lot more of an education. I do though have a nasty feeling that the NYU visit may yet magically re-appear on the schedule.

The big story of the Barrington visit is that Rihanna's team have broken with school policy and insisted that the media are banned from the event. Officially this has been done so the focus of this visit is on the children rather than Rihanna. However the media ban does also provide an opportunity to discuss the almost non-existent access being given to Rihanna's tour along with Rihanna's relationship with the media following the 777 Tour disaster. Mainly though it's an effort to turn the visit into a big smoky cauldron.

Since the UK's August 2011 riots and certainly since the Egyptian revolution some of the small and less well resourced nations - Morocco and Turkey spring to mind immediately - have been very concerned with the way Rihanna reacts with her young fans who seem to hang on her every word. Therefore the opportunity to see Rihanna interacting with her fans in the stripped back setting of a school visit is something they'd be very interested in seeing. By banning the media from the event Team Rihanna are daring those interested parties to expose their own intelligence gathering networks in an effort to see the show.

09:45 on 22/3/13

Edited at 09:55 on 22/3/13 to correct the length of the show. After all a 1 hour 40 minute set adds up to a total of 100 minutes not. Shut up I've just got out of bed.