Operation Misery: Month 2, Week 1, Day 7.

Still no official reviews, photographs or video of Rihanna's San Diego (11/4/13) concert have been made available. However from the extremely limited unofficial information out there I've been able to tell that Rihanna performed her standard set-list and costume changes. Act 2 (Jump) and Act 3 (Man Down) did appear in their original order. This could be Rihanna's attempt to show support for Chris Brown by attempting to deny that the material from the Unapologetic album is not her strongest however as I've said before little changes like this are to be expected simply to help keep the show feeling fresh. The big story is that Rihanna's performance was very poor. Although there weren't any disasters you felt they were never that far away because Rihanna seemed confused, distracted, uncoordinated and had difficulty remembering the words to her songs. In short she was drunk off her pretty little arse. As the San Diego performance came at the end of a day of celebrations for Melissa Forde's birthday I don't have a problem with this. After all people expect a little bit of excess from their rockstars. In fact I was tempted to Tweet Rihanna before the concert telling her that it was the one show on the tour when she's allowed to get drunk and fall off the stage.

There is a similar information black-out regarding Rihanna's Las Vegas (12/4/13) concert. So while I can tell you that Rihanna performed her standard set-list and costume changes I can't tell you the exact running order. The big problem was that again Rihanna was drunk. Although not as drunk as she was in San Diego Rihanna was again lethargic and uncoordinated. Her voice was reedy and weak which is clearly the effect of too much smoking and drinking too much alcohol. As this was the day after Forde's birthday celebration it's easy to write this off as long party. However if it continues I'm going to have little choice then to take it as further evidence of the negative effect Chris Brown has on Rihanna after all this tour will live or die on the strength of Rihanna's performances.

Although there has been no official word and Rihanna has not been on Twitter since Thursday (11/4/13) I think it is safe to assume that Chris Brown is still travelling as part of the tour party. Therefore the tensions within the group surrounding Chris Brown are getting louder and more pronounced. All concerned seem to be attempting to blame these tensions on Melissa Fordes sexuality in an effort to promote discussions about attitudes towards homosexuality in black American culture. However it's quite clear that the real source of the tension is the negative effect that Chris Brown has on Rihanna.

In terms of international reaction to Chris Brown's presence on Rihanna's tour and the arguments around it I still seeing very little. The only exception seems to be from Canada and that was only achieved through very specific US pressure. Since 2011 there has been the long running case of Rehtaeh Parsons from Halifax who claimed to have been raped by a group of boys who proceeded to share video and photographs of the attack on-line leading to the then 15 year old girl being bullied. This case is obviously very similar to the Steubenville rape case which was amongst other things a commentary on Rihanna and Chris Brown's relationship. Parsons died on Sunday (7/4/13) after hanging herself on Friday (5/4/13). Under the guise of the hacker group Anonymous the US threatened to reveal the identities of Parsons alleged attackers who are only minors unless the Canadian authorities prosecuted them. This was rapidly followed up by arrests in the case of Californian teen Audrie Pott which essentially the same story. On Friday (12/4/13) the Canadian authorities responded with a very non-committal promise to look again at the Parsons investigation.

This absence of any real international reaction to Chris Brown's presence on Rihanna's tour bus has clearly got the CIA handlers and others very stressed and very nervous. For example on Saturday (13/4/13) a bus crashed in Peru killing at least 33 people. Now as with in India Peru's roads are notoriously dangerous and accidents are common so this was most likely just an accident. However it immediately triggered a wave of bus crashes. The first took place before dawn today in Belgium a bus carrying Russian school children crashed killing five and putting five more in a critical conditions. As a European monarchy Belgium along with the UK is one of the nations that had been hoping to do very well out of Rihanna's tour (at the US' expense I might add). So apart from giving Russia a hard kick over Syria this seemed to be a panicked Belgium trying to trigger any sort of reaction to the Rihanna story. The Belgium crash was followed up by a bus crash in California, US in which 16 people were injured. This could of course be a way for the US to liaise with their Belgian counter-parts over the progress (or lack thereof) in Rihanna's tour. However I think it was primarily intended to make it look to everybody else like something was going on in the hope that they would join in.

Finally ahead of Rihanna's concerts in Tampa (19/4/13) and Fort Lauderdale (20/4/13) authorities in Florida are warning about the danger posed by African Land Snails which have been eating building plaster and can spread disease. These giant snails are a particular problem in Rihanna's native Barbados where they have been known to cause fatal road accidents amongst other things. So this sudden discussion of the the invasion of the African Land Snails is intended to promote that long-running discussion in the US over it's immigration policy using Rihanna's case as an example. It also serves the purpose as something of a threat to Rihanna in order to keep her in line so I doubt there will be a change in her attitude soon.

22:10 on 14/4/13.