Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 1, Day 1.

Although yesterday I was feeling too unwell to write a full post on things like Mohamed Morsi's trial in Egypt I was apparently feeling healthy enough to be very vocal on Twitter about Rihanna's current situation. Most of this was merely shouting for the sake of shouting. After all I have spent most of the last year waking up and going; "Wow Rihanna's done something really dumb" before struggling to find a more diplomatic way of putting it. Some of yesterday was relevant though.

For example Rihanna's single "What Now" has been pushed to the top of the US Billboard dance/club chart. Unlike the record breaking 7th UK number 1 Rihanna secured on Sunday (3/11/13) with her collaboration with Eminem "The Monster" the Billboard chart is based on airplay rather record sales. That means rather then having to convince enough people that a record is good enough to buy in order to get to the top of the Billboard chart all a record company needs to do is bribe enough radio stations to play a record. As I think I've explained a dozen times the purpose of pushing the "What Now" to the top of the charts is to pose the question; "What now for Rihanna now that the Diamonds World Tour is coming an end?"

Unfortunately MAC Cosmetics shot their load too early and yesterday dragged Rihanna to an event in Barbados to launch a lipstick the proceeds to which will go to VivaGlam which is a not particularly efficient charity set up to combat HIV/AIDS. This of course revealed that Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) are still very much committed to their plan for Rihanna. As has been discussed at great length this involves Rihanna reuniting with Chris Brown. Then through a combination of the extremely limited career options that such a relationship will bring, the associated feelings of misery and the constant need for Rihanna to be protected from yet another beat down the unhappy couple will spend their foreseeable future being hoofed around the developing world on similar 'charity' adventures causing much annoyance to host governments as they go.

Also disappointingly despite all the evidence to the contrary the management believe that their plan for the remaining dates for the Diamonds World Tour is still viable so have indicated that the world will be treated to a barrage of noise intended to to cause panic and irritation while Rihanna performs her remaining US concerts.

The discussion about this particular issue began on Thursday October 24th (24/10/13) when I turned by PC off and Rihanna and US Ambassador to the UN Sam Power took this as a sign that I had gone to bed which was their signal to become very active on Twitter. Unfortunately for them I hadn't gone to bed and so was able to respond to them. This prompted an accident at a fairground ride in North Carolina, US when a ride that everybody thought had stopped suddenly restarted injuring five. Then on Sunday (3/11/13) there was a security lock-down at the airport in Birmingham, Alabama, US that was suddenly lifted just as I went to bed.

Last night's contribution to the noise barrage started with a 6 hour active shooter situation at the Westfield Garden State Mall in Paramus, New Jersey, US. As has become the trend in this recent rash of similar incidents in the US a firearm (likely an AR15 style rifle) was used but there were no casualties with the shooter simply killing himself. You may remember that Westfield is the mall chain that has been press-ganged into saving my native Croydon from bankruptcy. You may also remember that Rihanna turned on the Christmas lights at Westfield's Stratford mall when she really should have been meeting up with me ahead of the UK date of her 777 Tour. There is also some speculation that the shooter may have been a heavy user of the drug MDMA which known as "Molly" has become a very a hot topic in the US especially through the work of Rihanna and Miley Cyrus. Finally the Governor of New Jersey is Chris Christie. In the wake of the US government shutdown there has been lots of discussion about whether the Republican Party should adopt Christies co-operative approach or continue with their confrontational approach. I actually think the Republicans will be doing the US a great favour by continuing with the confrontational approach at least until Obama learns his legislative agenda is right at the top of the to do list just behind Chris Brown's restraining order.

If the active shooter situation in New Jersey wasn't creating enough heat and noise it was quickly followed up by another similar situation in Denver, Colorado. Here police were called to a Sandy Hook style middle-school after two men armed with AR15 style assault rifles were spotted breaking into the empty building. Following a stand-off with a SWAT team and the bomb squad the two suspects were discovered to be 15 year old boys armed with BB-pellet guns. This could have been a reference to a recent case where a teenager carrying a BB-pellet gun was shot and killed by police in California or a reference to the fact that like a lot of kids I used to have a BB-pellet gun. The fact that the suspects were said to be attempting to be burgle the school could have been a reference to my little burglar. It could also have been the US trying to promote debate about whether I'm trying to rob them by pushing back against the Rihanna operation. It could also have been an attempt to promote discussion about whether the US was trying to rob other nations through the Diamonds World Tour and associated stunts.

The answer to all these questions in both New Jersey and Denver is of course no. The US is simply trying to create a distraction to cover up the fact it's now just doing violence against Rihanna for the sake of doing violence.

17:05 on 5/11/13.


Edited at around 22:10 on 6/11/13 to add;

For the last week or so the Egyptian government has been discussing a new law banning offensive graffiti on buildings. Today Justin Beiber has come under investigation by authorities in Brazil for defacing a wall by spraying it with graffiti in an alleged act of vandalism. So although it's pretty pointless it seems an appropriate time to discuss my objections to Rihanna's new tattoo on her right hand.

I should start by pointing out that anytime Rihanna gets a new tattoo it bothers me because no matter how good the artist is they'll always struggle to improve on the canvas. Also Rihanna strikes me as someone who wears her tattoos like battle scars so every new tattoo means a new wound which obviously I object to. The main reason that Rihanna's new tattoo bothers me is that it's a cover up job. That is to say it has been done to cover up another tattoo - in this case one that Rihanna shares with Chris Brown. As always with this type of tattoo the main priority in the design is whether it covers up the other tattoo rather then how good it looks in its own right. Therefore I just thought it would have been better for Rihanna to get the existing tattoo lasered off rather then covered up especially as I personally think the hands and the face are two areas that should never be tattooed. Mainly though is a perfect example of the sort of thing I wish I'd be able to discuss with Rihanna in a more private setting.