Operation Misery: Month 8, Week 1, Day 7.

I'm pretty sure I covered all the angles of why Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) decided to fly Rihanna to Australia rather then South Africa following her final New Zealand concert in my previous post. Unfortunately today I've got to rush down to Brighton at short notice for a bit of trouble shooting. This is nowhere near as exciting as it sounds but does mean that I'll be busy today so I guess I should leave you with this;

"I'm sorry for sullying my blog with this quick memo to the US State Department. It's just one of those things that's just a little too long for a series of Tweets.

Hi,
      Just wondering when you are going to confirm whether it will be the US Embassy in Australia or the US Embassy in South Africa that will be dispatching a delegation to explain to Rihanna's tour party their new obligations for this tour. It's just we all already know that the three pillars of the US' control over Rihanna are as follows;

• A fear that her behaviour will somehow result in Chris Brown finally being punished for his multitude of crimes. I appreciate that the US were hoping to spin this into a debate about whether Rihanna is still in love with Chris Brown. Unfortunately wherever you go on this planet most people understand that there is quite a range of human emotions between being madly and deeply in love and wanting to see someone sent to prison.

• A fear that her behaviour could result in her or her friends being stripped of their right to remain/work in the US. I appreciate that the US were hoping to spin this issue into a debate about US immigration policy. However the way things are going at the moment I'm seeing less of an immigration debate and more of the Democrats just giving the Republicans everything they want.

• A fear that her behaviour will result in the Judge ruling against her in this Berdon LLP lawsuit. I appreciated that the US were hoping to spin this issue into an attempt to destroy Rihanna's reputation by making it look like it's all about greed. However most people understand the the Berdon case is interlinked with the Inland Revenue Service (IRS) audit which may result in a criminal prosecution of Rihanna and her associates on tax evasion charges. Wherever go on this planet though most people understand that there is a range of human emotions between wanting to see someone sent to prison and wanting to see yourself sent to prison.

Once these pillars have been identified the specific mechanisms by which that control is exerted is of little interest. At this point though I would have liked to point out that the agent outside of the room would be the easiest to deactivate. However previous experience tells me you'd only find a way of convincing yourself that such a statement could be spun to get everybody focusing on the @PiscesAreUs Twitter feed. We won't. It will either still be there at or it won't."


That's because while I'm finding the current situation infuriating I suspect it's also pretty infuriating for the people in the situation.


12:20 on 12/10/13.

Operation Misery: Month 8, Week 1, Day 6.

Just a quick correction to my previous post as new information becomes available.

With Rihanna performing her final concert in Auckland, New Zealand on Tuesday (8/10/13) the logical thing would have been for her to fly straight to South Africa in order to allow her to acclimatize to the African/Middle Eastern timezone and prepare for her concert on Sunday (13/10/13).

However as it is quite clear that notions such as logic and rational thought have long escaped Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) the instead chose to force Rihanna to hire a private jet - at great personal expense - to fly her back to Australia. The plan here is obviously to con the South Africans into think they played a cunning move in agreeing to Rihanna's concerts by making them the centre of the African Union (AU) Summit with the "When will Rihanna arrive" game. They also intend to maximise the stress/jet lag on Rihanna in order to increase the chances of an Azerbaijan meltdown whilst Rihanna is in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). After all the US desperately needs to apologise to the Gulf Monarchs (Emirs) for, erm........Nope you've completely lost me there.


21:00 on 11/10/13 (UK date).

Operation Misery: Month 8, Week 1, Day 4.

In the past 24 hours Rihanna has not performed any concerts which I find a shame because when Rihanna is on stage we at least know where she is and what she is doing for around two hours. It does though give me the opportunity to look back at how Rihanna's trip to Australia and New Zealand have gone politically.

As I've already explained at great length the political purpose of Rihanna visiting Australia and New Zealand was to allow the UK to test out these members of the UK Commonwealth Realm's loyalty to the mother country by seeing whether they'd be prepared to participate in a low level harassment campaign against Rihanna in order to soften her up for the trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The visit to Australia was particularly important because it coincided with a General Election and the formation of a new government. Despite initial indications that they didn't want to be associated with the harassment campaign and very publicly briefing against the US for its campaign the UK was actually very active in the campaign. The main contribution was sending to British boyband "One Direction" on a tour of Australia and New Zealand at the same time as Rihanna. This had the effect of doubling all the normal tour pressures such as crowds of fans and paparazzi outside hotels and venues. Also One Direction fans have a reputation for being particularly hysterical and disruptive. In fact I seem to remember reading a story about One Direction fans breaking into the bands hotel rooms and stealing items of their clothing which although shows the fans devotion can be quite annoying.

To their credit the Australians don't seem to have participated in the UK's campaign in any way shape or form. There was a little bit of an issue with Rihanna's stay in Sydney coinciding with celebrations marking the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Australian navy. However to fair to the Australians this isn't something they could really cancel at short notice so it was really up to Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) to make sure that Rihanna wasn't caught up in the situation.

Traditionally being much more loyal members of the Commonwealth Realm New Zealand did sadly participate in the campaign against Rihanna. The main feature of this was a general lack of security at Rihanna's Auckland hotel. The main problem was the paparazzi in particular a photographer by the name of Simon Runting who took up position in a building directly opposite Rihanna's hotel room. This vantage point allowed him to look directly into Rihanna's bedroom and take photographs of her as she changed, showered, slept and did whatever else Rihanna got up to in her room. This obviously represents a gross invasion of Rihanna's privacy that seemed intended to cause Rihanna a great deal of stress and paranoia.

In fact it was such an invasion of privacy the New Zealanders also seemed to be using it as a way to muscle in on the debate about new anti-paparazzi laws in California, US that make taking photographs of a child on private property with a long camera lens a criminal offence of trespass regardless of where the person taking the photographs is. As Rihanna was only in Auckland for the best part of four days there obviously wasn't the time to seek a civil, legal remedy to this problem. However I find it hard to believe that the hotel management, the owner of the building in which Runting had set up or Rihanna's own security detail could not have, erm, negotiated with him to stop.

I have to say though that Rihanna has to an extent brought this increased attention from the paparazzi on herself by maintaining an information blackout about her movements and well mood at a time when these issues are of some political importance at the global level. That's because if a foreign intelligence agency wanted to find out what Rihanna is up to on tour the obvious way to do it would be to get a friendly editor of a celebrity gossip magazine to make it known that they would be prepared to pay a premium for any and all footage of Rihanna. After all digging up information of stars like Rihanna is what celebrity gossip magazines do anyway making it the perfect cover. On something of a side note Rihanna complained about Runting's behaviour on Instagram which has been wrongly interpreted as Rihanna comparing the paparazzi to the Nazis creating a bit of a backlash. What Rihanna actually said was that she hates [the paparazzi] worse then the Nazi (singular). This is actually a little pet name that Rihanna and her fan base use to describe me so I actually took it as a compliment.

The second security problem with Rihanna's Auckland hotel is that it is very large featuring bars and restaurants that are open to the public. This meant that more or less anyone could wandering in off the street and disrupt Rihanna's stay. One example of this is self-confessed Shannon Roberts who apparently walked into the bar of Rihanna's hotel on Sunday evening and then took to Twitter to demand that Rihanna came down to say hello while encouraging her Twitter followers to the same. Although Rihanna didn't come down stairs the 15 year old was rewarded when Rihanna dispatched her security detail to find Ms Roberts and give her free tickets to the Monday concert which included backstage passes and an invitation to the after party where she got to meet Rihanna. Provided that Ms Roberts was polite and in no way stabby this wasn't really a problem.

The only issue is that I have been known to turn up at Rihanna's hotel requesting an audience although I always ended up getting snubbed. Therefore Ms Roberts doing the same would have got Rihanna and a few other people thinking about why Rihanna and I haven't met up in person yet. The answer to that is pretty obviously that the management have got the twin guns of this Inland Revenue Service (IRS) audit and Rihanna's right to remain/work in the US to Rihanna's head to discourage her from meeting up with me. Being reminded of that is also likely to increase the stress on Rihanna.


This has taken me longer then expected to write up so I'll be back to look forward to the South African phase of the tour after dinner by which time Rihanna should just about be arriving in South Africa.

16:40 on 9/10/13 (UK date).

Edited at around 19:00 on 9/10/13 (UK date) to add;

Now Rihanna has performed her final concert in New Zealand she travels on to South Africa for concerts in Johannesburg on Sunday (13/10/13) and Cape Town on Wednesday (16/10/13). As with the visit to Australia and New Zealand these South African concerts are one of the main political pillars that this third leg of the tour has been built around. As I've already explained by agreeing to the concerts South Africa was hoping to gain an advantage over its African neighbours by getting the inside scoop on Rihanna as she was being used to exert pressure on the nations making up the peacekeeping force in Mali. Since that plan was drawn up though it has run into two small problems.

The first of these is that over the summer very little has actually happened in Mali with almost no violence and a trouble free election. By an amazing coincidence though just Rihanna was finishing up in New Zealand Islamist violence appears to have restarted in Mali. On Monday (7/10/13) the town of Gao came under light shelling/mortar fire then on Tuesday (8/10/13) to bridges close to the border with Niger were blown up. Unlike the recent car bombing in Timbuktu these attacks seem like the work of a much more sophisticated Al Qaeda linked terrorist cell. Although that cell seems to have limited capability the responsibility for hunting them down and eliminating them should fall to much more capable French special forces that are in Mali rather then the Malian army or the peacekeeping force. I am simply recommending that because this type of operation requires specialist skills that neither the Malian army nor the peacekeeping force possess however a happy side-effect of the French doing the job is that this latest violence is unlikely to have any impact whatsoever on Rihanna's trip to South Africa.

The second problem the South Africans have is that Rihanna is now travelling with a very slimmed down tour party. Rihanna's friend Leandra never joined the tour in the first place and Melissa Forde has now left the tour. While I'm not sure if Rihanna's cousin Noella Allstrom or Rihanna's brother Rory are still travelling with her the core tour party now really only consists of Rihanna and her personal assistant Jennifer Rosales meaning that there is precious little gossip to be found.

With South Africa's greed being very obvious in the way they arranged the concerts both the UK and the US have prepared things to exert pressure on South Africa during Rihanna's visit in order to make sure they have full knowledge of any advantage South Africa has gained. The UK has been the most aggressive of the two dispatching Prince Edward the Duke of Wessex and his wife the Duchess of Wessex to South Africa for the duration of the trip. This puts the UK in minute by minute communication with the South African government throughout Rihanna's trip.

For their part the US have publicly announced that the actor Tom Hanks is suffering with type-2 diabetes. In 1993 Tom Hanks won an Oscar for his groundbreaking portrayal of a gay man suffering with AIDS in the film "Philadelphia." Whilst in developing nations such as South Africa HIV/AIDS is a huge problem and often a certain death sentence in developed countries such as the US it is viewed as a chronic health condition that can be managed much like type-2 diabetes. So through the timing of the announcement by Tom Hanks the US was hoping to put the issue of HIV/AIDS and to a lesser extent homosexuality on the agenda. This means that we can look forward to lots of lurid rumours of Rihanna sleeping around in country where roughly 1 in 5 people are HIV+.

Obviously with so much international effort going into Rihanna's trip to South Africa there was much excited rumour last night about when Rihanna would leave New Zealand and arrive in South Africa. With the most to gain the majority of this effort came from the UK firstly with a story from Humberside airport in which the pilot of a small aircraft died mid-flight meaning that the untrained passenger had to land the plane relying on radioed instructions from a pilot on the ground. This could be interpreted in any number of ways as a coded reference to Rihanna's travel but none of them made much sense because the intention was to cause confusion. The UK followed this up by releasing video footage of a presumably very drunk man who was tasered and arrested by police after stripping naked at Manchester airport back on September 26th (26/10/13). Again this could be interpreted in any number of ways as coded references to Rihanna's travel. Just to confuse matters further it could also be interpreted as a coded reference to me because rather famously I, on a particularly drunken evening, did find myself wandering around in the street completely naked.

The biggest single effort though appear to come from Rihanna herself with the gossip site TMZ.com reporting that trucks were removing everything from Rihanna's home in Los Angeles. This prompts the obvious rumour that "Rihanna's moving" but also seemed intended to promote discussion about whether Rihanna's falling out with Melissa Forde was so severe that Forde was being forced to move out and whether the threat Chris Brown presents to Rihanna had forced her to permanently quit Los Angeles for New York.

Although this seems like a very solid rumour I cannot fully confirm it. However if it is true I think Rihanna should look very hard at the person who advised her to move out both because the timing is unfortunate and as the victim Rihanna should not be the one forced to move to keep away from Brown. If I was Rihanna I also wouldn't be in a rush to put the USD12million property on the market because she can easily afford to buy somewhere else to live while she comes to a decision. That fact does of course help to underline why Rihanna is really too exceptional to be much use as a way to debate public policy on domestic violence.

For her part Rihanna took the trouble to take to Twitter/Instagram to let us know that she actually left New Zealand at around 05:00(GMT) some 6 hours after all these rumours of her departure began. That means that by my calculations Rihanna should be arriving in Johannesburg in the next hour or so. I for one am looking forward to hearing for her but that's because I generally just like hearing from Rihanna.

It's Tuesday Night and I'm Back From the Pub !!!!!!!!!

And because there's no football on I can take the time to tell you that there were no problems whilst I was there and because nothing in my immediate eye line is on fire nor dead there are no major problems now I've returned home.

Whilst I was out US President Barack Obama was giving a press conference on the current US government shutdown and the looming fiscal cliff/debt ceiling debate . I actually think that the timing of this press conference was specifically chosen to minimise my chances of answering back. Sample dialogue would have included;

Obama: "House Republicans don't get to demand a ransom to do their jobs."

Me: "Aye but unlike some the House Republicans do, on occasion, actually do their jobs."

Obama: "We cannot negotiate with a gun to our heads"

Me: "So I assume you'll be putting the Obamacare gun away then. After all it's not like you had to shut the system down over the weekend because it's faulty."

Anyway much more importantly then all that I finally got up the courage to try the BBQ ribs that have recently been added to the J.D Wetherspoons menu. Although it was hard to tell because they were slathered in a very sugary BBQ sauce I generally approve. After all they were so soft you can eat them with a knife and fork keeping your dignity more or less intact.

In other news my father and I have shifted from the usual bi-Tuesday routine of going to the supermarket because a mechanic visited to service the car. We will of course endeavour to attend the supermarket on Wednesday. In the meantime I took the opportunity to prune a bush in the front garden before chopping the branches up into teeny, tiny pieces.

So basically I had an afternoon of successful gardening although I think I smoked more weeds then I pulled.

19:20 on 8/10/13.

Operation Misery: Month 8, Week 1, Day 3.

Today Rihanna performed her third and final concert in Auckland, New Zealand. As always Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation are still insisting on an information blackout. However from the unofficial information that is beginning to trickle out I can tell you that Rihanna appeared on stage well within the expected 15-20 minutes of lateness. Rihanna went on to perform the standard set-list and costume changes but as with all the performances at the Vector Arena the stage set was slightly trimmed back due to a smaller stage. From the tiny glimpses of video that are available it appears that Rihanna put in a vocal strong and energetic performance.

If Rihanna had delivered a poor performance it would not have been for a lack of behind the scenes pressure on her coming almost exclusively from the US. Firstly Chris Brown has been in Houston, Texas, US over the last few days alongside on again/off again girlfriend Kerruche Tran. Yesterday Tran posted a picture on Twitter/Instagram featuring what fans think is Chris Brown's arm in the background leading to speculation that they are once again together. Although I must confess I'm not an expert in what Chris Brown's arms look like I have to say that I'm not convinced. The purpose of sending Brown and Tran to the same city at the same city at the same time was though of course intended to reduce the clamour for the restraining order keeping Brown away from Rihanna to be reinstated by giving the impression that the potential for a relationship between the two is now over. This has the knock-on effect of being slightly upsetting for Rihanna because I suspect she still has enough residual feeling for Brown to prevent Rihanna from sending Kerruche Tran a thank you gift for taking that particular bullet for her.

Secondly rumours are doing the rounds that Rihanna has had a major falling out with her long time friend Melissa Forde which has resulted in Forde being kicked off the tour and sent home to Barbados. I am in no position to confirm nor deny these rumours and I'm really not the person to be commenting on this. That's because I think it is well established that I have long been a source of tension between Rihanna and Forde and things have been getting brutal recently. In fact the purpose of getting Rihanna to appear on UK Channel 4's "Alan Carr: Chatty Man" was to give all the people at Channel 4 who have never met me but seem to hold a massive grudge the opportunity to provide Forde with lots of ammunition - no matter how false - to use against me. With the South African concerts coming up this rumour is being put about in order to create speculation about Forde's sexuality by giving the impression that the falling out between the two has been caused by Forde's unrequited sexual attraction to Rihanna. The unconfirmed rumour also forces people to pay attention to Rihanna's tour to find out if it's true or not.

Although I cannot confirm that rumour one way or another I am starting to er on the side of thinking that it is true. However if a falling out rather then Forde simply having urgent business to attend to away from the tour has occured I think it was caused by an argument about the amount of information that should be provided during the tour and whether Rihanna should be following my advice or Forde's advice rather then anything sexual.

11:55 on 8/10/13 (UK date).

Egypt's Continuing Revolution: Month 16, Week 2, Day 7.

Between the crisis over Syria's chemical weapons and the resumption of Rihanna's Diamonds World Tour I have clearly been too distracted to write regular updates on the situation in Egypt. The big development since my last post on the subject though has been the decision to dissolve the Muslim Brotherhood. This has almost totally crippled the Brotherhood's ability to organise overtly which coupled with dwindling support has meant that weekly violent Brotherhood protests against the government have ceased in any significant form.

This does not mean that the situation in Egypt has suddenly become stable though. The collapse of law and order on the streets that began with the fall of Mubarak and continued under Mohamed Morsi's reign continues to present problems and the practice of using military Courts to deal with offenders has prompted some muted criticism from revolutionaries. However until a new constitution can be adopted and a new government sworn in to begin the process of reforming Egypt's laws and criminal justice system I don't see what other option there is. The problems with law and order have been highlighted by the football Ultras particularly Zamalek's White Knights who having been deprived of football games to watch have been engaging in protests and occasional street fighting. Added to the law and order problem relations between Egypt and some of its Gulf neighbours have become somewhat fraught with Qatar withdrawing USD2bn of aid that it had promised.

Egypt's biggest problem though remains the fight against Islamist terrorist groups based mainly in the Sinai peninsula. Although the Egyptian military has been making great progress tackling these armed groups there are a large number of disparate groups and post-Libya there are an awful lot of weapons in the region. As a result gun and grenade attacks on the security forces remain a daily occurrence in Egypt prompting some police conscripts to hold street protests demanding better weapons and protection. A worrying development is that while these attacks don't appear to become more sophisticated or organised more and more incidents are starting to occur outside of the Sinai including a RPG attack today in Cairo and a bombing in Ismailia. In Cairo in particular the threat of terrorist bombings has reached such paranoid proportions that even a simple drinks can will prompt a full-scale alert.

Facing all these pressures and daily attempts on their lives has clearly left Egypt's security forces feeling a little unloved and under-appreciated. As a result the military asked people to take to the streets on Sunday's (6/10/13) 40th anniversary of the October (Yom Kippur) war with Israel to show their support for the security forces. Many Egyptians did just that but unfortunately the event offended the Muslim Brotherhood which called it's supporters onto the streets in an apparent attempt to attack those supporting the security forces. Within Cairo the worst of the violence occurred as Brotherhood supporters attempted to march on supporters of the security forces who were celebrating in Tahrir Square. The Brotherhood supporters were stopped by the police on Ramsis street leading to lengthy violent clashes that engulfed the surrounding area. The current death toll from the Cairo confrontation stands at 19 but violence from elsewhere in the country brings that total up to 53 with 27 deaths reported in the Giza suburb. Along with some 270 injuries nationwide this makes Sunday the bloodiest day in Egypt since the dark days of August.

Apart from the street violence the anniversary of the October war has also served as a lightning rod for everybody with a weapon and a grudge against the security forces. As a result Sunday and carrying on into today has seen a number of isolated gun, bomb and RPG attacks across Egypt including the attacks in Cairo and Ismailia that are too numerous to list individually. One positive of all this is the fact that opponents of the Egypt government are resorting to using weapons indicates that they know they lack the popular support to disrupt life in Egypt through force of numbers so instead are being forced to resort to violence. The other positive is that this recent wave of violence appears to be in response to a one off anniversary rather then a new and co-ordinated campaign.

However if regular violence does once again return to the streets of Egypt it is important that it doesn't interfere with the transition process starting with the new constitution which is rumoured to be published in the coming week. After all nothing will take the wind out of the Morsi supporters sails like showing them how a democratic transition should be done.

20:05 on 7/10/13.

Operation MIsery: Month 8, Week 1, Day 2.

Today Rihanna performed her second of three concerts in Auckland, New Zealand. As per usual Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) are treating information about this concert as if it were the launch codes to America's nuclear arsenal and are imposing a full blackout.

I am though able to tell you that Rihanna took to the stage almost exactly on schedule well within the expect 15-20 minutes of lateness and performed the standard set-list with the standard costume changes. Although I've yet to see video to compare it myself Rihanna apparently put in an energetic and enthusiastic performance that was much stronger then last night's show. That is not to say that there was anything wrong with last night's concert it just marked a slight dip in the steady improvement in Rihanna's performance that we've seen since the concert in Perth, Australia (24/9/13).

I am now going to do my best to derail that improvement but commenting far too much on the new hairstyle that Rihanna debuted last night. Although Rihanna has a reputation for getting bored and changing hairstyle I doubt there is one specific reason for this change. However the people who worry about these sort of things will have noted that the new hairstyle covers a lot more of Rihanna's head and face. A desire to cover-up ones head and face can reflect slight paranoia and even mild depression especially amongst marijuana users. Therefore some people might view the new hairstyle as a symptom of the pressure the management exerted on Rihanna during her stay in Sydney, Australia. Mind you I could just be complaining because I much prefer Rihanna with shorter hair.

With Rihanna giving another strong performance there's really not much for me to talk about so it seems like an appropriate time for me to think about the logistics of the next phase of Rihanna's tour that takes in South Africa, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel. Obviously Rihanna wants to minimise the time spent in the UAE by arriving in Israel as soon as possible and leaving South Africa at the last possible moment. However if Rihanna leaves for South Africa immediately after tomorrow's concert it means she'll end up spending more then a week in South Africa which could be a bit stressful for the South African government and a bit boring for Rihanna. Therefore if I was planning Rihanna's travel I wouldn't arrange for her to travel to South Africa until Friday/Saturday (11-12/10/13). Of course spending a couple of days cooped up in a hotel room with no concerts to perform might also be a bit frustrating for Rihanna especially as she is in one of the most beautiful countries on earth. So I'm now starting a competition to see what Rihanna should visit while she is in New Zealand. There will of course be no objective way of picking a winner and no prizes are on offer.

That said the theme of this tour has very much been me recommending one thing and the management doing the exact opposite. I really wish the management would get over this bout of apparent Opposition Defiant Disorder because as if to prove the damage it's doing to them the Japanese airline JAL has today signed a USD9.5bn contract with Airbus - the main rival of the American aeroplane manufacturer that is responsible for the 787 Dreamliner. So I wouldn't be at all surprised if Airbus ended up sending Live Nation some sort of thank you gift.


12:55 on 7/10/13 (UK date).