.....And the winner is.....

OK, I would imagine that the world and their foreign ministers are probably drawing up lists like this for Mr President, and it's not particularly taxing to come up with songs they would like to hear sung at January's inauguration. So, for the Marine band to get practicing nice and early, we give you the 6 songs that we'd like to play President-Elect Barack Obama.

"Don't Let It Get You Down" - Paul McCartney - a reference to some of the disgraceful behavior that's been reported in the wake of his election win. Shame on you people.

"Lose This Skin" - The Clash. Another barrier falls, another step into the light.

"I'm The Man" - Joe Jackson - for indeed he will soon be the Commander-in-Chief, the Grand Fromage, Numero Uno (wasn't that Bill Shatner's line in one of the Airplane movies?).

"Feats Don't Fail Me Now" - Little Feat. I think this is more a call to the people who voted for Obama to stand firm behind him - the man's got a terrible lot of work on his plate when he finally gets his feet under the desk in the Oval Office.

"Just What I Needed" - The Cars - imagine the leaders of the rest of the world standing up and rocking out to this baby.

Don't Bring Me Down - "The Beatles". Even across the Atlantic Barack's victory was celebrated as a sign that America is ready to return to the fold. In my own particular field - climate change - we are eagerly awaiting and hoping that he will come to Poland next month to lend his support to the work.

It's a real pleasure to work a list like this one, and let's hope that we can do the same thing as a valediction when he steps down in eight years' time.

Songs for the 44th President of the US of A

Now this week's category isn't exactly taxing.

As Obama said early Wednesday morning, his presidency will inherit wars, a planet in peril and one godawful recession the size of which is still unclear. So we need to send him a playlist of support, of inspiration, and even some good ideas (something like "Don't Ask Me Questions!", maybe?)
So if you're in a Blue State, get thinking! If you're in a Red State, I'm sure Rush Limbaugh needs your help more than this blog.....

So I guess I'll have to do this one myself, I suppose...

Serves me right for trying to be clever-clever.

Anyhoo.... I polled my extensive record collection, my colleagues at work and a fair few Italians that I know, and we came up with this:

"Hanky Panky" - Tommy James & the Shondells (most definitely NOT Madonna's version, forsooth)
"California Girls" - Beach Boys - this one struck me as funny only because of Berlusconi's controversial admiration of Obama's "tan", which raised a bit of a stink earlier this week.
"Do You Wanna Be in My Gang" - Gary Glitter - which came up more than once...
"Got to Get You Into My Life" (or Cabinet, whichever works) - the Beatles
"Fool's Overture" - Supertramp
and...by popular acclamation:

"Keep Your Hands to Yourself" - the Georgia Satellites.

It wasn't easy, I was hoping everyone would have come up with some more .... salacious suggestions, but some of you are clearly concerned over Silvio's litigious tendencies. Shame on you.

This week: 6 songs Silvio Berlusconi played to persuade Mara Carfagna to join his cabinet.

OK, here's the scoop.
You're Silvio Berlusconi. You're Italy's prime minister, you've owned pretty much the entire non-state broadcasting sector, you're a real estate magnate, an insurance giant, and have just been elected for your fourth term in office.
Your cabinet looks like that (up there).
*You* look like this.
My question is "How did he do it?"
Of course, you could argue that asking that question is like the famous question Mrs Merton once asked of Debbie McGee: "So what attracted you to the millionaire magician Paul Daniels?"
But I don't think money was the whole story. I mean, Silvio has a somewhat torrid reputation.
So I ask again: How did he do it?
I like to think he may have serenaded these ladies into joining his cabinet, and, always on the lookout for tips and ideas, I'd love to know what songs he may have sung.
So: this week's challenge is: Name the top 6 songs Berlusconi would have sung to persuade the likes of Mara Carfagna to join his cabinet.
The winner will be imbued with the same animal magnetism that so clearly lives within the follicles of Silvio's immaculately reconstructed scalp.

....aaaaand the winner is!

As you'll recall, we decided to take a pop at Joe the Plumber, this election's star-in-the-making. He's called Obama out on tax, and now's he's a political "eminence grise" doing the rounds of the pundit couches.

But he also displays a healthy disregard for professional qualifications and an understandable reluctance to part with his hard-earned when the taxman comes calling, so we thought it was time to honour him with his very own category: the 6 songs you'd play to Joe the Plumber. And they go like this:


"Taxman" - The Beatles

"Say It Ain't So Joe" - Murray Head

"Hey Joe" (where you going with that stop cock key in your hand) - Jimi Hendrix

"Average Joe" (right up to the moment he stood up to Obama) - Ron Sexsmith

"Call the Plumber" (but ask for professional qualifications) - MudPuppy

and the #1 song for Joe the Plumber is:

"Joe le Taxi" - Vanessa Paradis...face it, after being unmasked as a cowboy plumber and a tax dodger, driving a cab may be your next job.

There was some very questionable voting this week - we suspect Glenn Tilbrook had a hand in it - but we've checked for hanging chads and the like and it's all been passed as 100% regular by the Zimbabwe State Election Commission.

NEXT WEEK: We're looking to Europe this week, and Italy in particular. For those who aren't regular readers of the foreign news section, Italy's prime minister Silvio Berlusconi is basically your average downmarket Bill Clinton. He's been known to wear a bandana (to hide the hair plug treatment), he has questionable political leanings, he's released albums of Italian folk standards, and he appoints some pretty good-looking ministers of the female gender. Including a former topless dancer.
I'm not suggesting anything Mrs Berlusconi, far from it. I'm just saying that your husband's Cabinet is H-O-T.

And I wonder how the prime minister, who as I said has released his own albums in the past, might have persuaded these female politicos to join his Cabinet. Might he have serenaded them? And just what would he have sung?

So the topic is: 6 songs Silvio Berlusconi would have sung to persuade Mara Carfagna to join his cabinet. Go to it!!!!

.... and the winner is

Well, *you* all didn't come up with a heap of ideas (with the honourable exception of Uncle E - props, dude), but seeing as how I was on planes a few times since I posted the last category, I had a chance to come up with a few ideas. Most of them had something to do with time, as you might imagine. "Time" by the Floyd was right up there, as was "Isn't It Time" by the Babys, "Long Time" by Boston, "It's About Time" by the Lemonheads and, weirdly, "Arrival" by Abba.
But I got it down to six as follows:

"Tired of Waiting for You" by the Kinks,
"Will Anything Happen?" by Blondie,
"Don't Stop Believing" by Journey,
"Waiting for the Big One" by Peter Gabriel,
"Started Out With Nothing (And I Still Got Most of It Left)" by Seasick Steve,
and my favourite this week;
"How Soon Is Now?" by The Smiths

Others that flitted through th filtering process included "Coming Into Los Angeles" by Arlo Guthrie, "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys, "The Long And Winding Road" by the Beatles, "You're All I've Got Tonight" by the Cars (thinking of my carry-on bag there), "Since You've Been Gone" by Rainbow and "5.06 a.m. (Every Stranger's Eyes)" by Roger Waters.

But enough flannel. This week's delayed category is your Six Songs for "Joe the Plumber".

If you've been paying attention to the US election news, you'll know that John McCain made a minor star out of some plumber guy in New York. If I have teh facts right, this guy got up and asked Barack Obama a few questions at a rally, and he's been adopted by the Republicans as a sort of icon for their campaign. Now the papers have ben doing their digging and have found out that he's not licensed to plumb, and that he owes some back taxes as well.

I think this story adequately illustrates the downside of notoriety, and I think there are a few songs we could all play for the guy, so let's have your suggestions! A special dose of my respect and a video of the winning song go to the winner. And I don't want it to be me, folks, so get your lateral thinking caps on!

This week's category is......

....songs you'd play while waiting for your luggage in the arrival hall at the airport.

The time between (finally) getting off the plane, and seeing your baggage comes into view on the carousel can be anything between a few minutes (if you're a VIP or if you're arriving at Legoland airport), or several lifetimes (Mumbai, Dhaka, Houston). How would you serenade your fellow passengers? Would you organise a carousel surfing competition? Why is the arrivals hall usually the dirtiest and most run-down part of an airport, when it's the first thing visitors see?


************

And a late, late entry for last week's category, courtesy of my iPod: "Offshore Banking Business" by The Members...

"Bermuda in the Bahamas
Front Street Hamilton
They're doing more than growing bananas
They got a tax-dodge going on...."