January in Review: Politics, Bieber and Doctors Who

I’m sure you all had some New Year’s resolutions – lose weight, drink less, write that novel you’ve been working on for years… I get the feeling that when the Prime Minister, drunk with power on 31 December thought about his resolutions it went something along the lines of ‘I’ve shown the Australian public that I am incapable of any kind of political and economic leadership, now 2014 will be the year I show it to the world!’ Bless him, he has. And it’s only January.
 

Unfortunately for the attendees of The World Economic Forum held in Davos (not Davros, though keep Doctor Who in mind, I’ll get to that later), its original keynote speaker – a horse that could count – was forced to pull out at the last minute. After a long night of calling pretty well everyone on the planet in search of a replacement, organisers realised that the only man available was our Prime Minister, the right Honourable Tony ‘Reverse Robin Hood’ Abbott. That’s my theory anyway.
 

So our most prime of ministers packed up his speech, which was predominantly composed of recycled nonsensical slogans, and flew to Davos. Upon arriving and most likely spending some tax dollars on the minibar, Abbott was ushered on stage. Seems they must still have had the facilities to clean up the counting horse’s poop because Abbott was about to talk a lot of excrement.
 

There is an unspoken rule in global politics – leave the domestic stuff at home – which is something Abbott has previously forgotten, or was not reminded of by his minders. That, and he seems to think the world actually gives a toss about what is going on in little ol’ far away from everything, oh look at you over there, Australia. Here is a hint Tony, even the Australian public didn’t care enough about what was going on here, which is actually how you are where you are. You’ll show them.
 

Remember how I mentioned Doctor Who? Well, here is my analogy of Abbott’s talk. Imagine if Matt Smith went to a Star Trek convention and started talking about how much better he is than David Tennant. Nobody would understand what he was saying or why he was there, and anyone with a vague idea of what he was talking about would know he was lying or judge him as being bitter, twisted and not particularly up on diplomacy.

Moving from one annoying pain in the rear and onto another, Justin Bieber was arrested for a DUI in Florida this month. Yep little Biebz is all growed up and has a big boy car and spoilt brat attitude. Seriously, who didn’t see this coming? The ratty performer, famous for the song Baby (baby, baby, ooooooh – earworm!), was pulled over in a rented Lamborghini intended for drag racing on a public street and arrested for being under the influence. The arresting officer noted that the kid smelled of alcohol and was not fit to control a vehicle. It’s been revealed that Bieber blew a 0.014 when tested but according to police he has admitted to having smoked some weed and taking prescription drugs.
What we have learnt from this little event is that the boy needs to go to rehab, or my personal preference, prison. Think of all the life lessons he could learn in the joint!
 

This episode has confirmed to me a long held suspicion, Beliebers are essentially the most vacuous people on the planet, although they’re only marginally edging out Directioners at the moment. Rallying to defend their peach-fuzzed infallible prince, these empty-headed tweens flocked to their short-hand communication tool of choice – Twitter – to make sure he knew it was okay to drink, drive high performance cars in an unruly manner and then resist arrest.
 

Bieber will be sending Valentine’s Day being arraigned by a Florida court – I’m hoping for a stern verdict delivered with chocolates and a dozen red roses.
 

Just to assure you that it’s not all doom and gloom only one month into 2014, we did get to see something very special. Keeping up with my Doctor Who fixation, we recently got a glimpse of the Doctor’s new clothes! It’s not usual for me to be excited about fashion, but I am really looking forward to Peter Capaldi taking over as the Timelord, and part of that excitement is his costume!
 

I feel like Joan Rivers should be involved in every new Doctor’s choice of outfit, asking them who they’re wearing while shouting at them on a red (or TARDIS blue) carpet somewhere. I fully expect the bottom to fall out of the fez industry, but they’ve had a good run. Instead I anticipate a peak in the sale of Doc Martens.
 

Well those are my highlights of January for you. Here’s looking forward to what February brings and hopefully there’ll be no mention of Tony Abbott, unless it’s to note that he was detained on re-entry and shipped off to Manus Island. Ah, a man can dream…

-Paul Briske