Kia Joorabchian

Well, here I was watching the highlights of West Ham United vs Aston Villa on BBC2 last night, thinking 'well, I've seen West Ham play live in my home town, so I'm interested! and well, I've seen their new signings Tevez and Mascherano play live for Argentina at the Emirates stadium, so I'm interested!'. But then who should chance to catch my eye but a dark-haired bloke in the executives' box, suited and booted and looking the billion dollars he is worth irl.

Turns out he is one Kia Joorabchian, 35-year-old Iran-born Londoner and 'businessman', who is Tevez's and Mascherano's agent and managed them at Corinthians (the Brazilian Sao Paolo club) and orchestrated the transfer to West Ham and is now billed to take over the entire West Ham club in fact.

I saw, I looked, I went 'hmmm'.

He is quite obvioulsy a sleaze bag and of dubious politics but man, the potential. Because clearly (clearly!) young Tevez is totally beholden to him and eager to do his bidding on and off the pitch, unzipping those Savile Row trousers on the flocati-covered floors of executive lounges and mouthing his sugar daddy's circumcised majesty. *roar* Poor old Tevez: pretty he ain't but oh, the potential for sexual shenanigans. He looks totally up for it, too. And Joorabchian just looks plain evil. *growl*

Also: the name! That combination of Armenian-sounding exoticism and cheap Korean car manufacturer. Irresistible.

( Who in hell are these people this woman insists on boring us about? Ogle the pics. )

anniversary time

So 9/11 is all over the news. Or 11/9, as it should be rightly called by UK standards. *tries to resist American running dogs' take-over of world Anglophonisms*

I am ambivalent about the exploitation of this day. On the one hand, I appreciate the need for concrete memorialisation on particular occasions as opposed to a general memory that goes on all the time. Monuments, rituals, these are necessary things.

On the other hand, I'm not sure about the commercial exploitation going on right now. Made for TV dramatisations starring Harvey Keitel, Hollywood feature films starring Nicholas Cage -- I don't like it. T'h watched one of these last night; I purposely did not. I was traumatised by 11/9 and I continue to be appalled by the aftermath. The aftermath (Iraq) now colours for me my view of 11/9/2001 and makes me wary of any representations that might sentimentalise that event, and de-politicise it.

Also, I don't like the notion that producers and companies are making money from people's deaths. It was only a matter of time but the time seems to have zoomed by amazingly quickly for business ventures to lose their inhibitions.

Maybe I should see the arty documentaries made about the topic which, according to the blurbs, are critical and so forth. But then I'm afraid they might totally depress me.

*is frog and sticks head in bucket and watches frivolous sci-fi shows made in Canada instead*