(ThatKidInTheCorner :: Who G8 All The Pies?)

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July 5, 2005

Who G8 All The Pies?

In which I share some thoughts on proper decorum and etiquette at the Gleneagles Hotel

Over the next few days, eight of the most powerful people in the world (go ahead, call them the "G8") will gather at a resort in Scotland to parley on the great geopolitical and economic issues facing the world today. What began in the 1970s as a set of informal meetings between the leaders of the Western World has developed into one of the most highly anticipated and closely watched political events on the planet. The protestors have been in Scotland since before the weekend, looking for ways to "clash" with police and security personnel whilst alerting the world (or at least the TV cameras poised to cover said clashes) to the importance of their chosen causes. Meanwhile, our brothers and sisters in the entertainment community organized a bunch of concerts to try to cure poverty in Africa. And the blathermonkeys will now have something to talk about that isn't Iraq (boring), Michael Jackson (mercifully over), or the Supreme Court (too many details).

Which is all well and good. We should all play close attention to the events of the next few days -- this is all terribly important stuff. At the same time, my big response when I first heard mention of this summer's G8 meeting was, "Wait, they're having it where?" That is, it turns out a few years back that I had the unique and quite serendipitous pleasure of spending a couple days at the Gleneagles Hotel, site of this year's conference. Without naming names or giving too much away, I visited said hotel because my employer at the time had just been sold off by its parent company. Said parent company also owned said hotel and agreed to let us have a little soiree on the premises as a thanks-for-playing-now-get-the-hell-out parting gift. The whole thing was a win-win: it didn't cost said parent company too too much, and we all thought it was pretty impressive.

Appropriately enough, we trashed the place. Classy.

While ThatKidInTheCorner certainly has opinions about many of the issues to be discussed at the coming conference (Did Dubya actually admit that maybe something is fishy with the climate? Can we really expect poor developing nations to pay back piles of loans that were mostly stolen by corrupt officials? At the same time, can we trust that our aid dollars are working without transparent, accountable and stable local partners in the developing world?), on these questions I shall defer to the blathermonkeys. In the meantime, I'd like to offer just a few tips on how to properly rawk out at Gleneagles:

Get A Caddy And A Spotter And A Bright Orange Ball: man, was the round of golf I got to play at Gleneagles ever wasted on me. I mean, I'm not very good at golf to start with, but this was one of those tricky pseudo-links courses where if you don't hit the fairway, you've essentially lost your ball. Right. I lost more than a few balls. Mercifully, the other folks that played that day weren't very good either, so mostly we had a pretty good time of it hoofing around the course and whacking balls out into the Scottish sunset. All things considered, I still think it was a better idea than the ATVing or horseback riding (the other entertainment options).

Perhaps Something With DDT Will Suffice: my other big memory from the round of golf was that July must be the month for lovers in Scotland (if you're a mosquito). I guess it only gets warm for a month or so out of the year, and the bugs don't have much time to mate. Or something. All I remember was that it was kind of swampy and there were insects everywhere. And they couldn't help me find my errant golf balls either.

If You're Going To Wander Around Half-Naked and Blind Drunk, Try To Be Discreet About It: so "apparently" one of my coworkers had a few too many lemonades and was sent to bed early. She "apparently" was later found wandering the halls of the hotel wearing only half of her underwear (and not the half you'd expect) by a colleague. Generally speaking, this is the sort of thing you'll want to keep relatively quiet, what with it being a work-related event and all. Not so much. By 11:30 the next morning the entire company knew. Sigh. Not so impressive (but, then again, other cultures aren't as uptight as we Americans about this sort of thing...or something like that.)

That Potted Plant Is Not A Urinal: in addition to the alleged nekkid sleepwalking incident, there was "apparently" an incident involving someone urinating into a potted plant as well as the theft of laundry that some of the hotel's other guests had left outside their door. Again, or something like that. I didn't know any of this had happened (I was jetlagged out of my brain as I had come in from Asia for this), but "apparently" it made the London tabloids two days later. Better not let Dubya have wine with dinner!

If You Had To Pick One: I've been on semi-vacation for the past week or so (as well as the coming month!), so I didn't get a chance to weigh in on the whole Vladimir Putin Super Bowl Ring thing. Firstly, let us all agree that is pretty awesome, the sort of real-world equivalent of that scene in Pulp Fiction where John Travolta disdainfully addresses Bruce Willis as "Punchy": you might think that being a boxer makes you pretty tough, but I kill people for a living. Same thing here: you might think it's pretty impressive to win three Super Bowls in four years, but I'm in charge of the world's largest kleptocracy -- if I want your ring, I'll take it, and you won't say a word about it. Secondly, said incident allows me to trot out my favorite line in re: Putin versus the rest of the G8. That is, take a gander at a photo of the G8 leaders and ask yourself, "Which of these dudes is most likely to have killed a man with his bare hands?" Right. That's why Bob Kraft said it was a gift.

Coming Soon...well not a ton, since I'm going to only be sporadically online over the next couple weeks. Still, I have some longer things lined up, as well as some delicious old chestnuts that I unearthed during my move out of my apartment last week. The best way to stay in touch here is, as always, through the wonders of RSS.

Posted by thatkid at July 5, 2005 4:28 PM under The Papers

July 5, 2005

Who G8 All The Pies?

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