Like the swallows going back to Capistrano, some things are signs of the seasons:
Putin’s taken off his shirt, again: The Beeb has a report that is so far out I hope it was meant to be camp,
The Tuva holidays of Vladimir Putin – the title of a summer blockbuster film?
The name of a thriller about an ex-KGB officer just trying to enjoy a quiet life, but who keeps getting drawn back to solve problems which defeat everyone else?
No, but there might be something to that…
And why not? After all, Putin is essentially an amalgam of every villain from every action movie released between 1981 and 1987..The Beeb reports,
It is actually the headline which the website of one of Russia’s leading news agencies, Ria Novosti, put above a selection of official photographs of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin enjoying a summer break in a remote region of Siberia.
Mr Putin is shown standing on a rocky mountain slope; resting in the branches of a tree; swimming in a river; riding a horse.
In most of the photos, he wears military-style clothes and boots. In the equestrian shots, he is shirtless.
In a country where most men do not live until the age of 60, Mr Putin stands out as an example of someone who has looked after himself.
Look after himself? You can say that again! Diet, excercise, massage, Super Bowl ring . . . And then you can ask, Why are Vladimir Putin’s opponents dying?
But back to the Beeb,
To anyone fed up with their father/husband/boss dragging himself out of bed, or going to work so hung over he does not really know what he is doing, these pictures say: “At least there is one man who is in control”.
And firmly so!
UPDATE
“In control”, as a gay icon. (h/t RCW)
We are getting very close to the type of adulation that Mao got for “swimming” the width of the Yangtze. I eagerly await a daily announcement of Putin’s sperm count or at the very least a breathless commentary on how he is now growing hair on his chest, rasslin’ a b’ar when he was only three and his now so confident in the global power of the Russian Navy that he send the noisiest subs to patrol off the coast of the US just in case something goes wrong and they need the USCG.
Greetings:
Me, I’m waiting for an Obama-Putin pose-off. That should disabuse the lefties of their adulation of our current President physique. President Obama has those “someone else has done all my heavy lifting” hands and arms.