It makes the heart sing for this former airman. The retro red, white and blue paint job of the old Royal Canadian Air Force has really gussied up the Hair’s Airbus A310. They have even numbered it as Harper’s personal Air Force O-One? That is what it is.
And it is far more impressive than that awful battleship grey that it used to be. You always wondered if we could get lucky and have some uninformed fighter pilot from some misbegotten nation shoot it down just for practice. The color always made us wonder what country Harper wanted to go to war with this time. Flying around in a military aircraft was always a bad strategy for Canadian Prime Ministers.
Harper, the Hair and the hairdresser are doing Europe next week. They are going to end up in Ireland for a meeting with the G-8 countries. Harper will be hoping that all the other leaders (except Obama—who has a gorgeously painted Boeing 747 for his personal use) are still at the airport when he lands so that they can see how important he is.
First, Harper is going to London where he will bend his knee to the Queen and assure her of his fealty. He will then get to address the Mother of all Parliaments at Westminster. What he will say there is probably just as irrelevant as his answers to opposition queries back home in Ottawa.
But you can be sure that the Hair will be perfect. There is a Tower of London nearby for the hairdresser who does the Hair less than perfect.
From London, Harper will carry on to Paris for a bit of shopping. He has no real excuse for the Paris visit but he always like to get well acclimatized on these trips before getting down to business. The only reason for the trip is the G-8 meeting in Dublin at the end of the week. If the Irish spend as much money on Dublin as Treasury Board president Tony Clement spent on Huntsville for the Canadian G-8 meeting a few years back, Dublin should look phenomenal!
(Addendum: Or is the meeting in Belfast? The Brits would never waste a shilling gussying up that town.)
But this meeting might be the start of the fall from grace of Canada’s Stephen Harper. It has now become clear to many G-8 members that Harper’s so-called economic expertise is a lot of hot air. As an exporter of oil, they realize that he is exporting pollution in the guise of bitumen and no responsible nation wants it. Like many Canadians, they hope they will not have to put up with his Hair and his pomposity much longer.
-30-
Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]