White Smoke, Black Pope and Red Shoes?

As Peter Turkson of Ghana leads the odds (3/1) for becoming the next Papal father with almost every bookmaker in town, is it time for us to begin to imagine the unthinkable?

A Turkson spoof poster in front of the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome 

Let's be honest with each other, a Black pope is even a bigger deal than having a Black US president. As Barack Obama once attested to....a piece of paper which was passed to him during his inauguration confirmed what he has always believed: the pope is one of the 3 most powerful people in the world. Obama was informed the US president is Number 4!

I bet you want to know the other 2.....not telling. You will have to read this blog religiously and I will bless you with that info.

In any case, by that power list calculation, we may be about to have two people with black blood in the Top 4 for the first and last time ever! I am confident this fact  will not be lost on the Sistine-resident Conclave, as they possess members with the most detailed encyclopedic mental rolodexes.

Besides, appointing a pope is serious business and the Italians, being big in serious business will push as much as possible against the first negroid African pope (yes, the previous three all had Caucasian features!). That's why I fear Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone being the next ranked favourite, leaves me fearing for Turkson's chances.

But seriously....a Black Pope? Can you imagine the Italian gangster movies now having to avoid using words like; Mulignan and Moolie? Haha...now that will be interesting. We'll probably get a few people 'crossing the carpet' to other Christian groups and any Tea Party Catholics will just feel their world has ended....tee hee.

I must say though, the whole Vatican hulaboo has opened my eyes to many things. I now know my Catholic friends are actually a more prickly bunch than I initially thought, although with so many Irish faithful within their ranks, I suppose their collective sense of humour is still guaranteed for decades to come.

And if anyone had any doubts about the intact sense of humour, enter Cardinal Dolan (American-Irish member of the conclave - himself 33/1), who reassured us earlier this week on CNN's Amanpour,  that the papal red shoes were not a Prada creation:

"The Devil might have worn Prada.....but not this pope."

Papal shoemaker Adriano Stefanelli, with red loafer as worn by H.H. Pope Benedict XVI 

In my modest opinion, any movement that is led by someone who wears red shoes is clearly not worried about outside critique.

So the battle (sorry, the voting) begins soonest and a word of warning for the brothers and sisters out there...loads of people have been named favourite and went on to lose out. As Cardinal Barragan of Mexico once said:

"He who enters the conclave as a possible pope, comes out a cardinal."

Of course there are some entertaining odds for those who have more money than sense:

Oprah - 2000/1

Berlusconi - 2500/1

Mario Balotelli - 5000/1

Hey, don't laugh. Stranger things have happened, right? I mean who knew Benedict XVI would go out like that?!

Ai No Korea....

Saw a really funny comic the other day run the gauntlet of the Apollo Live audiences in Harlem. Chubby, bespectacled and generally very funny looking, he went on to advise everyone to always 'stay in their zone.' His reason for saying this? Well, apparently he had made the mistake of donning his friend's full-length fur coat for a night out....all was well until he claimed someone mistook him for a brown bear and shot him with a tranquilizer!

Extremely funny, but there was a morale to the tale....when fully aware of your shortcomings, don't put yourself in compromising situations!

For instance, can anyone please explain to me what the BBC were thinking when they aired a kids programme (or any other programme for that matter) with a Jimmy Saville spoof onboard? I mean, how many more chances do they want to get their act straight?! You almost feel like there is a hard-core 'Jim will fix it' appreciation cult within the corporation, with the members hellbent on perpetuating the legacy of their depraved icon, even if it means the worldwide broadcaster gets razed to the ground in the process. *Deep Sigh*

Leaving that decrepit organisation behind, let's take a quick trip to Davos, where the yearly jamboree of world leaders, movers and shakers takes place. Granted, a lot of worthy and well-meaning individuals turn up to fight the good guy's corner, but it is very difficult to swallow the wanton waste of money this must be for countries like Nigeria, where our resident problems definitely do not sit comfortably with such excess. As if that was not bad enough, we have President Goodluck Jonathan grant CNN's Christine Amanpour (no less) an interview where he basically became a fiction writer!!! Not cool at all Sir....you should have known we would all be watching and listening. You should have definitely stayed in your zone!

Lastly, let's talk about one of my heroes...a man who doesn't give a flying fudge about zones. He just wants to blow sh*t up! What piece on the current ways of the world would be complete without the mention of the cuddly dictator Kim Jong-un. What a crazy week it has been for the Nuclear one. Still steaming from the accusation he had undergone plastic surgery to look more like his grandfather Kim II Sung, the poor little rich boy now has to deal with UN sanctions! All this after Pyongyang had been generous enough to grant an American, honorary North Korean citizenship (where is the gratitude?). On top of all that, the South Koreans had the gall to conquer the pop world with Psy!

Of course now, the Great Leader has no choice but to threaten nuclear war on all and sundry. Oh, by the way, for those who are not of political leanings, a word of advice. Wherever you hear North Korea threatening the US, please replace those two letters with South Korea. It's a code that only a few of us understand, but one that every single South Korean is totally aware of.

Little Kim is not only prepared to leave his zone, the cute-looking, teddy bear of a man is bloody looking forward to it! Some crazy guys at NMA TV put together a video which you have to see:

Could the last person left in South Korea please turn off the light....