bleungberg.com

The three-way scrap to succeed John Motson as the BBC’s Voice of Football is now a four-way go, with acclaimed cycling commentator Simon Brotherton entering the equation against Guy Mowbray, Steve Wilson and Jonathan Pearce.

Prior to Brotherton’s involvement, Bleungberg’s smart money had always been on Guy Mowbray. Now though, it’s too close to call!

Anyone but Pearce, though.

Barely a month after her death, it looks like the honeymoon for Mr Jade Goody is already over.

For months, negative stories about the violent thug Jack Tweed (above, pictured with ankle braclet) were deliberately held back by the British tabloids as his girlfriend/wife waited for death.

And since her demise, he has been thrown back into jail for assault and the tabloids can’t seem to wait any longer with its mountain of negative stories about this former ‘football agent’.

It has now emerged that he has been boasting to fellow inmates about how Goody’s pre-death and death has ’set up for life’ through various media deals and business associates.

The significance of this story is that it was reported in ‘The Sun’, still Jade Goody’s biggest cheerleader and part-financier behind ‘Jade’s Life - The Muscial’ - they even have a section devoted to her memory on the front-page of its website.

And if ‘The Sun’ isn’t onside, then we can only presume that the backlash has begun, and very soon, Tweed will be turned into Public Enemy Number One.

Unleash the dossier!!

Bleungberg can’t wait.

Alberto Fujimori, the former Peruvian President who has been jailed for 25 years over human-rights abuse and torture by firing squads holds a special place in Bleungberg’s heart, for, it was he and his extraordinarily dreadful campaign to root out his opponents which first got yours truly hooked onto international current affairs one cold Christmas 13 years ago.

Back then, Bleungberg hated going to bed early. Instead, he preferred to listen to BBC Radio 5 Live’s ‘Up All Night’ with Rhod Sharp at around 3am on most nights in order to learn more about the wider world.

Nicknamed ‘El Chino’ due to his half-Japanese ancestry - Latinos can’t tell the differences between anyone who’s yellow, surprise, surprise - Fujimori was featured heavily on the show due to his slippery and corrupt nature, but also for his successful campaign against the fearsome Shining Path terrorist group. However, it was the lengthy siege of the Japanese Embassy in Peru just before Christmas 1996 and early 1997 which propelled Fujimori to the wider world, and Bleungberg waited anxiously for updates from Lima which were vividly described on a nightly basis by the BBC correspondent, Michael Voss (now based in Havana, incidentally) which not only took in the Christmas holiday, but also half-term and then Easter before it was finally declared over in a daring rescue mission.

The fact that he took on the Marxist rebels who had stormed the embassy, killed the lot whilst not a single hostage was harmed, having also defeated the ultra-resistant Shining Path terrorist group means that Fujimori will always be the first nasty, brutal, corrupt and supremely violent dictator that Bleungberg latched onto, and thus began a love affair with all things evil in international politics.

Of course, his subsequent flight to Japan to seek asylum from prosecution was equally fascinating mainly to Japan’s reluctance and incompetence in dealing with this famous celebrity.

Yes, there have been numerous dictators and leaders who were far worse and more murderous than Fujimori before and since - Mao, Saddam and Ceausescu (Bleungberg will never ever forget that helicopter and THAT execution during Christmas 1989) were three that Bleungberg took notice of as a child but also considered them as a bit of a joke. El Chino though, was the first that Bleungberg followed closely, and grew to admire in a fascinating way. His place in our heart is thus secured. In a way, without Fujimori, Bleungberg might never have taken such a keen interest in foreign affairs.
Of course, he became even more famous at the end of 1996 and beginning of 1997 ‘courageous’ campaign against the fearsome Shining Path featured prominently on the show

Jackie Chan, also known by his stage name ‘Victorious Dragon’, has at last shown his true colours as a bona-fide Chinese communist sympathiser by denouncing Taiwan and Hong Kong’s population as ‘uncontrollable’, and suggested that they would be better off in a PRC-style government.

Having previously been criticised after calling Taiwan’s recent election results ‘a joke’ - and let’s not forget his rather cringe worthy kowtowing to the Communist Politburo during the Beijing Olympics as one of its torch-bearers, this latest incident - filmed in front of a live studio audience - demonstrates to the wider world what we have always known: that he’s a talentless twit and poodle to the PRC.

“I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled.” Chan opined before an audience of business suits in southern China.

He added that freedom currently enjoyed in Hong Kong and Taiwan made these societies “chaotic”.

Oops.

His PR said these comments had been taken out of context, and that he was merely describing the entertainment industry as ‘uncontrollable’ and ‘chaotic’.

Some back-paddling!

Presumably his PR(C) troopS are also the ones to have deleted/limited coverage of his remarks on Chan’s Chinese wikipedia pages - the controversy appears in the Mandarin version of the his profile but with no mention of the reaction in Taiwan and Hong Kong, whilst there’s the entire controversy is overlooked on the Cantonese version.

If there is one word that Hong Kongese and Taiwanese are very touchy about when it comes to the PRC, it’s ‘freedom’. Forget prosperity, water and food supply, energy or electricity, Hong Kong and Taiwan’s residents know they have to live side-by-side with China for these essential resources, and thus turn a blind eye to whatever the Wen and Hu are unleashing on their own 1 billion-plus people.

Deep down, however, they worry about China’s looming shadow and know that the freedom they currently enjoy may not last forever. So, the fact that ‘Victorious Dragon’ would even dare to raise the subject and to implicitly suggest that freedom is a bad thing for the locals means that not only is he completely out of touch and deluded, he’s also an out-and-proud communist and PRC cheerleader.

It’s just fantastic that Chan has been roundly condemned by the media on both sides of the Taiwanese Strait and that calls for boycotts of his films are gathering momentum.

For years, he was untouchable as no one dared to criticise someone who had broken through the linguistic (and racial) barriers to achieve international fame and glory by acting like an idiot in Hollywood films. (Think ‘Shanghai Knights’ with Owen Wilson)

But now the backlash is in full swing, so maybe we can start telling him that he hasn’t actually made a decent movie since ‘Police Story’ in 1985? Or that his English is terrible and an embarrassment to the Chinese community? And what about his god-awful singing with that terrible voice?!