Caio Castro is a Brazilian soapie star, and former Nickelodeon teen idol, with a toothpaste-commercial smile, luxurious curly hair, smouldering good looks and pecs that just won’t quit. Sadly, he is also a noted homophobe, having made anti-gay comments in an interview a few years ago. This week though he got his karmic come-uppance, as he was splashed nude all over the Brazilian tabloid press. When you are a famous TV star, don’t send girls pics like this….NSFW after the jump!
Earlier this week I was enthusing about Hong Kong’s latest attraction, the giant rubber duck that had floated in Hong Kong’s harbour, and heart, on a worldwide mission to promote peace, togetherness and knowing kitsch. The duck was a beacon, an irresistable symbol of playful optimisim in a city in dire need of it and the the Hong Kong public went crazy for it.
But yesterday the dream came crashing down. Under fittingly dark and gloomy skies, a tragic discovery was made: the once-proud duck was found listing severely, deflated. Soon it was a pancake-flat glob of yellow floating in the grey harbour, looking pretty dead.
As if this “tragedy” wasn’t enough to capture Hong Kong’s imagination, a new twist on the story emerged today. Rumours were spreading through the city swiftly that the duck had been murdered! Hong Kongers were quick to lay the blame at the much-despised mainland tourists, with rumours (seemingly unfounded) of a “tourist from Shenyang” who “flicked thirty lit cigarettes” at the duck, while swearing and cursing.
This shadowy hate figure was a perfect call to arms for the anti-China brigade, ever ready to pounce in this city, wher resentment is high against the growing influence of China’s super-rich, driving up prices even as they deny Hong Kongers political freedoms. In the wake of anger over the duck death, the Chinese state media was forced to hit back, claiming the story was unfounded.
Its an interesting example of human nature that something so trivial (a rubber duck) could bring out such base, and potentially scary scapegoating.
Meanwhile the media has been having a field day with headlines like “Fowl play?” “Giant duck burnt alive by mainlanders” and “Sitting duck”.
If you have ordered lamb or mutton for hotpot in Shanghai over the last four years, you might have been served rat, fox or mink, the Ministry of Public Security said on Thursday.
For more, read the full article at the South China Morning Post here.
This weekend saw Sydney host its annual gay Mardi Gras party. It rained on the night, no doubt raising a bittersweet smile from the Christian fundamentalist protesters who protested the event and prayed for rain every Mardi Gras since the 1980s, before giving up (I believe) a few years ago. The Mardi Gras has now become so ingrained (and unthreatening) that its biggest controversy this year was the lavish funding provided for it by the Sydney city council. Local authorities painted a rainbow-coloured traffic crossing across Oxford Street on the Mardi Gras parade route – at the eye watering cost of one hundred thousand Australian dollars. Even more astonishingly, it was originally intended to be a temporary Mardi Gras artwork, but many are now asking why it could not be kept permanently, especially given the hefty (some would say, excessive) cost of creating it.
STOP PRESS:
Looks like I typed too soon. There has in fact been a huge controversy at this year’s Mardi Gras over a case of apparent police brutality against an 18 year-old reveller, captured on tape by outraged bystanders. The case has hit the headlines in Australia and other countries and even garnered an angry Facebook post this morning by Eliad Cohen. Many say the amount of force used was unjustified and police had promised a prompt investigation. Apparently though there is another piece of footage showing the ‘victim’ lashing out and punching police before he was ‘subdued’ and pushed to the ground, his head hitting the concrete with a thud, as seen in the footage below:
RIP to Hungarian porn star Arpad Miklos who committed suicide last week. The words to this song by indie rock singer Perfumed Genius seem oddly prescient.
One of Chiang Mai’s most notorious institutions has been demolished – the “death hotel” at the centre of a 2011 controversy. Four guests at the Downtown Inn died mysteriously within a two week period. It was widely suspected at the time that they had been poisoned by a chemical to kill bedbugs, which had been used to treat the hotel’s sheets – but the relevant tests were never conducted and no arrests were made. Dubbed the “death hotel” in the press, the building has now itself been destroyed – karma some would say – and will be rebuilt…as another hotel.
Interesting choice of music for the video.
One of Hong Kong’s richest men has offered a 62 million HKD fortune to any man who can tempt his lesbian daughter into marriage. Poor girl.
Read more about it here.
Above, the cover of Kyarypamupamu’s new album with her out-there-as-always new look.
Below, an unexpected comeback. Nineties J-Pop superstar Hitomi has returned with a strangely addictive new video, even if the song accompanying it is barely there.
And meanwhile, a scandal is brewing for one of Japan’s newest celebs. Seungri, of Korean band Big Bang has recently morphed into a Japanese talk show host – how he hast the time for this (or the Japanese language chops) I am not quite sure, but its an impressive accomplishment.
This week though photos of a sleeping Seungri hit the Tokyo tabloids with a lurid story sold by a former conquest who alleges he likes to choke his partner during sex and (wait for it) did not help to clean her up afterwards. The scandal!
…why they call Kowloon “the dark side”.
It is a ‘kuman thong’ or human foetus charm, on sale openly on the streets of Kowloon, (in a Thai import shop in Yau Ma Tei.) For more on the gruesome kuman thong trade, read previous articles here.
Chinese speakers – care to explain this headline? I assume it is a story about some kind of gruesome torture/ abduction but I was intrigued because I have never seen illustrations on the front page of a newspaper before.
This week in Bangkok, police collared five Vietnamese nationals who had been pickpocketing the crowd at the Lady Gaga concert in the Thai capital. The gang, several members of whom were arrested at the airport fleeing the country, have apparently been jetting into Thailand specifically to steal at large events, before heading back to Ho Chi Minh.
Also in Bangkok, police have revealed that they were tipped off to the recent foetus smuggler by reports of babies’ cries emanating from his hotel room. The question now being asked by many Thais, were they the ghostly wails of the infant souls, or the cries of living babies…and just where did he get those foetuses and babies’ bodies (some were up to 7 months old) anyway?
A thief in Brasilia walked out of a sex shop robbery with a five thousand Euro gold-plated vibrator…but forget to get a recharger.
And of course, in Miami a naked man high on drugs was arresting for trying to “eat another man’s face”. It has been all over the mainstream news.
Horrifying, but oddly compelling and -dare I say? even beautiful – new photograph of the gold-plated baby foetus charms discovered in a Bangkok suitcase this week.
Four hundred kilograms of tiger meat have been found in an illegal exotic animal abbatoir. Slabs of freshly cut zebra and “elephant sashimi” were also recovered from the slaughterhouse in the Northeastern suburb of Khlong Sam Wa. Ewww. The clandestine bush meat butcher was only sprung when police followed home a man from a local 7-11. Their suspicions were raised because – get this – his hands were dripping with blood.
Only in Bangkok.
Several private zoos are under investigation, suspected of selling tigers to slaughter illegally to make money on the side. So far none have been charged.
Barely a week after the discovery of a bag full of humans skulls by a Bangkok canal – stolen for use in black magic -comes another macabre bust. A man has been arrested with six gold-plated human foetuses. The man had purchased the roasted dead baby foetuses, known in Thai as “khumarn tong” and believed to possess incredibly strong powers to control peoples’ minds. They were plated in gold – whether to disguise them or as part of the ritual is unclear. The man told police he had paid US $6500 for the dead babies and was planning on taking them to Taiwan to sell on the internet.
It is not clear at this stage where the bodies originally came from.
Such cases are not unusual in Thailand, where dead foetuses are widely considered to be powerful talismans.
In case slathering snail entrails over your face wasn’t disgusting enough, the Koreans have found a new – and macabre – secret to staying young:
SEOUL, May 8 – South Korea has intensified a crackdown on the smuggling of capsules from China containing the powdered flesh of dead babies, taken by some as a cure for disease or a way to boost sexual performance, a customs official said on Tuesday.
Five partially crushed and drilled human skulls were found dumped in a bag by a canal in Rangsit, in Bangkok’s Northern suburbs, this week. The skulls had been stolen from a temple morgue and were being used for the production of “skull powder” used in amulets in the black magic trade.
There was a macabre story in the newspaper this week. Ocean swimmers at Hung Hom, just across the harbour in Kowloon by one of the city’s main train stations, came across a floating suitcase. Curious about the long strands of hair spilling out, they opened it up to find a woman’s dead body.
My first reaction to this: people swim in the sea at Hung Hom?
I saw an intriguing news item recently, all the more shocking because I was at its unlikely setting just two years ago: the Paris cats and dogs cemetery. I even took a photograph of the VERY GRAVE that concealed, little did I know, a now-stolen fortune (see my photo above)! Its like a particularly camp Tintin comic. If only I had thought to dig…
Tipsy was buried in a marble tomb in the world’s oldest pet cemetery in a Paris suburb in 2003.
For years there were rumours the dog’s wealthy owners had buried treasure with it, but this had never been confirmed.
But police told AFP news agency that when the grave was desecrated earlier this month the collar, worth 9,000 euros (£7,500: $12,000), was stolen.
They said the grave in the cemetery in Asnieres-sur-Seine was vandalised on the night of 4 February, the tombstone pulled down and Tipsy’s skeleton left strewn over the ground.
The site is now surrounded by yellow police tape and the cemetery closed for repair work while police investigate.
The mayor of Asnieres, Sebastien Pietrasanta, said he was astonished the jewels had been buried with Tipsy, AFP reports. But he stressed: “Treasure is not hidden in the tombs of all the dogs and cats.”
I love that last, pre-emptive statement to head off a rush of diamond-seeking dog-grave robbers!
For more on my trip to the cemetery read here, “Where the Dead Things Are”.
“Kony” has been the name on everybody’s lips since the youtube clip publicising the actions of the Ugandan warlord gained an astonishing 50 million viewers in two days. His reign of terror has been catapulted from obscure humanitarian campaign to front-page cause celebre. Not surprisingly, the backlash has been just as swift. Some have called the whole thing a self-serving vehicle for Western liberals feel better about themselves – while changing little in Africa. Other have been pointed that it is ten years too late – Kony has left Uganda anyway and the worst of the fighting was almost a decade ago although this is downplayed in the video itself. Teju Cole, the Nigerian author of (boring) novel “Open City” decried : “The fastest growth industry in the US is the White Savior Industrial Complex. The white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, founds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening. ..The banality of evil transmutes into the banality of sentimentality. The world is nothing but a problem to be solved by enthusiasm…This world exists simply to satisfy the needs—including, importantly, the sentimental needs—of white people and Oprah”.
I have some sympathy for this point of view. The self-serving and fake vogue for “volunteering” holidays in the Third World irks me no end, for example. As if paying private operators through the nose to do a few menial tasks in a country with a nearby beach helps anyone – after all, unskilled labour is hardly what the Third World is missing. But still, I find it hard to be as churlish as Cole. Since when has doing something about the world’s ills, no matter how imperfect, been worse than doing nothing? For those who care to dig a bit deeper, I have recently (and coincidentally) been reading the graphic novel “Unknown Soldier”, a thoroughly-researched and graphic story set in wartorn Uganda that namechecks Kony and aims to “educate” its reader on the conflict, as well as entertaining them.
For such a rootsy act, and one with such a consistent sound, the Malian duo of Amadou and Mariam have always picked some pretty edgy collaborators. After meeting at a school for the blind in dusty Bamako – one of the poorest cities on Earth – the two have rocketed to unlikely pop stardom, with their albums topping the charts in France. Along the way they have worked with Manu Chao and Damon Albarn (on their sublime and hypnotic single of several years ago, Sabali).
The couple are about to release a new album, Folila, with their most adventurous guest list yet. It is set to feature Santigold (her track has leaked onto youtube already), the Scissor Sisters (their track hasn’t), a guitarist from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and here, French pop star Bertrand Cantat who has just been released from ten years in prison after being convicted of killing his girlfriend. No comment.
The pair have also been performing around Europe with an innovative show titled “Eclipse”. The singers take to the stage in complete darkness (to simulate their own blindness) and play against recorded African street noise, with Malian incense billowing. The aim is to give the audience a complete sensory simulation of the lives of the singers as they were recording.
With fellow Malians Tinariwen playing in Hong Kong for the city’s Arts Festival this year, it’d be great to have Amadou and Mariam follow suit.
A B-grade Korean boyband (fittingly named Block B) have faced an outpouring of criticism after an interview with the Thai media in which the members joked about the recent floods that have devastated the country. Their lead singer, amid whoops of amusement from the other boys and bizarre monkey-like behaviour (one guy was clapping his feet), offered to donate US$5 to the cause. The Thai public was not amused, and Thai singer of Korean boyband 2PM offered a stinging Twitter rebuke. Since then the shamed boys have offered grovelling apologies and lead singer Zico shaved his head (!) to show contrition.
Meanwhile, the mother of an underrage singer from monstrous pop phenomenon AKB48 has been arrested in Tokyo - for having sex with an underrage boy. The Japanese media was apparently quite coy in reporting the story.
