The Crazy World Of Naramalli Sivaprasad

Naramalli Sivaprasad in an Indian MP for the ruling Telugu Desam Party (TDP) of the state of Andhra Pradesh, who like to use costumes to highlight his various concerns.

Naramalli Sivaprasad And His Many Costumes

He has in the past turned up at Parliament as mythological characters, Hindu gods, a spiritual guru and even a woman.

Talk About Kitsch

The Chinese, are famous for architecturally taking as a challenge the expression if the mountain wont come to Mohammed, then Mohammed will have to go to the mountain .... an expression by the way, that originally comes from the Francis Bacon's 1625 essays, retelling the Turkish proverb of the time "..... Mahomet called the hill to come to him, again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said, If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill."

Will The Real Venice Please Stand Up ... one of these is fake

But in this case, I am referring to cities ..... famous tourist cities of the world such as Venice, or Paris etc. They simply copy all the good bits of these cities somewhere in China, and Chinese tourists can experience them all in one theme park day. Dalian, in north-east China is one such spot. There they have recreated a mini Venice, frescos and all .... with 2.5 miles of canals and over 200 copied buildings for tourists to experience the city by gondola.

The Sins Of the Father

'Uber Bad taste' doesn't just extend to golf courses in the USA. Oh not by a long way, because by a strange twist of fate, by using the German term 'Uber' in my last bad taste posting, I almost prefigured the next such story to come along .... from a German Hotel.

Now I have to admit that I am a bit perplexed as to why I don't get more stories out of Germany anyway? They are after all our 'BIG brother' in Europe, and are generally freely putting their weight about with both the French and the US, having it seems finally thrown off their diffidence about WWII.

Strangely, as I recall Mrs Thatcher predicted that German reunification would lead to this Super Germany, and for that reason was not keen on it happening ....

Anyway's, the bad taste story from Germany surrounds the 'Kristall Sauna-Wellness Park hotel' which has been forced to apologise for promoting a "romantic Kristall Nacht evening" for spa-lovers

Romantic Kristall Nacht

.... on the 75th anniversary of 'Kristallnacht' ..... 'Kristallnacht' was of course the name given to the Nazi's attack on Jewish homes and businesses - On the 9/10 November 1938, at least 91 Jews were killed and tens of thousands were arrested, and so much broken glass was on the streets that is was described as a 'Kristall Nacht' ('Crystal Night')

Kristall Nacht 1938

.... The hotel has been forced to apologise and describe it as "insensitive and extremely inappropriate" as an advert but pointed out that they had used the name 'Kristall' in their promotions in the past, without complaints.

Now interestingly, I would see this event in rather a different light .... surely this shows that Germany has moved on so much, that these events are too distant for the current Germans to constantly remember, or recognise, as being their collective historic fault, it being probably their grand-parents who were alive then.

This idea that Germany should be 'punished' forever is nonsense, just as we shouldn't be asked to keep paying for 'colonialism', and its about time that we consigned some events to the history books .... the sins of the father should not be continually visited upon their children.

Uber Bad Taste

There's bad taste and then there's really bad taste. The owner of the Tumbledown Trails Golf Course in Wisconsin advertised nine holes of golf for $9.11 to mark the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks .....

All Done In The Best Possible Taste

Apparently they had been making this offer in the Wisconsin State Journal for several years without any comment, before one of the self righteous, who seem to patrol our public consciousness these days as self ordained ministers of our moral well being, decided to get involved, and the the advert went viral.

As you might expect, this led to the usual death threats on Social Media sites .... we get more and more like the rest of the backward world in that regard. So he has apologised .... however it has to be said that he may not really understand why he has to do so.

"We're a little hurt by the fact that people are putting such a negative context on this. I thought people would appreciate it."

But bravely he added  "We could close, but then all these people with their negative attitudes, they win.'' .... I couldn't agree more. Time was when a little crassness or bad taste might get a reproving comment but not 'death threats', we were tolerant enough to let it go ..... but not now. We now use the Internet to form vigilante mobs and hound people in Troll Attacks.

Is that so far removed from the real mobs in the Muslim world, who burn houses and kill people? Not so far in my opinion.