Monday, May 29, 2006

My parents went to Namibia, and all I got was this lousy passport.

Please join me in issuing a very warm welcome to the world for Shiloh Nouvel Jolie-Pitt. Little Shiloh was born on Saturday in the heavily-guarded Pitt compound on Walvis Bay, Namibia.

Sawkopmund municipality spokesman Freddi Kaukunga said: "We are proud that such a world-famous actress like Angelina Jolie chose to give birth to her first child in our area. We wish mother and daughter good health and a continued further stay here."

He added the child would now be considered a Namibian citizen.

Well, call me Mr Picky, but a Namibian passport would not have been my first choice of christening present. However, I dare say the shelves are pretty bare at the local tourist ministry gift shop, in a country where what most babies want on their birthday is a reasonable chance of seeing their next one. Anyway, it’s the thought that counts.

It just goes to show how much people like Brad and Ange take the incredible good fortune of American citizenship for granted. Of my three kids, only the youngest was born here, and I wouldn’t swap her little blue book for any other on God’s green Earth. But if your folks can buy a hotel and a private army of security in every port, I suppose you’re in your own country wherever you go. If not on your own planet.

Rumour has it that the first pics are up for sale for $3m, proceeds to go to UNICEF to finance more desperately needed child-sex-rings in sub-Saharan Africa. I think I’ll pass.

I only hope little Shiloh has avoided the horrible curse that overtook the daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, or the French might have to pay for their own kiddy-diddling…


Rumer Willis, yesterday. All this, and a stupid celebrity name too. Thanks, Dad!

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

You'd think with an army of lackeys doing their bidding, the Jolie-Pitts might have had someone spend the 27 seconds necessary to check the spelling of their spawn's name. Jesus H. Motherfucker ! It's NouveLLE, for piss' sake ! The one thing worse than a cretin is one who tries to look distinguished.

Ivan the Terrible said...

They can't possibly be stupid, JB - they're Hollywood actors for God's sake!

Maybe they're intentionally goading the French? A worthy aim in its own right, of course, but I don't think I'd use my own child as ammunition.

Desargues said...

The two thirds among us in chronic search of a life who have been waiting, as the cliche goes, with bated breath, to see the progeniture of the Übermenschen, are comforted to see them Tinseltown folks are as relentlessly stupid as the rest of us. Shiloh Nouvel? Excuse me, but what the fuck is that? Or, should I say, is that the best Jon Voigt's offspring can do?

With an ambassador like Jolie, no wonder the poor children of Africa are still doing so badly.

Pat said...

No pressure on the baba then!
Ivan I know what a fan you are of Ang. Bet you got all teared up on her delivery didn't you?
Des: someone said it meant new Messiah - as I say - no pressure! And Des - as the links expert - do you do it from 'Word'?

Ivan the Terrible said...

Give her time, Des - she's slowly adopting them all, one by one. When she's finally worked her way up to Mugabe, it'll be "Mission Accomplished".

Hi Pi! All I can say is, if the baby's head is shaped anything like Daddy's, then I wasn't half as teared up as she was...

Gorilla Bananas said...

As the government was so pleased to have the Pitling born on their soil, they should have been asked to rename their country Nouvel-Namibia. Brad and Ange missed a trick there.

Ivan the Terrible said...

Interesting concept, GB, but I would've gone for something more indicative of Namibia's quality of life. Pittsburgh seems to fit the bill nicely...

Desargues said...

Hi, Pi. No, not really. I learned the little logical syntax lying behind the HTML tag one uses to creat a link, and now I'm typing it directly in the body of the comment. I still need, however, to copy the URL link from whatever page I want to link to, and then paste it inside the tag. There's a simple concept behind these tags--in the language they're written in, the beginning of a tag is marked by a specific letter inside pointy brackets: e.g., < i > for italicizing, < b > for boldface, and so on. The end of the tag has the same pointy brackets (parentheses? breeches? you guys are the native speakers here, so you tell me)--except that, to mark the end of the tag, you prefix the letter with a slash: /a, /i, /b, and so on. Now, for HTML tags (marked < a >), inside the first bracket they add this small piece of code/artificial language: href="..." Don't ask me what the heck it means--Ivan and the right honourable Arlington Hynes may be able to tell you. The ellipsis ... must be filled with the URL address you want to link to. And that's about it. Once you grasp the idea behind it, it really becomes a matter of routine. Give it a few tries.

And Ivan, I'm afraid adopting Mugabe won't solve anything. Remember, these two must be hardcore liberal parents--no tough love and no child disciplining for them. They'd probably encourage Bobby M to go about his dirty tricks as usual--in their parlance, it's called "allowing the child to express itself," or some psychobabble like that. The only hope for the long-oppressed people of Zimbabwe is for that vile thug to be adopted by this loving parent.

Ivan the Terrible said...

With "Who's your Daddy now?" chalked on the nose-cone, I presume, Des? I'm afraid that's likely to remain just a wonderful dream.

Desargues said...

Exactly. In this case, the medium would be the message, once again. Marshall McLuhan would rejoice at the idea. But then he was a Canadian, so I guess he may be a bit squeamish about using Trident missiles to convey any messages at all.