What Kind Of Week Has It Been? 15 August 2014

A few years ago, Sarah Palin may have asked the President how that whole hopey, changey, out of Iraqey thing was going, but at the minute she seems to be too busy having an epic battle with Elizabeth Warren.

As the summer's violent storms, eerie luminescence and flat-out terrifying ebola outbreaks comes in to the home straight, you get the impression it's not going to be an easy autumn for the world's leaders. In the States President Obama has putting planes in the air to try and stop the grizzly Islamic State (formerly ISIS, but their PR people are pretty on it) in their tracks, but he hardly seems happy about it. Small wonder though, because Iraq, after all, is for the US what Janice is to Chandler Bing. But while he mulls over the geopolitical implications, he can rest easy that domestically, people seem to be much more interested seeing him rap like he givin lessons in physics.

A few years ago, Sarah Palin may have asked the President how that whole hopey, changey, out of Iraqey thing was going, but at the minute she seems to be too busy having an epic battle with Elizabeth Warren. And cogent sentences. The whole thing was reminiscent of musicless Dancing In The Street at points.

A lack of speech is not something that's been present in Westminster currently, as while Saeeda Varsi resigned from the government over Gaza, she isn't going quietly. The party faithful may be trying to brush it off, but while losing one foreign minister over Gaza is unfortunate, two is just careless.

Had one weekend reveller by the name of Steve been a bit more careful in dialling his potential love interest Jess this week, he may have avoided the ignominy of being catfished by a betting website's Twitter account. He took the (unquestionably gas) incident like a sport, which is more can be said for Ian Poulter who, not content with first world problems resolved to share his airline first class problems too. Rory McIlroy had no such problems.

Last, but in no sense least, the week has been overshadowed by the terrible and untimely death of one of the world's greatest entertainers. There aren't many performers whose body of work is so wide-ranging it's hard to bring it all to mind in one sitting, but Robin Williams was one of them. Tributes cascaded all week from all comers, but nobody summed it up better - bringing this column full circle, as it happens - than President Obama:

"Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between. But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien - but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit."

Nanu nanu to that.

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