from the hip

Paris Hilton is in Copenhagen today and for a few more days. She is apparently promoting her line of products (bags produced in her name by PH Europe, to be sold in more than 80 countries worldwide) at some fashion event in Copenhagen. She is together with Benji Madden, her rocker boyfriend.

And Copenhagen seems to love her. She creates chaos, says the Norwegian newspaper Dagbladet. Especially the media are wild. They are all full of pictures and articles about Paris Hilton, and the TV-stations have shows going where Paris Hilton says “I love Copenhagen” (I think that is about all she has said, so far), and where spectators are interviewed about why and how much they love Paris Hilton.

It is all slightly insane. I mean, so far she hasn’t done anything, and hardly said anything?

I wonder: Will the city remain standing if she shows up tomorrow without her undies?

The Icelandic band Sigur Rós has recorded a somewhat unusual music video for a song entitled “Gobbledigook”. The video has lots of nudity (what is known as “frontal nudity” in the US). As a result, it will be banned on MTV and has been removed from YouTube.

The movie may be interesting because of the nudity - it has both nude males and nude women. It may also be interesting because of lots of pubic hair - a new trend? In Iceland?

However, the most interesting aspect of this is the marketing aspect. We have seen Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton, and others using sex videos and nudity to become world famous. Is this possible for a band with a music video too? If it has lots of nudity?

Also, the media world is changing, and this video may well illustrate how relatively unimportant traditional media channels are becoming - even YouTube, when it chooses to censor. My bet is that this video will go viral, and that it will be one of the most viewed music videos this year.

It is still art? Who knows? However, the new album, which this song is from, is called “Nude”, so at least it reflects the title of the album.

What remains to be seen is whether sex sells, and whether the group will be able to reach their intended audience with this content or not?

We will see!

PS: Oh, and the video? You can find it on the homepage of Sigur Rós:  Here.

Many things may be said about Italy’s Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi (71), and, indeed, much has been said. But one thing is for sure: He likes beautiful women! An apppreciation of beauty he shares with most of his countrymen, I am sure (and a few others, as well).

Now he has appointed the very beautiful, conservative and talented Mara Carfagna (32) as his minister for equality. But not only that - at a dinner party he also said that if he had been single, he would have like to marry her. That’s a slightly unusual way for a prime minister to speak of his ministers, I would say. And, clearly also a statement his wife was not to pleased with, and made quite a lot of noise about.

Beautiful Mara Carfagna has a future, like most people. She has been a TV-hostess and a top-less model. And now she is, I would think, the most beautiful minister in any government in OECD. That really has to count for something in Italy?!?

And there is no rule anywhere stating that ministers of equality must be ugly, is there?

Mara Carfagna……Italy’s next Minister for something or other.

Rightwingers and ex-model in Italian cabinet

The Norwegian artist Bjarne Melgaard has created a piece entitled “Margaux Hemingway”. In Norwegian newspapers it is more often referred to as “the vagina arm”.

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FMH have had their online readers vote on the most beautiful women in the world. And the winner was a little bit of a surprise:

Yeah, it was the beautiful and talented Megan Fox! The 21 year old blonde, who played in Transformers, beat, without problems one might add, rivals like Angelina Jolie (12), Rihanna (14) and Kim Kardashian (17).

And the FHM winner from last year, Jessica Alba, came in on the third place, which, I guess is pretty good, given that she is now pretty pregnant?

Princess Diana is one of the biggest mythical figures of recent times. From the day it became public knowledge that she was dating Charles, Prince of Wales, everything she did or said was major news more or less all over the world.

People loved her. She was royal, she was a kind person, she was engaged in social problems and health problems, and she was beautiful. So, of course, the media loved her as well. Hardly anything or anybody sold stories like Princess Diana. Nothing or nobody could outshine her as a media story seller.

And the paparazzi loved her as well. A picture of Diana, at just the right time and from the right angle, was literally gold. It could be sold all over the world in no time. And so they followed her. Everywhere, always. In huge packs, like hungry wolves chasing for food.

There was a whole industry around Diana. Paparazzi, journalists, newspapers, magazines, radio stations, TV-stations, journals, charities, celebrities - they all wanted her and fed off her immense popularity. Naturally. That’s how the world works in our day and age. And all because people all over the world were interested in her, liked her, sympathized with her, wanted to learn more and more about her.

Any problem she had - in the relationship to Charles, with the emergence of Camilla, with men she met, lovers - also fed into the media madness that was the modern myth of Diana. And made it grow even bigger.

She was a myth. She to some extent became the myth. She was consumed by the myth, in the end. That’s what the jury in London, and the judge, really said.

And now the new inquest about how Princess Diana died is over. It has been huge. Here are some figures highlighting the scale of the Diana inquest:

2,931,300 - estimated number of words spoken in open court during the inquest - almost four times as many as there are in the Bible.

£10 million - the likely combined cost to the taxpayer of the inquest and the preceding Scotland Yard investigation.

20,000 to 66,000 - the number of landmines which could potentially have been cleared for £10 million. (Based on an estimate of between 300 US dollars and 1,000 US dollars per device used by the Mines Advisory Group).

This whole thing reminds me a lot about another powerful myth, that of President John F. Kennedy. That too is a myth still alive and going strong.

As with John F. Kennedy, I suspect Princess Diana will be a mythical figure for a long time to come. It doesn’t really matter what the inquiry concluded. There are still more conspiracy theories to be constructed, I am sure. More elements in the myth to be spun. More articles that will be written, about her, her relationships, what she did, and so on. And more books, more TV-shows, more movies.

Princess Diana is, for good or bad, a powerful modern myth that will be with us for a long, long time to come.

I think.

More stuff about Princess Diana:
An article from The Guardian on the multiple conspiracy theories.

Naomi Campbell is wickedly beautiful, extremely sexy, moves like a gazelle, has had a marvelous career as a model, but what a temper the lady has! One of the top babes of all times, and one of the wildest ones as well.

As the picture shows, she is quite a looker. But she has had several unfortunate tantrums over the years, some of which have brought her into contact with the legal system. The last one, on Heathrow, is said to involve some spitting. On a police officer. Previously there’s been throwing of a cell phone, some beating, some pretty verbal stuff, and such.

The last episode I can sympathize with. Many of us, and I count myself as one, have been angry, outraged, and harassed at airports around the world. By arrogant, not so service minded airport or airline employees and security guards. At least a dozen times I have been at my wits end and so angry I have wanted to hit somebody or something. But doing it is different, though.

The part I do not understand about this, is when she later has claimed that she was arrested because she is black. That part I do not believe. Spitting on a policeman would get anybody arrested, is my thinking. But I may be wrong.

Naomi Campbell has previously been taking anger management classes. They didn’t to all that much good, it would seem. Maybe it’s back to school for Naomi now?

Swedish actress Izabella Scorupco is extremely upset. She played the movie “Sun Storm” (Solstorm), based on a crime novel by Asa Larsson, together with actor Mikael Persbrandt. The movie was first shown i Sweden in November 2007.

In the movie, Izabella Scorupco - elected as the most sexy woman in Sweden in a vote by Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet - has hot sex with Mikael Persbrandt on a kitchen table. A small part of this is shown in the movie.

On the newly released DVD, however, four and a half minutes of sex is included as background material - with the title “the sex scene”. The actress is upset because she had not been asked or informed about this in advance from the movie company.

When asked about this by Aftonbladet, the producer Lena Rehnberg says that the scene was included on the DVD because is was a “freaking good scene” (skitbra, in Swedish).

And that’s sufficient as a reason, I guess?

And now, of course, the sex scene is being distributed on the net. Which, I guess, is not likely to make Scorupco any less angry?

Keith Richards, the magnificent guitar-riffer, apparently finds it difficult to write his memoirs.  Media reports earlier said that after a bidding war the price ended up above US $ 7 million, a pretty hefty sum, as music-based books are traditionally not big sellers.
Keith Richards is a pretty cool guy, who doesn’t mind telling the occasional lie:

Richards has never been shy about expressing his opinions in interviews, with Jagger often bearing the brunt of his acerbic wit. The guitarist got himself into big trouble with his own family earlier this year when he claimed that he snorted the ashes of his dead father. He hastily backtracked after generating worldwide headlines.

According to Danish newspaper BT, Keith is working with his biography, and finds it very exciting. However, having spent a large portion of his life in a fog of drugs and liqueur, he finds that he doesn’t always remember how things were. “Sometimes I just have to call the others and ask them what really happened”, he says.

And he also says that his daily pot smoking doesn’t really make writing any easier. But he has plenty of time, of course. The book isn’t due until 2010. Lots of pot from here to then.