Trump V Branson

[poliphilo]

Donald Trump is flying in the Trump helicopter towards the Trump tower. The music is a mixture of grandeur and high anxiety that sounds like an off-cut from Orff's Carmina Burana. Trump-world is the only place to be.

The last episode was twice the length. Bright-eyed Bill won out over laid-back Kwame. Bill's prize is to oversee the building of a new Trump tower in Chicago. It will set new standards in architecture.

They say there's going to be a British version of the show. I don't suppose it will feature Trump himself. He is too fabulous, too orange for us uptight little islanders. The British way of handling business success is to apologize for it.

The only British businessman with anything like Trump's degree of celebrity is Richard Branson. But the style couldn't be more different. Trump is the orange emperor, Branson is the world's best mate- a kind of plutocratic Jesus in beard and jeans. Trump has hair, Branson has teeth. The teeth are fixed in a perpetual grin. Please love me; please forgive me. Trump calls his empire Trump. Branson wriggles uncomfortably and calls his Virgin.

(It's a joke. I'm just playing at this, see. Such fun. And now come and watch me set a ballooning record.)

Whoever they get to front it, the British version will be a fascinating exercise in compare and contrast.

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It sounds like they've over-egged the pudding.

For some reason this past week I've been watching lots of "reality" shows. There was one where people were being trained to be secret agents and another where ultra-posh Trinny and Susannah got to sort out the wardrobes of women who would rather dress in faux-leather mini-skirts and/or football shirts. I'm afraid I've found them all quite riveting.

[jackiejj.livejournal.com]

I watched a reality show last month called "Wife Swapping." In this case, they take two incompatible families and get the wives to switch houses. The first week, the wives can't do one thing to change the lifestyle of her new family, but the second week she gets to make a list of rules.

So on this show I watched, they switched an animal rights activist with a woman who rode a Harley motorcycle and went hunting with her husband.

They both went nuts in a week. So did the husbands.

The animal rights activist started crying and praying as soon as she found the den full of stuffed deer heads. She'd stroke their heads and say, "I'm sorry."

The Harley rider hated the liberal house she'd been sent to. It was, for one thing, filthy. And she couldn't clean it up for an entire week!

The second week, she set the animal rights husband to work hanging an American flag on the fence and cleaning up the house. She also thought the daughter was lazy, and put her to work, too. The daughter called her "the old devil bitch" behind her back.

The animal rights activist got rid of all the guns and deer heads the second week. The husband had to take them to a storage facility. He sat on his porch in a recliner and sulked.

I have to say, it was pretty entertaining...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

We have a British version of this show. I've never watched it. Perhaps- as a new convert to the joys of "reality"- I should.