Politics
A LOT OF FRENCH PEOPLE WANT THE COUNTRY TO BE RUN BY FASCISTS
But more want a really, really normal guy to run it instead
Photo via
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Wow, France: 20 percent of you want a fascist to run your country. Really?
Marine Le Pen, leader of the extreme-right party Front National and daughter of famous Holocaust-denier Jean-Marie, made the biggest news of the first round vote by taking a fifth of it.
It was Francois Hollande, though, who looks most likely to become the next president of France (and the first Socialist one for a generation, too), after claiming 28 percent to incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy’s 26.
By all accounts (including ours) Hollande is a pretty normal guy, and it’ll be interesting to see if he’s got the charisma to see it through till the final runoff vote on the 6th of May.
Sport
FORMULA ONE WAS BRIEFLY INTERESTING
People in Bahrain aren’t happy with their government
Videos by VICE
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There was an expensive car race in Bahrain this weekend, and protesters there used the attention being focused on the country to embarrass the people who run it.
Police near the capital of Manama fought demonstrators with tear gas and rubber bullets from Friday till Sunday, as three “days of rage” arrived courtesy of civilians angry with the hardline Bahraini government and Sunni monarchy.
The biggest flashpoint occurred on the first day, as it was announced Friday that a 37-year-old man named Salah Abbas Habib had been found dead with a gunshot wound.
Al-Jazeera screened footage of a man identified as Habib being beaten by policemen with rifles, but the Guardian reckon it’s “impossible to authenticate”.
Foreign journalists also reported being attacked by government security forces, and though the race did go ahead as planned, protesters claimed a moral victory.
“They [the government] miscalculated,” an activist named Ala’a Shehabi told Reuters. “They thought cancelling the race would be a defeat for them but they didn’t realise the cost of holding the race. They didn’t factor in the negative branding.”
I’m not gonna tell you who won, because who cares?
Amateur Zoology
THREE DRUNK WELSH GUYS GOT DRUNK AND STOLE A PENGUIN
It happened in Australia and now they’re in the shit
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Three young Welsh guys staying in Queensland got really drunk last weekend and stole a penguin from an Australian Sea World.
They also swam with dolphins, but got busted this weekend because one of them bragged about it on Facebook.
They claim to have no memory of what happened, and just woke up with a penguin walking around the room they were renting in a place called “Surfers Paradise”.
They panicked, and ditched the seven-year-old penguin (his name is “Dirk”) in a shark-infested lagoon, though he was eventually spotted by a passer-by and returned to his enclosure at Sea World.
The three Welsh guys have apologised on Australian TV but are in pretty serious trouble, up for charges including trespassing and stealing a protected animal.
Crime
A BRITISH DIPLOMAT GOT MUGGED IN A GRAVEYARD
The assailant escaped with some of George Fergusson’s money and the sight in his left eye
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George Fergusson, the man who’s just been made the governor of Bermuda, was mugged in a graveyard in Hammersmith this weekend, and as a result lost the sight in his left eye.
So that’s governor of Bermuda, mugged in a graveyard, loses sight in one eye.
There’s probably a joke in there somewhere, but I’m too afraid of getting sucked into some airless mirror-world to make it.
Love
THE GUY FROM MUMFORD AND SONS MARRIED CAREY MULLIGAN
I hope their children rebel
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The hot girl from Drive and Shame got married to the not-so-hot guy from Mumford & Sons this weekend.
Apparently they got married on a farm in Somerset and Sienna Miller, Colin Firth and Jake Gyllenhaal were there.
Sounds pretty street. Wonder if Richard Curtis had fun.
