Operation Misery: Month 9, Week 2, Day 5.

Last night Rihanna performed the final concert of the Diamonds World Tour in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The day did not begin well with Rihanna apparently being struck with a bout of verbal diarrhea that caused her to re-Tweet and reply to various comments she was recieving in response to the video for her song "What Now" that debuted earlier in the day. This was so stunningly unprofessional that even the US State Department ended up expressing embarrassment on Rihanna's behalf. However on reflection I think that Rihanna was merely trying to highlight the pressure she was coming under from her social media followers to talk about the video.

Even without the release of the What Now video yesterday was always going to be a particularly stressful day for Rihanna with the US throwing pretty much everything it had at her final concert. So amid a general climate of noise which included more revelations about the terrorist attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi, Libya, the recent shooting at Los Angeles international airport a few false alerts about possible mass shooting incidents the US put on a number of high profile stunts.

Probably the strangest of these was the so-called "Batkid" story. This revolves a terminally ill 5 year old boy named only as Miles who was granted his dying wish to be the superhero Batman for a day by the Make-a-Wish Foundation. This hugely elaborate set-up saw Miles rescue a damsel in distress and foil a bank robbery all whilst being watched and cheered on by tens of thousands of people in San Francisco in California. It also included a personal message to Miles from the President of the United States Barack Obama which obviously pushed the event onto the international news agenda and worldwide Twitter trends.

The pathetic young boy being turned into a superhero for the day element of the story along with the massive social media coverage it received were supposed to be confusing and not particularly complimentary references to me especially my recent efforts at fighting local crime. The element of a charity helping out a terminal ill child was supposed to draw comparisons between the UK's "Children in Need" charity telethon that was taking place at roughly the same time. The idea was to raise the international profile of the always politically challenging Children in Need event in the hope of giving the impression that the US and the UK were having some urgent bilateral discussion about something. In reality though I think that the US was struggling to keep up with Children in Need which being run by the BBC already has quite a high global profile.

In terms of actual US politics yesterday the lower house of Congress - the House of Representatives passed a bill that would end a provision of the Affordable Care Act that terminates private health insurance policies that are not compliant with the Act. This is a big thing because throughout the effort to sell Obamacare to the American public President repeatedly claimed that it would not force people with existing health insurance to switch their plans. Since the roll out of Obamacare it has emerged that not only was this a complete and utter lie but that Obama also knew that he was lying every single time he made the claim.

So that fact that a bill overturning that provision has been passed with the help of members of Obama's own Democrat Party is hugely embarrassing for Obama and highlights just how badly his reputation has been damaged over the past year due to his own poor judgement. In practical terms the bill now needs to be passed by the upper house - the Senate - who've said they'll block it and the signed into law by the President who has said he'll veto it.

In preparation for the House vote on Obamacare the New York Times rather unhelpfully published an article comparing the damage to President Obama's reputation by the Affordable Care Act to the damage done to President W Bush's reputation by the bungled response to Hurricane Katrina. This promptly propelled the issue of Hurricane Katrina right to the top of American public discourse and the worldwide Twitter trends for most of the day. Hurricane Katrina of course struck New Orleans, Louisiana where Rihanna was performing and most of the damage it did to President W Bush's reputation stemmed from America's black community labelling his failures as racist which has been a divisive issue in the US dating all the way back to the days of slavery. So by comparing Obamacare to Katrina the New York Times was attempting to play about with the notions of race and slavery. For example the fact that Obama the US' first black President seems happy to see Rihanna - a black woman - used and abused in any way imaginable to help him achieve his political goals suggests that the slave owner mentality transcends the issue of race. Mainly though it all contributes to an outsider getting the impression that there was something exciting and vitally important going on in internal US politics.

Also on the issue of race prosecutors in Detroit, Michigan yesterday charged the white Theodore Wafer over the November 2nd (2/11/13) fatal shooting of Renisha McBride a black teenage whose family claim was hammering on Mr Wafer's door in the early hours of the morning in an effort to seek assistance following a car accident. Although this happened in Eminem's home town my first instinct that it was just one of those things and a fair trial needs to take place in order to establish what happened and if any crime has been committed. The chances of that fair trial taking place seem pretty limited at the moment because the case is packed with hot political topics such as race and gun ownership along with strong echoes of the Trayvon Martin case. Also Wafer has claimed that his shotgun went off accidentally meaning that the technical aspects of how a firearm can discharge by accident are likely to play a large role in the case. This issue also plays a huge role in the case of Mark Duggan whose fatal shooting by the police sparked the UK's August 2011 riots which the US is still adamant were entirely Rihanna's fault.

As for the UK it is currently very busy with the hugely controversial Commonwealth Summit in Sri Lanka and the fallout from my most recent Court case. As a result the UK is making huge amounts of noise itself. However as far as I can tell none of this noise bears any relation to the noise the US is making. The US is very keen to have people believe that the two things are connected though. So for example on Wednesday (13/11/13) the annual Victoria's Secret fashion show took place in New York. Last years event was of course headlined by Rihanna. Although this year the music was provided by Taylor Swift the main theme of the show was the UK in particular it's capital city London. As a result lots of British models were used and they wore outfits that resembled the uniforms of the famous British policeman the famous guards at Buckingham Palace and one outfit that resembled a England football kit although I personally think that looked quite a bit like a Crystal Palace FC kit from the 1970's. This though all of course pushed the notion of a tight bond between the US and the UK to the fore.

Obviously to be continued because you can't have failed to notice that I haven't managed to get onto the actual concert yet.

16:00 on 16/11/13 (UK date).

Edited at around 20:05  on 16/11/13 to add;

As for the concert itself it goes without saying that Rihanna's CIA handlers/Live Nation (the management) maintained the information blackout that has been in place throughout the tour. However from unofficial sources I can tell you that it was all pretty routine. Rihanna arrived on stage within the allotted time and performed the standard set-list with the standard costume changes and stage set up. The overall performance was more subdued then the previous night's Houston concert which itself was more subdued then the Oklahoma City performance. Again this isn't saying that there was anything wrong with the performance it just meant that the tour fizzled out rather then ending on a triumphant high. I actually think this was appropriate because while the tour has ended the operation most certainly hasn't and sadly unless she finds a way to alter her current course I can only see Rihanna's world continuing to shrink from here.

The fact that the tour has now ended is not from a lack of trying on the part of the management. Not only did they cancel the Barbados concert in order to raise the possibly of an extension they dispatched Justin Bieber to cause an awful lot of trouble on the South American leg of his tour. Apart from spraying graffiti to pose questions about Rihanna's latest tattoo Bieber has also visited brothels, had a one night stand with a women who may not always have been a woman, stormed off stage and trampled on the Argentinian flag which carries a 4 year prison sentence in the country. The intention was to make the South Americans think that Bieber was playing some significant role in the Rihanna operation so they would have to get Rihanna over for a South American leg of the Diamonds World Tour in order to find out what was going on. Fortunately no-one was falling for that and yesterday the Argentinians responded by seizing all of Bieber's tour equipment. This obviously has the effect of stopping his tour dead and was what the management were hoping would happen to Rihanna on her tour.

With the tour at an end and with the help of the single and video we are all supposed to be speculating what now for Rihanna? The problem is that we all already know. Although reflection and consideration are clearly in very short supply within Rihanna's social group there will come a point where the adrenaline of the tour will wear off and Rihanna will slip into a bit of a depressive lull but I don't mean that in the clinical sense. Just as Rihanna is at her weakest and most vulnerable Chris Brown will be returning to Court in Los Angeles for an appearance that has been made all the more dramatic by his recent arrest. As I've explained Rihanna tends to like to mother Chris Brown so the prospect of him coming under threat coupled with the depressive lull means that it is quite likely that the two will reunite as a couple and the American Music Awards (AMAs) are certainly pulling out all the stops to try and make that happen. So while it may seem cruel I honestly think Rihanna needs to have someone in her life who will openly and spitefully mock the side of her personality that would even contemplate a relationship with Chris Brown.

Obviously though with the high level segment of the COP19/CMP9 taking place during this period the management are not only intending to reunite Rihanna and Chris Brown they also want to cause as much disruption as possible whilst doing it. So not only have we had the rumours and attempts to force Rihanna into a relationship with either Drake or A$AP Rocky a singer whose had the misfortune of being taken under Chris Brown's wing by the name of I think Sevryn Streeter recently released a single. This gave Kerruche Tran the opportunity to prove that she's standing by her man by helping to promote the career of Chris Brown's protege.

As I pointed out in my previous post on the subject though even the management are beginning to accept that there is a possibility that their plan to reunite Rihanna and Chris Brown may fail meaning that the continuance of Brown's relationship with Tran and a new relationship for Rihanna with either Drake or A$AP Rocky becomes the face saving fall back position.  Obviously Rihanna starting a relationship with either of those men will make be extremely jealous but either would be an improvement on Brown. That said the way that Drake appears to think that he can win back Rihanna by complying with the management's plan so they will engineer Rihanna into a relationship with him does not fill me with confidence. As for A$AP Rocky I honestly would not recognise him if he was sitting across from me now so I feel I don't have the required knowledge to comment one way or another.

I have to say though that I'm not entirely happy about Rihanna rushing into a new relationship even if it was with me. That's because as I've been saying for more then a year now what I think Rihanna really needs is a little time being single away from the chaos of touring so she can learn about and become more settled in herself even if that doesn't sound very rock and roll.

(Originally Posted on 16/11/13)