Thursday
This has to rank as one of the strangest reports I have read so far this year:
Two circus clowns have been shot dead during a performance in the eastern Colombian city of Cucuta, police say...Last year, a prominent circus clown, known as Pepe, was also shot dead by a unknown assailant in Cucuta.
I find clowns deeply irritating but surely lethal force is a little excessive. Don't they have custard pies in that part of the world?
Bozo's note to self---no more birthday party gigs in Cucuta, even if they offer combat pay.
Posted by veryretired at February 22, 2007 01:33 AM
Actually , I find this all rather alarming.
I wonder if some dirt bag imam in some butt crack islamic country has declared clowns as un-islamic?
Posted by Uain at February 22, 2007 02:10 AM
Have they been ripping off drug-barons by smuggling cocaine in their over-sized pantaloons?
Unfortunately, the clowns can't retaliate with the typical drive-by shooting.
They always have at least one square wheel on the car and if it goes over 2mph the doors fall off to enormous comic effect. (And I thought Rover had ceased production).
I really don't know whether to laugh or cry.
You're getting better Thaddeus, I'll grant you that. Previously you've been mainly shite, but this sends me to bed with a grin and (possibly) the promise of bad dreams.
Posted by Nick M at February 22, 2007 02:23 AM
This is my first visit to this site. Even if the "who are we" summary hadn't gotten me, this entry certainly would have.
Posted by Carrie at February 22, 2007 02:36 AM
Carrie! GET OUT NOW!!! The temptation to make too many 'Carrie on...' jokes is enormous! 'Carry on clowning', for example. That sounds like it would have been a movie. Can't you at least just shorten your name to 'C'?
Posted by nicholas gray at February 22, 2007 04:29 AM
Better keep it quiet (just in case there are any Columbians reading this), but did anyone notice that there are a right bunch of clowns in a place in England called Westminster ;-)
Posted by Phil A at February 22, 2007 07:55 AM
Given the BBC's usual style, reflected here - the report talks of "attackers" not "murderers" and says little else about them, I think that Uain's Islamist theory might be about right!
There clearly isn't any hint of US involvement, seeing as this is a BBC story from the Americas without an anti-Bush slant.
Posted by Otis at February 22, 2007 09:48 AM
What ever happened to seltzer bottles, ladders and 24 clowns in a mini?
Posted by walt moffett at February 22, 2007 08:00 PM
That'll teach DEA agents to dress up as Ronald McDonald ...
Posted by Julian Taylor at February 23, 2007 12:23 AM
I doubt that there is any Islamic link to the murders. After all losing an Association Football game can lead to being shot dead (by one's own "fans") in Colombia.
There has been civil war (against two Marxist groups - the E.L.N. and the F.A.R.C.) for more than forty years. But there were many other civil wars before that.
For example, "The Violence" (from the 1930's to the 1950's) was supposed to have some sort of policy reason (in that the Liberal party, in the 1930's at least, was in favour of a bigger government than the Conservative party) but it was really family feuds on a massive scale.
Sort of "your distant relative killed my distant relative - so you must die, as must everyone else your family".
Colombians have many virtues - but a placid nature does not tend to be one of them.
Posted by Paul Marks at February 24, 2007 05:12 PM
There has been civil war (against two Marxist groups - the E.L.N. and the F.A.R.C.) for more than forty years. But there were many other civil wars before that.
And between FARC and ELN. And, depending on what month it is, one or the other ends up as an armed proxy for the drug gangs.
It's like the "People's Front of Judea" stadium scene in "The Life of Brian," except for being bloody and violent and really not funny at all.
Posted by Sunfish at February 27, 2007 11:00 PM
