When I’m going up to my office in Trump Tower, I enjoy looking down on the crowds of people ohhing and ahhing at the magnificent atrium I created. I realize that what I’m seeing is just the outward affect [sic] of the spectacle, the tourists’ reaction to all that beautiful marble and the 80-foot waterfall. It’s probably unlike anything they see back home, and it says “Trump” like few things do.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. (The Trump Blog. Yes, that’s right…)

The Triple Tofu Tower. Hilarious. (Via Jemima)

In 2001…at one of Washington’s major charity roasts…he [Robert Novak] said he had learned one primary lesson from his long Washington experience: “There are two kinds of people in this town — sources … and targets, and you better make up your mind which you are.”

A fascinating and detailed story by Sidney Blumenthal at Salon. If the Valerie Plame affair has passed you by (or made your eyes glaze over) this could be the one article to read. (Link here)

Remember those shoddy Chinese subtitles for Revenge of the Sith? Well there’s much more here. (Via PooterGeek)

Harry reports that today’s Guardian comment piece written by a leading exiled Saudi dissident and director of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia is non other than a known supporter of al-Qaida. Nice.

I’m still feeling under the weather, so I thought a joke might liven things up a bit…

A lady goes to her priest one day and tells him, “Father, I have a problem. I have two female parrots, but they only know how to say one thing.”

“What do they say?” the priest inquired.

They say, “Hi, we’re hookers. Do you want to have some fun?”

“That’s obscene!” the priest exclaimed; then he thought for a moment.

“You know,” he said, “I may have a solution to your problem. I have two male talking parrots which I have taught to pray and read the Bible. Bring your two parrots over to my house, and we’ll put themin the cage with Frank and Jacob. My parrots can teach your parrots to pray and worship, and your parrots are sure to stop saying that phrase in no time.”

“Thank you,” the woman responded. “This may very well be the solution.”

The next day, she brought her female parrots to the priest’s house. As he ushered her in, she saw that his two male parrots were inside their cage, holding rosary beads and praying. Impressed, she walked over and placed her parrots in with them.

After a few minutes, the female parrots cried out in unison, “Hi, we’re hookers! Do you want to have some fun?”

There was stunned silence. Shocked, one male parrot looked over at the other male parrot and exclaimed, “Put the beads away, Frank. Our prayers have been answered!”

(Ship of Fools Bulletin Board via Newsblog)

Last month, at a gallery in Camberwell, he set up the Running Tap, a work which lived up to its title. He ran a tap at the gallery for a month, wasting 800,000 litres of water before threats of legal action by Thames Water convinced him to turn it off. He claimed he had saved more water than this by making the point that everyone wastes water. (Link here)

Need I say more?

“You showed absolutely no respect for me, for your clients, for the club. You called decent guys who paid your rent perverts. We took you in when you didn’t have a dime, gave you a job, and this is how you repay us? An’ we have cameras in the Blue Room. Why the fuck you say we didn’t? We’re one of the cleanest clubs in Noo York.”

Every story you write has repercussions. Most of the time you never find out what they are.

I wrote a story that appeared in the New York Times this weekend about Mimi—a Cambridge graduate from England who came to New York looking for a job as a freelance journalist and ended up working as a lap dancer in a well-known Manhattan gentlemen’s club. Mimi kept a blog of her work in the club, writing under a pseudonym and only ever naming the club as Pussies (something omitted from the Times story because it was deemed too risque). You can read the story here.

It looks like my story led to the outing of Mimi at the club (which is called Flash Dancers by the way). And judging by Mimi’s latest blog entry she is now out of a job.

I don’t know if she will agree with me, but I think she knew this would happen. Consciously or subconsciously she put herself in a position where she knew she would be found out—and fired. It will be interesting to see what happens next. You can follow her progress here.

UPDATE: I should warn you it’s not always in the best possible taste. You have been warned!