Tuesday, March 03, 2009

An Accident is Announced

You often hear something described as “an accident waiting to happen.” Most people say they regard this as a bad thing. I, however, feel that it could provide an excellent opportunity for the right entrepreneur, especially in these dire financial times. After all, everyone actually likes to see an accident, whatever they might claim in public, and I’m sure they’d be prepared to pay good money to see one if only they knew its exact time and place.

Take, for example, Chernobyl. Back in 1986, Reactor Number Four was quite obviously held together with a mixture of Sellotape and polystyrene. Basically, it had “Meltdown” written all over it. Yet did anyone capitalize on this fact and invite a paying audience along to watch? No. This is therefore exactly akin to having Luciano Pavarotti turn up at your establishment, announce that he’s going to sing Nessun Dorma, but then not tell anyone about it. What’s the point in keeping such a thing quiet?

Then again, I suppose, Pavarotti may indeed have turned up at Chernobyl on the 26th of April, 1986, which is why the Russian nuclear engineers were distracted from their jobs. And it just goes to show that, regardless of how good your singing voice is, singing an aria next to a severe radiation leak is not particularly beneficial for the health. Could this have caused the cancer that eventually killed Pavarotti?

Frankly, I’m surprised they didn’t concrete Pavarotti in with the damaged reactor just to be on the safe side. People are always talking about the potential dangers of irradiated fruit and vegetables, aren't they? But I would have thought that letting irradiated Italian tenors loose is a far worse hazard, especially if they go critical during a performance of Turandot (and who'd want the job of extracting uranium fuel rods from their arses in order to try to stabilize them?).

Now that really is an accident waiting to happen.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes,Turandot.Many operas have nuclear accidents in them.Boris Gudunov contains the aria "Fuck me,comrade the alarms gone off" and Lady MacBeth of Mtsinsk has "Why is my pizdyet glowing in the dark?"

Joe Slavko said...

Then, of course, there's O sole mio, which is a musical description of a nuclear blast witnessed from Ground Zero.

Anonymous said...

Followed by O arsehole mio when the singer realises he cannot get to a bunker.