This story gave me a chuckle - the Norwegian Prime Minister spent an afternoon driving a cab, revealing his identity once recognised.
If you got in a cab only to realise that the driver had a very familiar voice and look (if you’re American it’s Obama, Canadian Harper, etc), what would you say to him? The good news is at the end of the journey you don’t have to pay.
If David Cameron was driving my taxi I’d tell him to stop being a pandering pillock when it came to internet regulation. However I would give him a bit of kudos for being far more enlightened on gay rights than I thought he would be.
I’d ask him why he’s driving a cab, rather than doing the job we pay him to do.
Ok, not really. I’d tell him I voted for him both times, even though I had originally supported Hillary (and by the way, Mr. President, will she run in 2016, and would you support her or Biden?). And I’d thank him for his support of same-sex marriage.
I don’t know anything about Norwegian pre-election political games.
But in America, I wouldn’t fall for it.
If I sat down in a typical New York cab and found an Obama look-alike driving, I would say: Wow! I’ve seen Elvis impersonators in Las Vegas, etc, but I’ve never seen an Obama impersonator before. You’re pretty realistic, too. Good job!"
Unless, of course, I suddenly notice that there are a couple Secret Service agents inside the cab alongside me…
In that case I’d say, “show me where you keep the authorization code for launching nukes. It’s probably just a small disk-on-key thingy, and I’d feel really cool if you’d let me hold it for you till I we get to 65th Street. After all, you have to keep both hands on the wheel, so I’m just trying to do you a favor, so you don’t get a ticket.”
Apparently, five of the passengers in the PM’s cab were requited through “street casting”. That is, they were approached on the street and asked to participate in an election campaign video for the PM’s party, and were paid 500 NOK (about 85 US Dollars) to take part. According to the party spokesperson, this was done to ensure a spread in gender and age among the passengers.
However, the spokesperson denies that anyone were instructed on how to behave or what to say, and none of the participants were told in advance that the PM would be driving the cab.
Only some of the passengers were cast this way. 60% were regular passengers who had hailed a cab and were picked up in the usual fashion.
Even so: :smack: Idiots. The opposition and the media are all over this now, obviously. I mean, it’s not like they have anything more important to talk about right before an election.
(Actually, now I remember why I usually never read the news when there’s an election going on. In fact, I can feel a headache coming on already…)
By the way, I do wonder where the security posse was. It’s not actually that unusual to bump into the Prime Minister or some other highfaluting politician on the street in Oslo (I’ve done so on several occasions), but they’re normally followed by an entourage of at least a couple of Secret Service-style guys or gals (and they always look like they’re in a big hurry to get somewhere important). I don’t see anyone talking about that, for some reason.
If I got in a cab and recognized Kevin Rudd as my driver the conversation would go like this, "Shit mate you are the spitting image of that asshole politician, what’s his name now? You know, many of his party members hate his guts, he stabbed Julia Gillard in the back but her loyal followers dumped her for him just to get re-elected. You must remember him, he was PM once before but his own former colleagues said he was mentally unbalanced. The charlatan, the guy who has no principles at all, the one who was the first ever PM to be dumped by his own party for not being popular enough.
Don’t remember him? Well you look just like him. You’ve even got the phony smile."
LOL by that time I bet that phony smile would be a bit strained.
I’m so terrible with faces that I walk past my friends on the street so it’s unlikely that I’d even notice anything other than the fact that they looked a bit familiar.
