Venezuela

Population: More than Australia.
Located: Near where they make Cocaine.
Known for: Beautiful dictators.

I used to know Venezuela for its beauty queens. The Venezuelans had a stranglehold on the international beauty queen scene, their lithe long tanned legs wrapped around the bird-like necks of the judges and co-competitors. The Venezuelan beauty queens loved shiny things and buying things and all things capitalism and all things American. I loved Venezuelan beauty queens, I was intrigued by this land of beauties, it sounded warm and beautiful.

Now I know Venezuela for Hugo Chavez. He has a stranglehold on the Venezuelan economy, his stumpy little arms wrapped around the revenue spun from oil exports. He is a socialist. The most famous socialists were the Soviets.

The Soviet Union was neither warm, nor beautiful, in my mind anyway. It could have been beautiful, but it definitely wasn't warm. Now the Soviet Union doesn't exist, but Russia does. Hugo Chavez is a great ally of the Russians. They like him because he doesn't like the Americans, he likes them because not many other people like him. In his own country he has polarised opinion, the poor love him and the rich and the media do not. He feels like he is alone, he is less popular, globally, than the beauty queens were.

I like Hugo. I wish I could give him a big hug, and say, "lots of people do like you Hugo". His prophecies are self-fulfilling, he believes he is hated and consequently acts in a manner that makes people hate him. Kids in school used to do that, not great socialist leaders. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoy his tirades, his diatribes give me a tiny little erection in my trackies, I like the way he waffles on in front of the United Nations, calling mortals devils and so on.

I have only heard him do this in reference to George, I hope he hasn't yet to Uncle Barry, I like Uncle Barry and I think Uncle Barry and Hugo could be great friends if Uncle Barry was allowed to play with him.

I like the way Hugo wants to fight the Colombians, because they are wankers. I like the way he gives money to poor people, because if I was in Venezuela I would receive some of that money. I like his beret, because he looks like a french woman.

I dislike it when he parades around with Che Guevara's likeness. Che Guevara may, or may not, have been a doosh bag but the bastards that wear shirts with his likeness definitely are. When Hugo parades around like that he aligns himself with a world of hippy uni student cock suckers. Breaks my heart a little bit. A little bit of my boner goes away.

I even prefer Hugo over the beauty queens. Both are great stimulants of the imagination, it's just that now that I've grown up I like to imagine with my cerebellum more than I like imagining with my testicles.

Ideally, though, give me a loud mouth socialist dictator, who is also a Venezuelan beauty queen in a red beret.

That would be a collusion of epic proportions between balls and brain.