Roy and I have just returned from Shanghai where we were invited by the Cleanup the Air Society of the Somalian government's environmental department to comment on a study of the excessive carbon monoxide buildup within the sprawling oriental city. The Chinese Grand Prix coincided with our visit, compounding matters & pushing even more smog into the dense soup like mushroom that hangs over the city centre like an invading alien spaceship.
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| Shanghai at night |
Our overcrowded prototype Dreamliner landed at the Kamikazi International with all of the lithium batteries in various stages of meltdown & spewing more smoke into the cabin than found in a congested Mongolian tepee in mid-winter.
One of the perks of the trip was our two days at the Shanghai Formula One event where we took part in the trials of the new racing car design from the Sri Lankan team which, oddly enough, was designed by a Nepalese ricksha engineer and rumored to be funded by the Medellin cartel operating from somewhere within the jungles of Columbia. The Sri Lankan team had been having trouble with the cone section so had added a seat above it to monitor high speed cornering traction, or lack of it.
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| Sri Lankan F1 prototype |
When it came to my turn, in more ways than one, I spewed across the driver and defecated in my imitation denims, twice, to the delight of one of our sponsors, an adult nappy company called Catchit from Beijing. With all my animated waves and histrionics, the Hindi driver thought I wanted to go faster and pushed the new car to its limit using the KERS device twice. When I came round, I found myself in the Shanghai clinic for the mentally 'deranged' wearing a mechanic's bib & a soiled nappy only, & missing most of my faculties.
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| Not amused !! |
When we returned to the convention hall, our benefactor, Ahmed Yusuf Mohammed, three parts brother to erstwhile President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, & former Admiral of the Somali Navy aka Somali pirates, who was fortunately on shore leave at the time, greeted us with a traditional toast of curdled goats milk, shipped especially for the occasion all the way from Mogadishu in one of his hijacked off-duty rubber ducks.
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| Somalian rubber duck |
The Shanghai premier, Ken Si Fokol, welcomed all the emissaries and stated that the smog, while somewhat suffocating at times, had improved and the latest aviation figures showed that only eleven planes had overrun the extended runway since the clearing monsoon deluge in late March, with only a couple of planes actually sidling onto the grand prix straight itself.
When we returned to the convention hall, our benefactor, Ahmed Yusuf Mohammed, three parts brother to erstwhile President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, & former Admiral of the Somali Navy aka Somali pirates, who was fortunately on shore leave at the time, greeted us with a traditional toast of curdled goats milk, shipped especially for the occasion all the way from Mogadishu in one of his hijacked off-duty rubber ducks. 
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