Say, hypothetically, you’re out for a refreshing hike somewhere in a mountainous region one day. Not a real lot around. All you’ve got is Mother Earth, Father Sky and your dear old Uncle Tony. Glorious day. A bit crisp, perhaps. But glorious nonetheless. You round a corner, past a big tree, and suddenly you come across an enormous bear. It’s not anywhere near the path, mind you. And also it’s asleep. In fact, you could quite happily go about your business without giving it too much of your attention. But your dear old Uncle Tony isn’t content to just walk past. He decides to go in for a closer look. And not just a closer look, but he decides to poke the damned thing as well. You remind your Uncle Tony repeatedly that just because it’s sleeping doesn’t mean the bear can’t rip his head off, but he does it anyway. And then, predictably, the bear begins to stir…
So
Tony Abbott lays down the challenge to Russian President
Vladimir Putin,
claiming he was going to “
shirtfront” him over issues pertaining to
MH17 when Putin visits Australia for the upcoming
G20 Leaders Summit in
Brisbane. If you thought for even a second that the
Russian Federation was simply going to let a lobbed soft ball of alpha male bullshit calmly float through to the catcher, you are sorely mistaken.
In the kind of wholly terrifying manner that only a calm-but-stern Russian accent can project, the nation’s Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, has responded to big Tone’s thinly veiled threats, and if Abbott isn’t privately shitting himself already, we think he probably is now.
Medvedev addressed the comments during an appearance on the American CNBC network, stating the following:
“If he [Mr Abbott] likes to use sports terms, let him go ahead. Mr Putin is quite adept at sports and they could have forceful debates. That said, serious politicians should choose their words carefully.“
Meanwhile, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov reportedly told the ABC, “We are sorry about these unfortunate statements.“
Whilst it could just be a lot of political huffing-and-puffing, a more hyperbolic – and correct – way to interpret how things will pan out would be to assume that Tony Abbott is going to be lowered into the G20 summit on a hydraulic platform wearing an Australian flag top hat, vest-with-tails and boxing trunks to a James Brown song altered to make the chorus “Livin’ In Australia.”
And he dances and shucks and jives and wants to give the people a real show, and then Putin rolls all up in there like
…and then about half an hour later we get a Malcolm Turnbull training montage where he’s punching pig carcasses and lifting logs in the snow and shit like that.
All I’m saying is I’d pay to see that movie.
Photo: Dmitry Astakhov via Getty Images.
