Sup dawg?

Being the perennially skeptical lot that we are here at Belly Ache Central, we certainly didn’t believe our ears when someone tipped us off about a little humour piece posted on the ‘Punchbag’ page of leading European logistics website CargoForwarder Global. Yes, we know what you’re all thinking, given where the publication is based… But we digress. And so, we paid a visit to said page and lo and behold there it was. To summarise, AA Cargo put out a press release on the transport of some rare Dutch Smoushond dogs and apparently when Punchbag’s editor and former Payload Asia publisher/editor, Nol van Fenema Googled for an image, up popped a photo of Payload Asia’s very own current editor, amongst the pack of hounds!

 

Needless to say, things didn’t quieten down in the Belly Acher’s cubicles in the office for quite some time, much to the chagrin of the ‘Ed’, who hence forth is know as the ‘Top Dog’ at Payload Asia. But, once the gut splitting laughter finally ceased, the serious forensic work began, the results of which we turn to in a moment.

As part of our ‘investigation’ into how this possibly could have happened, we tried a few Google searches of our own.

I’m sure you will agree with us that one search in particular has turned up one pretty interesting result. What follows is a real search conducted on Google for “picture of an almost retired Dutch dog”.

We were however a bit dumbfounded to see that Nol not only appeared miraculously in the search results, but is sharing the space with Piet Hein (1577– 1629), who appears on Wikipedia’s list of “known pirates, buccaneers, corsairs, privateers, river pirates, and others involved in piracy and piracy-related activities.” Hmm, the Belly Achers are smelling the sweet aroma of reward money! But we digress again.

After serving as a Spanish galley slave for four years, Piet Hein later spirited away 11,509,524 guilders of cargo from the Spanish treasure fleet. We’re not quite sure what Piet is doing on the Google search results for ‘almost retired Dutch dog’, because clearly he is retired, although we do have a slightly better understanding of why Nol appears there.

We just hope he isn’t trying to repeat the buccaneering antics of his former compatriot, because we’re pretty sure there isn’t 11,509,524 guilders, let alone Euros, to be found anywhere in Spain’s treasury these days.

Now as to why the Payload editor appeared amongst the rare Smoushonds we’re tempted to say he’s a rare entity as well, but in reality it’s all about Google. Because we’re good at our web SEO (search engine optimisation), the Payload Asia story on AA Cargo’s transport of these rare dogs ranks high in Google’s search results. Of course this doesn’t really explain why the editor’s image appears next to the dogs (and play nice, we don’t want to see any Smart Alec comments appearing on the website!).

When asked for his comment, Payload Asia’s editor shrugged his shoulders and declined to comment, but was heard mumbling something about his job being ‘a dog’s life’. As for Nol, he was last seen on the docks of Singapore with an eye patch, tricorne hat and swashbuckler boots whistling the old sea chantey, ‘Yo Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me)’…

 

Katy gets cheeky in Dubai

Being in Dubai recently for an Emirates SkyCargo event, one of the Belly Ache team was lucky enough to be invited by Emirates to attend the Gala Dinner for the Dubai Air Show. Featuring a fabulous outdoor venue at the Atlantis resort on The Palm, some 2,000+ people were wined, dined and entertained throughout the night, with the ultimate pull for many being a performance by pop music superstar, Katy Perry.

Now it just happened that our dear colleague was passing by the stage as Katy was just about to emerge onstage. As a result, he ended up with the ultimate front row spot to enjoy her performance. But as he watched, a couple of things struck him.

First off , Katy seemed to be playing a bit of peak-a-boo with the audience owing to the fact her outfi t was a tinsy bit too small for her backside. Really what we’re trying to say here is that her butt cheeks were hangin’ out. Which, despite being Dubai, did seem a little shocking considering this was the Middle East.

The other observation by our Belly Acher was a tad more ‘catty’, although we do tend to agree with him that Katy could use an hour or two a day on the Thigh Master. Ouch!