US Secretary of State Colin Powell has wowed fellow foreign ministers at an Asean security meeting, with a rousing rendition of a disco classic.
Mr Powell donned a hard hat and stuffed a hammer in his belt for the Village People's YMCA, a massive 1970s hit.
He was backed by five US officials, all imitating the gaily flamboyant outfits of the original band.
Ministers regularly give their own take on classic tunes at the after-dinner show, a highlight of the annual forum.
Mr Powell and his colleagues - in costumes including those of a policeman and a native American - were happy to wind down from a hard day discussing security issues.
"President Bush, he said to me, Colin I need you to run the department of state," the secretary of state to the tune of the original. "We are between a rock and a hard place."
Love duet
But Mr Powell was not the only minister vying for the audience's attention.
The Russian delegation traditionally seeks the limelight, and this time Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made waves with his version of the Beatles' Yellow Submarine.
Nor was it the first time Mr Powell has caused a sensation at the forum.
Three years ago, a skit in which he rolled around on the floor in a love duet with his then Japanese counterpart Wakiko Tanaka was universally panned, and prompted harsh words from his wife Alma.
A year later, he ran a video compilation of the world and his wife, literally, begging him not to sing again.
Just saw this on newsnight, why doesn’t Bush give the guy some work to do
Plekhanov wrote:Just saw this on newsnight, why doesn’t Bush give the guy some work to do
This is what Bush should be doing, to keep him out of trouble. The US government embodies the idea of separation of powers to make it harder for someone to go nuts with power. I say that this sort of thing should be officially incorporated into the American system of government to make it even more difficult for politicians to go wild.
HemlockGrey wrote:That sound you heard was the entire State Department slamming it's head into a wall.
....and why would they do this? These weird little performances are a tradition of ASEAN. If he didn't do this, it would've been a huge slap in the face to the other nations there.
Remember, the Indonesian presidential candiates got on the finals of "indonesian idols" and plugged a song too.
So, I guess its time to get boogy.
Let him land on any Lyran world to taste firsthand the wrath of peace loving people thwarted by the myopic greed of a few miserly old farts- Katrina Steiner
