April 17, 2006 at 9:15 pm · Authored by Ewan · Filed under SMS

Link: Taipei Times - archives.

A stray electronic missive has been blamed for a spate of arrests and a national scandal in Iran after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took umbrage at an unwelcome text received on his mobile phone.

According to whispered accounts in Tehran, his ire was stirred when someone sent him a joke suggesting he didn’t wash regularly enough.

I posted a note about this the other day — I’m quite amazed to be reading the same story days later in a whole array of different publications, blogs and websites.  I picked the Taipei Times as they reprinted it from The Guardian, who, I believe, are the originators of this version.  You’d think the Iranian Government would be on this with some decent spinning, don’t you?  Instead the story is flying across the international mediaspace. Most articles on the subject I’ve read contain this delightful sentence:

Although officials claim he possesses a lively sense of humor on this occasion it suffered a serious failure.

You don’t have to be a PR genius to notice that this story doesn’t quite demonstrate a lively sense of humour.  Neither do apparent unconfirmed reports of the head of the country’s mobile phone operator being sacked as a result. 

April 15, 2006 at 8:55 pm · Authored by Ewan · Filed under SMS

Link: Heard the one about the president? : Mail & Guardian Online.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Islamic nation’s firebrand leader, has taken umbrage at an unwelcome SMS received on his cellphone. According to whispered accounts in the Iranian capital, his ire was stirred when someone sent him a joke suggesting he didn’t wash regularly enough.