Northern Ireland Town Fakes Prosperity for G8 Summit

[phantom power]

Potemkin Villages. Because we wouldn't want the attendees of a ginormous "economic summit" to be exposed to economic reality...

A town in Northern Ireland is getting spruced up for the arrival of some special guests.

World leaders are gathering in the town of Enniskillen for the G8 summit next month.

And to get ready, the town is putting up fake storefronts on shuttered businesses.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Irish Times reporter Dan Keenan about the efforts to make the town look prosperous.

...

Dan Keenan: These are basically empty shops that are being now made to look as if they are thriving businesses, and they’ve done that in a very clever fashion indeed.

Werman: How do they do it?

Keenan: What they’ve done is they have filled the shop front window with a picture of what was the business before it went bankrupt or closed. In other words, grocery shops, butcher shops, pharmacies, you name it, they have placed large photographs in the windows that if you were driving past and glanced out the window, it would look as if this was a thriving business. It’s an attempt really by the local authority to make the place look as positive as possible for the visiting G8 leaders and their entourages, and it’s really tried to put a mask on a recession that has really hit this part of Ireland really very badly indeed.

http://www.theworld.org/2013/05/northern-ireland-town-fakes-pros get ready, the town is putting up fake storefronts on shuttered businesses.

[KamaAina]

1. So help me FSM, I thought that was going to be The Onion

By the way, who's paying for all this?

[AnotherMcIntosh]

2. Hey, we can do that here.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

3. The article is worth a read, as well as some of the amusing comments. Here's one:

"I can't wait until they go play a few rounds of golf and all us poor people hide in the bushes, waiting to steal their golf balls and sell them - or swap them for real produce. Maybe we should all turn up in our best rags and barefoot at the Nineteenth Hole, hoping the lovely rich people will throw the fat from their steaks at us. Our bellies rumbling and children shivering ..."