California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger just visited Prime Minister Stephen Harper in his office in the House of Commons. Needless to say, Arnold attracted a crowd of journalists following him around Parliament Hill. But one member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery was specially invited by the Prime Minister to meet Arnold. That would be Willi Pürstl (odd English translation here), who is a producer/camera operator with CHUM television in Ottawa.
Willi is among the most famous of athletes Austria has ever produced, winning all sorts of ski jumping championships mostly in the 1970s. When Willi came to Canada in 1988 he helped coach, among others, Canadian jumpers Horst Bulau and Steve Collins.
Willi and Arnold met for about two minutes outside of Harper’s third floor office in the Commons’ centre block. Arnold, like most Austrians, was very familiar with Willi’s athletic accomplishments, asking him, in German, if he was still in shape and if enjoyed living and working in Canada.
Later, one of my colleagues here — Kris Sims, a producer who works on Mike Duffy Live – found herself walking through one of the Commons’ hallways with Arnold and tells us of this exchange (you’ll have to provide the obligatory Ah-nold accent yourself for this):
Kris: “Governor Schwarzenegger, can I ask you a silly question?”
Schwarzenegger: “Certainly.”
Kris: “Are you going to make a third Conan movie to finish off the story? Because, you know, Sylvester Stallone has made another Rocky movie to finish off that series.”
Schwarzenegger: “That’s true, and did you also know that Stallone is making fourth Rambo movie?”
Kris: “Actually, I did know that, so, are you going to catch up with him and make another Conan?”
Schwarzenegger: “Right now, I am serving the people of California. Maybe afterwards. Thank you for watching my mooovies.”