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I think it's time we put Lord Ashcroft's money to better use

Wed, 3 Mar 2010 00:00:00 GMT

I'm not an expert on electoral law, but as Lord Ashcroft has been avoiding tax and funding the Tories instead, that means the Tory electoral campaign is being paid for with our money. So surely we should have the right to decide what's in the campaign.

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You can teach birth control but you'll end in hell if you do it

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

How can there be so many lunatics opposed to sex education? And apart from anything else, what makes them think a lesson about sex is going to make kids go out and immediately have sex? It's education about it, not an instruction to get it done before dinner break. Maybe they should demand an end to history lessons as well on the grounds that "I don't want my fourteen-year-old learning about Napoleon as he's too young to invade Italy."

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No escape from the curse of 'easy-listening' radio

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

In these discussions about the use of torture, everyone seems to have missed the growth of one barbaric practice rapidly on the increase, which is the enforced playing of Magic FM in public places. This hideous fake-soothing, "easy-listening" evil infests a huge number of cafés, minicabs, shopping centres, leisure centres, pubs. It's unstoppable, and unless we reduce its emissions by 90 per cent by 2020 the planet will become uninhabitable.

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They believed what suited them, and ignored what didn't

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

If you want to understand the details of how we went to war in Iraq, it is probably best not to watch a single moment of the Chilcot inquiry. Because the most glaring points of the big picture seem to get lost, amidst genteel discussions about whose note was at which meeting using which font at what angle.

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Just who do you vote for given this appalling choice?

Wed, 3 Feb 2010 00:00:00 GMT

There are many questions a population asks itself before a General Election, and the one that many people are asking before the one this year is, "Which of these rancid heaps of sewage will be slightly less repulsive than the other?" Maybe that's the way it should be phrased on the ballot paper, to increase turn-out.

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The viewers' right to Andy Murray

Wed, 27 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

This time the free market won't stop me watching Andy Murray in a semi-final. Last year, as he was about to play Andy Roddick at Wimbledon, I was in a hotel room in California watching the ESPN sports channel that had shown the matches up to then. I'd even organised some teabags for the morning, but as the match was about to start, ESPN showed an old match from years ago instead. I flicked desperately through 80 channels, past an advert for a centre that trains dogs to do yoga and an evangelist cooking show, and it wasn't anywhere.

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Consider the risks before you send your cash to Haiti

Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Satan's terms and conditions must have got worse in recent times. America's most prominent TV evangelist, Pat Robertson, announced that the Haiti earthquake was a result of a "pact with the Devil", made when they overthrew slavery 200 years ago. But in the old days a pact with the Devil brought you a life of fame and riches and earthly pleasures. Now you get a few years of life in the world's poorest country and then buried under a pile of rubble.

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Here is the news: a snowflake has fallen in High Wycombe...

Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

We've gone mad again. For a whole week every news report has begun with some idiot in a field saying something like, "As you can see, here in Wiltshire the snow has literally COVERED MY SHOELACE. And it's not just snowed in this field, it's snowed in that one over there as well. So there is literally no escape."

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Here's one soldier who told the truth about this war

Wed, 6 Jan 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Politicians and newspapers love to revere a war hero from Afghanistan, so it's strange that they haven't got round to Lance-Corporal Joe Glenton. When Joe went out there he must have been warned he could end up being held in captivity, but he can't have expected that would mean getting locked away by the British Army.

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The best way to enjoy your New Year's Eve is to scrap it

Wed, 30 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve so it's going to be FUN. Because this is when you're not only allowed but encouraged to get drunk. Newspapers provide tips on coping with hangovers, radio presenters scream "It's going to be CRAZY in Brighton tonight, where the dolphinarium has been FILLED with tequila." The Archbishop of Canterbury will probably make a statement that "As we know, it's customary good practice to get utterly bladdered on New Year's Eve. Many's the New Year's morn I've spent washing sick off my cassock, and apologising to the General Synod for assorted acts of naked blasphemy, but it's all been jolly decent FUN."

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Where next in the battle against the establishment?

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I think it's going to take a surgeon to remove this grin I've had, since it was revealed who was Christmas number one. And the brilliant thing is a song can't let you down by betraying its ideals. So there's no worry that by Thursday the chorus will have changed from "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me", to "All right, just this once, but I warn you I'm losing my patience".

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Sussex will be desert before the climate deniers accept reality

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

It must drive you mad being a climatologist. You spend your life measuring carbon emissions, and monitoring glaciers and studying lumps of moss from Siberia, and then you hear someone on a radio phone-in yelling, "How can they say the world's getting hotter? I mean at night, it's colder than what it was in the day, so it's got colder, not hotter. They must think we're mugs."

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Help save Christmas from the dreaded X Factor

Wed, 9 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

There is still hope for the planet. The odds are against us but we have 10 days left to save the world and stop X Factor from creating another putrid Christmas number one.

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Things can happen when you travel on a Virgin train

Wed, 2 Dec 2009 00:00:00 GMT

No one should be reminded of Virgin Trains at any time, as their one outstanding achievement is attention to detail, because everything is awful. Any train company can make trains late, but Virgin put in that extra effort, so there's an announcement as you leave that there's no tea because the boiler's busted.

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Come rain or revolution, it's money they all want

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Haven't the 20th anniversary celebrations of the overthrow of communism been miserable? In 1989, with historically youthful joy, swarms of demonstrators danced across the Berlin Wall and brought down a collection of tyrannies, so the commemoration starts with the dullest statesmen sat in rows looking as if they're about to say "Well I'd better be off as it's 10 past eight, and I have to be up early tomorrow to put all my gardening equipment in alphabetical order."

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Brown can't even stick to his own nonsense on Afghanistan

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Bit by bit, as happened with Iraq, the reasons for staying in Afghanistan slide into gibberish. So Gordon Brown's reasons for the war seem to change every week.

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You almost have to feel sorry for Gordon Brown

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Now Gordon Brown's got the Sun against him, so every morning he gets up to see whether he's on their front page for losing everyone's money, or deliberately driving a caravan over a disabled child's tortoise or sneezing phlegm over the Crown Jewels or whatever they say he's done that day.

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Why should I be pressured into wearing a poppy?

Wed, 4 Nov 2009 00:00:00 GMT

It's Poppy Week, which means if you don't wear a poppy all week you're a filthy, dirty, low-life, scummy traitor. Yesterday, there was outrage in newspapers because a library in Derbyshire would not sell poppies, and a headline in the sports section of the Daily Mail complained: "Why are only 12 Premier League clubs wearing their poppies?"

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Just when you thought it was safe to come out again

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Blair can't really become President of Europe, can he? There must be millions of us who've been slowly managing to forget about him for the last two years, recovering as he fades into the past, the way torture victims rebuild their lives day by day, and now this dreadful figure we thought had gone forever might be back ruling us again. It's like finding out your new boss is the PE teacher who used to thrash you with his belt when you were in the shower, or your local councillor is Hughie Greene, or having Black Lace move in next door and sing Agadoo every night.

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Royal Mail is to blame for our broken society (obviously)

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

"The Post office unions can't obstruct modernisation," insists Peter Mandelson. That must be why Mandelson has the thoroughly modern job title of Lord, because he's not afraid to modernise. And no one could accuse his place of work, the House of Lords, of resisting modernisation. Every member of staff is at the cutting edge of new technology, making use of the very latest developments in ermine gowns, and overmanning is unheard of as every single Lord is essential and oozes infectious youthful hereditary energy for the benefit of Britain.

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We're all in this together (except when times are good)

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

From now on, anyone who wants to make you worse off has a new catchphrase. If a mugger demands your wallet and you refuse to give it to him, he'll say "Haven't you heard? We're all in this together." And as he takes it he'll say: "See, we've all got to make a sacrifice."

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Learning the lessons of the turnip-dumping war of 1352

Wed, 7 Oct 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Who would have guessed, when people first marvelled at the ingenuity of the earliest aircraft, that this awesome achievement would result in the miserable wretched branch of industry known as airline companies? For example, British Airways have announced plans to charge up to £40 per person for the luxury of booking a seat. So if a family doesn't pay the extra, it could find itself separated all over the plane. And the staff will probably be instructed to sell this charge by saying "If you don't pay we MAY be able to sit your children next to you, and we will TRY not to sit them in the middle of a Plymouth nursery workers hen night outing but there's no guarantee so we do recommend the service for peace of mind".

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Iranian missiles and a PR triumph

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

If Gordon Brown could think imaginatively, he'd learn from the government in Iran that there's a simple way of ensuring he's never ignored by President Obama again. Just a couple of nuclear tests without US permission, over the Norfolk Broads or Lake Windermere, and there'd be international conferences and United Nations resolutions, and Brown could step off a plane surrounded by bodyguards and say "Hey Obama, I see you take notice of me now."

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Cut this nonsense about whose cuts are most 'savage'

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

How have we got to a point where all the major parties try to win votes by boasting who's going to take most things away? Nick Clegg brags that the Liberals' cuts will be "savage", as if he's taken lessons from Ray Winstone on coming over hard, and his conference speech went: "Now watch my boat race and listen. If I see anyfing that can be cut – I'm 'aving it. Know what this is? It's a dialysis machine. I've gone down the hospice, seen this ol' geyser, bop bop bop bop, done 'im, out with the ol' plug and wallop. Now it's out the national debt, 'cos I'm Savage Clegg."

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So has anyone really been 'Islamified' against their will?

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

There's something touchingly innocent about the argument put forward by many people that the BNP should be allowed space in the mainstream media as this will "expose their ignorant ideas". Because history doesn't necessarily prove this to be the case. I don't suppose that, in 1941, many people thought: "You see, this is all working to plan. Now he's invaded Russia everyone will see just what an idiot this Hitler really is."

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The Poles might be leaving but the prejudice remains

Wed, 9 Sep 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Over the last few years it's become one of our quaint English traditions that on any day following the announcement of immigration figures, certain newspapers display headlines such as "TEN MILLION OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT POLES TO SWARM INTO BRITAIN LIKE PLUMBING LOCUSTS!!! And they plan to BUGGER OUR KITTENS!!!"

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People would play golf if the sport wasn't so snobbish

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

As the Open Golf Championship is about to begin, the question everyone must be (Continued)...

The danse macabre of Michael Jackson's death

Wed, 1 Jul 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Within minutes of the first reports, it was clear the world was going mad. The (Continued)...

You can't bath with one jug of water?

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

If this was a business column I'd suggest one industry to invest in would be (Continued)...

Why not hold all trials in private?

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

I'd love to have spent the last couple of days with Tony Blair or Alastair Campbell. (Continued)...

So this is New Labour's legacy...

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

What a pathetic "rebellion". The Labour Party is in its worst state for a century and all it took for their (Continued)...

Turn left (and then left again)

Wed, 3 Jun 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Poor Gordon Brown has arrived at that point where his life is one long sequence (Continued)...

The proof that class still rules

Wed, 27 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

If Kim Jong-Il has an imaginative public relations office, he'll issue a statement (Continued)...

Perhaps it would be better if all MPs were sponsored...

Wed, 20 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Can there ever have been a time when so many people were so furious? You can (Continued)...

Here's what filthy rich really means

Wed, 13 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

By now, Jacqui Smith's husband must be preparing a new apology that goes: "I am now TRULY sorry for fiddling porn films on expenses. What was I thinking (Continued)...

It's almost heartbreaking - these people are so clueless

Wed, 6 May 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The leaders of the Labour Party have reached a fascinating stage, where they (Continued)...

If you can avoid tax, why bother to leave?

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

One tiddly little tax rise and they're like spoilt toddlers, screaming "Baby want tax cut, don't WANT pay 50 pence, not FAIR, baby not pay."

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Criminals can learn from the police

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

It's not the violence of the police that gives away their nature, it's the systematic (Continued)...

No place for arrogance any more

Thu, 2 Apr 2009 00:00:00 GMT

There's supposed to be an art to fiddling at work. Someone signs for 19 crates (Continued)...

Nationalise railways - not banks

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Greed is out of fashion. Suddenly it is inconceivable that there could be a programme like the ones on every night until a year ago, with names like Property Location Vast Profit, that ended with a couple spluttering, "We're SO glad you persuaded us to buy this disused hospice in Suffolk because we're going to convert it into a penthouse suite and put a ski slope in the loft and sell it for a million pounds and buy a stretch of coastline in Turkey", and now it's worth bugger all and it serves them right, the greedy bastards.

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The significance of a concrete hippo in Walsall

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Each year, if you travel round the country, you see every town becoming more depressingly impersonal and identical. You could be in Inverness, Plymouth or Norwich and guarantee the shopping precinct consisted of a Body Shop, H&M, Clinton Cards, a shut-down Woolworths, a Wetherspoon, a fake Irish pub, a Nando's, a Pizza Hut with yawning teenager and glass screw-top jar of stuck-together parmesan cheese, River Island, Boots, Vodafone, a student in plastic bib overly keen to sign you up for Amnesty International and a bunch of Peruvians playing "I just Called To Say I Love You" on the poxy pan-pipes.

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So Karl Marx was right after all

Wed, 4 Mar 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The sudden change is disconcerting. For years I might suggest society would be improved if we sacked these vastly overpaid bankers, and the response would be some variety of "Here he goes again".

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The youth of today - they just don't show no disrespect

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

One of the many upsetting aspects to being in your forties, is hearing people your own age grumbling about “young people” the way we were grumbled about ourselves.

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New Labour encouraged every aspect of this avarice.

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The real point about a minister saying this is the worst economic crisis for 100 years, is it shows they haven't got a clue. That figure was plucked out of nowhere, unless there was a really dreadful crisis in 1909 that no one ever noticed before. Maybe the minister's just seen Mary Poppins, and the scene where the bank goes bust, he thinks is footage of a real financial crash.

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Snowmen are costing Britain billions

Wed, 4 Feb 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Snow used to be annoying, because it made everything stutter at half-speed, leaving you frustrated on icy rail platforms, or trying to find out what time the school would open. But now it's brilliant, because the moment a snowball's worth has settled every single thing packs up completely. It's not worth even asking whether a school, bus, library or cardiac unit might be opening. Just frolic about and laugh at the idiot spinning his car in circles.

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You can't be impartial about aid

Wed, 28 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

THE BBC is right. If they broadcast that appeal for aid to be sent to Gaza it would be taking sides. The Israeli Defence force could legitimately say "We've gone to enormous lengths to kill people, then you go and help keep them alive. How do you square that with your remit to be neutral?"

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Now we've all seen through the Israeli government's excuses

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

The worrying part about whether the ceasefire in Gaza can hold together will be whether the international community can stop the flow of arms to the terrorists. Because Israel's getting their planes and tanks and missiles from somewhere and until this supply is cut off there's every chance it could start up again.

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There is one crisis we've ignored: the demise of snooker

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

It's vaguely possible that some readers have neglected the current crisis in snooker, even though the best player in the world has said it's "on a downward spiral", and "the sport is dying". But it's a mistake to ignore this, as it's a part of a calamity that's engulfing us all.

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What creationists really hate is that we emerged by accident

Wed, 7 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT

Charles Darwin would probably love the fact that the 200th anniversary of his birth is being celebrated with radio shows, documentaries and exhibitions, but he might not have enjoyed the way that furious Christians still despise his theories and try to prove the Bible is more reliable.

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So what have the Palestinians got to complain about?

Wed, 31 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

When you read the statements from Israeli and US politicians, and try to match them with the pictures of devastation, there seems to be only one explanation. They must have one of those conditions, called something like "Visual-Carnage-Responsibility-Back-To-Front-Upside-Down-Massacre-Disorder".

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To George Bush, his critics are just lone difficult schoolboys

Wed, 17 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

If only he could have done it a week earlier, Muntazer al-Zaidi's display of hurling shoes at George Bush would have been unbeatable in the vote for Overseas Sports Personality of the Year. It was especially brilliant given that one of the ways international security has tightened at potential targets is to check for explosives hidden in people's shoes. Now in Baghdad the security forces will grabbing people and saying, "Can I look inside your bag of semtex, to check you're not using it to conceal a pair of sandals."

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The Tories fight against the filth

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Strangely, the past 30 years of police abusing their powers have passed the Tories by. Now, all of a sudden, they are sounding like radical students from the 1970s. Tory MPs will start making speeches in Parliament that go: "Mister Speaker, would the honourable member for Wilmslow not agree that, in the light of recent findings, the pigs are out of control, man? And would he not draw the conclusion, accepted by all decent citizens, that the only remedy is to fight the filth, fight the filth, fight the filth, they're FASCISTS, man, FASCIST SCUM, FASCIST SCUM."

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Never mind the baby, just get back to work

Wed, 3 Dec 2008 00:00:00 GMT

You can tell what they've got in mind when they begin an article, as the Work and Pensions Secretary did yesterday, by insisting they have to make tough decisions. It means they're tough enough to cut benefits for the weakest people in the country, because they're hard. It's like if Ricky Hatton did an interview at the start of a fight, saying "I'm going to show the world tonight just how tough I am", then walked into the audience and smashed an old woman in the mouth.

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Please stop jazzing up our history

Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

There seems to be a rule that anyone who thinks they should be taken seriously has to spend most of their life complaining about the BBC. So after an incident such as the Russell Brand answerphone programme, newspaper front pages had articles such as, "Why has no one been sacked? Anyone – it doesn't matter who. What about the manager of my local Woolworths?"

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Why do people cling to the myth of the nuclear family?

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

One of the the strange twists about modern science is that it sometimes gets used by the utterly irrational, who claim they've found scientific proof to back up their bonkers theories.

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The losers who hate to love Obama

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Oh they've all changed now. Suddenly they all like Obama, so even Republican spokesmen are saying things like: "This great and truly memorable moment shows what a wonderful country we are.

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It's not about great men, but those who put them there

Wed, 5 Nov 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The most common view of history is that it's created by the personalities of a handful of important figures. So world events can be explained by the fact that Churchill was strong, or Henry VIII wanted a divorce, or Napoleon had a complex about being short; as if an era of revolution and war was a result of him stretching in his kitchen, grumbling: "I can't reach the top shelf. I know, I'll invade Italy, that'll sort that out."

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I'm frozen with fear - could Obama still lose the election?

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I'm still cacking myself. I know all the commentators are saying Obama's already won but I find myself scouring the internet for reassuring polls, and there'll be an article from Nevada quoting a truck driver that's supporting McCain, and I'm like a hypochondriac that's discovered a lump, frozen with fear and convinced this means the Republicans will win and reintroduce slavery and make it illegal for any creature to evolve.

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It's all poor people's fault, isn't it?

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I'm not sure what makes it official that the recession's started, but one way of measuring the start is when the government first insists there ARE lots of vacancies, but the unemployed need to be more flexible, and better at applying for jobs, as Gordon Brown stated this week.

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Workers unite! And turn Balmoral into an allotment

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

They're not happy, these bankers who've been forced to resign, are they? For example Fred Goodwin, who's lost his £4.1m salary at Royal Bank of Scotland and must now manage on a £580,000 pension, seemed furious, as if he was a sacked docker from the 1980s, and you expected him to shout "Brothers and sisters, I call upon you to oppose this injustice as General Secretary of the National Union of Outrageous Bonus Receivers and Allied Parasitic Trades".

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The curse of these demonic call centres

Wed, 8 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

If there is one aspect of modern society that sums up the relentless, tortuous contempt in which the mass of humanity is held by the thieving, sociopathic executives that rule our essential institutions, it's the call centre.

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Quick! These bankers need rescuing

Wed, 1 Oct 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The next move, presumably, will be to nationalise the country's gambling debts. To revive confidence amongst blokes in betting offices, the Government will hand over £300bn to cover the money they've lost. Then a leading gambler will be quoted as saying: "This package goes some way towards restoring calm. The last week has been horrendous. One of my friends lost a ton on an 8-1 shot he'd been assured was a banker by a minicab driver."

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At least the City doesn't go on strike

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

You almost want to shake their hands in admiration. The total amount of city bonuses for the last year, it turns out, is £12.6bn. Which is more, apparently, than the nation's entire budget for transport. And you can be certain some bankers will hear that and think: "That's outrageous – if the economy didn't waste all that money on buses we could be paid what we're really worth."

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Bankers should bail themselves out

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Thirty years we've had, of unfathomably wealthy bankers and dealers being justified as part of the free market.

(Continued)...

Don't die of hypothermia until March

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The government tells us it wouldn't make sense to impose a one-off tax on the energy companies, as this would be a short-term measure that fails to address the long-term problem. And, to be fair, there's a logic to this. So, a decent compromise that might get round this difficulty would be to impose a tax on the pigs EVERY year, or if that still didn't sort it, every week – or maybe every 25 minutes.

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Labour and a bout of mutual loathing

Wed, 3 Sep 2008 00:00:00 GMT

One of the main reasons for the founding of "New Labour", its supporters insisted, was to ensure there would never be a return to the days when Labour was forever rowing with itself, over issues such as nuclear weapons or the unions. And this has been a huge success, because now they all agree on those issues and instead hate each other because they all want a job that's more important than the one they've got.

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If you don't like sport, you're wrong

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

One morning, after achieving four straight hours watching the Olympics, I realised it was time to stop when the commentator said, and these were the exact words: "You have to say, that is a very important moment in the history of Algerian judo."

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Let's make a virtue of being useless

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Anyone British who watched the opening ceremony in Beijing must have had the same thought, that we'll never manage that and utterly humiliate ourselves.

(Continued)...

A reactionary called Solzhenitsyn

Wed, 6 Aug 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I had no idea Solzhenitsyn was still alive, so I couldn't work out how to feel at the news he'd died. It was as if someone said "Have you heard the sad news – Joan of Arc's dead." It must have been difficult for him returning to Russia as an old man, as presumably he saw the shopping malls and McDonald's and thought "Dear oh dear, nothing's the same. When I was a boy it was all gulags round here."

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Why do the unions keep handing over their money?

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

What did it do for Gordon Brown's ego, to spend a morning with Barack Obama? There's his guest attracting cheering crowds of tens of thousands in every city, while Gordon must consider it a good day if he completes a speech without making a puddle.

(Continued)...

How to take on an arms manufacturer - and win

Wed, 23 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

A trial took place recently in Belfast that seems to explain how nothing makes any sense. It revolved around a factory owned by the arms company Raytheon, which was set up in Derry soon after the IRA ceasefire. John Hume, who'd just won the Nobel Peace Prize, was among those who announced the opening of the plant, welcoming it as a result of the "peace dividend".

(Continued)...

Barack Obama has nothing to fear but himself

Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

There's no way of saying this without sounding a bit pretentious, but I was in Chicago a couple of weeks ago. And the most instructive person I met may have been a frail old black woman in a newsagents, who picked up a newspaper with a photo of Barack Obama on it, and thrust it under my nose.

(Continued)...

Wife-beating? That's fine - unless you're a Muslim

Wed, 9 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The Sun newspaper has come over a bit modest. Following a Channel 4 documentary about media reporting of Muslims, the paper accepts some of its stories were "distorted". But they're not doing themselves justice. They weren't distorted – they were entirely made up. For example, a story about a Muslim bus driver who ordered his passengers off the bus so he could pray was pure fabrication.

(Continued)...

If only Andy Murray came from the Home Counties

Wed, 2 Jul 2008 00:00:00 GMT

They can't make up their mind about Andy Murray, can they? He might be British and exciting, with the potential to win things, but according to The Daily Telegraph he "will never make us swoon", because "we liked Tim Henman's Home Counties stiffness far more than the cursing aggression of this young man".

(Continued)...

If the poor of Africa are hungry, send them arms

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

It's so difficult, apparently, to work out how to solve the food shortages in Africa. Because the price of food has just gone up, the way prices do sometimes, caught by a freak gust of wind or flare from the sun or something and whoosh, up they go, whether it's oil or an Olympic Games or rice and it's just bad luck.

(Continued)...

Beware - the rail companies are out to get you

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Modern train ticket collectors do a marvellous job. Coming back from Bristol to London, one of them told me: "Because this is a non-saver train, I'll have to charge you an additional £69." And he didn't flinch, collapse into hysterics or even blush. He must regularly face the same bemused grimace whenever he says those words, a stare no different to the one he'd face if he said: "Sorry sir, because this is a non-transferrable Quicksave ticket, I'll have to sleep with your daughter."

(Continued)...

You want children to learn? Here's how to do it

Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:00:00 GMT

How do they make school such excruciating torture? For example, according to one of these "think-tanks", there's a "lost generation" that can't do maths, despising the subject because of the way it's taught at school.

(Continued)...

Our MPs are out of touch and over-compensated

Wed, 28 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I doubt whether many people had Margaret Beckett down as one of the more imaginative politicians, but we were wrong. Because lots of MPs stuck in expense claims for unnecessary taxis or new kitchen units, but Margaret put some art into her claim and demanded £1,900 for plants and a pergola, which apparently is a frame for the plants to thrive on. And this was for her second home of course. Because obviously everyone has a pergola and a grand's worth of plants in their first home.

(Continued)...

The evidence mounts that some things aren't fair

Tue, 20 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

There's a trial currently taking place in Belfast, that seems to explain plainly how nothing makes any sense. It revolves around a factory owned by the arms company Raytheon, which was set up in Derry soon after the IRA ceasefire. John Hume, who'd just won the Nobel Peace Prize was among those who announced the opening of the plant, welcoming it as a result of the 'peace dividend'.

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Premier League or proper football? It's no contest

Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

What a thrilling season it was in the Premier League, agree all the experts. But surely instead of thrilling, they actually mean pointlessly predictably relentlessly tedious. Almost every club has finished within one or two places of its designated position, in accordance with how rich it is. So the time must have come to reform the rules.

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Has the real Gordon been replaced by a robot?

Wed, 7 May 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Oh no. It's got to the point where you start pitying him. Poor Gordon Brown comes on television for a press conference and you feel he's about to say, "Um, right. Er oh this is harder than it looks. I'm a bit nervous." Then his colleagues, just out of shot whisper, "Go on Gordon, you can do it – go on Gordon, read from your notes, uh-oh he's wet himself." And Tessa Jowell has to go and get a mop.

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There was more to 1968 than hippies and festivals

Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

The spirit of 1968 was lost on me, because at the time I was in an all-white junior school in Kent. I wish I could remember the headmaster bawling in assembly, "Whoever it was who used fuzzy felt to make surrealist graffiti will be severely punished," but I don't think it happened.

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Sorry, but Prezza's bulimia is just a trifling matter

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

No wonder John Prescott could not get cured of bulimia. When the doctor asked him what was wrong he probably said, "In as much as over-consumeringness, that which is vomitatious to indigested, as you well know. Now, don't be interruption doctor, I've paid listening to how you've said – sickability, as such, of triflement and manyfold of chips, is forthcoming with each regurgitationingness of that which has undergone swallowment, both liquified and solidacious, and you can look at the reports to be backing this of certain, pukement levels have ascendified to alarmed figure, reaching frankly unprecedentious rates of outpourings that is highly inacceptable AS I HAVE SAID ALL ALONG."

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Sorry, Gordon, but you aren't a game-show host

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Why is Gordon Brown so useless? Maybe the answer could be found on the American Idol charity show he appeared on at the weekend, where he announced that the British government was donating millions of mosquito nets to Africa.

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So did Neolithic settlers have estate agents?

Wed, 9 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

As an expert on economic indicators, I can predict one positive effect of a falling housing market, which is an end to those television shows with names like Buy a House Where I Tell You To, You Idiot, in which slithery property experts say: "We simply must persuade Julia and Simon to buy this charming disused crematorium as it has such potential for conversion into a four-bedroom maisonette using original features such as this gorgeous fire for central heating and just look at these exquisite drapes.

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You couldn't make it up (unless you're Hillary, that is)

Wed, 2 Apr 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Traditionally, Democrat candidates for President start slightly radical, then try to reassure Conservative America, get in a tangle and look like idiots. But this time may be different, because Barack Obama has stuck by his friend the militant preacher, refusing to disown him, and Hillary Clinton has gone mental.

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So Tibetans have been brainwashed by a rogue...

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Surely no one with a fragment of humanity can fail to be moved by the protesters in Tibet, not so much because of their courage and optimism, but because in one clip on the news they were on horseback. That's how to arrive at demonstrations. Imagine if there was some protest at the local town hall, and just as it was petering out it was joined by the "Save Luton Library Cavalry". Then the leader fiddled with his knee-length beard, announced "Councillors, prepare to meet your doom" and laughed with a threatening high-pitched cackle before jumping off his horse to drop-kick the mayor. Then it could all be portrayed in a film called Placards of Fury.

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How dare these soldiers go round getting wounded?

Wed, 19 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Of all the shady reasons for supporting the war in Iraq, the weakest was always how it was our duty to "Support our boys," as they couldn't do their job if people back home were critical. To start with, this doesn't seem logical. Is there any evidence that tank commanders were about to fire off a volley of missiles, but then hesitated saying "Ooh I'm not sure I can go through with it because there was this sniffy letter in The Independent"?

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Let's be modern and swear an oath to the monarchy

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

When Tony Blair and Gordon Brown launched the idea of New Labour, it was as a crusade to be modern. A typical speech would go: "Mister chairman, brothers and sisters, modern modern modern modern modern. New Britain new modern modern. Modern modern modern, thank you," (23 minute standing ovation).

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Sixties nostalgia that hid the horrors of Jersey

Wed, 5 Mar 2008 00:00:00 GMT

One striking aspect of the child abuse allegations being investigated in Jersey is that they took place in an environment of charming 1960s discipline that so many people scream we should get back to. It was a time without hoodies or political correctness, when children were taught respect and the bobby on the beat was not afraid to give young scallywags a clip round the ear and ignore their allegations of mass abuse, because back then everyone knew their place, especially children. So, jolly policemen would call out to them: "Good morning, David, everything's in order I hope. What's that – you've been beaten, half-strangled and tortured? Well, that's all part of growing up, I'm afraid. Now don't let me see you walking across the grass by Mr Filbert the fishmonger's again or you'll get a smack across the legs – that's private property is that."

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I'm starting to feel sorry for Ken Livingstone

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

If anyone wonders how you become an investigative journalist, there are now unprecedented openings in London. All you do is follow Ken Livingstone for a couple of hours, then demand a full public inquiry about something he did, such as buy an apple, and send it into the London Evening Standard.

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So, farewell, Fidel - but please don't give a speech

Wed, 20 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

I wonder if Fidel Castro will have a works leaving do. It would be only polite to have sandwiches and a presentation of a silver pen in the shape of a Russian missile, and a speech from his brother that included an amusing anecdote about the time Fidel got locked in the toilet during the bombardment at the Bay of Pigs and had to be rescued by Che Guevara shooting the bolt off.

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A taxing problem: should the rich pay for cheese?

Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

New Labour certainly keep their promises. Before they were elected, they promised to reform the loophole that enables the super-rich to avoid paying tax, by claiming "non-domicile tax status". And now, 11 years later, they're still promising to do it.

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Change. Hope. America. Vote for Bob the Builder...

Wed, 6 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Barack Obama, apparently, has been the symbol of hope. But that could be quite distressing, because his entire campaign has revolved around the slogan "Yes we can." I'm all for keeping political ideas simple, but he's reduced them to Bob the bloody Builder. Maybe he's planning to steal other catchphrases from children's TV characters, so his next campaign adverts will go "Barack Obama – flobalob lob obalob weed."

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Nick ****ing Cohen

Tue, 5 Feb 2008 00:00:00 GMT

What splendid timing. Out pops a book applauding the virtues of the invasion of Iraq, just when even the invasion's last bedraggled supporters in the American establishment are giving up on it. Even the head of the British Army has declared it a disaster. The United Nations have revealed that among the occupation's magnificent achievements is there is more torture in Iraq now than under Saddam. The debate about the scale of the slaughter concerns how many hundreds of thousands are dead. So here Nick Cohen not only cheers the decision to invade but declares his bemusement about why everyone else didn't join him. Maybe he's got another one coming out called "Why can't everyone see England are bound to win the 2006 World Cup?"

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Not a shopping spree, just a taste of freedom

Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Occasionally there's a news story that can be presented as so jolly everyone must find it heartening – Havant and Waterlooville scoring against Liverpool, kittens rescued from chimneys, that Indonesian dictator bastard dying this week, that sort of thing.

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How did the share dealers get to be so important?

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

They obviously haven't got a clue. The people in charge of the economy look like those poor lads who work in Dixons or PC World in bright red shirts, who try to appear knowledgeable but have no idea what's going on. So you ask what's the difference between this machine and the other one, and they freeze with panic, then say, "Well, basically, this one offers the option of facilities and options," and you know they're thinking, "Is this a lap-top or a kettle?"

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If you think Islam is medieval, look at Catholicism

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

Tomorrow, the Pope was meant to have visited the University of La Sapienza in Rome. Only, he won't now, having got wind of a protest which would have put the defiance of Burmese monks in the shade. The punishment for this one would have been an eternity of agonising torment.

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A few tears won't make Hillary more electable

Wed, 9 Jan 2008 00:00:00 GMT

What a magnificent speech by Hillary Clinton, where she broke down in tears and spluttered, "Lots of people think elections are about who's up and who's down, but this is very personal for me. I've had such opportunities from this country."

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When Mayan rebirthing just isn't mad enough

Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:00:00 GMT

For the first time ever I felt like going to a Catholic Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Because it would have been worth it to yell during the sermon: "It's one thing tolerating the Inquisition and the Mafia and an assortment of paedophiles, but surely even YOU draw the line at Blair."

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Why can't we stop flying when it's such torture?

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Of all the complex scientific questions raised by that climate-change conference in Bali, the most difficult of all is this – why can't we stop people flying when they're only going a short distance, even though it entails the tortuous woeful arena of abject malignant misery that is the modern airport? It's as if scientists discovered that toxic gases were released into the atmosphere whenever electrodes were attached to genitals but most people said "I don't care, I'm going to carry on zapping mine every day because it's convenient."

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Donorgate? It's obviously all the fault of the unions

Wed, 5 Dec 2007 00:00:00 GMT

After the palaver of the last week, the Labour Party has come up with a magnificent solution to the problem of weird businessmen donating money to them. They've proposed, according to this paper yesterday, "greater transparency on the way unions pay affiliation fees", and that "one-off payments to Labour from unions should be subject to the £50,000 ceiling."

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It takes a warrior like Blair to talk of peace

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

I concede defeat. Watching Tony Blair parading around the Annapolis summit as the representative of the Quartet of Europe, the UN, Russia and the US, I can't think of any situation more ridiculous than making Tony Blair a peace envoy for the Middle-East.

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A French lesson about the poverty of rich countries

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

One impact of these strikes in France is that it's confused some of the people who write about such events. Which is why you get articles that seem to go "In a modern globalised economy, old-fashioned militancy simply has no power. That's what these train drivers must realise as they bring the entire country to a stand-still, their powerless union wrecking the economy, not just of France but of Europe and most of outer space. And now loads of other workforces are coming out on strike as well! Haven't they read my book explaining how this can't happen any more? So now, because of them, to get to my lecture entitled, 'The utter futile pointlessness of ever imagining a strike these days could have the tiddliest impact' I've got to bloody well walk!"

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You can't go round telling people you've been sacked

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Until recently, no one seemed to have worked out how to apply budget cuts and privatisation to the field of care for the mentally ill. I'm sure think-tanks have come up with suggestions, such as sponsoring the voices in paranoid people's heads. So patients could say "Now, instead of being warned that the man behind me is a secret agent trying to kill me, I'm told I can't get quicker than a Kwik-Fit fitter. I've not got in nearly so many fights but I've spent my life's savings on exhaust pipes."

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Everyone should watch these medieval antics

Wed, 7 Nov 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The postal workers, like the workforce in every other institution, have been told they must modernise or be overtaken by forces who are prepared to be modern. And to set an example, the Government that insists on this laid out their plans yesterday in the modern setting of the state opening of parliament.

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How nice that we make King Abdullah feel at home

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

That should stop those liberal types who complain we don't do enough to welcome people who leave a country that practises persecution. Admittedly, with King Abdullah, he's the person who organises the persecution, but the main point is we made an effort.

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Class still rules. It's just the jobs that have changed

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

One thing that almost all commentators, journalists and politicians can agree on is that there's no point in going on about class.

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The madder the theory, the more people believe it

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

There's one question no one has raised at this inquest into Diana's crash. Is it really possible that an elaborate murder, involving flashing lights, redirected cameras and ghostly Fiat Unos, could be organised by a family made up of bumbling aristocratic idiots incapable of crossing the road without an equerry?

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However debased the image, Che's legend lives on

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The image of Che Guevara is perfect for the modern world, not just a revolutionary but a celebrity revolutionary. Posh Spice probably sees his picture everywhere and screams "Why can't my agent get me on that many magazines and baseball caps?" Even if she's read this week's commemorations of his death as a guerilla 40 years ago, she'll imagine he spent his days running through a Cuban swamp with Churchill Insurance on his combat fatigues.

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Can you not know that you are using forced labour?

Wed, 3 Oct 2007 00:00:00 GMT

From now on, I think every protest should have monks at the front. They look fantastic, so much better than Bianca Jagger and someone from Greenpeace dawdling into Trafalgar Square clutching a crumpled banner the width of the road. And they're so dazzling, you almost wish that when they're being chased by the police they would flee in formation, to create a kaleidoscope of colour like the Red Arrows.

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Oh, we do like being British by the seaside

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Surely, if you've been desperately frothing to become prime minister every day for 14 years, once it finally happens and you get to make your big speech you must have something more to say than that. From the bit I heard it just went "it's an honour and a privilege to be in charge of the British people because of all the British people only the British people are British."

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Have you got that rocket launcher in blue?

Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Aren't we supposed to be panicking about all these easily available weapons in our inner cities? Then the press and politicians should hurry to the East End of London, where there are thousands of the things. And the idiots who own them have even given the police clues about where they are, by calling their stash the "London Arms Fair".

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What next from Osama? A range of health products?

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Maybe this video is just an extract, and later we’ll see the whole programme on ‘Ten Years Younger’

(Continued)...

Is Martin McGuinness addicted to secret talks?

Wed, 5 Sep 2007 00:00:00 GMT

One of the most romantic attempts to solve the chaos in Iraq is this session of secret talks that's been revealed, chaired by Martin McGuinness in Finland, and attended by Ulster Unionists, South African ANC members and Iraqi Sunnis and Shias.

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It's obvious whose fault it was that Diana died

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Camilla has worked this out brilliantly. Not only has she got one of the best-paid jobs in the world for just the odd day's work, but she's been told, "This Friday, you must have the day off, is that understood?"

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Oi! Referee! That footballer's Palestinian!

Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

What are we doing banning a touring team from Gaza because it is 'too poor'?

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Atheists and believers have got religion wrong

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

There's a modern brand of militant atheist that can appear horribly smug and superior

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When tragedy is turned into showbusiness

Wed, 8 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

British sniffer dogs have a level of expertise that doesn't exist in Portugal, we are told on the news

(Continued)...

Why does Saudi Arabia need military aid?

Wed, 1 Aug 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The Saudis are getting $13bn. How can they spend that? Have Prada moved into tanks?

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Well, if the Romans built on flood plains...

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Maybe this really is a new period of government with no PR spin, because no one concerned with their image would announce building 20,000 houses on flood plains in the middle of the country's worst-ever floods.

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Why should Galloway be the only fall guy?

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

At last a politician has been suspended for their role in the Iraq war. You'd have thought it would have happened before now, and you might have thought when it finally happened, it wouldn't be the politician most prominently against the war. Suspending George Galloway for his conduct in Iraq is as if last week's trial of those failed suicide bombers ended with the judge saying "This was a monstrous crime. So I'm going to let you off, and jail the bloke who chased you through the Underground."

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Global warming must be a lie. Just look who says so

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

The Live Earth concert was worthwhile, because it provoked this splendid argument from a columnist in The Sun, who insists the climate isn't changing - "Global warming is simply the new way of screwing more and more taxes out of us."

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Most Druids are crazy, so why don't they attack us?

Wed, 4 Jul 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Among the many complex questions involving the minds of terrorists is why they would rely on a mobile phone to work properly as the detonator. All that effort, ending with a furious Jihadist snarling, "Bollocks, I can't get a signal."

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Squeeze this new super-rich class of postmen

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Modernise, modernise has been the theme, and this week it's the outdated striking postmen told they must accept this. Right to the end, Blair wants all institutions to modernise, which must be why one of his last acts as Prime Minister was to visit the head of an institution that preaches sermons in Latin and who carries a stick with a bobble on top and wears a cassock because that's how things were done when all this started under the Roman Empire.

(Continued)...

How I discovered an American icon

Wed, 20 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

America is a country that thrives on its famous images. For example, last week I was at the entrance to the Empire State Building when a tour guide approached me.

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How can you have a school without its own zoo?

Wed, 6 Jun 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Every time someone repeats how there's no point in referring to antiquated tribal notions of class, they should be forced to visit the Whitgift private school in Croydon, where I went last week to see Surrey play Kent at cricket. To start with, how likely is it that a comprehensive school would have the facilities to put on a professional sports match? So kids in an inner city school would say: "I got in bear trouble man, for disturbing Roger Federer you get me. I tripped him during his semi-final against Rafael Nadal up against the wall of the science block init."

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When Iran met the Great Satan...

Wed, 30 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

It's such a shame the American and Iranian leaders have taken so long before talking to each other. Because now they've done it, they must realise they've SO much in common. The small talk before the meeting probably went, "You're very lucky being able to imprison your homosexuals the way you do."

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Why nothing beats a good cup of tea

Wed, 23 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

If the Cutty Sark was set on fire deliberately, it must be by the laziest saboteurs ever. Because they only had to go a mile up the road and do the Dome instead, and they'd have been the most popular arsonists in history. It would have been like the last scenes of The Wicker Man, with smiling children and delirious citizens holding hands and doing country dancing as the flames roared. Then the Government could have launched a fund in order that: "This valuable piece of our heritage can be fully restored to its former pointlessness."

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Don't mention the war (or anything else)

Wed, 16 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

That's a splendid achievement by the Labour Party to assemble such a bunch of candidates for the deputy leadership. Because nowhere else could you gather together six different people, and find they all support the war in Iraq and think Tony Blair is a marvellous bloke.

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Soon every football club will be a corporate brand

Wed, 9 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Now it's Charlton that may be bought by Middle Eastern businessmen. No billionaire feels complete any more without a football club. As Sunderland have been promoted, they'll probably be bought by the Queen. And her Christmas speech will begin "This was a year that will mostly be remembered for the frustrating 2-2 draw at the Reebok Stadium."

(Continued)...

Blair's downfall: a tale of love and money

Wed, 2 May 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Ten years ago today was brilliant. It was a euphoric sunny optimistic morning. It's hard to remember it like that, just as it's hard to recall you had a wonderful romantic wedding day, if it turned out you'd married a junkie who then sold your furniture and smoked your hamster.

(Continued)...

I'm sorry, but we have to rip you off...

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

That was a splendid call from the gun lobby in America, to insist the only problem with gun ownership is even more people should have them. This means supporters of Bush have only once pursued anyone for possessing weapons, and then it turned out he didn't have any.

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Kate may be nice, but she couldn't abide tiara pins

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

On and on and on with little chance of escape - you could try and look the other way, but somewhere you'd catch the words "William... Kate... split... mobile... devastated". I expected the weather report to go, "And the warm front will continue on through Tuesday afternoon, unlike poor Kate Middleton's quest for love, which sadly has to start all over again. My goodness, we meteorologists get in a state about hurricanes and tidal waves, but when you think about what that couple's been through it certainly puts those little quibbles into perspective."

(Continued)...

Who wants to be a billionaire?

Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

It turns out that last year the richest 54 people in Britain had an estimated income of £126bn. Which, in layman's language, is one hundred and twenty-six arseing bloody billion pounds. That's billion, not million. They've probably got a jug on the mantlepiece for those odd millions that turn up behind cushions and under the car seat. But even better, the amount of this paid in tax was 0.14 per cent. That's nought point one four arseing bloody per cent.

(Continued)...

For the Iranians, this is a version of 'Big Brother'

Wed, 4 Apr 2007 00:00:00 GMT

This is a possibility everyone's missed - maybe the Iranians, in an effort to show the West how modern they've become, thought they'd put our marines in a house they couldn't escape from and show them each day on television in an Anglo-Iranian Big Brother. Now we've seen all of them, it will be time to start voting them off. The next broadcast will start with a voice telling us: "It's 4.57pm and Faye is still smoking in front of the map."

(Continued)...

A long line of innocents on America's Death Row

Wed, 28 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Sometimes you think: "This time the Americans really have got the right person and he's banged to rights". It was like that when they announced Sheik Mohammed, who'd been enjoying his convalescence in Guantanamo Bay, had made a confession. But then out came the hilarious account of how he'd personally planned every explosion from Kracatoa onwards. Soon they'll announce there's an appendix that goes "Paragraph 785. I readily confess that I conspired to perpetrate the act of hijacking a Boeing 747 to fly it into Bob Woolmer."

(Continued)...

Soon hospitals will be charging rent for the beds

Wed, 21 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

There's splendid news about the Health Service. It seems last year it made £95m profit from car park fees at hospitals. What an example of modern spirit and enterprise, and a contrast to the old "anti-business" ideology that allowed people to park at hospitals for free. These dinosaurs would never have had the imagination to say "Hmm, they HAVE to come by car as they're limping - we can charge them as much as we like."

(Continued)...

Don't blame Adam Smith for all this nonsense

Wed, 14 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Adam Smith, Margaret Thatcher's favourite economist, is the new figure on the £20 note. Many of us know him mostly because of the Adam Smith Institute which, in the 1980s, was always in the news for its proposals to solve every problem by bringing in the free market.

(Continued)...

Why not sub-contract the childminding to Branson?

Wed, 7 Mar 2007 00:00:00 GMT

Maybe it's part of the constitution, that once a year the Government has to announce a new way to make single parents all go to work. But anyone connected to normal life knows why so many parents find it easier to not work. Because every morning outside most schools the working parents are involved in negotiations such as: "So, if you pick up Jenny and keep her until half past four, Tina will pick up her and Oscar and give them and Nathan some pizza at the same time as taking her aerobics class, then my mum ought to be able to have them from six because the hospital says she should be out of her coma by then, and she'll drop them off with Eileen at the brothel as she gets an hour off between seven and eight, then David should have finished at the site and can bring them all back in his wheelbarrow."

(Continued)...

Oh Lord - they've found the bones of Jesus

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:00:00 GMT

What was Helen Mirren talking about, thanking the Queen on the grounds that without her, the Oscar-winning portrayal of the Queen wouldn't have been possible? By that logic, Forrest Whittaker should have said, "But most of all I'd like to thank Idi Amin, as without his regime of systematic mass murder and cannibalism this film could never have been made. Cheers, Idi, and let's stir-fry a rebel in your honour."

(Continued)...