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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".

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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.

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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’

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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

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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."

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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."

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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."

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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.

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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."

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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."

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