The snarking of the Hunt

The internet has given us many things, the ability to call up as if by magic images of cats in humorous situations being just one of them.  It’s also the Gateway to Porn.  Back in the day, the gateway to porn was a doorway, either to a local newsagent where, you know, your mum and dad got their paper and ciggies and the owner knew you and would rather laugh his fat arse off (newsagents always used to be fat, when did that change?) telling them that you had tried, and failed, to buy a copy of ‘Razzle’ (very much the tabloid of porn mags) than have your repeat custom, or the dark door of a ‘private shop’ selling exotic foreign porn which was essentially continental naked women less hairy or more hairy than the domestic variety.

Before the wide availability of the internet, if you were a (manic) minor, your opportunities for obtaining porn were limited to the close surveillance of the hedgerow.  It may be something of a cliché but honest to God, back in the day porn used to appear in hedgerows the way Costa cups do today.  Presumably the same drivers applied; an adult disposed of something messy unthinkingly by tossing it in a hedge.  I mean the mag.

One of these days Naturewatch will do a piece on HedgePorn (although Kate Humble’s emails back to me on the subject so far have been dismissive bordering on rude), but until then, you’ll have to take my word for it.  Before the internet and Channel 4’s red triangle, you found your porn in hedges.

Of course, there was always ‘soft porn’.

Today, if you say ‘Catalogue’ to somebody, they may, if you are talking to the right sort of person, respond with reference to the ‘Laminated Book Of Dreams’, the Argos catalogue.  This was basically aspiration porn for the whole family; dad could look at the tech, mum could look at the [reference removed because of the whole metoo thing] and the kids could look at Sindy and other forms of moulded plastic that were just so cool.

Other catalogues used to be available.  Rather than being paper shops, these were mail order catalogues where you saw stuff and ordered it, and could pay by instalments.  Like a benign Wonga.

‘Stuff’ includes clothing.  Includes underwear.

Mention ‘Kays Catalogue’ to any bloke of a certain age and they will smile knowingly not at memories of He-Mans castle, but at the underwear section of the catalogue that, in the absence of Hedge Porn, was erotic to the point of emission.

Top Tip: always keep your ‘free’ hand clamped over the spine of the catalogue, or on subsequent legitimate use it might naturally flop open at a particular page.  My mate told me.

The peruse and purchase catalogue is something of a lost, possibly lamented (but not laminated), marvel.

Catalogues have been used to sell many items.  The fabulous ‘Maplin’ catalogue for electronics naturally, but my understanding is that there are other catalogues offering other products.  All sorts of stuff.

So, Jeremy Hunt got into trouble with the media, and presumably Mrs Hunt, because he forgot where his wife was from.  Japan, or China.  Easily confused.  If you are an arsehole.

It could be worse.

Given the current enmity between the previously warring nations and the unresolved ‘comfort women’ issue, the only way it could be worse if by introducing your York born and raised wife as ‘A proud Lancastrian”.  That final ‘an’ syllable would be silent as the kick to the bollocks would put your voice beyond the hearing of humans.

It’s just so awful.  Putting aside the implied stupidity and casual racism, it suggests that Jeremy Hunt is actually on a mission to make everyone in the world, even his wife, angry with him.  This is a man who already has everyone in the NHS, who look after with a smile tramps that assault them, Googling ‘Novochock’.  But to get the nationality of the Little Missus wrong?  Bad form old boy.

I am not suggesting for a moment that prospective MP J Hunt flipped to page 43 of ‘Asianish Mail Order Brides’ and made a hasty selection.

Little Donnie

In the last G&P post there was a thinly (ironic) veiled pop at the sort of people (fat people) who are targeted by those wishing to push New Year diets.  This is because overweight people are easy targets, both for those who would exploit them to make them purchase stuff, or for arseholes like me who mock human weakness.
However, anyone who picks up one of those diet plans has something special.
Self awareness.
Now self awareness is a precious and arguably increasingly rare character trait.  If you have been in a train carriage with somebody that either does not realise that their telephone contains the same technology that allows a whisper on stage to go to the back of the auditorium and so they do not have to conduct their conversation at a volume more suited to bellowing out of the carriage window in the hope their mate will hear them, or does not care that he is sharing his test results with a carriage of commuters slowly edging away from him, then you will know that self awareness, like doffing your hat, is a vanishing art.  I blame social media.  And arseholes.
Speaking of which, L’ill Donnie.
Self awareness appears to be as remote from L’ill Donnie as, well, let’s be blunt about this, gentlemanly behaviour.
There, I’ve said it.
What. A. Guy.
One, occasionally, wonders how the…and here I struggle, he’s clearly no gentleman, he’s not a chap, nor is he a fellow, he is certainly not a bloke.  I think that we shall describe him as a ‘guy’.
We don’t say his name, lest we summon him.
Also ‘that steak of shit that a fox leaves when it has had a bad chicken dinner from the bins’ may be accurate, but is rather lengthy.
OK, so, one wonders how L’ill Donnie got elected.  Surely there can’t be that many racist, sexist, stupid arseholes in the US?  I’ve been there, and the people are lovely.
That said, I was pretty amazed that England voted to Brexit.
I genuinely thought that the only reason you would vote to Brexit is that you had been to an agricultural fair on polling day, and a Shire Horse had shied at a Punch and Judy show, as we all might, happening possibly near a toddler, you had sought to restrain the horse, it kicks you.  Concussed, you fell into a replica threshing machine, more concussion, then you wandered into a polling booth and mark the wrong box.
Now, that might excuse the actions of a couple of thousand ‘Leave’ voters, but really, what were the others thinking?  ‘I can make some money out of this’ will do, if you know you can, but for the rest, really?
L’ill Donnie though, is truly repulsive.  The guy (let’s stick with guy) appears to communicate by social media, Twatter, specifically.  And this is quite appropriate really, because the guy is a troll, and when I say troll I don’t mean the goat loving creatures that dwell beneath bridges, I don’t even mean the lurkers who use the internet to try and intimidate others, I mean the plastic toys that were popular in the seventies and eighties and had crazy hair.
This guy appears to have no self awareness, or wish to improve.
Don is of course the title of a criminal academic at Oxford University who is exposed as a vile and beastly type by Inspector Morse.
Don is also, according to my viewings of ‘The Godfather’, the head of a crime family.  This, I think, is probably the most appropriate analogy.
However, there are noble Dons.  Quixote.  Here was a fellow who was quite delusional and thought himself a defender of the people, but was just tilting at windmills. L’ill Donnie is nothing like the noble Quixote.  Quixote managed to hold onto his loyal staff, and in his heart was a good man.
Don Amott.  King of caravans.  Growing up in the Midlands one had the privilege, if one watched commercial television, of witnessing the magnificence of the adverts for Don Amott.
The most magnificent jingle of all time.  Including that time they hung that peado Morris-man outside the Hop Pole in Droitwich.

UKIP if you want to

There’s something or other that bit different about the United Kingdom Independence Party.  I say ‘something or other’ because one senses that to use the conversational French expression for that phrase would be inappropriate, and might provoke something of an Anglo Saxon response from any UKIP member.

And what is the right title for a UKIP party member?  ‘UKIPper’ sounds a bit too upbeat for a collection of people that, whenever they appear on the telly, appear furious about something, usually about having a camera pointed at them come to think of it.  ‘Kipper’ then?  ‘Kipper’ sounds about right as, if they are anything like their fuming Beloved Leader, they are no strangers to smoking.

So what is it that’s just that bit different about Kippers?  Well, they are probably not alone in starting sentences at dinner parties with ‘I’m not a racist but…’ but they are probably alone in having conversations like that before the first course is uncorked, and talking about that sort of thing to the exclusion of everything else.

These are the sort of people who make it very clear that they get on very well with foreigners, and make a point of telling you that they know the name of the lady who cleans their office, and she’s foreign.  One presumes.  Never spoken to her but she wears a headscarf.

The Kipper worldview is that things were a lot better in the 1950s.  This is, of course, utter tosh and if anyone wants to argue, I advise them to first pop back to the mid-50s in the time machine of their choice and try to stream Netflix.

By the way, the time machine of choice is always the Time Machine from the classic film of the same title.  Blue police boxes are fine, as are gullwing sports cars, but any time traveller who decides to fling themselves into an uncertain future at a rate greater than the standard one second per second, and does so in a machine built around a comfy armchair, deserves huge respect.  Indeed, a comfy armchair is a reliable way to travel into the future in the conventional way, meaning you arrive at your destination, say lunchtime or when the pub opens, refreshed and ready for action.

To the media, the Kippers are an amusing distraction posing no real threat.  Unlike conventional far right political movements that shave their heads and beat up ethnic minorities, Kippers are usually sedate right up to the point when they say something so unbelievably racist your arse clenches so hard it squeaks.  Then they keep on talking as if nothing had happened.

There is a school of thought that Kippers are not racist at all, and that they just consider that the EU is a failed project that the UK would be better off out of.  Judging by what’s reported however, that’s far too sophisticated a school of thought.  The school of thought occupied by UKIP is not one, one feels, that would be highly rated by Ofstead.  More likely, Kippers consider that the EU is a failed experiment of the type usually devised by mad foreign scientists in old Universal movies and the UK, or more precisely the paler parts of the UK, would be much better off out of it.  It would mean we could pass our own laws, eat whatever cheese we wanted, and birch homos without some jumped up foreign judge who has never touched cheddar in his life.

The media bloody love Kippers but I’m not sure what’s more dangerous, taking them seriously or not taking them seriously?  A sixty minute programme about the economic impacts of EU policies on, say, fish, would hardly make for riveting viewing, but a slightly overweight woman with views even more worrying than her hairstyle, who is not afraid to express those views?  Now we’re talking, usually about forigners.

The interesting thing is that all the mainstream political parties dislike UKIP, either because it poses a threat to their share of the vote or because their policies are repugnant.  Part of the English national character is to side with the underdog, and maybe that’s part of the appeal of being a Kipper, and proud.

Aye or Naw

Right, here we go.  After months of debate, debate bordering on ill-tempered bickering and countless hours of political pundits banging on endlessly with ill-informed speculation and scare-mongering, the Scots are voting on independence.  Every single Jock seems to have registered to vote and is off to the polls.  A high turnout is expected and of course 16 year olds have the vote, which is either inspiring or terrifying depending on which sort of 16 year olds you know.

So, obviously, I’ll be staying up all night.

This requires a strategy.  The last time I stayed up all night I was in my teens and was at a party and there were girls and everything.  Actually, that’s not quite true, the last time was probably travelling, on an aeroplane where free booze brought to your seat and free movies made sleeping something of a waste of time.

This time it’ll be something of a long haul.  The results are going to take even longer than bloody Eurovision.  And coverage starts at half ten, meaning the BBC coverage (always the best pundits and coolest graphics, and the presenters always get a little crazed around mid-morning) is going to consist of at least a few hours of speculation, recapping and desperately filling.

First up, a quick trip to Waitrose.  Obviously what’s required are snacks that will slowly and evenly release sugar throughout the night.  But sod that, nobody’s interested in virtuous flavours at the turning of the tide, so it’s crisps, and, oh my God I can’t believe it, a Ginsters pasty – the perfect three-in-the-morning hot snack, as when microwaved to perfection (nuked to buggery) it transforms into something akin to a phenomenon studied by vulcanologists and would certainly wake you up if you ate it before letting it cool.  Which takes a while.  It’s the only snack with a half life.

But mostly, let’s celebrate the fact that for the first time in a decade I’m able to have a cup of tea after six o’clock without worrying that it’s going to keep me up all night.

Crisps.  Chocolate.  A mango.  Put mango back.  Sorted.

22:30  Telly on.

22:32  Kettle on.

22:45  First chance to see how the BBC graphics boffins have risen to the challenge and it appears they have gone somewhat bonkers, with a huge graphic of a nuclear submarine seemingly navigating the depths of the news room.

22:48  A whistle-stop tour of the counting centres.  Scotland appears to be very well provisioned with sports halls.  Ironic given the health of the nation.

22:56  Oh Christ, looks like Jeremy Vine’s strategy has been to drink a shed load of pro-plus laced coffee.  Cool graphics though, got a whole 3D thing going on.  Looking forward to exhausted graphic technicians going doolally with exhaustion later on and really getting creative – ‘Let’s take a look at the results so far with the result represented as a caber being tossed’.

23:01  An expert has just announced that ‘More votes will take longer to count’.  Genius.

23:04  Montage!  Proof that even a Primal Scream soundtrack can’t make politicians look cool.

23:14  Oh shit, it’s a people’s panel made up of folk who didn’t get an invite to a referendum party.

23:30  Quick break for news headlines.  All presenters rush to the loo at the same time for a wee and a wee line.

22:35  Over to Westminster.  Andrew Neil co-presenting with a truly appalling hairpiece, no wonder this bloke only goes on after the watershed.  Luckily John Redwood is also on the programme and so Neill appears normal by comparison.

23:41  Huw Edwards is reminding us that Scotland is a ‘rural’ country and there are ‘logistical challenges’ to transporting a box to a sports hall.  Luckily, it would appear that the Scots have access to vans.

23:44  Leader of Scottish Conservatives looks quite a lot like ‘Scots funnywoman’ Susan Calman.  Suspect they have the same tailor.

23:45  BBC ticker declaring that Queen is following the vote closely.  I bet she’s having a party.  Wonder if she is serving Ginsters?

23:46  Apparently Glasgow normally has a low turnout, but having a say in the future of your nation, and putting polling stations in branches of Greggs, appears to have greatly increased turnout.

22:55  Cool graphic of a helicopter, representing Scottish Army.  Given state of defence cuts, presume this helicopter will be shared with England, with Wales getting it at alternate weekends.  Rotors spinning and everything.  Look forward to the helicopter strafing the newsroom later.

00:10  Now well past time would normally be in bed.  Usually midnight means New Year’s Eve, and ten past midnight means finishing the last of the fizz, saying ‘fireworks were good, Hootananny was shit…again’ and going to bed.

00:13  Ooh, have discovered ‘Trendsmap’ on the interweb.  Essentially this works out who is tweeting what where and puts it on a map.  It’s fascinating.  In Scotland you have a lot of #Yes and in the West of England, you have a lot of #Thunder and #Lightening.  Thank God for the English’s preoccupation with discussing the weather, it means you can track bands of thunderstorms in real time.  Also worth watching just to see if suddenly loads of hashtags along the lines of ‘Aliens’ or ‘Invasion’ pop up.

00:21  First interview of the night with bolshie Welsh person, who also wants more power.  Yea, right.  Like that’s going to happen.

00:45  Andrew Neil up again.  Of course, his normal programme is on so late it’s almost early, so he’s used to napping through the afternoon and appearing chirpy well after ‘Newsnight’ has finished.  He has a boffin on who is saying that there will be huge changes no matter what the result, and that there will need to be a lot of work done on the constitution.  Oh, he’s a constitutional expert.

00:53  Jeremy Vine is standing in front of a graphic titled ‘Battleground’.  You can just tell that everyone involved is already gearing up for the 2015 election.  Speculation starting to resemble desperation.  Fill.  Waffle.  And shout ‘Count faster you bastards’.

00:57  Edinburgh count appears to be taking place in an aircraft hanger.

00:59  Which of the workers in the high-viz vests in the background at the count is going to do something amusing and become a social media star?  My guess is the girl doing the dance moves.

01:00  BBC have apparently dispatched all of their reporters around Scotland.  The chap in Orkney is, judging by the fleece he’s wearing, is BBC Scotland’s rugby correspondent.  On radio.

01:05  Reporter in Midlothian is talking about ‘social factors’, classing people as posh if ABC, moving steadily into working class with D and E.  Something tells me that Glasgow doesn’t bother much with the first bit of the alphabet.  Reporter doing a really good job and seems very posh, obviously pitching for her seat on the BBC news copter back to London if there’s a ‘Yes’ vote and Scotland’s national broadcaster goes from being the BBC to being a bloke with a bell and a loud voice.

01:20  Huw releases the panel, who were all actually insightful, measured and charming.  Huw has promised them ‘something a little stronger than herbal tea’.  Boozing on the License Fee.  Excellent!  Must be massive temptation to try and drink the value of your Fee and pocket any BBC pens you can get your hands on.

01:27  Clackmannanshire result is in.  And it’s a No!  More importantly, how cool is the name ‘Clackmannanshire’?

01:28  Footage of celebrations at ‘Yes’ HQ show quite a few bottles already open, and LOADS more lined up ready.  Pace yourself chaps.  Luckily, the Scots are famously abstemious.

01:39  Jeremy Vine has a bloody huge map of Scotland that is apparently filling the newsroom.  It’s on a scale of the sort of map that a Bond villain would use to plot the destruction of the nation’s haggis industry.  Clackmannanshire is flashing red.  Jeremy then goes on to explain that the area is populated by members of the ‘DE’ social class.  Possibly this means that they have heard that if you vote ‘No’, Westminster will give you all sorts of goodies and are holding out for a Greggs gift card for every man, woman and child.  Areas populated by As and Bs will expect to get a Waitrose.

01:50  Oooooh, flash of lightening and roll of thunder.  Drama in the skies as well as on the telly.

02:01  Orkney declares.  It’s a HUGE NO!  Loving the bit where they read out the different categories of why certain ballots can’t be counted.  BBC always cut away from speaker before he gets to category of ‘crudely drawn cock’ on ballot.  Shot of No! HQ celebrating result.  Everyone looks marginally more refreshed than they did the last time.  I don’t need fancy graphics to illustrate a continuing trend of young people, excitement and alcohol meaning the only sort of political party that is agreeable.

02:07  Guests on BBC all look remarkably kempt.  Think the same people are doing a circuit of teevee shows.  Suspect those doing radio shows might be a little more casual.  But would love to see a guest turn up in PJs and dressing gown, possibly clutching a favourite soft toy.

02:21  After two o’clock, things are starting to get a little bit more relaxed.  First OB from a ‘Yes’ party, where the BBC journo is sporting a party shirt and begins by explaining that there has been stand-up and poetry!  Very nice too.  I hope the producer says that they’ll be going back to him at 6:00, so he can’t start in on the Babycham yet.

02:25  Jeremy Vine is explaining that people from lower social classes are more likely to vote for independence.  Presume this means UKIP will be courting the chav vote.

02:42  Andrew Neil appears to have a twelve year old as a guest.  Who appears to have modelled himself on Nick Robinson.  Thunder and lightening over Houses of Parliament in the background looks spectacular in HD, whereas Mr Neil most certainly does not.  Nothing wrong with wearing make-up on telly, but when it looks like it needs not so much touching up as reapplication with a trenching tool, maybe a rethink is needed.

03:43 Shetland says No!  Ponies love the union.

02:49 Huw is a bit bloody familiar with using first names, if you ask me.  Calling Michael Gove ‘Michael’ is just, well, unnatural.  This is the BBC, he should be addressed as ‘Mr Gove’ or ‘Twatty’.

03:00 Eilean Siar votes…who bloody knows, they’re speaking Gaelic.  Oh, English now.  And it’s…NO!  Something of a surprise.  Could No! pull off a clean sweep.  Let’s see those figures expressed as a wicker man.  Eilean Siar sounds like a folk singer whose music is used in a John Lewis Christmas ad.

03:14  Good to see that UKIP remain true to form, the bloke from UKIP speaking to Huw is a total bloody foaming-at-the-mouth nutter and, bonus, rude too.

03:33 Inverclyde declares.  And it’s…No.  Just.

03:35  Half three and the snacking is going well.  Ginsters is still in the fridge rather than the microwave.  But have discovered a cup a soup at the back of the cupboard.  Past the three o’clock hump, closer to dawn than dusk last night.  Tension draining out of coverage though and people are trying to move the story on already to what comes next, as that involves England.

03:51  Renfrewshire says…No!  79 rejected ballots, reasons muted again but ‘used to wipe arse’ has to have happened at least once.

03:53  Dundee bloke reading out spoiled ballots first.  Builds tension.  Dundee vote for independence.  If necessary, one gets the feeling Dundee will go it alone!

04:06  West Dumbartonshire says fucking AYE!  Pundits now back pedalling.  Lots of talking about working together as ‘Team Scotland’.  No footage of SNP headquarters.

04:09  Midlothian says No, no independence please.  No! party really looks like it’s hotting up.  Cheering, drinking, embraces.  It’s swung No, experts reckon we can all pack up and go home.  Cup-a-soup tasty, but with that oddly gritty texture you get from packet soups.

04:14  East Lothian says Naw!  Big win for the no campaign.  Also lady reading out the results very well turned out for past four o’clock in the morning, possibly rightly thinking this is her big chance auditioning for job involving standing up and talking on telly, weathergirl, lottery ball girl or something to do with Countdown, or at least a regional quiz show.

04:16  Stirling says NO!  Stirling also has least imaginative backdrop.

04:29  Falkirk says No!  Lady reading results is a stranger to hairspray.  Meanwhile back in the studio the politicians are having a bit of a bicker.  Past four o’clock, it’s an effort to stay civilised.

04:25  Jeremy Vine finally has some stats to render in graphic form.  Lots of coloured boxes.  Possibly after the vote this could be used in the gameshow the lady earlier was auditioning for.

04:28  Angus says No!

04:29  Dumfries is a ‘hefty’ no.  So, that’s a NO then.

04:32  East Renfrewshire have a backdrop with windfarms on it.  And they say no.

04:33  East Dumbartonshire go no.  Aberdeen go no too.  Huw keeps speaking to pundits, then cutting them off as the picture jumps to another sports hall with, if we’re lucky, a coloured backdrop.

04:46  North Lanarkshire go yes!  Creeping sensation that the yes campaign are now playing for pride.

04:47 Perth and Kinross lady go no!

04:52  Glasgow!  Here we go!  Glasgow go yes!  Glasgow wants to be independent from the UK.  Scottish Borders go no though.  West Lothian vote no.

05:01  North Ayrshire goes no.  Feeling very close to Huw and the team at the BBC.  We’ve sat up through the still watches of the night without any sustaining booze.  Well, Huw may have been sneaking a dram or two, but it’s been tea and cup-a-soup here.

05:05  South Ayrshire are a no.  Woman reading out the numbers does not like cheering.

05:09  East Ayrshire.  No.  Apparently this is a surprise to the pundits.  The pundits keep banging on about communities with high levels of depravation equalling voting for independence.  No formal link between desire for independence and aversion to vegetables made yet.

06:33  It’s getting light outside.  It’s all over, and it’s a No from the Scottish public.  The newscaster doing the short news bulletins throughout the night on BBC News 24 must have thought it was her lucky day, instead of having to read out the same bit of rolling news every half hour for half and hour and then start all over again, she basically did the headlines and then, presumably, had a nap for 25 minutes while Huw did his thing.  Some grainy still pictures of Alex Salmon being whisked away somewhere in a car and private jet, he actually looks like a foiled Bond villain.

6:38  Time for bed.  Question is, should I have a cheeky beer first?

Paisley Parked

RIP Ian Paisley, who has passed.  Once, opinion on his passing would have divided along religious lines, with 'sad loss' or 'thank Christ' being your reaction depending on your view of Rome - tourist spot with traffic issues or the home of Popish plots and a den of inequity where the inequisition sport large hats.  Latterly of course, peace came to Ireland, former foes worked together and a whole country united in their dislike of politicians whatever their religious bent.
One hopes that if peace came to Ireland, it also came to the Paisley household, with there being at least a little less shouting about the place.
On hearing the news of his passing, somebody asked me 'So, where do you reckon he's gone then?', meaning that even for politicians there was a final reckoning, and more uncomfortable places to end up than across the desk from Paxman in the 'Newsnight' studio.
Wherever the former firebrand has ended up, one thing is for sure, his passing is a sad, sad loss to the 'Better Together' campaign.  Nobody could bellow 'NO!' quite like the Rev. Paisley.

Who's been sitting in my seat?

I bet Portillo doesn't have to put up with this!

In possibly the greatest rehabilitation of a personality since Paul went from tax collector to apostle, Michael Portillo is now better known as a presenter of charmingly inoffensive soufflé-weight documentaries about train travel than as The Hammer Of The Poor.  Essentially, the format of ‘Trains to Charming Places’ is that Michael, sporting a wardrobe that makes one question his sexuality and clutching a guide book as outdated as the ideas he had when in the Cabinet, takes trains hither and yon and stops off to discuss heritage trades like being a farrier, fletcher or cooper (back when these were trades and not merely surnames.  Presumably following the tradition of names deriving from trades, a century hence Tommy Callcentre and Susie Barista will be common enough names) before announcing ‘look at my bright trousers and tremble’ and ambling off towards the station.

Anyone watching this programme for longer than the necessary time (which is the length of time it takes to press the button on the remote to take you to the next channel) will note that when the presenter makes his train journey, he is inevitably in a not terribly crowded carriage.  This of course makes perfect sense as crouching across from the presenter is a cameraman, sound guy, director and the girl who fetches the paninis.

Anyone who commutes on a regular basis will know that such space is far from the norm, but then again the programme probably wouldn’t have the same relaxed air if Michael were standing in a vestibule (loom it up, it’s the right word) between carriages with his nose rubbing the camera lens, thanks to the overcrowding.

Neither does Michael apparently have to find his won seat by excavating a pile of used Metros and the debris of what appears to be a takeaway Medieval banquet.

Naturally, railway companies have to make huge profits somehow, and the latest trend appears to be charging ridiculous ticket prices and only employing cleaners every third day.  This means that you usually have the opportunity to play the Goldilocks Game when alighting, in other words ‘which anti-social fucker has been sitting in my seat’.  If you are lucky, it’s somebody who has carefully refolded their copy of the Metro before dropping it on the floor, if you are unlucky, it is somebody who has either breakfasted on the flakiest pastry ever made, or is a leper.

Occasionally though it’s just a single coffee cup.

What, Watson, can we deduce from this.  Firstly, that the drinker favours decaf, as their coffee has obviously not given them the energy required to bin the fucking thing.  Secondly, that there are either an oligarch or a fare dodger, as it is unlikely that anyone purchasing a ticket at today’s prices can also afford store-bought coffee.  Finally, that they have joined the growing tribe of adult litterlouts (yes, leaving a coffee cup for somebody else to clear away, when you actually have to walk past a bin in the carriage to exit, is littering).

Cardboard coffee cups are the new fag butts and as such are the very worst and most offensive sort of litter because coffee, like fags, is a product consumed by adults.  Crisp packets and sweetie wrappers are annoying litter but one can almost understand why Little Fuckers, sorry, why children, discard them, it’s because they are careless, have not been brought up properly and have never spent a Sunday morning tidying their front garden by plucking Haribo wrappers out of their hedges.

Commuting, I think, makes one more intolerant of stupidity, be it passive aggressive littering, leaky headphones or the inappropriate use of the mobile ‘phone in any carriage, actually, on any train I am in or on or even waiting for.

Which is why it would make for a magnificent conclusion to the series to see Portillo completely lose his fucking mind with an annoying fellow traveller who has their shitty music on too loud and beat the little prick to death with his Bradshaw.

Now that I would watch.

Pramping in St Paul's

It's Occupied London are, I suppose, protesting about the dire dearth of decent public loos in the capital, and quite right too. It's bad enough that public loos are few and far between, with those super-loo monstrosities dotted around the place like, literally, a shit TARDIS, but one can't even be assured of a decent loo if one employs the popular tactic of dodging into a pub, pretending to be a customer and using the facilities. Even perfectly decent boozers seem seem unable to maintain a perfectly decent gent's. In the case of the place I was in last week, going to the gent's was like wandering into a coastal cave at low tide, it was gloomy, the floor was wet and there was a prominent odour.

Of course, there is also I believe a faction within the protesters who represent Occupy London. Like their hipster brethren across the Atlantic in New York, they are protesting that the banks have all the money and won't give it to people like them to, presumably, buy bigger tents. They are angry, but not as angry as the people who think that the architectural and spiritual magnificence of St Paul's cathedral is really not improved by being surrounded by quite a lot of nylon in jolly primary colours.

The prampers outside St Paul's cathedral are doing a fantastic job of drawing attention to how crap the Church of England are at taking a hard line on using a holy water cannon to wash the protesting scum off the streets, while at the same time neatly deflecting attention away from the bankers down the street who are fucking up the economy through their trademarked working methods of greed, stupidity and spending the afternoon wandering round in a coked-up daze after doing a couple of lines off of a sweaty hookers arse in the company car park during lunch.

The media has made much of the prampers. Apparently they go home in the evening, leaving their tents behind. I trust that the local homeless population are aware that a load of comfy middle class tents, presumably with iPod docks and cool boxes full of sustaining snacks and indifferent wines, are available for occupation at St Paul's. Let's see if the protestors are quite so happy to occupy a tent that has been used overnight by Dosser Dave and his incontinent dog Digger. And I hope that when the protestors do eventually pack up and leave, they check the tents first. Nothing would put a crimp in your first day at the Glastonbury festival quite like shaking out your two-man 'Mountain Master 4000' and discovering a desiccated tramp. And his dog.

Whatever you think of people who camp in the centre of the city, they are bloody irritating. The council, police and church all appear powerless to get rid of the tents. In my experience, the best way to remove campers is to start charging them exorbitant rents for their pitches. All St Paul's needs to do is become a National Trust property and it's problem solved.

The other way to remove tents is of course for the weather to turn bad, although I expect that foul weather in England in November is too much to ask for (and the ongoing mild weather could be taken as a sign that the protest has some sort of higher approval). Maybe they need an act of God. A few days of rain and I don't care how committed the protestors are, they'll soon beat the twat singing Coldplay to death with his own lute and buggered off to the nearest decent pub.

You're AVin a laugh

Referendum time. Uncertainty, ignorance and divisive opinion stalk the land as giant billboards loom over us. It's time to decide how we elect our members of parliament.

Or, at least, it's time to decide on the formal voting system for the election of members of parliament. The actual decision making process is far more complicated than the anti-AV camp would have you believe AV is (and that is very complicated indeed, they want you to think that the AV system is as complicated as a maths problem your eleven year old child is asking you for help with, as frightening as the question 'what do you think?' is when asked of any man in the vicinity of a partner and a changing room and, worst of all, that it's foreign, and not funny foreign like 'Allo 'Allo or friendly foreign like a Greek taverna selling chips, no, proper frightening foreign, like a bearded backpacker with a grudge and a burka), consisting as it does of one part what scandal your MP has been implicated in, one part how shifty and sweaty they look on television and one part politics. Next to that, the mechanics of election is an absolute breeze.

The alternatives are the current system of first past the post, and the proposed system of an alternative vote. Previously of course everyone thought that the alternative vote was one for the attention seeking transvestite candidate, but it turns out to mean an alternative to first part the post.

So, with first past the post you essentially vote for the candidate that you think is least likely to screw up the constituency or the country, while cheerfully ignoring the many dull but worthy candidates on the ballot paper.

AV is a much more sophisticated proposition, giving as it does a chance to list the dull but worthy types as your second or third candidate in a show of condescension unparalleled since Victorian industrialists patted small children on the head prior to tossing them under a loom.

We are being told that the danger of AV is that if enough people try to spread their democratic munificence, we'll end up with some bonkers party getting a seat in Parliament. That this is coming from some conservatives is an irony that has not gone unnoticed.

The real challenge of AV is that instead of voting for the single candidate that you find the least repulsive, you have to choke back the gagging reflex and come to terms that you're expected to give your approval to three folk who are actively seeking election.

The media were ready to make much of the pro-AV camp not being able to make the thick British public understand AV? However, the British public have been soaking up the Eurovision song contest for decades now and are quite at home with sophisticated voting systems thank you very much. Moreover, the BBC did a fabulous job of explaining how AV works using biscuits, and showing how the nation's favourite biscuit can be determined using preferences. ITV used crisp flavours as an example and that is all you ever really needed to know about those two broadcasters.

With that angle to the story dead on it's arse, they have dusted off the cliché that politics makes strange bedfellows and show pictures of really quite gruesome types smiling through gritted teeth and explaining that although they are in different parties, they agree that such and such a voting system is the best way forward.

What it actually comes down to is which politician you want to annoy the most and in this case it's not so much first past the post as a dead heat that not even a photo finish will determine. The big political fear is that there will be a very poor turn out and that this will be held up as evidence that the new system, if chosen, does not have a mandate. The reality is that just like AV the public needs more choices, because we're all familiar with different types of voting systems; we want to express a preference for a dance off, a bush tucker challenge or, my favourite, a swimwear round.

Comment on: 'The UK census, it's just a big box of ticks'

Comment on: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/mar/19/lucy-mangan-uk-census-politics

As anyone who, after a simple misunderstanding, has had their binoculars confiscated by a magistrate can attest, the English are peculiar about their privacy. At the start of the century it was predicted that the largest single issue facing the on-line community was going to be privacy. And that prediction was right, but in exactly the opposite way that the bearded social scientist crossed with Mystic Meg making it intended. Instead of us all jealously guarding our privacy, there seems to be a rush by certain people to push the details of their private lives at anyone that will pay attention or, to give it its technical name, Facebook.

The Government could save a fortune by getting Facebook to undertake the census rather than Lockheed Martin (a company more recognised for delivering ballistic missiles than forms that allow you to consider yourself quite the wit by listing your religion as 'Jedi'). Not only would this allow everyone to list their personal details, but to make the exercise self financing this information could then be sold on to marketing companies the next time Facebook updated its privacy settings and all the users ticked the 'I accept these terms and conditions - even the one about using my photographs as 'before' images in adverts for weight loss pills, face creams or self help books on fashion and grooming' box, without reading them first.

Not only that but social networking gets into a lot more detail than: 'How many VHS box sets of 'Buffy the vampire slayer' do you still have knocking around?' or whatever else they are asking in the census this time round, and in real time too. If the Government wants to know how many people are: 'in a relationship, but increasingly irritated at my partner's habit of sucking Quavers until they dissolve while watching telly, and building up to Do Something about it', right now, then social networking can deliver.

Of course, while people are quite happy to share their snapshots, opinions, thoughts and details of their relationship status with the world, they are rightly reticent to share any personal details, at all, with the Government. This is for two reasons. The first is the fear that the data will somehow fall into the hands of an twisted megalomanic and be used for evil. This is an entirely reasonable fear if you substitute the treasury for the undersea volcano base that said twisted megalomaniac resides in. The second reason is that the government will collate the name and address of everyone in Britain in a handy DVD form that can be left on a train, where it will be found by somebody who works in marketing and, as a result, you will spend the rest if your life receiving direct mail about yoghurt.

The biggest problem with the census in it's current form though is that it has no feature that allows you to include a photograph, or even a simple line drawing, of yourself. This ironically neatly illustrates the gulf of understanding that exists between the snoopers and the public. The government values a census because it provides data on who lives where and so on. The public values a census because it not only gives middle class people who are researching their family tree hours of fun and an excuse to use the internet for reasons other than download money-off coupons for biscuits but, vitally, is key to producing that moment in every episode of 'who do you think you are' where a well spoken but slightly irritating thespian discovers that they are directly descended not from Latvian nobility as they always believed, but a instead from somebody who was common as muck and who spent a spell banged up in Strangeways for Lurking Near Duckponds.

Such a moment is always accompanied by a grainy snapshot of some cross eyed rickets riddled bloke in a battered hat and disgrace boots and that's what the census lacks, a chance for us to record now for posterity the images that might pop up centuries hence to mortify our ancestors. And if you can sport a huge stove hat and whiskers while doing so, then so much the better.

Big Society and Dystopia repost

Growing up, those twin essential devices from stopping healthy developmental play in the fresh air; foxed-to-the-point-of-badgered library books and terrifying BBC children’s drama, provided essential preparation for what to expect from the dystopian future.

If you read the books of John Christopher, dystopia came in the form of some sort of disaster that set technology levels back to those of the dark ages (alien invasion, mankind tinkering with nature, everyone on the planet simultaneously joining Civil War re-enactment societies, that sort of thing), while the BBC’s Bleak Future was essentially far muddier then the present, being a place where the appearance of a steam engine was greeted with exactly the sort of slack-jawed mixture of fear and awe currently on the faces of the kiddies being traumatised by this tea-time apocalyptic drama, filmed in the West Midlands to save money.

The drama conveyed to kiddies with some style that when they grew up there would be more chance of them being a subsistence farmer than a spaceman* and, most brutally of all, ‘Angel Delight’ would no longer existed.

What was never predicted (along with mobile ‘phone ring tones so irritating it makes you wonder if perhaps the plot of some of these stories: that advanced technology is jealously guarded by a social elite or at least people with taste, is not in fact a good idea) was the solution proposed by politicians to head off a future where the fabric of society is as ragged as a pair of Primark pants after a boil wash: the Big Society.

The Big Society is not, as you might think, Brobdingnag, but rather a model for the future of community services. Essentially funding is slashed for supporting council services and the people who rely on those services are told to ‘get on with it’, much in the way the same phrase is used when you are locked in your study with a bottle of scotch and a service revolver after you have lost a rather important battle or, worse still, committed social suicide by tonguing an unsuitable minor royal.

The Big Society suffered a set-back this week when Liverpool Council announced that they didn’t want to be considered part of the pilot for an idea thought up by posh boys, but instead were quite content to continue to be considered as a city of lovable rogues, chirpy female flatmates or, of course, lesbian patio-layers (might be getting that last one a bit confused).

A ‘pilot’ by the way is where you don't have enough confidence to roll out an ill-conceived scheme nationally and so do it in a few backwater areas. So, when it bombs like a fat kid jumping into a swimming pool, you can explain that either the idea needs work or the bloody yokels in charge of the pilot couldn't be trusted to run a car boot stall, never mind a complex social experiment and anyway, next time the posters will be better).

The gist of the Big Society is that English people, who by tradition would all like to live in castles with moats far from any neighbours and by practice only really talk to their neighbours if they are caught dumping their garden waste over the fence, are supposed to take a community approach and look after things like keeping the streets tidy and, no doubt when the cuts to public services really start to bite, other jobs currently undertaken by trained professionals including; maintaining parks (we can graze our sheep on them when we're all reduced to subsistence farming), health care (who needs doctors now we have the internet - what's easier, seven years at medical school or Googling 'tickly cough'?), or air traffic control.

What certainly won’t be needed are civic poo scoopers. This is thanks to the invention of the doggie bag. Certainly not to be confused with a device used to transport expensive leftovers from a restaurant (itself an alien concept to anyone brought up to believe that not scraping the plate at the Berni Inn until the last morsel of food, and quite a lot of the pattern, was removed was a sin), but a bag full of Scoobie Poo. Thanks to resilient, hole-free (and that’s important), plastic bags, owners of defecating hounds can now swoop with the speed of a cockle-picker racing the tide and simultaneously bag the unthinkable and make a mental note to stop feeding Fido leftover masala.

*Ironically, this is true, if by subsistence level farmer you mean owner of a boutique farm in the Cotswolds producing some sort of organic cheese and pork scratching smoothie concoction that is perversely popular in Japan, sells for a fortune at farmers’ markets and has just been picked up for national distribution by Waitrose.

The Big Society

Our council is, apparently, a Big Society pilot area. I have no idea what Big Society is but I know what a pilot scheme is; it's where you don't have enough confidence tho roll out an ill-conceived scheme nationally and so do it in a few backwater areas and, when it bombs like a fat kid jumping into a swimming pool, explain that either the idea needs work or the bloody yokels in charge of the pilot couldn't be trusted to run a car boot stall, never mind a complex social experiment and anyway, next time the posters will be better.

So what, exactly is the Big Society? Well, it's the lynchpin Conservative policy that is, apparently, so brilliant that nobody can quite explain it. I think the gist of it is however that English people, who by tradition would all like to live in castles with moats far from any neighbours and by practice only really talk to their neighbours if they are caught dumping their garden waste over the fence, are supposed to take a community approach and look after things like keeping the streets tidy and, no doubt when the cuts to public services really start to bite, policing them too. You can tell that Big Society is a policy and not just an idea because it's capitalised, which ironically much of public spending is not.

In short it's an idea for avoiding a bloodbath following the spending cuts by expecting volunteers to do all the work. Crucially, this ignores the fact that most people who try to organise things in neighbourhoods are self-appointed irritants, usually in cardigans, with very fixed ideas about serving booze at street parties.

The Big Society (and it really is a load of BS) pilot has manifested itself on the streets with the arrival of, of all things, grit bins. That's right, every street now has a large yellow receptacle full of salt.

And each one is numbered. My first reaction, I'm ashamed to admit, was not to applaud this initiative (remembering last winter I realise that ready access to grit is a bloody good idea, but in all honesty I rather like the idea of it being sprayed from the back of a lorry or shovelled by a couple of blokes with fluorescent jackets while I observe proceedings from the safety of a pub while 'working from home' on a snow day), but to think what a good little project it would be to photograph them all, collect the set as it were.

This is as close to autism as you can get without actually being called 'Rain Man' by your friends, but let's not worry about that now.

The idea, of course, is that come the first snowfall, everyone grabs their shovel and heads for the nearest bin. We grit our own paths and roads and the transport infrastructure is safe. Hoorah. Of course, the thing to do is to get out there now, in the dead of night (currently 4.30pm in these wintry days) and load the contents of the nearest bins into a bin bag for stockpiling in your shed. This can then be sold on to neighbours for a pound a scoop when the first flake hits the floor and the inevitable panic starts or, even better, sold back to the council when their grit stocks expire, probably on day two of any snowy weather.

So that's big society; hoards of happy residents gritting their drives and the areas of the pavement just outside their drives where they accidentally spray grit in their enthusiasm, and looking at the pristine snow that covers the world beyond their drive, muttering darkly about council tax and whiling away their time mentally composing outraged letters that froth with indignation for the local paper.

But why stop at gritting? Other jobs currently undertaken by trained professionals that could be done by the public include maintaining parks (we can graze our sheep on them when we're all reduced to subsistence level living), health care (who needs doctors now we have the internet - what's easier, seven years at medical school or Googling 'nasty cough'?), or air traffic control.

Council grittier used to be grossly inappropriate rhyming slang for posterior, now it's not even an occupation or vocation, it's recreation.

e Day + 1

Oh God…is it not over yet. Right, that’s it, I’m going into media black out mode. If I hear one more opinion from the ‘experts’ who predicted that this was a ‘three horse race’ and, oblivious to the fact that all the polls were wrong and all their opinions were wrong, are STILL spouting into camera, I shall have to double my regular breakfast tipple of horse tranquilisers and brasso.

e Day - tally ho!

Nigel Farage, standing as a parliamentary candidate for UKIP and so a Europhobe of the first water, has been hurt when the small aeroplane he was travelling in crashed. The pilot was also pretty badly hurt.

Exciting rumours that it had been shot down by a Fokker proved to be unfounded. Apparently the ‘vote UKIP’ banner it was trailing wrapped round it on landing.

Hoisted by his own petard?

e Day - on the box

In normal society, whenever somebody begins a sentence with ‘I’m not a racist, but…’ two things happen: the first is that the air is filled with the sound you get when you rub a balloon between your hands, as everyone in listening distance cringes i8n anticipation of what’s coming next, and the second is that some arsehole shares views that have been out of fashion longer than rah-rah skirts.

So how anyone campaigning on being a racist was ever going to work I’m not sure; but that doesn’t stop the BNP, who were out on the streets yesterday assaulting the voters. That’s right, a BNP councillor had a fight with some of his constituents. On camera. Nice.

There is a proud tradition of pugilism and politics merging though – well, there’s the Prescott incident, when Prezza battered some oink who was guilty of a) egg throwing and b) possession of an offensive haircut.

At least Prescott had some style though, and a rather excellent left hook I seem to recall.

e Day

It’s election day! Thank Christ. The election has been described variously as ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ for ugly people (which is odd, because I thought that’s what ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ was) or Eurovision for straight people. Whatever, it means that after tonight, there’s a chance that the media won’t be saturated with politicians and pundits the way a mattress at a crime scene is saturated with an undiscovered corpse.

So while schoolchildren roam the streets because some schools are closed to become polling stations, there is some excitement that it’s all finally happening. This is, I think, despite, rather than because of, the media frantically trying to whip up excitement in the election in exactly the same way that somebody tries to convince an unwilling participant that bondage really is good fun.

Meanwhile, life goes on normally for everyone not voting. Case in point are the tourists taking photographs of the telephone box outside my office. It must feature in tens of thousands of photographs, no doubt all of some smiling tourist standing in or beside it. Of course, for total authenticity, the telephone box should contain a urinating tramp and be festooned with business cards for prostitutes.

What the...?

If it wasn’t so offensive, the party political broadcast by the British National Party the other night would have been hilarious. The opening shot is of the leader of the party sat at a desk with a book case behind him – was this shot on location at the ‘home office’ area at IKEA? Nasty Nick looked his normal manic self and, whatever you think of his unfashionable politics you had to admire his sporting of an unfashionable suit – it takes a certain something to appear before the nation, asking for your vote, wearing a polyester blend.

Of particular interest was the picture of Churchill behind the buffoon frothing about immigration. Was I alone in thinking that Churchill was going to actually come out of the picture, like the girl in ‘the Ring’, and throttle the tinpot bastard addressing the camera while muttering ‘narzzzzzzzzzi’?

As for the hilarity – well, whoever provided the BNP with the clips for their ‘WWII’ montage obviously had a sense of humour. The message of the broadcast was ‘we fought against Europe and now Britain is being taken over by people who are not British’. The soldiers hitting the beach in the newsreel footage were Americans. The spitfire pictured was probably flown by a Pole.

But by far my favourite bit was the interviews with people on the streets. This is the British national party, right? So why were all the interviews with people from Essex?

I suggest it’s because outside of England, nobody in their right mind would even think about voting for fascists. The Welsh are too busy being anti-English and the Scots and Irish are far too busy with sectarian violence to even bother about nationalities.

Meeja circus

Here in the UK the coverage of the US primaries (does that make the November elections secondaries?) has been, if not at saturation point, then at least very damp. I guess the cynical among us think that UK interest in US elections is justified because it’s important to know who’ll be setting foreign policy for the next four years* while the even more cynical think that it’s low season over here for politics and so all the media have migrated to the US in order to grow fat on expenses claims and saturated-fat laced coffee.

The media are doing a valiant job trying to explain the US voting system to Brits, who kind of gave up after that whole ‘hanging chad’ business. They’ve been working even harder to convince us we should care. But if we want to know about what’s going on, we’ll rent ‘Primary Colours’. What’s most impressive is the sheer amount of razzamatazz that is injected into the whole affair. In fact, I’m not aware of any other context that the word razzamatazz can be used in. It’s like one of those tiny sea creatures that live near – but not too near – volcanic vents on the sea bed. They can only live in the very few inches between the extreme heat and extreme cold – the area scientists call ‘toasty’. Like them, ‘razzamatazz’ can only exist in the presence of streamers, whooping, hollering and televised debates that look like they could spill over into cage-fighting at any moment.

The media are concentrating their attention on the Democratic hopefuls, hoping that come November they’ll be able to flog the phrase ‘first woman’ or ‘first hint-of-beige guy’ to death. This means that when a republican is elected, all the people writing books about Bill being the ‘first husband’ will be chewing the carpet in frustration while the biography of ‘rich white guy you never heard of who is now Prez’ will be flying off of the shelves.

Over here we have impending local council elections. Oh yea. Wonder what sort of coverage they are getting in the US? The build up to it may not stretch to automated ‘phone banks (or as I like to call them ‘nuisance calls’) or razzamatazz like they have in the US, but it does involve some fairly heavy leafleting (as described in the ‘new year, new nazi’ post) and, the other night, a rather large and sinister man in a hat and anorak combination that hinted at body parts stored in his freezer expounding the virtues of the Conservative Party on my doorstep.

Brits are funny about getting ‘phone calls from computers. We’ve never trusted computers since seeing ‘2001’, Skynet scares the hell out of us and there’s always that sneaking suspicion that the gas board billing computer has a malice subroutine. The only computer we trust is EARNIE and that’s because he never picks our numbers and so completely conforms to our expectations. Not for nothing are the lottery numbers picked by a low-tech bingo blower. If it was just a box pushing out numbers, we’d all be suspicious.

I think if we received a call from one asking us to vote for a particular person, the combination of technophobia and intrusion of privacy would be overwhelming; leading to tutting in the very stongest possible terms and, who knows, a midnight visit to the mainframe with a cricket bat with some masonry nails hammered through it for some radical reprogramming.

* Well, at least until the EU elect a President, then I think that the EU will declare war with the US as a result of an escalation about the importation of fruit. It’d be cool to see UK troops occupying New England again.

Bring on Puss in Boots for God’s sake!

The widening of the media funnel, to allow more effluent than ever to wash up in our front rooms, like King Augeas' stables or, you know, a Sheffield sitting-room, has had the effect of democratizing celebrity to the extent that anyone can be a celebrity. Now, we need classification of celebrity, A list, B list and, er, the rest.

It probably didn’t used to be like that. Either you were famous, or you weren’t. If your fame went beyond your village, then your fame was probably deserved. Famous in your own village = a reputation for lifting cows or buggering ducks. Famous beyond your own village = sank an enemy fleet, with your breath.

Now, you have people who are famous, people who are ‘famous’, people who are stars, superstars, megastars and so on. I guess what it boils down to is this – if your name is above the title, or bigger on the book jacket than the title of the book – you’re famous. Anything else, you’re a celebrity, whether it means you act in a soap or did something amusing with marmite on a reality tee vee programme.

There’s nothing odd with people wanting to be famous – what is odd is that people appear to set their sights low these days and see real currency in being a celebrity. It’s shocking – people have realized that there is no way they can be Jack Nicholson (and let’s face it, it must be pretty hard being the sort of ageing, fat actor who’s finest moment was gurning like a drooling fool through a doorframe) so they want to be the sort of celebrity pictured dismounting from a limo with no knickers on – and that’s just the blokes.

The currency of celebrity of being spent at present by Boris ‘tosser’ Johnson, the shambling idiot that occasionally breaks cover as an MP long enough to make tactless remarks about grief while bending lithesome colleagues across his desk at the rag he ‘edits’. Many a journo has worried about being ‘spiked’ by Boris. Apparently he thinks that bumbling loonery and the occasional appearance on telly is enough for him to be considered a candidate as mayor of London.

Mayor…of London. So, Boris, what would your reaction be to a terrorist outrage in the capital? Getting a f**king haircut would be a start.

Boris is an excellent example of the media saying something so often: in this case – ‘he’s really clever’, that the addled twat must believe it himself. The problem is that we will now be subject to his deranged rantings during the election.

Still, I bet the media are loving it. Shame for Londoners – Ken will be re-elected no doubt, but it would be good to see the opposition parties put up a decent candidate, Dick Wittington’s cat, for instance?