Lust In Translation

‘AS for Oxford dons, they apparently fit the role of Romancer, ‘calculating seducer, who dislikes women but pursues them’, or Manchild, ‘ageing stud with rich tastes and little dignity’.

A typical sociology undergraduate

Or, as we used to know them before Stephen Whitehead published his taxonomy, Dirty Old Men.

That, says the Telegraph, explains the bias at Oxford in favour of female applicants, particularly those from independent schools.

A study by four academics has discovered that privately-educated girls applying to read medicine had the best chance of being offered a place, followed by state-educated girls, privately-educated boys and state-educated boys.

Similar results were discovered in physics, while – conversely – law and modern languages, both of which have a high number of female dons, showed no such bias.

‘I fear that the male lust hypothesis is part of the explanation,’ said one of the report’s authors, AH Halsey, professor of sociology.

And with that, he went back to his class The Bikini: The Sociology of Beachwear in Post-Industrial South Of France.

‘Ms Schiffer, your thoughts please…”

Posted: 18th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Mothers’ Girl

‘ASKED which woman in the public eye they considered a good role model for other mothers, it’s a fair bet that in 1976 Marge Simpson wouldn’t have got much of a look-in.

Marge felt guilty about spending all her housekeeping money on a boob job

But in a survey by the Mothers’ Union, an Anglican charity of which the Archbishop of Canterbury is a patron, the matriarch of the cartoon Simpsons family is head, shoulders and tall blue hair above today’s competition.

According to the Times, Marge received 23.2% of the vote, ahead of Lorraine Kelly (18.8%), Cherie Blair (15.2%0 and Victoria Beckham (12.7%).

The paper says that Marge’s down-to-earth advice, such as telling her three children to ‘listen to your heart and not the voices in your head’ is widely admired.

‘Young people,’ it says, ‘would love their own mothers to be similarly open and frank, particularly about the facts of life.’

This latest vote of confidence in the Simpsons marks an amazing transformation from the time when Barbara Bush said it was ‘the dumbest thing that she had ever seen’.

Given that she had given birth to George Dubya, that was some insult…’

Posted: 17th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

We Love 1976

‘INFLATION stands at 16.7%; the average weekly wage is just £71.80; and the country has been forced to go cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund after sterling plummets from $2 at the beginning of the year to $1.60 by September.

1976 also scores highly on the BCI (Brown Cardigan Index)

Britain is gripped by drought and many of us have to go to get our water from stand pipes at the end of the road; the Notting Hill carnival ends in a riot; and Viv Richards and the West Indies are demolishing the England cricket team.

Brotherhood of Man’s Save All Your Kisses For Me stands at the top of the charts; the Sex Pistols cause anarchy on ITV’s Today show; and the most publicised art event of the year is the unveiling of Carl Andre’s pile of bricks at the Tate Gallery.

We bounce around on spacehoppers or platform soles, we’re all growing beards and wearing terrible cardigans, we spend our free time watching Noel Edmonds’ The Multicoloured Swap Shop and flying kites.

Yes, we really have never had it as good as we had it in 1976, according at least to a think-tank called the New Economics Foundation.

The NEF prefers not to measure progress in terms of GDP but rather by its own MDP (measure of domestic progress), which subtracts social and environmental costs and resource depletion from GDP.

And, according to these figures, while GDP has soared in the past 30 years, MDP has fallen, fuelled especially by growing social inequalities.

‘As everyone from Mahatma Gandhi to the Black-Eyed Peas has pointed out, more isn’t always better,’ Tim Jackson, professor of sustainable development at Surrey University, tells the Independent.

‘Too much food makes the nation obese, burgeoning traffic leaves the roads congested. More guns make our streets unsafe.’

It is not just obesity, congestion and crime that has risen sharply since 1976, so have income inequality, family break-ups and environmental problems.

‘We’re running faster and faster but we seem to end up in the same place,’ Professor Jackson concludes.

However, says the Indy, not everyone agrees with how the MDP is calculated.

Nicholas Crafts, of the London School of Economics (LSE) said it failed to take account of things like technological advances and rising life expectancy.

But, as the Guardian points out, there was a positive side to 1976 as well.

‘Forget Mr Andre’s bricks and celebrate the opening of the National Theatre in 1976,’ it says.

‘Ignore the Sex Pistols and dwell on Abba’s Dancing Queen and Don’t Go Breaking My Heart (Elton John and Kiki Dee). [Surely, the wrong way round – Ed.]

‘Forget the Notting Hill Carnival Riots in favour of the 1976 Race Relations Act.’

And remember also that 1976 was the only previous year in which a Labour prime minister resigned in office…’

Posted: 17th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Swap Shop

‘THE BBC has its finger on the pulse – and what takes the New Economic Foundation years of careful research Auntie knows instinctively.

The new faces of Saturday night on the BBC

It knows that we were never happier than in 1976, so it is going to do its best to recreate that year on our screens.

In its Saturday night ratings war with ITV, the BBC is putting its faith in, er, an updated version of The Generation Game, an updated version of Come Dancing and what the Guardian calls ‘a modern variation of the ‘zoo’-style programmes pioneered by Noel Edmonds.

With any luck, we could also see the reappearance of the Test Card and the playing of the National Anthem when the channel closes down for the night.

‘We are trying to ring the changes,’ says Lorraine Heggessey – an ambition that can be seen from the choice of talent to present the shows.

Nice to see you, to see you…NICE! to Bruce Forsyth; a lorra lorra love to new recruit Cilla Black; and Shut That Door, Mr Paul O’Grady (host of the new Generation Game)…

And welcome, Johnny and Denise (last seen together on Big Breakfast and soon to be co-hosts of the imaginatively titled Saturday Night With Johnny And Denise) and Graham Norton.

The next thing is there’ll be talk of bringing back Starsky And Hutch…’

Posted: 17th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A New Bambi

‘SPAIN’S new Prime Minister Jose Luiz Rodriguez Zapatero and British PM Tony Blair have at least one thing in common – a nickname.

Blowing the coalition off track

For Senor Zapatero, the Telegraph informs us, is known as Bambi, a name that was given also to Blair on his arrival in Downing Street.

It is not clear whether they share another nickname, bestowed on Blair yesterday by Jose Bono, a senior colleague of the new Spanish PM, namely ‘un gillipollas integral’ (‘a complete dickhead’).

What is clear is that they do not share the same view of the war in Iraq, with Zapatero insisting that it would take a revolution in US policy for him not to bring the Spanish troops home by the summer.

What is more, he launched what the Telegraph calls an ‘extraordinary’ attack on Blair and President Bush, saying he would seek a ‘magnificent’ partnership with France and Germany instead.

‘Mr Blair and Mr Bush must do some reflection and self-criticism,’ he said. ‘You can’t organise a war with lies.’

But when the emotional dust settles on last week’s bombings in Madrid, the Spanish people should also pause for some reflection and self-criticism.

If they are so opposed to Spanish involvement in the war in Iraq, then how is it that Jose Maria Aznar’s pro-war Popular Party was heading for an easy victory until last Thursday’s bombings?

Writing in the Telegraph, Mark Steyn accuses the Spanish of dishonouring their own dead.

‘No-one will remember the footnotes, the qualifications, the background,’ he says. ‘Just the final score. Terrorists toppled a European government.’

The Guardian says that far from bringing Europe and America closer, the attack on Madrid ‘may have widened the strategic chasm’.

Most Europeans, it says, are not convinced that this war – as presently conceived – is winnable.

However, the Times believes that what Spain needs most at this time is stability and continuity, urging Zapatero not to be hasty in breaking up the US-led coalition.

‘President Bush will not be the only leader urging him to think again of the disastrous implications,’ it says.

‘It would, at the very least, be a betrayal of Iraqis who will need the security of international support to rebuild their country.”

Posted: 16th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Question Of Degrees

‘ON present trends, every teenager in Britain should be in possession of at least 10 A-grade GCSEs by the end of the decade.

City Of Firsts

Of them, 98% will go on to get four A grades at A level, the other 2% opting to do the new Baccalaureate instead.

And this orgy of academic achievement will be completed when everyone leaves university with a six-figure debt and a first-class honours degree.

Of course, none of these graduates will be able to spell their own names, but in these days of computers that is no longer considered of great importance.

The Telegraph reports that the halcyon days when academic failure is enshrined in the figures 2:1 are not far away.

Over the past five years, the 19 research-led universities that comprise the Russell Group have increased the number of firsts awarded by 50%.

Almost a third of all Cambridge undergraduates get firsts; about a quarter do so at Oxford.

What makes this achievement by the universities the more impressive is that it has happened at a time when they claim to be stretched to capacity and in the middle of a funding crisis.

That, however, is no excuse for cynics like Liberal Democrat peer Lord Matthew Oakshott to suggest the figures ‘give a sense of dumbing down at our leading universities’.

Far from it. It shows rather that the universities have at last got their head round the logic of the market economy.

Students, after all, will surely be much happier to pay their top-up fees if they know they are guaranteed a top degree at the end of it.’

Posted: 16th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Chorus Of Booze

‘HOME Secretary David Blunkett’s dream of turning Britain into a police state with all of us forced to carry ID cards at all times moves a step closer to reality this morning.

William Hague has No.14 lined up already

And the method by which this dystopia is to be achieved is outlined in the Times, which says the Government is planning to impose on-the-spot fines on landlords and barmen who serve alcohol to drunks and under-18s.

This will inevitably lead to the absurd situation that exists in the United States whereby anyone of whatever age wanting to buy a pint will be forced to prove their age.

Faced with the prospect of fines, bar staff will always err on the side of caution and we foresee more problems from drinkers refused service for reasons of age or sobriety.

‘Increasingly, alcohol misuse by a small minority is causing two major, and largely distinct, problems,’ Tony Blair said yesterday.

‘On the one hand, crime and anti-social behaviour in town and city centres, and on the other harm to health as a result of binge and chronic drinking.’

It is a subject that Mr Blair, whose son Euan was famously found passed out in Leicester Square in a pool of his own vomit, knows something about.

But official figures show that we actually drink very little in comparison with our European neighbours – far less than the French, for instance.

Surely, the problem is not how much we drink but how we drink – and that is a direct result of the antiquated licensing laws in this country.

Forcing us all to carry ID cards may make Mr Blunkett happy, but it won’t impress many other people.’

Posted: 16th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Pain In Spain

‘THE victory of a left-wing party in yesterday’s Spanish election would normally be greeted with joy in the British Labour party.

Spain needs time to heal

But one doubts that Tony Blair was celebrating last night as the anti-war Socialists regained power in what the Times calls “a dramatic reversal of fortune triggered by the bombings last Thursday”.

For one, the outgoing Prime Minister, Jose Maria Aznar, is a close personal friend of Blair; for another, he was one of the prime supporters of the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Finally, the Socialists were elected on a promise to withdraw Spain’s 1,500 troops from Iraq – a move that will undermine the coalition and surely make other countries that have contributed troops yet more vulnerable to terrorist attack.

The Telegraph takes up this last point, saying that the election will be remembered as heralding the rise of “euro isolationism”.

“Large numbers of Spanish voters,” it says, “succumbed to the delusion that if Mr Aznar had not lent support to the Anglo-American coalition, then their homeland would be safer.

“The fact that many Islamists believe in reversing the reconquista of the Iberian peninsula appears to have made little difference.

“The desire not to take our enemies at face value, in word and deed, is the hallmark of much of contemporary Europe.”

Even the anti-war Guardian has doubts about the resolution Spain’s new PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero will bring to the cause of fighting terrorism.

In a recent interview, he was asked what he would do if he was confronted by the leader of Basque terrorist group Eta, still a prime suspect in Thursday’s bombings, in the street.

“I would not look him in the face,” responded Snr Zapatero.

One rather doubts whether such a response will succeed in deterring the madmen of al Qaeda, whose statement (if genuine) claiming responsibility for the bombings read: “You love life and we love death.”

One might disagree with the actions of President Bush and Tony Blair, but surely we cannot disagree with what they say.

Hoping something isn’t so is not going to make it not so. Or, as Barbara Amiel says in today’s Telegraph, “Let us pray by all means – and then pass the ammunition”.’

Posted: 15th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Vanishing Vote

‘HAVING succeeded in ousting the incumbent government in Madrid, we can surely expect the murderers of al-Qaeda to try a similar ploy in the run-up to elections in Britain.

If the mountain won’t go to Tony, Tony will blow it up

The trouble they have is that the main opposition party, the Tories, are by and large in complete agreement with the Government on Iraq and the so-called War on Terror.

However, Tony Blair’s stance on these issues has alienated a large section of Britain’s Muslim community, three quarters of whom voted Labour at the last election.

A poll by the Guardian found that only 38% would vote Labour in an election tomorrow, with most Muslims defecting to the Liberal Democrats and a significant number to the Tories.

Opposition to the war in Iraq runs high among Britain’s 1.6m Muslims and there is widespread scepticism about the motives of the United States.

“At the end of the day,” says Iqbal Sacranie, general secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, “it’s a Muslim population around the world on the receiving end of trouble and bias in terms of US policy.”

One might point out that it was a Muslim population in Bosnia and in Kosovo on whose side the US and its allies intervened.

One might also observe that the man responsible for the greatest loss of Muslim life in recent years has been former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

And, with 13% of the British Muslims (questioned admittedly before the recent Madrid bombings) saying they believed further attacks on the US would be justified, one might wonder what on earth the justification – religious or otherwise – can be for the deliberate massacre of innocents.’

Posted: 15th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Three Bald Mice

‘MICE have never to our knowledge suffered particularly from baldness.

Regular exercise can also help

However, there is good news for any mouse who is going a bit thin on top in this morning’s Independent, which reports that researchers have been able to transplant the stem cells of one animal’s hair follicles to enable hair to grow on the bald patch of another mouse.

Of course, the reason the paper is interested in the study, published in the latest edition of Nature Biotechnology (available at old good bookshops), is not because of concern for folically challenged mice.

It is because scientists think that the discovery of the skin cells that are responsible for a good head of hair could lead to a cure for human baldness.

As for the mice, surely scientists would be better served looking for a cure for blindness.

There are at least three animals who would benefit from any breakthrough in that area, not to mention advances in tail transplant technology.’

Posted: 15th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Who Dunnit?

‘IT says something grim about the world today that when 190 people are murdered by terrorists and 12,250 injured, many horrifically, the papers do not know whom to blame.

Who could do such a thing?

It’s not that there is any shortage of candidates – editors are scratching their heads not in trying to think of anyone or any group capable of such a thing, but rather because the list of suspects comes too easily to mind.

The Guardian puts this in simple terms, leading with the numbers and the question: “ETA Or al-Qaeda?”

The paper’s pictures of the dead, bloodied and maimed are a truly awful sight.

The victims of ten bombs (three more failed to go off) on Madrid’s railways that ripped carriages apart like “cans of tuna”, creating a “platform of death”, are everywhere.

This “massacre in Madrid” is almost too awful to take in, a mass killing that came without warning in one of Europe’s premier capital cities, on Britain’s doorstep.

Seeking something to cling onto in this maelstrom of uncertainty and confusion, the Guardian lists some facts about ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna), the Basque separatists.

The Telegraph says that in the blasts’ immediate aftermath, the Spanish government did not hesitate to point the finger of blame at the group.

But looking at ETA’s track record, al-Qaeda seems the more likely culprit. Indeed, the paper reports that a voice claiming to represent al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility.

The Telegraph also says that Spanish police found an Arabic-language tape and detonators in a stolen van in a Madrid suburb.

ETA has even issued a denial. The spokesman for ETA’s political wing, Arnaldo Otegi, says: “The independent Basque Left cannot imagine there is even a hypothetical chance that ETA could be behind what happened in Madrid.”

Well, imagine it they must. Because in such times, minds whirl, and they invariably ask: Who did it? And who will be next?’

Posted: 12th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Ladies Who Lunch

‘WHILE Madrid reverberates to the sound and fury of bombs and their aftermath, one of the city’s newest residents must be gently steaming.

Doing what she does best

Yesterday was the day when then Queen threw open her doors to 200 high-achieving women, inviting such luminaries of womanhood as Kate Adie, Cherie Booth (latterly Blair) and Janet Street- Porter to chat and mingle over a casserole of salmon and monkfish and some passion fruit cheesecake.

The entire list of invitees occupies the better part of a page in the Guardian, and looking down it we can see mention of the likes of the great Floella Benjamin and the lovely Kate Moss.

But we have examined the list time and time again and can still find no mention of Victoria Beckham.

We also cannot see Katie Price, Lucy Pinder, Clare Short, Sarah Ferguson, Vanessa Feltz, Kerry McPadding or Anthea Tuner, so whatever pain Posh must be experiencing, she can console herself with the news that being persona non grata puts her in good company.

Indeed, she might well like to hold her own meet-and-greet, inviting women she believes to have been successful enough in life to come round to her place for lunch.

And if she wants to be petty and gain some smidgeon of revenge, she can fail to extend an invitation to Her Majesty, although a woman who has done little in her life apart from wave and have bay-bies is something of a kindred spit to La Posh one.’

Posted: 12th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Pukka Off

‘WHEN Posh gets round to holding her luncheon, you can bet your bottom dollar that Channel 4 will be kicking on her door, keen to film the entire event.

‘Twat’

But Posh would be well advised to tell them to “fuck off!” She might consider calling the man with the boom a “jism-faced prick”.

But she should resist the urge, since Channel 4 only affords celebrities one swear word apiece, and Posh should take care not to exceed her quota lest she look like a foul-mouthed yobbo of the lowest order.

By way of a guide to swearing, the Telegraph has taken a preludial glance at the broadcaster’s new self-promotional advert in which top celebrities (Graham Norton, Jamie Oliver etc.) are asked to say their favourite swear word.

For the record, there are nine mentions of the world “cunt”, which, as the paper tells us, has been identified as the word viewers find the most offensive.

This, of course, is edgy and sexy and er, whatever else TV executives want it to be.

However, to us poor humble men and women in the street, it seems simply a desperate move by a failing company. Oh, pardon us, we meant to say that it is complete and utter shit.’

Posted: 12th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Youth Work

‘WHILE marketers, advertisers and Tony Blairs love tapping into youth culture, those already in it know it to be a morass of pimple-pricking, sweating, fretting, hormone-driven angst.

‘Smack da bitch up, innit’

So any jobseeker wishing to be seen as young has to do more than turn their baseball cap so the brim is pointing at a right angle to the face and get real.

To fool the one in three employers who, as a survey by a recruitment firm now published in the Telegraph reveals, believe a candidate has lied about their age requires more effort.

The two out of ten jobseekers who claim they had been rejected from a job purely because of their age should not write a polite letter of complaint but lean over the interviewer’s desk and demand some ‘respect, innit’ from the ‘ho’ working for the ‘man’.

But they should not overdo things because the Telegraph goes onto say in another piece that things ‘yoof’ are not desirable per se.

The proliferation of text messaging, street slang and an impoverished education system means that many yoofs are now ‘virtually unemployable’.

Not that being labelled so would upset many yoofs, given that the tag ‘unemployable’ will, most likely, be worn with some pride.

After all, David Beckham don’t speak well English and ‘e’s done not too bad at all, if you know what we mean, type of fing.

But Ivan Lewis, speaking in the Guardian, is unimpressed. The minister for skills and education says that the drive to equip young people with the skills to get on in life is being hampered by a culture which says they can get become rich and famous without much by way of qualifications.

Despite a welter of evidence to the contrary (Kerry McPadding, Posh, Jordan, John Major, the aforesaid Beckham and many, many more), Lewis is adamant that this is a false premise and things must change.

‘We cannot be satisfied when nearly 50 per cent of youngsters leave school without five good GCSEs,’ he says. ‘That is a massive indictment of the system.’

So the remedy, says Lewis, is an overhaul in vocational qualifications.

So look out for GCSEs being offered in Reality TV, Jungle Survival, Nipple Flashing, Botox, Spot Bursting and Teenage Pregnancy.

Oh, and Call Centres.’

Posted: 11th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

PVC Plod

‘NEWS that four of the United States’ largest internet providers are cracking down on spammers is brought to our attention via the Times.

www.filth.com

Spammers, who send unsolicited mail to your e-mail addresses, can now be sued for sending e-mails from fake addresses, for not providing a return address and for not giving the target an option to reject unwanted mail in the future.

Thankfully, we in Blighty can still get lots of emails extolling the virtues of a bigger penis and Viagra.

And the additional benefit is not increased confidence in the locker room and a rampant sex life, but the likelihood that police will have more time to fight real crime and not have to spend hours searching for such items on the web.

That’s, or course, when they are not researching websites for signs of pornography. The selfless bobbies at Scotland’s Lothian & Borders force have been working tirelessly on such a project.

A report in the Independent says that 41 of the division’s officers have been found surfing the web in such a fashion.

The investigation, dubbed ‘Fetishgate’, has also involved some officers sending explicit jokes and messages via internal e-mails.

One hard working officer went even further and reached into his own pocket to order fetish clothing from a website specialising in things for the transvestites.

We can only assume that the officer wanted to go yet deeper undercover and infiltrate mothers’ meetings, women-only yoga classes and such other arenas of crime and depravity.

This dedication to duty has not passed unnoticed by the powers that be, and the Conservative’s chief whip, Bill Aitken MSP, says: ‘Most members of the public would be amazed that officers have time to look at these websites.’

Of course, it’s they that make time. Fighting crime is no nine-to-five job – it’s a vocation that can take over your life.’

Posted: 11th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Dial 0800 ALIBI

‘THE police are both dedicated and exceedingly bright, so trying to pull the wool over their eyes is a waste of time.

‘I’M AT THE CIRCUS!’

But to the cuckolded spouse and the fraught boss the new SoundCover mobile phone programme will be just the ticket.

The Times says that the programme will play background sounds when one is on the phone to add plausibility to any excuse one might have devised.

For starters, there are nine sounds on offer, including “at the park”, “at the dentist”, “on the street”, “roadworks” “thunderstorm” and – for the imaginative blagger – “circus parade”.

These are all well and good, although anyone spending the best part of a tenner to download the service should think twice before paying for “traffic jam”.

Given the popularity of those, finding one of the real things at no additional cost cannot be overly tricky.

However, the “audible alibi” still has value, although the most plausible excuse of all is still hard to beat: the train is late.

Works every time.’

Posted: 11th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

On The Piste

‘FOR every talented professional, there are many amateurs keen to emulate the antics of their heroes.

‘Last one to the pub’s French!’

For many Britons, that means behaving like George Best and getting absolutely rat-arsed. And if you do a Besty while skiing, so much the more dangerous.

This is a serious matter, and the Times says that many Europeans are attributing the sharp rise in accidents on the piste on Brits on the, er, piss.

So breathalysers and speed cameras, which serve to keep order on the mountainside in the land of the free that is the United States, are on their way to Italy, Austria and France.

Taking a leaf out of Tony Blair’s book, our continental partners are also considering introducing on-the-spot fines for loutish behaviour on the slopes.

Alvaro de Palma, who trains Italy’s Olympic ski team, says that skiing while under the influence is ‘a no good’.

‘One shot of grappa or whisky after lunch is one thing,’ he says, ‘but if you have a lot of grappa you lose control.’

We would say that anyone who drinks a lot of grappa is already out of control, but we take Signor de Palma’s point.

And it’s one supported by Serve Gau, a suitably-named restaurant manager at the French resort of Courchevel.

‘Foreigners drink much more than the French,’ he says wistfully. ‘Especially the English.

‘I would say that they put away twice the amount of the French or the Spaniards…and the women drink as much as the men.’

So the remedy is for a system of fines and some kind of on-piste police force, with flashing helmets and sirens.

Or course, the solution is much simpler: just serve only the dreaded grappa in the local bars. The Brits will be the most sober bunch out there…’

Posted: 10th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Mission Impossible

‘ANYONE got a few bob to spare? It’s just that Christopher Wilton, our man in Kuwait, is running short of funds.

‘Please give generously’

And if he doesn’t get the necessaries quick smart, he’s gong to be forced to close the British embassy in the desert kingdom for the next three weeks.

‘We’re broke,’ says a memo sent by Wilton to Whitehall mandarins, and seen by the Telegraph.

He says the ‘hopelessly inadequate’ budget means he has no money to pay the wages of local staff.

‘This is the final straw,’ says Wilton. ‘Our compound is already suffering from serious neglect because of a laughably inadequate budget.’

So it’s time to reach deep into your pockets and pull out all you’ve got. And if you can’t give cash, a few tins and some pots and pans will be greatly appreciated.

But don’t send oil, soldiers or sand – Wilton already has those in abundance.’

Posted: 10th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Scooby Snacks

‘DRUGS and sport are a potent mix. Without drugs, whether in the form of approved dietary aids or banned substances, who knows what the state of sport would be?

‘My name is Prince Battenberg and I’m an alcoholic’

Would muscle-bound men and women break records each year if it were not for chemical enhancements?

Not that all drugs are performance aids, and any athlete would be a fool to smoke a large reefer before competition or fill their water bottle with three parts Kool Aid to one part LSD if they wanted to win.

However, they may do so by accident, be nobbled by the opposition, as it were. And it gives us no pleasure to learn, via the Independent, that such accusations are upsetting the world of dog shows.

(Before you take issue, dog-showing is a sport, blending natural athleticism with rigorous training to enable the sporting hound to stand still, canter at its master’s heels and then, like all champions, sit on the winner’s podium and appear in celebrity endorsements for tinned food and car insurance.)

The dog that its trainers, Clive and Nancy Evans, claim was ‘got at’ is called Kerri, a young dobermann pinscher bitch who was runner-up in the puppy section at last year’s Crufts.

At the Wimbledon of dog shows, the story goes that Kerri was left in a van until the moment of her showing.

‘While walking to the ring, somebody walked past and gave her, maybe, a piece of meat with a sedative on it,’ says Clive, a dog warden from Tewkesbury.

‘When my wife took her to the ring, Kerri was listless…If you had just pushed her gently she would have fallen over.’

Not that we or Clive would advocate pushing a dobermann over, since doing so can lead to much pain and the loss of the pushing hand.

But this incident is, apparently, not an isolated one and, in the Guardian, the couple say they’ve heard from a number of fellow breeders who claim their dogs were similarly targeted.

But if true, who would do such a thing? A rival breeder is a possibility, but we wonder if these dogs had not pre-ordered the drugs from a pusher.

After all, Kerri is young and impressionable, and, as anyone who has even risen to the top of their sporting tree will attest, the temptation to escape the pressures of such a rarefied life through drugs and drink can often be too great to resist.’

Posted: 10th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Crying Woolf

‘IT’S not that justice is blind, rather that the wig slips a little from time to time and falls over the eyes.

‘What do you think of the tight perm, Your Honour?’

Tony Blair is set on reforming things by removing the men in full-bottomed wigs and tights and replacing them with a US-style independent supreme court of modern suits and sharp edges.

But the law and the legal types who operate within its bounds are of a certain bent and, as the Telegraph reports, Blair’s call for a modern judiciary is being met with stubborn resistance.

In the course of a prolix debate as to the rights and wrongs of reform between men in such aforesaid womanly garb, Lord Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice, called Lord Falconer of Thornton, the Constitutional Affairs Secretary, a ‘cheerful chappie’.

To the man on the street well versed in more direct badinage, that’s not a huge insult, but in legal circles comments come more heavily loaded than an American schoolboy’s satchel. So Woolf apologised, ‘if offence was caused’.

See that ‘if’? It’s the qualifier that marks Woolf out to be something more than an old duffer with a penchant for fancy dress.

But not all judges are so subtle in their approach, and for every Lord Woolf there is, as the Times explains, a trainee learning the ropes.

Today the paper takes a trip to Scotland and sees the work of Sheriff Richard Davidson, pictured in a small rolled wig, black jacket and understated white scarf.

In front of him is the plaintiff, one Margaret Christie, whose case against the manufacturer of her wedding dress came before Davidson at the Dundee Sheriff Court.

Christie argued that the dress she’d ordered was not what she had wanted. So bad was it that, on the day of her marriage to one William Christie, she wore a dress from a different company.

The defendant said the dress was fine. And so it was over to Davidson for his verdict.

‘She [Christie] wanted to crate an appearance which would portray her as having a degree of voluptuousness,’ he opined.

‘Unfortunately she did not have the necessary basic ingredients for being voluptuous.’

She was, as Davidson puts it, ‘unfortunately lacking in the essential body qualities to achieve the desired effect’.

So Mrs Christie lost the case, and was, the Times puns, ‘left feeling flat’. She will now appeal against the verdict, claiming that Davidson’s comments were ’embarrassing and totally sexist’.

We wish her well in her claim – and trust that Sheriff Davidson will be promptly fast tracked to the very highest echelons of the legal system.’

Posted: 9th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Et Tu, Ronald?

‘SOME things are even harder to swallow than defeat in court. And up there among the very trickiest is the rebranding of McDonald’s as a health food emporium.

McDonald’s new staff uniforn

But times do change and so it is that the firm that once gave us Ronald McDonald and indigestion now offers salads.

The story’s accompanying picture confirms that it is a salad. To our trained eye, the globs of red are not dollops of ketchup but tomatoes, while the green stuff is not mould but something called lettuce.

However, the Times comes not to praise the Caesar salad but to bury it. For a chicken Caesar salad with dressing and croutons contains 425 calories and 21.4g of fat.

These figures mean little at first glance, but their impact becomes clearer when readers then learn that a typical hamburger contains 253 calories and 7.7g of fat.

‘It’s the Italian cheese,’ says a spokesperson for the company, a woman with electric orange hair and wan complexion.

And she’s right. With the cheese removed, the salad does indeed lose some of its fattiness, in much the same way that removing the meat from between the two pieces of bread makes the burger less calorific.

And then if you throw away the bread and chuck the salad in a bin, a trip to McDonald’s need not be a fattening one.

And it gets still better if you walk to your nearest outlet, or, perhaps, even run…’

Posted: 9th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

This Year’s Green

‘REMEMBER when the Green Party was all about tree hugging and David Icke’s conspiracy theories about lizards and how to save a penalty?

Second Coming expected soon

If you do, you need retraining, your mind needs to be realigned to what the new Greens look like and are all about today.

And helping you to look afresh on the political party is Matt Wooten.

The Times say that Wooten is 26 years old, able to identity nearly all the ‘vegetables’ in a McDonald’s salad and the party’s nearest thing to Peter Mandelson.

He plans to revamp the Greens, shaving off the layers of beard, removing sandals and giving things a fresh sunny outlook.

So he’s started with a new logo. It’s a planet, coloured in something the paper calls ‘official hues’, including evergreen, oak-leaf, green, mustard and red wine.

It’s still sounds like one of those McDonald’s salads, but Wooten is upbeat. ‘We found after we had gone for those colours that New York spring fashion week was launched with exactly the same scheme.’

Indeed, the colours have also proved popular for many years with oak trees, jars of mustard and wine manufactures.

The result is that the party’s redesign is certain to achieve the desired result of appealing to traditional Labour voters disenchanted with the Government’s ‘lies and let-downs’.

And bored stupid with red, red and more red…’

Posted: 9th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Panting For More

‘THE truth is out there, as someone once said. But whose version of it should we believe?

Peter and Carole warm another pair of Tony’s pants

Helping us to decide are a couple of former members of Tony Blair’s coterie, namely Peter Foster, former boyfriend of Cherie Blair’s lifestyle guru, Carole Caplin, and Alistair Campbell, the now retired No.10 spin doctor.

Let’s begin with Foster, who is telling anyone who will listen that Caplin was closer to the Blairs than many thought.

“The true relationship is between Carole and Tony,” says Foster in an interview with an Australian paper, which is now relayed to Tony’s breakfast table via the Guardian.

“British people would be flabbergasted if they knew the extent to which Mr Blair is reliant on Carole. Carole coached him on how to handle people, how to handle situations, how to present himself. She picked his clothes, right down to his underpants.”

The part about the underpants is not such a surprising thing, since, having flaunted hers in a previous incarnation as a glamour mo-del, Carole knows the power of good underwear.

But anything about the Blairs, even what spills from the mouth of a convicted fraudster who plans to put his version of events in print, makes good reading.

Ms Caplin may well call Foster a “fantasist” in the Times, and David Blunkett is within his rights to say that Foster’s aim is to raise money and “I would not give him a cup of tea”, but underpants!

Perhaps the one person other than Tony and Cherie who can get to the, er, bottom of this story is Alastair Campbell. After all, if anyone knows about working closely with the PM it is he.

But as bad luck has it, Campbell has his own book to plug, and although, like Foster’s, it is not yet written, the work based on his diary needs marketing from the off.

So the Guardian shares a table with Campbell and hears Campbell on Campbell.

“I’m very tribal,” says he. “I’m Labour, I’m Burnley, I’m Campbell.”

But what is Campbell? Whatever the answer, it is not a thing that is happy at the mess the BBC now finds itself in after the David Kelly affair.

“When I got the [Hutton] report I felt no sense of triumphalism at all.” Er… ”I don’t take any pleasure in seeing the BBC in its current state.”

So there we are. We have heard from Foster and we have heard from Campbell. Now decide which is telling the truth. If either.’

Posted: 8th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Global Warning

‘FORGET Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden and those other shadowy purveyors of terror to the world, it’s time to attack CO2 emissions with all our might.

Sir David King: Last seen in Oxfordshire

Sir David King, the Prime Minister’s chief scientist, says that climate change is the “most severe problem we are facing today, more serious even than the threat of terrorism”.

Rather than blowing up vast tracts of Iraqi sand and laying waste to mountains in Afghanistan, George Bush should concern himself with the state of the planet. (Note to Bush: that’s Earth, not Mars).

The scientist did not share his thoughts with the BBC or claim that we will all be dead in 45 minutes if we do not change to unleaded lawn mowers, but put his views in an American science magazine.

Even so, he has still been shut up by the powers that be.

The Independent says that King was gagged for his comments, which are seen as an attack on Bush. Ivan Rogers, Tony Blair’s principal private secretary, told King to not be overly loquacious with the media.

In a leaked memo, Rogers ordered King not to grant any interviews with British and American newspapers, and, of course, the Government’s bugbear, BBC 4’s Today programme.

A discussion on the threat of global warming and such like, does not, in Roger’s opinion, “help us achieve our wider policy aims ahead of our G8 presidency [next year]”.

Those aims are for another time, but for now let’s just learn that King’s views are supported by UN weapons inspector Hans Blix (“I think we still overestimate the danger of terror. There are other things that are of equal, if not greater, magnitude, like the environmental global risks”) and the Independent’s story that one in eight of the world’s birds is facing extinction.

Of course, the remedy is simple: you just put all the CFCs and nasties in a hole in the desert and, when Bush tells you to, you bomb them.’

Posted: 8th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Rocking The Cradle

‘IN the future there will no need for wars and fighting, for we will all be too busy humming Mozart’s Divertimento In B flat in a state of catatonic bliss.

The daddy of the peace movement

Plans are already underway to turn mankind into a more peaceful, classically-trained bunch, although the result of the pilot scheme will not be know for around another 16 years, or until such a time when the unborn are able to carry guns.

The Independent says that a concert of Mozart compositions is scheduled to take place later this month in Bristol, and the audience will be made up of babies inside and outside the womb.

This may also mean that women will be present, but some of these mothers-in-waiting could be no more than children themselves and, what with the strides being made in sexual equality and technology, there may even be a few men and grow bags in the cheap seats.

The concert is being produced by Peter Kindersley, of the Dorling Kindersley publishing empire, who is said to believe that music, especially from Mozart’s oeuvre, is able to stimulate alpha brainwaves, so producing feelings of calm.

We will wait and see how the plan develops, but don’t be too surprised if the next invasion of a terror power is backed not by the acidic tunes of Barney The Dinosaur and Phil Collins but Mozart’s Symphony In B Flat, No. 5.’

Posted: 8th, March 2004 | In: Broadsheets | Comment