A Woman Spurned

‘WISE heads have long counselled Cherie Booth to keep her mouth shut. And today she does so beautifully, as she smiles, with lips closed from the front of the Daily Telegraph.

‘Grin of Cheshire, eye of imp – make my Tony, Cherie’s gimp!’

But it is a safe bet that her pink lipgloss was not applied by her former guru and stylist Carole Chaplin on this occasion. The paper reports that the out-of-favour crank has said, “I understand how that man Kelly felt” – a reference to her own experience of being hounded out of Downing Street.

She has been “dropped” from the Blairs’ circle of friends – a beleaguered circle resembling General Custer’s wagons – on the grounds that she has links to “a newspaper that the Blairs regard as hostile” (that’s the Mail on Sunday to you and me).

Cherie is “consulting other advisors on fashion matters”. And, no doubt, other astrologers, tarot readers, white witches, clairvoyants, and purveyors of healing crystals.

The paper says that Number 10 is “ready to weather any storm” that Ms Caplin may create. But not, perhaps, Storm Recipe Number Seven, which she is at this minute creating, using a giant cauldron in the New Forest, and a book of super-potent spells.’

Posted: 15th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Beckham Speaks

‘WONDERFUL news from the Times, which reports that Sven Goran Eriksson and Nancy Dell’Olio are planning to emulate John Lennon and Yoko Ono in a campaign for world peace.

The international language

How so? By staying in bed for a week without washing, and recording a protest single in their boudoir? Of course not – that’s so twentieth century.

Instead, the charity Truce International will use the “language of football as the inspiration to stop fighting”.

Some might say that this is a somewhat unlikely ambition, given football’s tendency to stir up animosity rather than generating good vibrations.

But that would be to ignore the potentially world-changing powers of Sven’s captain, David Beckham.

Beckham’s statement (taken from All We Are Saying… A Peace Documentary) are as follows: “I think my advice to any children out there looking for world peace is you’ve got to enjoy life, be happy, and if football or sport is going to make that difference then, you know, go for it.”

Amen to that.’

Posted: 15th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Because They’re Worth It

‘SPEAKING of John Lennon, we can reveal a hitherto unheard of demo tape of “Imagine”, which includes an extra verse that was eventually cut for being “too Utopian”.

‘Imagine there’s no Tony…’

“Imagine all the children, passing Maths GCSE,” it begins, before exhorting the kids to take the exam, because, “it’s easy if you try”.

Well, the good news is that, while the rest of the song remains pie-in-the-sky, Lennon’s exam dream has come to pass.

The Telegraph reveals that, in order to avoid “mass failure” (and thus, presumably, mass self-harming, mass suicide, mass self-esteem-lowering and mass counselling), an exam board has lowered its pass mark.

The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority said it was “confident that this year’s students got the grades they deserved”. And a big hug too, we hope.’

Posted: 15th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Access All Areas

‘THE security in this country is a joke. Well, that must be the conclusion reached by Carole Caplin, anyway.

Carole’s Bristol flats

It turns out that Cherie Blair’s “lifestyle guru” is in possession of a swipecard which allows her access to Number 10, bringing vital supplies of healing crystals, secret potions, and beautiful lipsticks.

The Telegraph reports that the security officers have now removed the card, presumably on the grounds that the number of passes allocated to nutcases had exceeded the usual quota.

The fools! Do they really believe that this will be the end of the matter? A woman of Caplin’s powers will laugh at their pathetic attempts to spot her.

At this moment she is sitting in a circle of perfumed candles, daubing herself in menstrual blood and humming loudly.

Within a matter of hours she will have used magical mental energy to transport the whole of Downing Street from its present location, rebuilding itself around a new epicentre at the exact point where she sits, atop a secret lay-line somewhere in a field near Hereford.’

Posted: 12th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

The Boys Who Didn’t Cry Wolf

‘TONY Blair hasn’t yet been accused of ordering a hit on Robin Cook’s friend Anna Lindh.

Captain blames agressive sardines for boat damage

And there was more good news for the beleaguered PM yesterday, when he was cleared of all responsibility for the damage done to HMS Nottingham during its encounter with Wolf Rock in the South Pacific last year.

In case you didn’t know, Wolf Rock is not a Scandinavian rock singer, Californian porn actor, or a former star of the once-popular Gladiators TV show. It is a rock sticking out of the sea near Lord Howe Island.

And the officers of HMS Nottingham thought it was moonlight reflecting on the water. Or rather, the officers in charge at the time of the incident thought that.

The Times reports that the rest were on shore having a knees-up with some Australian sailors who had lent them assistance earlier when one of the crew needed medical treatment.

While the party was in full swing the remaining shower managed to cock-up the navigation – hence the prang. Cue collapse of stout party plus ship.

Yesterday the top men were given a slap on the wrist at the court martial and the rest were sentenced to 100 hours community service, to be spent mending old age pensioners’ boats and repairing damaged rocks in underprivileged neighbourhoods.’

Posted: 12th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Slax Lovin’ Criminals

‘ATTENTION! You are under arrest!

‘Trust me – I’m middle class’

Yes, you, the people reading this in your leather-upholstered office chairs and your luxury caravans. You, the stout citizens of Middle England. You, the so-called “respectable middle classes”.

Turns out you’re not so respectable at all. Indeed, you’re a bunch of tea-leaves, fraudsters and all-round chancers, who couldn’t be trusted to run a whelk stall – or shop at one without using some dodgy pretext to demand a refund.

But don’t take our word for it (after all, we’re as middle class as the next website, and wouldn’t know the truth if it hit us in the eye).

No, this news of something rotten in the state of Britain comes courtesy of the Telegraph, which reports a Keele University survey which found that most middle-class people fiddle insurance claims, return worn clothes to shops, keep the extra money when overchanged, and also rip-off customers while running their own businesses.

The survey dismisses the conventional criminal stereotype of “a young man in his early 20s wearing scruffy jeans”. Quite so.

Today’s self-respecting criminal is an altogether more attractive proposition, with his folded-up Telegraph, cashmere cardigan and immaculate Comfi-Slax (three pairs for £20 from the usual address – or a tenner in cash in the golf club car park).

Make that a fiver for masons.’

Posted: 12th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Stockholm Syndrome

‘IF you wondered why Tony Blair has been dragging his feet on the euro referendum, it’s not just because he knows he has no chance of winning it.

Anna Lindh, who died this morning

He will also be mindful of the fate of Sweden’s pro-euro foreign minister, Anna Lindh, who was stabbed in the stomach and chest as she went shopping in Stockholm yesterday.

Police say it is too early to know whether the attack was politically motivated, but both sides in the country’s euro referendum, due to be held this weekend, said they would stop campaigning until the picture became clearer.

As for Mrs Lindh, the Telegraph says she was operated on for five hours in hospital, where her condition is said to be serious. She has since sadly died.

‘The stabbing appalled Swedish voters, who are used to placid political consensus, with voices barely raised in television debates and good manners prevailing on the hustings,’ it says.

What effect the stabbing will have on the weekend’s vote is not clear, but you can be sure that Blair is keeping his beady eye on things.

If, for instance, there is a sudden rush of sympathy votes towards the ‘yes’ camp, Blair will no doubt be busy selecting a minister to take a bullet for the pro-European cause.

Home Secretary David Blunkett would be the obvious choice – he’s pro-European, he’s a Blairite loyalist and of course he’s blind.

That means not only would he not be able to identify the grinning idiot who shot him, but Blair could go for double sympathy points by plugging his guide dog too.

However, while we are looking to Sweden for political lessons, Blair should cast his mind back to 1986.

Olof Palme, then prime minister of Sweden, was gunned down as he walked home from a night at the cinema with his wife. The gunman has never been caught.’

Posted: 11th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

In The Dark

‘LEEDS has been voted the favourite UK city by readers of Conde Nast Traveller – ‘arguably the most discerning travellers in the land’.

Leeds, City Of Lights

‘Visitors found that they could enjoy such shopping meccas as the upmarket department store Harvey Nichols or the country’s first Marks & Spencer and stay in one of several boutique hotels such as 42 The Calls,’ says the Independent.

It also has the distinct advantage over London (which came in second) that it has electricity 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Today is the two-week anniversary of the worst blackout in a decade when a large part of the capital was plunged into darkness and passengers stranded on the Tube.

And we now know the reason – a contractor had installed the wrong fuse…two years ago.

The 1,000-amp relay was mistakenly put in place in June 2001 rather than a 5,000-amp relay and had lain undetected ever since.

National Grid said it was an isolated incident, blaming ‘a sod’s law sequence of events’ for the 41-minute shutdown on August 28.

In other words, two weeks on we’re just as much in the dark as we were that night.

But at least it can be said that never was so much owed by so many to some fuse.’

Posted: 11th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Bin Laden: The Movie

‘TODAY is the second anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon – and to commemorate the date Osama Bin Laden has released a special video.

Is THIS Lord Lucan?

The short film was aired on Al Jazeera TV and showed the bearded Arsenal fan wandering through the mountains with his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri in a kind of Arabic version of Hugh Hudson’s famous Kinnock: The Movie.

However, what the terrorist mastermind has to say is far more pernicious than anything that came out of the mouth of the Welsh windbag, if equally as unintelligible.

‘I say to them, he who fears climbing mountains will live in pits and holes,’ Bin Laden says, in what sounds like an extract from his speech at the launch of the al-Qaeda Mountaineering Club.

In another extract, he says: ‘He who is not persuaded to kill should leave the path open.’

And in a further extract, a voice (probably that of al-Zawahiri) urges followers to ‘devour the Americans as lions devour their prey’.

In other words, be on the look-out for indecisive abseiling cannibals.

The Times says Bin Laden looked ‘thin but well’ in the tape, which was apparently recorded in April or early May and is his first new release since December 13 2001.

His beard even seemed less grey than in previous videos, suggesting that even in the remote mountainous region between Afghanistan and Pakistan there were adequate supplies of Grecian 2000.

Meanwhile, President Bush has released his own message to mark the anniversary of 9/11, although he omitted to mention Bin Laden by name (presumably to hide US embarrassment at the failure to capture him).

‘The forces of global terror cannot be appeased and they cannot be ignored,’ he said. ‘They must be hunted, they must be found and they will be defeated.’

President Bush’s video has yet to be analysed properly, but early indications are that it is probably genuine.

However, the inclusion of a three-syllable word in the speech has cast doubt on its authenticity.’

Posted: 11th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Making A Mocha-ry

‘ETON’S first tuckshop, as our well-heeled readers will of course know, was called School Stores and sold ‘sock’, which is Etonian slang for tuck, which is English public school slang for food.

‘Grande skinny latte, wet and with wings’

Tuck (or sock) was an essential supplement for meagre, and often rank, school food, especially at Eton where the local butcher used to provide the school with ‘boys’ meat’, produce that was so unsavoury it had already been deemed unsuitable for dogs.

We give you this little history lesson (courtesy of the Times) by way of introduction to the news that Charterhouse, another English public school, is closing its tuckshop and replacing it with a Starbucks.

The American coffee chain has signed a franchise agreement with the school, by which (for an annual fee) Charterhouse will use Starbucks equipment and distribute its publicity material around the school.

It will also provide our leaders of tomorrow with coffee for only 50p, compared with high street prices of, say, £2.15. We presume it will be ‘boys’ coffee’.

The Times put on its best Billy Bunter voice and warns that the move may spell the end of the tuckshop, ‘an English peculiar’.

‘No other race,’ it says, ‘makes such a tradition of sending its children who are neither criminal nor mad away to boarding school.’

Neither criminal nor mad when they arrive maybe, but one and normally both when they leave…’

Posted: 10th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

No Nudes Is Bad News

‘WHEN you think of Southend, you think of high art. You don’t? Well, you should do.

Especially for Southend theatregoers, Glynis Barber’s breast

The Essex seaside resort was one of the first names on the list to sign up a touring production of the West End hit, The Graduate.

And it, er, holds a pantomime every Christmas.

But even connoisseurs of fine art like the good burghers of Southend have their standards and, when they learned that Glynis Barber – the blonde bird from Dempsey & Makepeace who plays Mrs Robinson in The Graduate – keeps her kit on for the entire play, they were not happy.

They had been promised nudity – and nudity is what they wanted.

Now, according to the Telegraph, the Cliffs Pavilion Theatre are threatening to axe the show, claiming that it was misled.

But the show’s producer Sacha Brooks insisted that he had never promised nudity.

‘We have never insisted on nudity and every actress who played it in London played it slightly differently, playing with the towel in a different way,’ he said.

‘For the tour, I honestly don’t know what Glynis is wearing under the towel. I do know that she wears nothing on top, but that’s all I can say.’

In other words, you can see her tits, but not her bits. Put that on your publicity posters…’

Posted: 10th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Star Chamber

‘ANYONE would have thought that the United States was a crime-free Arcadia judging by the enthusiasm of us Brits for stealing policing and judicial policies from the other side of the Atlantic.

Iain Duncan Smith and Oliver Letwin announce their new anti-crime initiative

Zero tolerance, three strikes and you’re out, unlimited detention without trial are just some of the aberrations to flow from the New World to the Old.

But when we last looked, not only did the United States have one of the highest crime rates in the developed world, but it had the highest prison population and some of the most repressive and illiberal criminal legislation.

Would it not make more sense to look, say, towards Scandinavia which has far lower crime rates than the UK and a far smaller prison population?

We say this because the Guardian reports this morning that the Tories’ response to news that Home Secretary David Blunkett is importing a US cop to teach the British bobby how to administer Rodney King-style beatings is to call for directly elected US-style sheriffs.

Shadow Home Secretary Oliver Letwin will air the proposal at a meeting with police today.

‘We are determined to let the stimulus for such policing come from local populations rather than from above,’ he will say.

Of course, this may be just an excuse to allow Iain Duncan Smith to fulfil a childhood dream and pin a star to his suit jacket.

However, the chances of him being able to say ‘There’s a new sheriff in town’ remain as slim as Calista Flockhart on an Atkins’ Diet.’

Posted: 10th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Old Cock And Bull

‘IT was one of the great remaining mysteries of the 20th Century – what on earth happened to heavy drinking Lancashire folk singer Barry Halpin?

At home in St Helens

A well-known character in the pubs and clubs of north-west England who always addressed friends as ‘old cock’, Barry disappeared from view in the mid-1970s.

But thanks to a new book by former Scotland Yard detective Duncan MacLoughlin, we (and the rest of the world) now know that Barry drank himself to death in Goa, southern India, in 1996.

All well and good, except that Mr MacLoughlin had set out to solve another of the great mysteries of the 20th Century – what happened to disgraced peer Lord Lucan?

Mr MacLoughlin’s extensive investigations – chatting to a couple of old blokes in a pub – had led him to suggest that Richard Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan, and Jungle Barry were one and the same person.

But this morning the papers are queuing up to debunk the theory, even before the book Dead Lucky has hit the shelves.

In a letter to the Guardian, folk singer and comedian Mike Harding said he had cried with laughter when he first read the suggestion.

‘To think that anyone could mistake my old pal Barry Halpin for Lord Lucan,’ he said.

The Telegraph says Barry Halpin’s death was reported in his local paper, the St Helens Reporter, as the ‘dearly loved brother of Rita and Mildred’.

And it finds plenty of people in St Helens who remember the ‘somewhat unconventional teacher who always walked the two miles to work’.

So, what do the book’s authors and publishers make of all this?

They are sticking by their story, claiming that Lord Lucan took on the banjo-playing teacher’s identity.

‘We have always said that Lord Lucan did take on an alias,’ Mr MacLoughlin (who resigned from Scotland Yard after being suspended) tells the Telegraph.

‘I would like to think I am a professional investigator. I wouldn’t have got involved in this if I thought it was a sham.’

Mr MacLoughlin is now working to solve another of the great modern riddles – whatever did happen to Ian Minnis, the landlord of Flashman’s pub in Halifax?’

Posted: 9th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment (1)

Turning Back Time

‘AGE catches up with us all eventually – and this morning we learn that it has overtaken even the Iron Lady.

‘Ah, it seems I’ll be 65 again tomorrow’

In an interview with the Times, Sir Bernard Ingham paints a bleak picture of Lady Thatcher, ‘the woman who ruled the nation with a grip of iron for a decade’.

‘She is physically not too bad,’ he said, ‘although she’s shrunken with age and is thin. She has very little short-term memory left.’

However, Sir Bernard, her former press secretary, says the 77-year-old ex-PM, who has suffered a series of strokes, is still working.

‘She sits there and she either has something on her mind,’ he says, ‘or I am expected to tell her what’s on my mind and it goes on from there and she asks questions and takes notes.’

Is it too late to dream of a comeback for la grande dame of the British political scene?

Perhaps not, with news in the Telegraph that fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld has discovered the secret to permanent youth – lying about your age.

The German will celebrate his 65th birthday tomorrow, 70 years after his birth – and you don’t need to be a retired Scotland Yard detective to realise that something is amiss.

But Lagerfeld, who looks more like a Thunderbird puppet with every passing day, attributes his new-found youth to a diet of horsemeat and hare.

By the way, whatever did happen to Virgil Tracy?’

Posted: 9th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Boxing Match

‘WHEN David Blaine chose London as the venue for his latest stunt – spending 44 days without food in a glass box – he should have done his homework.

‘First one to knock him off wins’

For, instead of gawping in awe at the American’s endurance, the British crowd have decided to put it to the test by pelting the box with eggs and golf balls.

In his two previous stunts in New York, Blaine has drawn large audiences both live and on TV, most of whom have been there to cheer him on.

In London, not only has he had to contend with a volley of golf balls hit from nearby Tower Bridge, women baring their breasts at him and someone trying to throw their fish and chips over him, but the crowd has been numbered in the hundreds rather than the thousands.

One man was apparently so bored of watching the sleeping Blaine on TV that he turned up at the river with a set of drums intent on waking him up.

Blaine’s girlfriend Manon von Gerkan tells the Independent: ‘I find it quite bizarre that people here have felt it necessary to throw eggs and other things at David.

‘We never had anything like this in New York – the worst we got was the odd ‘fuck off’. I must say I find these kind of people really strange.’

Unlike a man who spends six weeks shut inside a glass box, 35 hours standing on top of a large pole, 61 hours entombed in ice, a week buried alive…’

Posted: 9th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Going Potty

‘WHAT exactly does this Labour government have to do to surrender its lead in the opinion polls?

‘This country’s going to pot’

At a time when it is bogged down in Iraq after going to war on the flimsiest of evidence and against the wishes of the majority of the country, when it is mired in rows over spin and when it has lost the support of its traditional trades union base, it still holds a comfortable five-point lead over the Tories in today’s Times poll.

One can only imagine the circumstances in which Iain Duncan Smith could win a popular vote to become Prime Minister.

Tony Blair would have just invaded Sweden, having personally ordered the intelligence service to fabricate evidence that Stockholm was preparing to flood Britain with faulty Volvos and flat-pack furniture that was impossible to put together.

Euan Blair would have admitted to having participated in an orgy of sex, drugs and healing crystals with his mother’s adviser Carole Caplin and her new boyfriend, Jimmy “Four Fingers” Malone.

And Mr Duncan Smith’s head would have suddenly sprouted hair amid revelations that he once beat Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Tony Blair in a jamming session to find the world’s best guitarist.

In the meantime, the machinery of government turns as usual, two examples of which we see on the front page of this morning’s Times.

In the first, we hear how in yesterday’s mock-up of a terror attack on central London firefighters had to practise with 13-stone dummies because the Health & Safety Executive would not allow them to use real people.

In the second, we read that the Department of Trade & Industry has just produced a six-page, 2,000-word booklet to tell staff how best to arrange pot plants in their office.

For instance, in departments which have adopted the New Ways Of Working scheme (which is “open-plan, having new-style furniture and soft/seating/breakout areas), staff are allowed one 5-6ft plant every three to four seats.

In departments which have not yet adopted New Ways Of Working, staff are allowed one plant per 120 sq m of usable floor space (UFA), excluding corridors and kitchens.

In departments with nothing better to do than to produce this bureaucratic nonsense, staff are advised to bring in triffids or any other form of man-eating vegetation.’

Posted: 8th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Who Are You Lucan At?

‘WITH such examples of official stupidity, it is little wonder that Lord Lucan wanted to get as far away from these shores as possible.

‘Tony Blair did it’

True, he also had the small matter of being in the frame for the murder of nanny Sandra Rivett, whose body was found in the basement of his Belgravia flat in 1974.

But it is as Britain’s most famous missing person that Richard Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan, is most widely known. Either that or as Jungle Barry.

In a book published this week, former Scotland Yard detective Duncan MacLaughlin claims that Lucan lived as a bearded hippie in a beach commune in Goa, southern India, until his death in 1996.

According to the Independent, he scraped a meagre living playing backgammon and leading jungle trips for Western tourists.

Although there is no DNA evidence to prove that Lord Lucan and Jungle Barry are one and the same person, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence.

For instance, a former landlady recalled that Barry told her he had walked to Goa from Bombay, having arrived in India from Africa in the mid-1970s.

But she only became convinced her lodger was the missing earl when she noticed on a photo that he had no ear lobes.

“The one thing that upset Barry was the fact that he couldn’t wear earrings like the rest of the hippies,” she said.

Tomorrow, how Shergar disguised himself as a donkey and has spent that last two decades giving rides to children along Margate beach.’

Posted: 8th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Magical Mystery Tour

‘WITH the fate of Lord Lucan possibly established, this morning’s papers turn to the job of debunking other mysteries.

‘Iain Duncan who?

The Independent reports that scientists have finally come up with a rational explanation for those who have experienced the spine-chilling sensation associated with the presence of a ghost.

Apparently, it is due to nothing more sinister than infrasound – notes so low they can be felt but not heard – which could be produced, for instance, by passing traffic.

“To test the human reaction to these tones, researchers played deep bass notes to a classical music audience through a 7in modified sewer pipe,” the paper says.

“Many in the audience complained of anxiety or shivers down the spine.”

Meanwhile, researchers in the Guardian have solved another of the acoustic world’s riddles – why a duck’s quack has no echo.

The answer is apparently that it does, but it’s very hard to hear.

Some mysteries, however, seem destined to remain unsolved – like why the Tory party ever chose Iain Duncan Smith as their leader.’

Posted: 8th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Hoon Are You?

‘CONTINUING our ‘And what do you do for a living?’ investigation into the personnel of Government, we turn to the Independent and say, ‘Tell us about yourself, Richard Taylor’.

Close the door on your way out

Richard Taylor is the fresh-faced special advisor to Mr Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary.

This makes Mr Taylor a very important man, and to prove his worth he added his name to the list of those who have been asked to speak at the super exclusive Hutton Inquiry Club And Grill.

Take it away, Richard.

‘We [at a meeting including the Defence Secretary] explicitly talked through if a direct name was put,’ says Taylor, words reproduced by the Times. ‘It was agreed that it would not be tenable to say ‘no’ because it would be to lie.’

The long and short of this is that Taylor has contradicted his boss, the man he is paid to advise.

For the benefit of many of you who might have nodded off or have been getting shot at in Iraq for the past few weeks, the Times repeats Hoon’s version of events.

‘I did not see the question and answer, and played no part in its preparation, but I was aware of the advice that I had received that if the right name was given to an MoD press officer they should confirm it,’ said Hoon days ago.

This is exciting stuff for the last day of the Inquiry’s first stage, and we wonder what will happen when the Club reconvenes for stage 2 on September 15.

But since that’s more than 45 minutes away, we might all be dead by then or in the throes of Anthrax poisoning…’

Posted: 5th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Tree Surgery

‘HOW are you adapting to climate change?

‘I’d rather be back in Spain’

It’s getting hotter out there, and in an effort to survive we must all adapt our lifestyles.

Tony Blair’s been in the Caribbean, acclimatising himself to the new English summer like the radical he is. Isn’t it time you did the same?

These things cannot be left to chance. The time to act is now.

And signs are that the slowest moving among us are already suffering. We talk not of the old and the infirm, but of trees.

The Independent says that the indigenous tree population is finding the new heat uncomfortable. The paper says that our plants are ‘stressed-out’ and ‘thirsty’.

Tree huggers could lace their watering cans with one part Prozac to 20 parts water, but the signs are that it might already be too late. The only remedy might be to import foreign trees.

Dr Mark Broadway, a man in the upper branches of the Forestry Commission, and an expert in Weapons of Moss Destruction, says that we must plan for the future.

So it’s out with the old oak, beach and yew and in with new almond, walnut and the sweet chestnut.

This sounds like good news for squirrels, but with the weather warming at such a pace, they’ll soon be eaten by the lions and trampled underfoot by the herds of wild buffalo scurrying majestically over the Surrey Downs.’

Posted: 5th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Belly Laughs

‘SECONDARY school children in Manchester will soon be able to study an A-level in Transvestism And Its Impact On Modern Media Studies In The Early 21st Century.

‘His empathy tits are bigger than mine’

Other modules in cross-dressing are yet to be approved by the regional education authority, but parents should be unconcerned if their son borrows mum’s bra for his coursework and daughter opts to shave that hairy top lip.

As part of this cutting-edge social study, students have been introduced to the Empathy Belly. And the Times was there to watch one local lad try it on for size.

“I can’t play football wearing this lot,” says Andrew Bridge, a 15-year-old, who is seen strapped into a corset with an in-built bulging tummy and heavy breasts.

We could point out that this never stopped Paul Gascoigne from kicking ball, but if Andrew is willing he might like to try cricket instead, a move many big-boned men have made with great success.

But this is not all about Andrew. There’s the life of a gallon and a half of warm water at stake.

The aim is to educate teenage boys of GCSE age in what it means to carry a baby, and, in turn, what the implications are for that fumble in the backseat of the stolen BMW.

Of course, in nine months time, Andrew and his ilk will have no product to show for their pains, no gurgling, kicking bundle of fun – no new council house, no free groceries and not that thing that locks the toilet seat.

But if the lads want some of the trappings of young parenthood they can always ask one of their female classmates to borrow theirs when they’ve finished with them…’

Posted: 5th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Passport To Success

”IMMIGRANT not ignorant’ – Anorak 2003.

Q1 How did this man get a career on TV?

It’s catchy, it fits on a badge, it’s new Labour, and it’s the kind of motto we expect to see embossed on the cover of David Blunkett’s Living In The United Kingdom handbook.

The Guardian says that this book will include a short introduction to British history, beginning in 1997 and taking us through the landmark birth of Leo Blair and the saving of Iraq.

It will be required reading for new arrivals to this fair land who wish to set up permanent home here. And, in the truest traditions of all things British, modern and cool, there will be a test.

In keeping with the mood of the GCSE, the Independent, as with all the papers, gives us clues as to what the actual questions will be.

The questions are pretty straightforward: ‘Who is the Prime Minister?’ This is the most important question, deserving of its No.1 spot, and we advise all potential immigrants reading today to answer ‘Tony Blair, Son of God’.

But questions like ‘When was Britain last invaded?’; ‘What is the minimum wage?’ and the odd ‘How do you pay your phone bill?’ seem out of kilter with modern manners.

So we’ve taken the chance to produce our own list of questions for the citizenship test. We expect this to be big success, and advise Paul Ross to keep a space open his diary for a daytime TV version.

Round one. 1) What is a Faliraki Moon? 2) Is your incredibly talented child called Max, Jack or Joshua? 3) Jordan or Jodie? Discuss. 4) What is Dr Atkins a doctor of? 5) Who is Harry Windsor’s dad?

Round two tie-breaker. Complete the following sentence in 12 words or less: ‘I want to come and live in the United Kingdom because…’

The winner will receive a passport, a council house and a satellite dish. Ten runners-up will each get a town in the north east of England.’

Posted: 4th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Tories Have A Prayer

‘IF you were Iain Duncan Smith what would you pray for?

‘She just asked me when I was going to move into Downing Street!’

Got it in one – we too would pray that we were someone else.

But God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to perform – and the Tories hope that She in the big Central Office in the air has a blue heart to go with the blonde mane and shapely ankle.

So the Tories have turned to prayer. And the Guardian has tapped into the group’s hotline to God, locating the conduit at an official Conservative website, run by the spine-shudderingly-named Conservative Christian Fellowship.

What the paper sees, and reproduces for its readers, is a prayer for every day of the week.

On Monday we close our eyes and ‘pray that he [IDS] will continue to be influenced by the often desperate plight of many people and communities in Britain’.

Such as Her Majesty’s opposition in Westminster, Jeffrey Archer and Anthea Turner.

We must also pray for IDS’s family. ‘Pray that Iain Duncan Smith’s commitments to keep the media’s prying eyes from his children’s lives will be successful.’ Amen to that.

That’s Monday covered. On Wednesday things are a little more desperate. ‘Pray for MPs Andrew Selous and Gary Streeter as they seek to approach a number of potentially high value donors to secure money for some major CCF initiatives in the coming year.’ Hallelujah!

On Saturday there’s another prayer for the forsaken Mr Selous, perhaps triggered by his role as CCF parliamentary chairman.

And no rest for the good and true as on Sunday Conservatives are beseeched to pray for Graham Clark (CCF treasurer and also Christians in Politics project manager) ‘that he will be successful in his bid to raise £500pa from Christian charities’. May God grant him the cash to succeed.

From not having a prayer, the Tories now have over a dozen. Meanwhile, the Labour party has but one – that IDS continues to be Tory leader for many years to come…’

Posted: 4th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Scrambled Eggs

‘AND so to our Hutton Inquiry word or phrase of the day.

‘Saddam had the chickens, but we have no evidence they were producing eggs’

After ‘sexed-up’, ‘You lying scum, Tony’ and ‘It was him’, the Telegraph introduces the world to ‘over-egged’.

In context the phrase, as uttered by Brian Jones, runs: ‘There was a tendency to over-egg certain assessments about [the] production of chemical weapons.’

Of course, with each new phrase there is a new witness, and today’s, Brian Jones, is described in the Guardian as a ‘top analyst in the defence intelligence staff’.

The paper lists the other highlights of his evidence. ‘Iraq’s weapons capacity was not accurately represented in the dossier,’ says the first.

‘Complaints from experts were ignored after ‘the shutters came down’,’ says the second.

Those would be the bombproof shutters that have just been activated along Downing Street.

According to a new dossier we all have four minutes to live. Or not, as the case may be…’

Posted: 4th, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Doing Bird

‘FOOTBALLERS have fans, anoraks have enthusiasts, the Sun has paedophiles on every park bench and parrots have fanciers.

The parrot who sang like a canary

And the parrot fancier of the day, the champion among this niche demographic is Lee Gardiner, a man who makes the cover of today’s Times, along with a shameless photograph of an Amazona aestiva, a South American Amazon parrot of no known name.

The paper finds no evidence that shots of parrots have been circulated via the Internet, and no fading pop star or TV light-entertainer has been taken into custody.

This is the story of one sick obsessive who worked alone.

Lee Gardiner is his name, and yesterday Maidstone Crown Court heard how, while working as a banker, he transferred money from elderly and disabled clients into his own account in order to fund his passion for rare birds.

Most ingrate bankers and City types’ idea of an exotic bird is catching Ukrainian dancer Ogle Olga at the Tart And Filofax pub – but Gardiner likes his birds with feathers.

In all, he stole around £2.1m, spending £450,000 on tropical parrots and cockatoos and £250,000 on 20 luxury aviaries – oh, and he splashed out what was left on a fleet of high-performance cars and four homes.

It’s a shame he never found space in his diseased heart for our own domestic feathered friends. And we ask: What’s the matter, Lee, British birds not good enough for you? Snob!

Well, they’re good enough for the patriotic Guardian, which trumps the Times’ dalliance with exotica with a great tit in profile.

But don’t be surprised if you don’t see one in reality because they are dying.

The paper says that the British Trust for Ornithology have spotted that 29 of the 105 main UK bird species are in decline.

So let’s act before it’s too late.

If you see a sparrow getting into a car with a stranger or a greater spotted woodpecker taking grain from a man carrying a large net, tell the authorities immediately.

This is a cancer that must be cut out!’

Posted: 3rd, September 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment