Ties That Blind

‘BOB Hope’s a lucky man. A strange thing to say maybe about a man who died yesterday at the age of 100 and who once said: ‘Dying is to be avoided – it can ruin your whole career.’

‘You just want to do it a little tighter, Mr President’

But, judging by the picture on the front page of the Independent, things could have been a lot worse for the king of the one-liner.

For in the picture (taken in 1954), Hope is wearing a tie – a sartorial choice that could easily have caused him to go blind.

The Guardian reports that eye specialists in New York believe a knot around the neck may increase the risk of glaucoma, a condition that can lead to loss of sight.

The paper says ‘men with thick necks and white-collar professionals’ will be unduly affected in what it calls ‘a fresh blow to the jacket-and-tie culture’.

‘The verdict will encourage men who prefer an open-necked dress code,’ the paper says, ‘but it could spell trouble for those who have tried to make ties fashion accessories rather than statements about their wearers’ old school or club.’

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Posted: 29th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Hey-Hey, Are You Ready To Pay?

‘AS if the BBC didn’t have enough on its plate at the moment, it is under fire from the United Nations for encouraging children to put too much on their plate.

‘You can smoke with us, snort coke with us…’

A report into advertising by fast-food firms slams the Corporation for allowing characters from the Tweenies to promote junk food.

In their time, says the Telegraph, the Tweenies have featured on the packaging for McDonald’s Happy Meals – high in sugar, saturated fat and salt.

They have also helped to sell Marks & Spencer’s Tweenies children’s meal and Heinz Tweenies pasta shapes – both of which contain high levels or sugar and/or salt.

The UN report says the food industry’s advertising budget is a staggering £25bn – more than the GDP of 70 per cent of the world’s countries.

For every £1 the World Health Organisation spends on preventing diseases caused by Western diets, the food industry spends more than £500 promoting those diets.

The BBC said it was carrying out a review of all its food licensing.

However, Jake and Fizz insisted that they would not be cancelling their lucrative association with Lardy Burgers & Kebab House in Peckham.

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Posted: 29th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Sins Of The Fathers

‘HAD Saddam Hussein been a better dad, his sons Uday and Qusay might never have embarked on a career of unremitting brutality, according to a leading academic.

‘You need a good smack,’ said the angry teacher. ‘Ruddy paedos are everywhere,’ thought William

Professor Priscilla Alderson says that children are being diagnosed as having special needs when all they need is a bit more parental attention.

In fact, normal childhood traits like restlessness and excitability could be ‘treated’ by traditional methods such as allowing children to play in parks and to climb trees.

‘Money is behind all this,’ Professor Alderson says. ‘Psychologists want the work, and lower the diagnosis threshold accordingly.

‘Playgrounds and parks are empty, because of the scare stories about abductions. But children need the space and freedom to play, run and climb – without that, they are restless, and come to be seen as abnormally ‘hyperactive’.

‘About eight children are murdered outside the home each year, compared with about 50 inside. Cooping up children inside homes is not going to do them any good.’

The Times says teachers have also complained about the number of children diagnosed as having special needs because it gives them an excuse to escape discipline.

‘When you give a kid a syndrome, you give him an excuse,’ said one special needs teacher.

If Just William (from the books by Richmal Crompton) had been at school today, he would have been swept off to see an educational psychiatrist, claims the Times.

And he and his gang would almost certainly have been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and put on Ritalin.

And had Saddam given Uday and Qusay a cuddle every now and then, they might never have embarked on a career of indiscriminate rape, murder and torture.

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Posted: 28th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Passing The Buck

‘THE high-level game of ‘pass the buck’ continues as the row over who was responsible for Dr David Kelly’s death spills over into another week.

‘And leave the buck on your desk on the way out’

When last we looked, Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon was left holding the aforementioned ‘buck’ after a particularly adept pass from Prime Minister Tony Blair.

But Mr Hoon’s efforts to slip it into the hands of another have come unstuck this morning as his claim never to have spoken to Dr Kelly was exposed as false.

The Guardian says the MoD has now admitted that Mr Hoon had a conversation with the scientist ‘some months ago’ after being collared in the staff canteen.

‘It is believed that the scientist, Britain’s pre-eminent expert on Saddam Hussein’s chemical and biological arms programme, used the chance meeting to warn him there was not enough evidence for a war against Iraq,’ he said.

And also to advise him to avoid the bread and butter pudding.

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Posted: 28th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Peer Pressure

‘WITH Dr David Kelly’s sad demise, Britain’s pre-eminent expert on chemical and biological weapons is now none other than Jeffrey Archer.

No longer to be known as Lord Liar – just Liar

In fact, it was Archer’s pioneering work in the field of molecular biology in the 1960s that allowed Kelly to develop many of his own insights.

Thus it is with great sadness that we learn in the Telegraph that a new law could see Archer stripped of his peerage as a result of his brave – and brilliant – undercover expose of prison life.

Lord Falconer, the new Lord Chancellor, said the Government planned to change the law to bring the House of Lords in line with the House of Commons.

‘If you are convicted of an offence for 12 months or over, then you should be disbarred from sitting and voting, and you also need to think about having your peerage taken away,’ he said.

Archer was yesterday far too busy to think about having his peerage taken away – he was five days into his attempt to become the first man to swim the Atlantic…both ways.

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Posted: 28th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Heads Up

‘IN days of yore, the victors in battle would stick the heads of enemies on top of pikes and display them as a warning to all.

Spot ten diffences between the photo on the left and the one on the right to win a ‘Che Hussein’ T-shirt

Now the Americans use the wonders of photography to take a few shots to shock the world into inaction against their might.

On the front page of today’s Telegraph, readers get to see such propaganda in the dead eyes of Uday and Qusay Hussein, formerly sons of Saddam Hussein and examples of George Bush’s ‘evil folks’.

And these heads talk. If you press the button marked ‘Rumsfeld’, as the Telegraph does, a voiceover crackles into life.

‘I honestly believe these are particularly bad characters,’ says the US defence secretary, ‘and it’s important for the Iraqi people to see them, to know that they’re dead, and to know that they’re not coming back.

Countering the Rumsfeld line is the one picked up by the Guardian, which says that 80% of respondents to a poll conducted by an Iraqi newspaper think the pictures are a fabrication.

The land of Hollywood could produce such gruesome images, for sure. But the paper also says that today cameramen will be invited to get up close and personal with the cadavers and take pictures for themselves.

Robert Fisk, writing all over the cover of the Independent, says that Iraqis ‘will pore over the all-too-soon-to-be-iconic photographs of Uday and Qusay, and their reactions will be quite unlike what many of us expect’.

Move over, Che Guevara – there’s a new T-shirt on the way in Baghdad…

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Posted: 25th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Jail Breaks

‘NO sooner does one famous prisoner get out than another makes a dash for freedom. Almost treading on the heels of Jeffrey Archer is Tony Martin, the farmer jailed for killing a burglar.

Farmers enforce a strict ‘no trainers’ policy at the local barn dance

The Telegraph says that Martin has been transferred to a safe house – presumably one with an alarm system and no loaded firearms – in readiness for his release on Monday.

Before he goes, the Prison Service would do well to canvass the man on his experiences at Highpoint jail, Suffolk.

His opinions could then be included in their league table of the best and worst places to be locked up.

Thanks to the undercover work of the aforesaid Archer, the Times can tell us that the top prison to be in is Altcourse, Liverpool. ‘Staff are helpful and friendly,’ says the brochure.

The least desirable prison to be in – other than anywhere Archer is at work – is Holloway, London. Anyone considering a break in the women’s prison should know that ‘there is still a cockroach problem on some wings’.

The survey omits to mention which wings, but we have asked Jeff and he assures us that Wing C is the pick of the bunch, with Cells H and G offering the best views on the Himalayas, which he memorably conquered in the 1940s.

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Posted: 25th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Major Pain

‘REMEMBER Major Charles Ingram, the quiz show contestant who won and then lost a million?

It’s not a hamster – it’s a rat

Well, he’s now lost his job, having been ordered to resign his Army commission by a military tribunal.

The Times gives the brighter news that Ingram can keep his £13,000 annual pension and a ‘gratuity’ of up to £30,000, a trinket open to anyone who has served in the Army for over 16 years. Ingram has served for 17 years.

‘I am not, and never have been a spy for the Chinese Government,’ says Ingram as he spoke with the Times. ‘Also, regretfully, I am not contracted to advertise any brand of cough medicine.’

But will he still keep his rank? The paper uses the Ingram case to highlight other majors who have hung onto the title long after leaving the job.

The ‘cad’ Major James Hewitt gets a mention as does Major Major, the epitome of mediocrity in Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, and the Major in TV’s Fawlty Towers, a man condemned to ‘live out his days in a bad hotel’.

Of course, if Ingram breaks the terms of his suspended jail sentence, he could soon be in a hotel himself.

We hear from Jeffrey Archer that Hollesley Bay offers a great budget deal…

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Posted: 25th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Take Your Pic

‘FOR Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth, 36, and Sapper Luke Allsopp, 24, read Uday and Qusay Hussein.

Black Beauty and the beast

After Tony Blair’s professed ‘horror’ at Arab broadcaster al-Jazeera’s move to broadcast images of the bodies of the fallen British soldiers, and talk of a flagrant violation of the Geneva Convention, the Telegraph says that the US plans to release pictures of the bodies of Saddam Hussein’s killed sons.

And hold any thoughts that the shots might be triumphalist in any way.

George Bush has some words on the matter: ‘Now more than ever, all Iraqis can know that the former regime is gone and will not be coming back’.

This is some news for those who thought the regime’s head was called Saddam and not Uday or Qusay.

But when Bush speaks his colleague Tony Blair can never be far from a microphone.

The Guardian duly hears Tony say that the killings are ‘a very important step forward’ and a ‘great day for the new Iraq’.

Surely a better step forward would have been to have arrested the pair and asked them where those weapons of mass destruction could be found, if there are any to find.

The second question could have asked them where ‘dad’ was.

But there was little chance of the Hussein boys walking out of their three-storey sandstone and red-tiled house alive, not after the Times sees their hideout ‘pulverised after five hours of bullets and shells’.

The papers then gives a version of the gun fight, in which US soldiers fire with ‘scattergun inaccuracy’ at the house, leaving the place and surrounding lime trees ‘shredded’.

It could be that the Americans have found those weapons of mass destruction – and learnt how to use them.

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Posted: 24th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

On The Rocks

‘CAN it be pure coincidence that, with the Prime Minister and her husband in the Far East, the Chinese have discovered a way to make diamonds from ‘thin air’?

‘We have found a couple of rubber bands and a pea-shooter’

We know Tony’s uptight, what with the Dr David Kelly thing, war in Iraq and finding ways to keep Euan out of trouble in the long summer break, but can he really turn carbon dioxide into diamond? Talk about trapped wind.

As it is the Independent says that a team of Chinese scientists has found a way to turn waste gas into gems – although the jewels produced are typically just one quarter if a millimetre in diameter.

Aside from Gerald Ratner and the average love-struck 16-year-old, such a rock is not sufficiently large to turn into jewellery.

Rather, the gems will be used in industry for such things as cutting tools and abrasives.

However, Professor Qianwang Chen, who led the research, assures the paper that he can grow diamonds ‘as large as 1.2 millimetres across.’

Impressive, but not as profitable as the traditional method of creating a diamond – inserting a lump of coal up Tony’s…

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Posted: 24th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Postcard Post-Mortem

‘MOBILE text messaging is consigning the postcard to the dustbin.

‘Oooh, you are a card’

The Telegraph reports that Donald McGill cartoons and pictures of women with ice cream cones stuck in their cleavages are being replaced by text messages.

And the paper says that it’s ‘enough to being tears to the eyes of a donkey in a sunhat’.

Whereas five years ago 30 million cards were sent, there are now just 25 million making the slow journey from resort to home.

While this is not a cataclysmic decline, it is drop nonetheless.

The result is that the image of a goggle-eyed man with the hankie on his head sweating profusely as he watches the bikini-clad busty babe stroll past him and his enormous wife is losing favour.

Instead he’s bought a mobile phone with a camera in it, the girl’s texting her mates about the ‘sck prvrt’ on the beach and his wife’s reading about the Atkins Diet.

Still wish you were here?

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Posted: 24th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

House Of Cards

‘WHILE Cherie Blair delivers a jolly Pop Idol rendition of When I’m 64, the troops in the Gulf are listing to the very metal sounds of the Ace of Spades.

Little did George know that Tony had four of a kind

Cherie and Tone appear like those generals of the First World War, sipping their tea and eating their apple strudel while the frontline troops are peppered with bullets and dine on rat a la trench.

But the news from the Iraqi camps is what interests the Guardian foremost, as it reports that Saddam Hussein’s sons, Uday and Qusay, are dead.

Killed by US Special Forces following a tip off that will, apparently, net the grass $30m, the Times says that the ‘dynasty dies with Saddam’s vicious heirs’.

The Times goes on to list the achievements of the two lovely boys in a piece unequivocally given the title ‘Reign Of Terror’.

It seems harsh but the campaign to create fear in the minds of all around them began on the very days the two were born, Uday in 1964 and Qusay in 1966.

Things went from bad to worse in 1980, when Uday announced his intention to study nuclear physics. Four years later he graduated from Baghdad University with an engineering degree and an average score of 98.5%.

You imagine that the rogue 1.5% was found, tortured and then shot in a very pubic execution.

The pair then continued to grow in power until Qusay, as Iraq’s security chief, was given the title the Ace of Clubs.

Uday, helpfully described by the paper as the ‘al-Qaeda link’, was made honorary Ace of Hearts, on account of his dashing and full beard.

But the Independent reminds us that the Ace of Spades, Saddam Hussein, lives on. And, incidentally, he’s 66, not 64 as previously thought.

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Posted: 23rd, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Brussels Spouts

‘SLOWLY but surely the Brussels machine is softening us up for a possible takeover.

And the wire’s not the regulation 3.2cm thick…

Take the Times’ news of Goussein Khamdoulaev, a funambulist (tight-rope walker) who has been told that he must wear a hard hat in future performances.

The guidance form Brussels has not gone down well with the great Khamdoulaev, who is used to somersaulting 50ft above the heads of his equally bareheaded audience twice daily in the Moscow State Circus.

His manager calls the directive ‘ridiculous’ and says that ‘common sense has clearly gone out of the window’.

Common sense might have little to do in this story of a man who flips between pieces of wire high in the air with no safety net, but you get the idea.

And so to another tale, also in the Times, which tells how Glasgow City Council has decided that in future all pubs and clubs in the area will serve drinks in non-glass glasses.

Last year there were 81 incidents of glassing in Glasgow (there were over 5,000 in the entire UK) and the council say it has a ‘moral duty’ to order the uptake of plastic alternatives.

If the patrons could only wear hard hats as well, as with the stupendous Khamdoulaev, yet more wounds could be prevented.

Although, the traditional Glasgow greeting would also have to be outlawed…

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Posted: 23rd, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Bread Sauce

‘REMEMBER that advert for Hovis, when the little delivery boy climbs up the hill to deliver a loaf at some ungodly hour to the old biddy at top of our street who was too lazy to walk?

‘A quick shag and then home for tea’

Well, if he’d have followed another route the lad could have passed the home of Michael Chubb, a 55-year-old retired army major who used his humble dwelling as a brothel.

The aptly-named town of Shaftesbury in Dorset, which is home to Gold Hill, was also home to this den of vice, in which Mr Chubb ran his business, Complete Excellence.

For £500 a night, visitors chez Chubb could indulge in a sensual massage followed by dinner with the house’s ‘star attraction’, Chubb’s partner, Jill Bywater.

Yesterday, Chubb was given an eight-month suspended sentence for living off immoral earnings and running a brothel.

He said he had embarked on the 18-month venture to enable him to afford the £17,000-a-year fees to send his daughter to the nearby Bryanston School.

But the best bit is the advert for the now defunct cottage industry.

‘If you are visiting England,’ reads the blurb, ‘why not take the ultimate tourist experience and share an English Rose?’

And a slice of complimentary wholemeal bread…

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Posted: 23rd, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Dear Diary

‘NOW Jeffrey Archer is out we can ask him what he knows about those ‘sexed-up’ dossiers. As head of MI5 (1939-45), the so-called First Man knows a thing or two about intelligence.

‘Now, Jeffrey. No jokes about my pussy’

But we’ll have to ask him tomorrow, since he spent the better part of his first day out, after 730 days on an undercover mission to examine the state of Britain’s penal system first hand, breathing the sweet air of freedom.

It’s 8:17am. The Guardian tracks Big Brother winner Jeffrey’s long walk to publicity as the gates of HMP Hollesley Bay, Suffolk, are thrown open.

Blinking in the harsh sunlight, Jeffrey looks like a white Nelson Mandela in a shirt and tie.

He slinks off into a waiting car and arrives back in Grantchester, Cambridgeshire, at around 10am.

There, Mary ‘Winnie’ Archer offers her husband her line-free right cheek to kiss and smiles as wide as her facelift allows.

The Guardian hears locals shout outside Jeffrey’s compound. Jeffrey moves inside. The locals look to the Press and shout, ‘Bastards!’ The Press laugh.

Jeffrey and Mary then travel to London where he meets a representative of the Probation Service in Brixton. It’s opposite a Portuguese snack bar. Jeffrey then returns home to his Thames-side penthouse.

It’s 4:45pm and the Guardian sees Mary visit her husband’s London flat. It’s just gone 6pm and the Independent watches Mary leave for a reception at Buckingham Palace. Jeffrey goes to visit a London art gallery.

Jeffrey’s vivid pictures of sunflowers are the toast of the art world and, after casting his expert eye over an exhibition of more than 400 watercolours and oils, he leaves for Belgravia.

He enjoys a ‘good meal’ at Anton Mosimann’s eponymous restaurant before leaving after 11pm.

What he does next is up to anyone’s imagination. We could ask Jeffrey but, what with his track record of perjury and perverting the course of justice, it’s doubtful we’d believe what he told us.

‘

Posted: 22nd, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Auntie’s Bloomer

‘PRETTY clever of Tony Blair to release Jeffrey Archer at a time when the Press are on his case.

The Blairs look for instructions from on high

Cleverer still that Tony should leave the country on a visit to China at a time when the body of David Kelly lies still warm and questions about dodgy dossiers remain unanswered.

Of that story, the Times says that the first cracks are appearing in the BBC board’s united front.

An unnamed BBC governor has voiced ‘grave misgivings’ at the news that the main source of the allegations of ‘sexed-up’ dossiers was Dr Kelly.

Having earlier said that BBC journalists could rely on single sources if they were based on ‘senior intelligence sources’, the governor has noted that Dr Kelly, now revealed as the story’s main source, was not employed in the intelligence services.

Meanwhile the Telegraph spots Tony in China, where he’s just received a 19-gun salute and been treated to ‘the red carpet treatment’ in Beijing.

He’s pictured crouching down over Asian Field, an installation of 120,000 clay figures created by the British artist Antony Gormley.

Hanging off his shoulders is wife Cherie, perhaps whispering into his ear how incredible it is that the ghostly faces on the models are all different.

Tony grimaces. To him they might all look like the same middle-aged man with a beard and glasses.

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Posted: 22nd, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Gobsmacked!

‘NEWS now to gladden the hearts of Tony Blair and Jeffrey Archer.

‘Hello, girls!’

The Independent reports that surgeons at the General Hospital, Vienna, have achieved the world’s first human tongue transplant.

Rid yourself forever from falsehood and deceit and say ‘Hello!’ to a new tongue.

The report says that the most important question raised by such a procedure is the level of tongue mobility – will it get tied up in difficult situations?

Dr Rowe, chairman of the ethics committee of the British Transplantation Society, puts it into plain English: ‘A lot of immuno-suppression therapy would be required to promote acceptance.’

We can all agree with the good doctor on that point.

It’s just as vital to know who your donor was. If he was an inveterate liar, well-versed in deceit and perverting the course of justice, your new tongue could get you into a right mess.

Look at the first person doctors tried it on – poor Jeffrey Archer…

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Posted: 22nd, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Tony Cares

‘HAD Dr David Kelly been an Iraqi scientist caught between his self-serving, bullying government and Al-Jazeera TV, we’d be talking of hit squads and not suicide.

To remember in our nightmares

As it is, the manner of the scientist’s demise is one thing the papers can agree on, although there is some confusion over why he felt the only way out of his situation was death.

The Telegraph has conducted a poll and uses its front page to declare that 47% of the respondents ‘blame the Government for Dr Kelly’s death’.

That’s not the unanimous verdict needed to get Tony Blair incarcerated for life, but it is enough to damage the one thing Tony holds dear above all else: his image.

Over in the Murdoch-owned Times, Tony is seen smiling.

The paper shows how the face of the Prime Minister has fluctuated between sad and happy as his government and the BBC have been blamed in turn for the ‘sexed up’ dossier scandal.

Today, the paper says the BBC is ‘fighting to save its credibility’, having been pulled into the ‘biggest crisis in its post-war history’.

The Beeb has admitted that Dr Kelly was indeed the main source of defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan’s story, a fact not admitted until after the scientist’s death.

So Tony can be seen smiling. And it’s a smile that Tony can turn on and off in an instant. He’s like a puppet, whose head drops and lifts on command.

Which is handy for when he wants to sip from his mug of tea..

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Posted: 21st, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Jimi Jams

‘YOU just know Tony Blair’s not smiling any more.

‘And the wind cries Tony’

The Independent has seen Mojo magazine’s list of the Top 10 guitar albums of all time and there is one glaring omission.

It’s hard to argue that Are You Experienced, the Jimi Hendrix masterpiece, is the best of all time, but can The Ugly Rumours Collection really be less popular than Charlie Christian’s Genius Of The Electric Guitar?

Mojo writer, Ritchie Unterberger, praises Hendrix’s use of ‘controlled feedback’ – a style he says the American pioneered, but we know was begun by Tony Blair in his youthful days and perfected by sound engineer Alistair Campbell.

‘Ritchie heaps praise upon Hendrix’s ‘mastery of a huge range of high-volume distorted tones’, a skill that Tony is surely blessed with.

If Hendrix was around today, and had not died in mysterious circumstances in the manner of a Ministry Of Defence scientist, we could ask him what he owes Tony Blair.

But since he’s dead, we’ll just have to content ourselves with knowing that Jimi was inspired to pick of the guitar after seeing Ugly Rumours’ lead axeman Tony ‘Sexed Up’ Blair complete an unplugged version of Manic Depression.

Take him away, Tony…

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Posted: 21st, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Food For Thought

‘AS part of our ten-part guide into Celebrity: How To Achieve Fame, we turn to the Independent and its list of the top diets of the moment.

Geri compliments Calista on her to-die-for figure

There is the Atkins Diet (favoured by Geri Halliwell and Jennifer Aniston), the Blood Group Diet (Martine McCutcheon), the Face Reading Diet (Kate Winslet), the Hay Diet (Elizabeth Hurley, Desert Orchid) and the Cabbage Soup Diet (Sarah-Michelle Gellar, Russians).

Whichever one you chose, the British Dietetic Association (BDA) says that you should not follow trends.

The BDA has the temerity to suggest that celebrities are ‘irresponsible’ in endorsing such eating regimes.

‘Celebrities are not nutritionists,’ says Amanda Wynne of the BDA. ‘They should not be giving out advice on the best way to lose weight.’

She advocates an eating plan that encourages people to lose weight sensibly and slowly.

The BDA Diet says that ‘the total number of calories you eat, minus the calories you expend in energy and exercising, will determine how much weight you lose’.

It is nothing short of revolutionary. For starters, what the hell is ‘exercising’?

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Posted: 21st, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Standing Up For What’s Right

‘NINETEEN standing ovations in 40 minutes may sound a lot but, when your destiny is to heal the world, it is really no more than you would expect.

‘My name’s Tony Blair and you’ve been a great audience. Goodnight!’

Tony Blair wisely chose not to repeat his famous claim yesterday as he addressed the US Congress – Americans may not be big on irony, but even they would have had trouble taking that one seriously.

Instead, he adapted his usual theme (why I am great) to a different question: how history will judge me.

His verdict was that history will forgive him for destroying ‘a threat that, at its least [sic], is responsible for inhuman carnage and suffering’.

This was Tony’s way of sorting out the row over the existence of WMD in Iraq.

He added that he believes ‘with every fibre and conviction’ that he was right, and in his case, that’s a helluva lot of fibre and conviction.

As Blair spoke, the congressmen rose to their feet – not in a stampede to get to the toilets and throw up, but to clap their hands in warm appreciation.

‘He’s one swell guy!’ exclaimed one, proudly pointing to the Tony Blair booster button on his lapel. ‘He’s dreamy!’ sighed an elegant congresswoman from New York.

Sadly, though, the admiration was not universal.

The Guardian reports that a cross-party delegation from this country ‘struggled to join in the applause’, and shadow chancellor Michael Howard ‘found it most difficult to join in the standing ovation’.

He should seek advice from his opposite number, Gordon Brown – a man who also experiences extreme physical discomfort whenever he is called upon to show appreciation of Mr Blair, but struggles manfully to overcome his handicap.

A wintry smile or a tiny nod of the head is the very least he can do – and, with his keen sense of loyalty, he makes sure that’s exactly what he does.

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Posted: 18th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Potty Time

‘WHEN Tony Blair returns to this country, we can confidently predict that standing ovations will be few and far between.

‘They’re out to get me, mother’

Blair operates on the mafia principle of keeping your friends close and your enemies closer still, hence Gordon Brown’s tenure in the second-most-important office of state, his occupancy of 10 Downing Street, and his seat next to Blair on the front bench during Prime Minister’s Questions.

And if Blair were the sort of man who used rude words (which he isn’t, of course), then he might also remember the Presidential dictum that it’s better to have Brown inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in.

Up until now, this relationship has just about worked, albeit under increasing strain.

Now, however, with Tony Blair temporarily out of the tent, Brown has walked over to Blair’s sleeping bag and unceremoniously – or possibly very ceremoniously – emptied the contents of his bladder all over it.

The Independent reports that Brown’s supporters have mounted an all-out attack on the Prime Minister in the pages of the New Statesman.

Blair is labelled a ‘psychopath’, and is accused of airing ‘all kinds of fancy ideas…without rhyme or reason’.

Downing Street’s response was swift and incisive. The PM has not gone ‘potty’, said his official spokesman, adding that the ‘psychopath’ label was itself ‘potty’.

Potty? No. But definitely full of [this article has been cut for reasons of space].

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Posted: 18th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

A Call To Arms

‘WOULD you inject car paint into your skin? It’s a difficult question, isn’t it?

‘And I want my Mondeo done in the same colour…’

If the alternative was listening to Tony Blair address the US Congress, then most people would probably answer ‘Yes’ (or, in the case of Gordon Brown, ‘Yes, please!’)

But if you were about to get tattooed, you might think twice.

Yet the Guardian reports that, according to the European Commission, car paint is used by many tattooists and standards of hygiene are generally low in the body art business.

The solution is clear. In future, hairnets must be worn, fingernails kept short and clean, hands washed regularly, and cigarette ash kept well away from broken skin.

Needles must conform to EC standards, and tattoos of bananas must not be no shorter than 12.5 centimetres and curve by no more than 10 degrees.

Now here’s another question. Are you going to let a bunch of bureaucratic busybodies tell you what you can and can’t stick in your arm?

Of course you’re not. Down the paint shop, now, and any Union Jack smaller than your forearm will be treated as an act of treason.

We’ll show those Brussels bastards if it kills us.

‘

Posted: 18th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Polls Apart

‘YESTERDAY, the 147th US soldier was killed in Iraq, equal to the total US casualties in the first Gulf War.

A two-headed monster

And, with the Guardian estimating that the continuing occupation of the country is costing British taxpayers £5m a day, the papers are asking serious questions.

The Independent says both war leaders, President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, will meet today with their credibility under fire.

And, says the paper, the meeting could scarcely have been worse timed.

‘The last person, surely, that Mr Blair would want to be seen with is the ally he is accused of following meekly into the increasingly costly and unhappy Iraq adventure,’ it says.

‘For his part, Mr Bush must share the podium with the leader of the country whose intelligence services, which are quoted as the authors of the uranium-from-Africa fantasy, have indirectly led him into the hottest water of his presidency.’

But was it British intelligence that was to blame? The Guardian uncovers a shadow right-wing intelligence network in Washington that was set up by Donald Rumsfeld to second-guess the CIA.

The Office Of Special Plans (OSP) is, says the paper, ‘staffed mainly by ideological amateurs’ and operates ‘under the patronage of hardline conservatives in the top rungs of the administration’.

Its job was to provide a justification for war – and this it clearly succeeded in doing.

However, despite the Pentagon nut squad, the dodgy intelligence and the cost of ongoing operations in Iraq, the pro-war papers are sticking to their guns.

The Telegraph, for instance, quotes an opinion poll, which it says ‘rebuffs those who believe the Iraq war and its aftermath have proved a disaster’.

Only 11 per cent of Iraqis questioned by YouGov wanted the Anglo-American force to leave immediately – and half thought the toppling of Saddam Hussein was a good thing.

Good news maybe for Bush and Blair, but it is the opinion polls within their own countries that they will be studying with far greater care.

‘

Posted: 17th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment

Sues You, Sir

‘IT can only be a matter of time before the TV companies start receiving compensation claims from viewers distraught at the footage they saw of the war in Iraq.

‘Push an apple, shake the tree…’

After all, everyone is claiming for everything these days in what is one of our less welcome imports from the United States.

This morning, we learn of a prisoner who claims his human rights were breached by a prison officer who put boot polish and jam on the loo seat in his cell as a practical joke.

The Times says that although the Prison Service decided that there was little chance of the prisoner’s claim for torture or inhumane treatment being upheld, it was better to settle out of court – and awarded the con £500.

Which is very small change indeed to Catherine Zeta-Jones, for whom £1m is famously not a lot of money.

We do not know what the Welsh actress and her aged husband Michael Douglas think about £2.5m, although two and a half times ‘not a lot’ normally equals ‘not a lot’.

However, that is the amount the Times says the precious couple are trying to get out of Hello! magazine for publishing unflattering photos of their wedding.

In one of the photos, Catherine was shown in mid-mouthful; in another, she was apparently pictured on the dance-floor boogying away to Black Lace’s Agadoo.

Suddenly, £2.5m doesn’t seem like a whole lot of money…

‘

Posted: 17th, July 2003 | In: Broadsheets | Comment