Tony Blair & George Bush are Grrrr8!
“FORSOOTH! I eyed him narrowly…”
On Monday we read the opening line to Wayne Rooney’s autobiography. The Story So Far promised to show us the real Wayne.
Of course, Wayne is only 20 years of age, and as is the way with footballers, many more autobiographies are planned.
A footballer’s life moves on at great pace, and already this vital tome fails to take in Wayne’s recent holiday to St Tropez, his new T–shirt (with blue stripes!) and his use of the word “nugatory”.
But for the first time in public, Wayne was talking about his moment of madness with a woman trading under the name Auld Slapper.
“Yes, I had been to a brothel, a massage parlour, call it anything you like, when I was 16,” said Wayne. It was not long after he’d met Coleen McLoughlin. “I felt so ashamed that I’d let her down so much,” he added. He asks himself why he’d done such a “shameful thing”.
And he wondered how he can make things right. And if showering his lover with two engagement rings and assorted other gifts can heal the wound? The Star said Wayne told Coleen: “Spend, spend, spend!”
Can buying things for a loved one curry favour? We wondered when on Tuesday we read Tony Blair had bought a gift for his great mate George Bush.
There is a rather strange habit among the world’s foremost leaders of exchanging gifts at summits. And at the G8 get together in Moscow, Tony had bought George a blue sweater. Made by Burberry’s, there were fears that it would make the American leader look like a chav. But it was an unthreatening dark blue and George liked it.
After greeting Tony with a hearty and belittling “Yo Blair”, George thanked him for the top. “Thanks for [inaudible] it’s awfully thoughtful of you”. Tony looked pleased.
And while we listened to their exchange – off the record and on the open mic – we got hot. That’s because on Wednesday it was hot. We didn’t know how if happened but there it was.
The weather was hot. Perhaps it was evidence of global warming. We could not be sure. It might have had something to do with the thing ancient voices call “summer”, that mythical week in late July when the “sun” shines. But, as we say, we could not be sure.
The papers were excited and intrigued by his “heat”. The Telegraph told us that temperatures could reach 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
And the Guardian’s man with an air conditioning unit told us to “keep to the shady side of the street” and “keep a bottle of water with you at all times”.
It was important advice, rooted in years of journalistic endeavour and excellence.
But these days anyone can write and on Thursday we read that Richard Brunstrom, the so-called “mad-mullah of the traffic Taliban”, had become the UK’s first blogging chief constable.
Brunstrom, head of the police service in North Wales, had much to say. He wisely avoided talking about the weather, realizing, correctly, that he is not yet expect enough in that to take on the old press. Instead he stuck to writing about what he knew – nicking drivers.
Monday, July 17: “On Saturday I spent the day (should have been my day off, but my wife’s away, so I can sneak off to have some fun) out near the Wakestock Festival at Abersoch with our ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) team.
“We did a 12-hour stint on the A497 in the outskirts of Pwllheli, in baking sunshine. This part of Wales is one of the nicest places on the planet in good weather — shame it doesn’t happen more often! The camera read 5,891 number plates, from which we had 321 hits, resulting in us stopping 109 cars.”
It was gripping stuff, and showed that policemen, rather than being distant, remote and slavishly obeying orders, enjoyed nicking people. We admired him for his openness.
A policeman’s lot is not easy. What with all the arresting people, paper work and plodcasting, policing is busy, busy, busy.
Just look at Kellogg’s. On Friday, the Times said that the makers of breakfast cereals, Pop-Tarts and more, were asking all visitors logging onto their websites to provide personal details. Anyone younger than 16 needed to get parental approval to play some of the interactive games, receive messages and enter competitions. The food police were in operation.
The fear was that anyone less than 16 would at the click of a mouse button become obese, or even more obese than they already were.
A spokeswoman for Kellogg’s explained: “We are trying hard to ensure we have age restrictions on our sites, but we cannot regulate for what is happening in every household. That is a matter for parents.”
Indeed it was. And is. And we look forward to learning more about it in Tony the Tiger’s autobiography and blog…
Posted: 23rd, July 2006 | In: Broadsheets Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
