Parliament of Whores (forgive me, Madam)

Tory MP Julie Kirkbride is under pressure to resign following allegations in today's Telegraph that she claimed £250,000 expenses for "The wind beneath my wings". Where will this end?

Get your cloak - you've pulled.

The speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, has been resigned. This is huge. Sacking the speaker is like setting fire to Princess Anne - you just don't do it. In fact if you even dream it, you better wake up and apologise, modda fokka.


There is a precedent for this dismissal however. In 1680, the then speaker, Eddie something, was shown the door. He'd been caught spuds deep in the King's favourite Labrador, and had to go. Even then, they tried to hush it up, but apparently the puppies looked just like him. It was only a matter of time before the papers got hold of it.

Everyone is jockeying for advantage in the race to fill Martin's position. Traditionally it would be a well thought of parliamentary "face". In these extraordinary times, though, tradition can go hang. It's thought that a raft of new, independent MPs might soon be appointed, and that the new speaker might come from their unsullied ranks. Even Esther Ranzen's thrown her sombrero in the ring.

She's only the first to declare an interest. Rumour is rife about who else the PM has approached to fill this important role. As we went to press, The Chuckle Brothers were the bookies' favourite. But the race is a long one, and the brothers are rather too Icarus like to last I think. My money's on either Michael Bentine or Wolf from Gladiator.

Ahhhhnnnnddd....relax

We had a new bod at yoga last night (how middle-aged and middle-class have I become?). She let slip during the initial exchange of pleasantries that she's a teacher. I had my suspicions before this confirmation to be honest. Professional teachers find it difficult to mix properly with other adults. They find it beyond them to converse as equal partners. Some are better than others, but you can always sense their nascent irritation when others are talking intelligently or cogently. No-one likes a show-off.

Anyways, I thought it might queer the pitch for a good yogic atmos, which is critical, a bit like having Wolverine in the class losing his rag because he can't perform the locust properly. But actually I had a good session. Thanks, Miss.

Swine Flu Update - it's officially a damp squib. Move along now. Nothing to see here.

Fatigued I

Series two of the "The Wire" has begun again in earnest, which means I'm getting by on about six-hundred seconds sleep per night. It starts at 11.20pm. Yes, we've got a video (do people still can them that these days?), but it's compelling stuff. I always reason I'll be able to watch the first two minutes, and then simply yawn theatrically and retire for the night. Trouble is by two minutes in, I'm hooked and too far awake to rest.

I only got into it a couple of months ago when the first series went to air on British, terrestrial television finally. Once I got a taste, I was lost. Helpfully, the BBC realised what potent and cogent stuff it was and scheduled an episode every night of the working week.

I only found out recently that Dominic West, who plays James "Jimmy" McNulty in the series, is British. What's more, he's an old Etonian, thereby proving once again that while Etonians may not be the best educated posh boys on the planet, they are the most breathtakingly confident. What kind of conkers must a posh, white, English-born actor possess to take on a role such as this. It beggars belief.

That's Eton for you though. It looks like a senior Oxford college, and the boys dress like Jeeves. Of course they're confident. It's also the only school in Earth where a boy wouldn't be told to sod off by his careers teacher for suggesting he might like to have a crack at prime-ministering for a bit when he left school.

In fact, you must hear some crazy, fcuked-up shit as Eton's careers teacher.

"Polar explorer, you say? I think I've got a leaflet here
somewhere about that. Yes, here it is. It says you need to go to Eton, go to
Oxford and go to the North pole in that order. You also need
to look and sound like Prince Andrew or Brian Sewell. Bingo!"

Account Code of Conduct

There's absolute uproar here in the UK because our elected representatives in the House of Commons have, it appears, been filling their boots with our hard earned for a number of years. Journalists (those friends of the oppressed) have uncovered a culture of systemic expense account abuse.

The scandal transcends party allegiances too. They're all at it. It's the one area in which there's some political accord. I suppose we should be thankful for that at least. The problem stems from the fact that the members of parliament (MPs) policed their own expense claims. Yes, one could argue that this presents a conflict of interest, but what price hindsight like that?

The story started with a few unimportant MPs being hauled over the coals for making dubious claims. However, seasoned MP watchers pretty quickly realised this wasn't the end of it by the reaction of each of the parties. They shuffled about uneasily and refused to score a few easy points at their opponents' expense (rimshot). Consensus in the British parliament occurs very rarely - generally when we're declaring war, and we haven't done that for months. No, the only explanation was that they were all at it, and felt shamed into silence.

The level of the abuse is staggering. Consider the following:

One unnamed Lib Dem backbencher claimed expenses for having the gaps in his teeth examined by a "registered" faith healer. No treatment was prescribed, but the one-off consultation cost £204.

Another claimed £18 for a bag of conkers he apparently collected for his twelve-year-old son while one tory MP bought a £3000 trampoline, which he claimed was a valid business expense because he'd forgotten to claim for the fax machine in his constituency office, the price of which was £124.99.

And finally, one eminent former cabinet minister claimed nearly £194,000 in expenses over a fourteen month period because he "was concerned by an unpleasant smell in the street - possibly emanating from a neighbouring property".

Top of the Yawning

We've just got back from a weekend in Ireland. It's First Holy Communion season there. My niece had to leap over the broom, or whatever the accepted metaphor for communicants is. Actually, the allusion to marriage is not a fanciful one because the little girls dress like brides. It's faintly distressing to see your infant flesh and blood trussed-up like this. The boys, on the other hand, were all dressed like they were expecting to be interviewed for a middle-management role. Why not top hat and tails?

Anyhoo, we ate too much and drank too much for three solid days, which I'm sure is what the Lord Himself would have wanted. I also foolishly engaged my nine-year-old nephew in ten minutes of hurling in the garden. That's not as actionable as it sounds to any non-Irish readers. Hurling is the national game of the Republic. Google it. It's a sort of actual bodily hockey. I'm feeling it today though - too old, you see.


On the flight back we were sat in front of a group of early twenty something girls. They seemed quite relaxed and chatty during boarding, but one of their number turned out to be a nervous flier. I first became aware of this the moment the plane left the ground because she hooted loudly as if she was unaware that this eventuality might come to pass. And it wasn't an American, frat-boy, high-five hoot either. It was one of distressed surprise. Not realising that manned-flight involves leaving the ground is right up there with not knowing the facts of life in this day and age, don't you think? And what did she think was going to happen? That we were going to thunder along the tarmac for the entire trip?

A little while later, we encountered some turbulence, at which she burst into tears. The crew intervened at this point as she and her friends were sitting in an emergency exit row. They tried to spare her befuddled feelings by cock-and-bulling her that she might be more comfortable in the row behind. Don't fret though. I shot her one of my "we can't have someone with bovine reasoning like you between us and safety" looks. She realised the score and looked suitably chastened.

I suppose charitable types would argue that she couldn't help it as fears like this are inherently irrational. All that is true. But then I don't like spiders, so I take great pains to avoid being locked in a metal tube with hundreds of spider-fanciers while Ryanair hand out bags of tarantulas and insist we fondle them for seventy minutes.

Long Weekend in Nod

Following on from my dream recollections yesterday, I bypassed the whole scenario last night and fell into a dreamless fatigue and red wine induced coma. Unfortunately my usually reliable catholic guilt let me down for once and I slept through the alarm, which meant having to start the day with a well crafted lie.

I am a good liar. There's no point in my being coy about it. I have an incorrigibly plausible manner. I discovered this quite early in life. I would make up something outlandish to amuse my school friends, and they'd (to my amazement) lap it up like mother's milk.

The temptation to use this skill for evil is huge, and one is always straddling the border between good and bad. It can make me appear withdrawn and brooding at times, like a bullshit Batman. It can also cause people to question my (genuinely) good intentions. Take my boss for example. Let's call him Commissioner Gordon for the sake of argument. I told Commissioner Gordon a bare-faced untruth this morning to explain my lateness, and he believed it. What's more, he wanted to believe it. We all crave narrative completion - disclosure followed by closure. And I did him the honour of creating a back story to the lie. He felt loved and I dodged a bullet - a victimless crime.

If there are any keen amateur liars reading this, the back story is critical. Otherwise your fib is like the faux cowboy town in Blazing Saddles: from the hilltop, it works, but as soon as the baddies ride into the valley, you're screwed.

Any Dream Will Do

I was in the middle of a particularly vivid dream this morning when the alarm went off. It's never nice being roused in this way. It does, however, mean you can remember said dream in glorious HD-ready quality. I dreamt I was playing tournament tennis against late Tory minister, and serial philanderer, Alan Clark.

The game took place in brilliant sunshine. We were in a huge ground that was slightly past its best, and there were very few paying punters around to watch the spectacle unfold. The right honourable member started off brightly enough, but after two points, his service game fell away somewhat. I'm being kind; he went to pieces. Not only did all his attempts at service miss the service box, they barely troubled the court at all. The final indignity was a huge looping service attempt that landed hopelessly out, bounced over the thirty-foot perimeter wall at the back of the court and then disappeared forever.

I felt terrible. Poor Alan - a once virile and dangerous opponent and I was beating him without laying racquet on ball. He hid his emotions behind a huge pair of jet black sunglasses, the kind that only teenage girls and very posh retired gentlemen can get away with. I didn't sense any anger in him, only resignation, as if my besting of him was the final confirmation he needed that the sap had left the building with a one-way ticket tucked into its hatband.

I don't know what this dream says for yours truly, but let's accentuate the positive. I beat a deceased old man at tennis. In your face, New Right. You made an implacable enemy of me when you came to power in 1979. I swore then I'd ruin you and your loved ones. This is only the beginning.

I May Be Some Time

Well, we've returned intact from our weekend's camping. It was a fairly uneventful trip. There was a real ale festival at the pub on the site. (For non-British readers, real ale is traditional form of British beer. It's delicious, but it does tend to attract joyless, bearded obsessive types. They're usually harmless unless you get talking to one about hop varieties, in which case you're likely to experience a virtual stroke due to boredom.)

However, I'd forgotten how cold it gets in England at night. The days were nice enough, but as soon as the sun went down, it got seriously chilly. I went to bed each night wearing all my belongings, and I was still frozen solid. And it was a real battle of wills to overcome the urge to urinate in the small hours. I had to lay it on the line to my bladder and central nervous system: we're going nowhere until daylight, so roll over and get some sleep. Also, some of our neighbours thought it might aid the sleeping process if they sat up all night inexpertly playing a shrill banjo. It's a testament to how much beer I'd stuck away that I was able to zone out the extraneous noise and get ten hours solid dreamless a night. I'm not by nature a deep sleeper. At home, the sound of dust settling is usually enough to disturb me.

In the news today I see serial offender Joey Barton has got it all over his shoes again. He was sent-off yesterday for confusing football with greco-roman wrestling. When his manager, Alan Shearer, questioned the wisdom of his commitment to the game, he got the right royal hump. Anyways, the upshot is he's been suspended by the club (again).
Now I don't believe I'm betraying any great confidence when I say that Barton's got history in this department. Everyone outside the game appears to realise that he has (ahem) issues with authority, and that he'll fly off the handle as inevitably as night follows day, and yet clubs are queueing up to buy him. They always argue that he's turned over a new leaf or at least deserves another second chance. Someone will give him a job if Newcastle sack him, and he'll be okay for about ten minutes before getting the red mists again. What does he have to do to get sacked? Take hostages or organise a drive-by? Even if he did either of these, he'd be employed again because between assaults, he's a decent footballer. This dubious logic doesn't extend to other professionals thank God or Fred West would still be in work. Yes, he murdered a few, but look at the quality of that grouting.

When Life Gives Me Lemons...(01.05.09)

I was sifting through a modest mound of spam this morning as usual when I happened across an interesting innovation in the genre. As you'll be no doubt aware, spam generally attempts to sell faux viagra at knock down prices to men (sorry, ladies). It does this by employing vaguely sexy subject lines to entice the male readership. Sometimes, however, the author seriously misjudges the tone, and you end up with straps like:

"Deeper in her entrails"

Thanks, jsuarez. I'm not squeamish when it comes to sex, but this allusion really doesn't do it for me. Perhaps I'm losing my mojo.

You have to feel for spammers. The competition is cut throat, which is why you get bold approaches like:

"America against swine flu - Your love will never be routine with such advantages"

Ten out of ten for effort and chutzpah, Sir. Chapeaux.

There’s a distressing piece in today’s Times (London Times) regarding an Australian city councillor named Jajnal Ban who willingly underwent “excruciating” surgery to stretch her legs three full inches.

[Councillors must weald a damn site more power in Oz than they do in the UK because the journalist employed the word “politician” to describe her. Here they’re little more than friendless, congenitally nosey underachievers.]

Ms Ban had to travel to Russia, that paragon of medical excellence and probity, to receive the treatment. She did this apparently because she feared she wasn’t being taken seriously in political circles due to her lack of visible inches. She’s now five feet four inches “tall”. As every right thinking person knows, the threshold for being taken seriously in the developed world is 5’2’’, so the procedure has been deemed a complete success, and Councillor Ban has pronounced herself delighted with the result.

I wouldn’t like to be accused of raining on Ban’s parade, or whacking off into her hat for that matter, but why didn’t she just buy some lifts or stand on a box? I’m led to believe by short acquaintances that three inches is more than achievable with modern lift insoles. And while I’m at it, might I suggest that the reason she’s not taken seriously is that she's the kind of person who would travel half way round the world to have her legs broken by a Russian. If she wanted to impress people, why didn’t she learn Latin or bulk-up on steroids like the rest of us?