NE ME QUITTE PAS

DESPITE APPEARANCES, and with respect to my previous epistle, Nicolas “Napoleon” Sarkozy must surely be considered to be one of the “smarter elements in the class”, having managed to become the head of a country in which – if nothing else – the food and drink are of exceptional quality, thus considerably increasing the joie de vivre of being able to order the best of it and give l’addition to the taxpayer. And, of course, there is the fact that being the head of France attracts trophy would-be Marie-Antoinettes like Valeria “Carla” Bruni, considerably increasing the joie of, and possibly la vie itself when accompanied by the right supplements.

IT IS THUS TRUE TO FORM FROM smart boy Nicolas to upset the apple-cart of our unfortunate leader and his plans for the already-doomed G20 meeting by stating that France will quitter the shebang if things don’t go their way, whatever that way may be. French politicians through the ages, just like many normal French folk and especially their footballers, have mystified the sandwich-bringers who regularly run Britain by being moody, prone to fly off the handle, and unable to understand what is going on around them, qualities which their own, and our, newspapers describe as “deep” or “brooding”, or, at their most journalistically inventive, “pensive”.

YET WHETHER THIS IS UNFORTUNATE OR NOT, one knows that when the cameras start clicking at the summit they will be pointing at the boulevardiers rather than the bourgeois; whether one loves or hates the Sarkozys and the Berlusconis, they are much more fun than the boys who spent their after-school evenings watching tapes of old Star Trek episodes in the garden shed.

LET’S GO TO MY HOUSE AND PLAY TIDDLYWINKS

"It's very odd how almost all English boys love danger; you can get ten to join a game, or climb a tree, or swim a stream, when there's a chance of breaking their limbs or getting drowned, for one who'll stay on level ground, or in his depth, or play quoits or bowls."
Tom Brown’s Schooldays, Thomas Hughes

FOR SOME REASON I HAVE always imagined that “serious” male politicians had somewhat curious childhoods. I am not suggesting that I believe they suffered at the hands of their family and peers, at least not more than the average person does, but that they were in some way special. At dinner at school, they would be sitting on a separate table, reserved for the boys who “brought sandwiches”; they would still be playing with their Meccano sets long after other boys had developed an interest in sex, drugs and/or rock and/or roll; and even when they finally caught up, they would find a liking for totally obscure groups like Soft Machine.

WHILE MORE ADVENTUROUS boys were figuring out manners of making money through intelligent and inventive use of the Chemistry Lab, others, more literary- and artistic-minded chaps, like myself, were able by the age of fourteen to forge the signature of every teacher in the school.

BUT THE LONELY CHARACTERS WERE IN THE MAIN HARMLESS, with the worst they could do being to threaten to let someone’s tyres down; they would spend their time traipsing around after the smarter elements in the class, never fully understanding that their silly suggestions were being ignored and they were not being ridiculed openly because there existed a kind of code of honour among gentlemen.

MOST OF THEM NOW HAVE probably settled down to professions suiting them, such as managing a suburban pet shop or selling insurance door-to-door. It is a long time since I went to school with these people, but for some reason I was thinking of them earlier today, when listening to Gordon Brown and Peter “mushy peas” Mandelson describing the details of their trips to prepare the G20.

HOTTENTOT TOTTIE

“THE LORD GIVETH AND THE LORD TAKETH AWAY” is one of the most common misquotes from the Bilble, as it is clear for anyone who knows a smattering of Hebrew that the phrase was mistranslated into English, and that the Lord simply “gave” and then “took”, both of which are violently irregular verbs in Hebrew, but the spirit of the expression has passed down into common acceptance. Thus we can apply it to the extremely frightening news being announced by some of our leaders today.

GOOD CATHOLIC SOULS have lived, since the Act of Settlement in 1701, safe in the knowledge that they cannot marry members of the English Royal Family. Thus the law simultaneously granted a blessing when it took away a right. Nothing prohibits intercourse with royals by Catholics, however, but marriage would lead to general disapproval if not death. All of this, of course, is the complete reverse of what is the case in “real” life for most Catholics, keen to do a bit of trouser-snaking without getting trouser-pressed.

YET FUTURE LORD CARDINAL CORMAC MURPHY O’CONNOR has today told Catholic MPs and lords that the abolition of the 1701 Act was only a matter of time, stating at a meeting at the House of Commons: "I do feel the Act is discriminatory, no doubt about it. The heir to the throne can marry anyone he likes – a Jew, a Hottentot, a Muslim – but not a Roman Catholic."

THERE IS NO EVIDENCE OF ANY MEMBER of the Royal Family having wished to marry, or indeed have any kind of intercourse with, a Hottentot, and I for one was unaware that it was a religion, but the royals should be able to find their entertainment where they may. Personally, I am, like many Catholics, perfectly happy with the current situation. I am prepared to be prohibited from becoming the Prime Minister if it means I cannot marry a member of the royal family even if, after one too many Pinot Noirs at a party at the palace, I accidentally get one of the pregnable ones pregnant.

LOOK ME IN THE EYES AND TELL ME THAT YOU’LL VOTE FOR ME

IF GORDON BROWN THOUGHT that the statements coming out of the Czech Republic were a source of embarrassment in the lead-up to the G20 meeting then he must have been stunned by Brazilian President Luís “Lula” da Silva’s outburst during his typically endless, rambling, unprepared diatribe passing as a speech on Brown’s latest stage of his international tour. Lula, standing next to Brown, decided to tell the world that the current economic crisis was caused by “white people with blue eyes”.

JAUNTY COMMUNIST LULA obviously likes a bit of a laugh, which is fine in a country where politics are a bit of a joke; a good example of this was the last elections, when a special dispensation allowed candidates to change their given names to other ones, such as nicknames – as is the case of Lula himself -- in order to be more easily identified by the populace at the urns: dozens of people changed their names to Barack Obama.

HOWEVER, BLUE-EYED POLITICIANS in the west will no doubt be looking at their campaign photos in the coming months and weeks to check whether there is not too obvious a hint of the cerulean about their eyes.

CZECH MATES

GOOD-NATURED, SMILING GORDON BROWN has been doing his frequent-flyer mile card no harm recently in doing his best to convince the world, and more particularly the world in America, that a “united front” is the way forward to get our economies out of the current “credit crunch”. His latest trips involve him trying to sell the upcoming circus known as the G20 meeting to the media – there is no need to sell it to the leaders of the countries involved in the bash, as they all know that this will be yet another opportunity to indulge in some serious banqueting.
DASHED, HOWEVER, are his hopes of European Union support after today’s pronouncements by Mirek Topolanek, the Czech Prime Minister, and thus our present leader in Europe, who has rubbished Brown’s and Obama’s plans for recovery. While Gordon and Barack describe their policies as “the road to recovery”, Topolanek today described them as “the road to Hell.” All of this badinage might remind those of us with longer memories of movies involving Bing Crosby, Bob Hope and Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong.
THIS IS STRONG LANGUAGE INDEED, yet somewhat to be expected from a country that seems to think that the European Union is a good dollop of tosh and a bit of tish, with their own president Vaclav Klaus having stated, on the 19th of February, that the European Parliament “does not represent any nation”, defending the people of Europe, in complete opposition to the autocratic leaders of the EU, who take the “rapist’s view” of decisions made by real people: that is, Ireland says “no”, and we think she really means “maybe”.
CRITICISM ALREADY ABOUNDS of hapless Topolanek and his heartfelt statement, and most of this concentrates on the “we are bigger than you, so we are better than you, so shut your mouth” style of rhetorical argument. One wonders what the Czech delegation will be served for starters at the upcoming summit when Gordon “Bob Hope” Brown serves up the supper.

HE ALWAYS GETS HIS MAN

UTTERLY AND TOTALLY OF NO INTEREST would be how I would describe the former Dominion of Canada, now a semi-independent state and lulled into a sort of blissful ignorance of all things that have to do with the modern world since sometime around when the USA became independent from King George. I am told that American teachers of quantum physics use reference to Canada in order to explain multiple realities to their students, particularly the reality in which “everything looks like our own reality, but somehow something isn’t quite right.”

INDEED, I WAS CONVINCED that, after Captain James T. Kirk, Pamela Anderson and The Cowboy Junkies had escaped, nothing good was left in the great, white land. But, just as was true with Iowa, I was sorely mistaken. And on a grander scale. I had reckoned without the fact that the spirit of the Mounties lives on in Canada.

A COUNTRY WHICH HAS NEVER SAID ‘BOO’ to a goose, of which it apparently has many, came out, on the 20th of March, with the most extraordinary comment of recent times in international political give and take, involving “our very own” handsome George Galloway, leader of the Respect Party, Middle East envoy from Bethnal Green and hard-working, popular, maverick Member of Parliament since 1987.

SOMETIME TV CELEBRITY GALLOWAY, famous for telling Saddam Hussein, “Sir, I salute your courage, your strength, your indefatigability”, recently led a convoy of peace- and friendship-loving, like-minded individuals to Palestine, but was interrupted en route by vicious Egyptians who found some fault in George’s purposes, attacking the convoy in El-Arish, pelting sun-tanned George and his friends with stones, and worse. I quote from the convoy’s organiser: "Vandals wrote dirty words and anti-Hamas slogans. Several people in the convoy were injured in the attack."

“GORGEOUS” GEORGE GALLOWAY may not have been deeply upset by the “dirty words” cast upon him and his entourage by people he no doubt deems infidels, but those spoken by the otherwise taciturn Canadian immigration ministry must surely cut like a scimitar into his leather jacket-clad breast. Describing him as an “infandous street-corner Cromwell” and refusing him entry into the country must hurt much more than being dragged up before the US House of Representatives to answer charges for corruption.

STAY TUNED FOR CONMAN

THE CHAT SHOW FORMAT WAS ORIGINALLY intended as a forum for entertainers to seem like reasonably pleasant and likeable folk so that we would buy their sometimes dodgy products, and, naturally, this has always attracted politicians, eager as they are to be liked, yet having nothing at all to offer anyone except things that belong to someone else.

SO I WAS SOMEWHAT SURPRISED by the media reporting that when beaming Barack Obama appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno this week it was the first time that an active US president has been on a chat programme. Every American president has appeared on Jay Leno’s programme since it started broadcasting as The James D. Leno Show in Schenectady, New York, in 1765, where it remained until it moved to California in 1848, with a brief stint in Rhode Island during the prohibition years.

OF COURSE THE TECHNOLOGY needed to see the show in the past was beyond the average budget, but I have recordings of all the shows, except the one involving President Nixon, the tape of which I seem to have misplaced, and I often re-run them in the living room on a pleasant Saturday evening in the company of my wife and children.

GREAT MOMENTS IN AMERICAN HISTORY took place live on air with Mr. Leno. Who will ever forget Washington trying to sell his plough, Lincoln, who was allowed to do the monologue “at the top of the show”, when Kennedy announced the space race (“We will win because our Germans are better than the Russians’ Germans”) and when Gerald Ford misread his cue-card and announced, “Stay tuned for conman.”?

DEMENTIAE GRATIA

FUN-LOVING PRINCE CHARLES Philip Arthur George Windsor, with his grinning duchess at his side, is as I write returning from a gruelling trip to South America in order to save the world. Although the world still needs saving, his tour has been a resounding success, by all accounts, showing that even at the age of 61, which is rather getting on for a dashing prince, he can still cut the mustard on the Samba floor, when chatting to plants in tropical gardens, when encouraging free enterprise among semi-naked Indians who make rubber hats out of yucca root gum and when naming tortoises. Indeed, one hardly sees a difference today in relation to the snazzy prince who went to Brazil thirty years ago

THE PRINCE CHARLES, PRINCE OF WALES believes that we only have 100 months to save the planet, otherwise it will be “too late”, and “all will be lost”. Addressing an audience of carefully-chosen invited common folk at a banquet in the Itamaraty Palace in Rio de Janeiro, our future king pointed out that an increase in temperature of 2 degrees centigrade over the next 100 years would be “catastrophic” and “frankly damaging” to our environment.

MY OWN OPINION is obviously not based on such experience as is possessed by the Prince of Wales, our future ruler. I know little about the world of nature; indeed, I have never even spoken to a single plant, let alone been able to hear what they say, as was the gift of Charles’ ancestor King George III, who belonged to those great English mad and stubborn monarchs described by G.S.P. Freeman-Grenville, in the authorative masterpiece The Book of Kings and Queens of Britain, such as “like his father, he was stupid” (George I, page 173), “George II was not only stupid and easily bullied, by his wife (…)” (page 175), and George III himself, recently defended by Prince Charles himself as a decent king, yet considered as “mental” by his contemporaries on various occasions (pages 178-182). This was when porphyria was diagnosed in the males of the royal family.

AS I WAS SAYING, my own opinion is in line with that of Nigel Lawson’s in An Appeal to Reason. It is surely extremely arrogant to believe that if we all turn the lights out for an hour on a Saturday afternoon or re-use our supermarket bags for a couple of times then we can affect the future of humanity.

FAR MORE IMPORTANT FOR US IN MODERN BRITAIN is Prince Charles’ recent address to Britain’s scientists. He warned that Britain will face a catastrophic burden if the threat of dementia is left unchecked. The Prince stated that rapid advances in expertise were vital to stave off the disastrous economic and social repercussions of the growing incidence of dementia.

ON A NOTE OF INEVITABILITY, he added: “Sadly, dementia will have an even greater impact as, in the future, the risk of dementia increases as people live longer, and the emotional, social and economic burden we all will face if this threat is left unchecked will be catastrophic”.

IOWA JIMA GUNG-HO SEPPUKU

THE GREAT STATE OF IOWA has featured in my writings in the past, when – alas! – I was not in possession of the knowledge I have at my disposal today. Indeed, the fact that the Dvorák Memorial, at Spillville, commemorates the Czech composer Antonin Dvorák, who worked in Spillville only extremely briefly in 1893, led me to believe that Iowa was a cultural backwater in which hayrick-haired, hayseed-sucking farmers lolled about chewing the milky bit of grass stems. Indeed, today’s headlines in the Des Moines Register might even add to this opinion, when the newspaper comes out with such issues as:

“Cattlemen say manure rules pose threat
The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has proposed new rules that would ban manure applications between Feb. 15 and April 15 on frozen or snow-covered ground, citing the danger to water supplies from manure that runs off frozen surfaces or melting snow.
The rules would apply only to those open feedlot and confinement feeding operations that have the equivalent of 500 beef cattle, 350 mature dairy cows or 1,250 finishing swine.”

IN MY PREVIOUS JOURNEY into things Iowan I invented, and had masquerade as real and true, an Iowan who represented all of the above slander. I would like to hereby state that there was not one jot or scintilla of truth in what I wrote, and that Iowans are stand-up guys, every bit as stand-up as our own Tony Blair. When the truth is hard to bear, Iowans are there.

WHAT HAS LED me to this opinion is the bare-nuckled, no-holds-barred approach taken by good ‘ole Charles “Chuck” Grassley, Senator for Iowa, who has stood out among other, lily-livered, weak-kneed, vacillating senators and leaders in proposing a “final” solution for the bounders and cads at the stricken insurance giant AIG. The company executives have awarded themselves $165 million in bonuses despite receiving a multi-bilion dollar government bailout.

IN AN INTERVIEW WITH Cedar Rapids radio station WMT, Senator Grassley said: “I would suggest the first thing that would make me feel a little bit better toward them is if they’d follow the Japanese example and come before the American people and take that deep bow and say, I’m sorry, and then either do one of two things: resign or go commit suicide.”

ALAS, I DO NOT EXPECT A WAVE of belly-cutting, and neither does Chuck, unless he is thinking of finishing swine getting gutted back home, but I welcome further calls for the unscrupulous to fall on their swords rather than take government awards for gross incompetence.

GOD BLESS YOU MAM

CLOSE FOREIGN OBSERVERS of English life must find so many things that are part and parcel of everyday activity in Britain difficult to understand, but I am convinced that things are getting easier for them as the years go by. The major stumbling blocks are becoming things of the past: we no longer have a pound that is divided into 20 shillings, divided each by twelve pence, each of which divided into four farthings, some people understand what foreigners mean when they talk about litres, we know that a kilo is a unit of weight and, according to figures published by the increasingly dapper Gordon Brown and his friends in our government, more people are learning foreign languages than ever before, although I cannot imagine why.

ONE OF THE MYSTERIES in which our existence is shrouded involves our royal family. Many of the foreigners that English people can understand when they talk come from a country which has a president as its ruler, being convinced that electing the thief is better than letting the thieves decide among themselves who will rob you. But even these people adore the pomp and circumstance that accompanies the idea that one is royal because of divine intervention rather than the head of state due to the “swaying votes” of a bunch of grubby, beer-bellied, oily-handed motor mechanics from Wasabi County in Oregon, for example. And we in the UK do know how to market our royalty, who, in the main, are deserving, honest people who have little to do with the swindlers and chancers who get involved in politics off their own bat.

FLAME-HAIRED, LIVELY DUCHESS OF YORK Sarah Ferguson is one of these simultaneous mysteries and attractions. No one can doubt her dedication and devotion to her duty as a representative of what is best about the English Royal Family. I would like to here, personally, express my most sincere desire for the film that she has part produced, The Young Victoria, to become the success it ought to be. May it help her daughter Beatrice gain the self-confidence that only cameos can provide, and help Sarah herself forget the ugly times when the badmashes responsible for the gutter press had nothing better to do but write evil columns about her and her financial advisor John Bryan.

SARAH’S RECENT INTERVIEW ON SKY NEWS surely moved the nation. She showed a tenderness and concern for the average men and women of Britain similar to that shown by the Queen Mother during the Blitz, when she told Londoners to grow their own vegetables, presumably so that they would at least have healthy skin when the German bombs came crashing through the roofs of their slum dwellings. Sarah was genuine and sincere when she said she felt so “sorry for all these unemployed people”. “I’ve been there; I’ve been without a job”, she said. The nation was moved as one soul. We are with you, Sarah, including those of us who have never been caught on camera half-naked sucking Texan toes.


IN THE MEANTIME, in the same spirit of care and kindness, our government has announced a new plan to be considered “some time in the future” in order to increase our happiness and bodily wellbeing. As many visitors to our shores have witnessed, aghast, it is common practice among a large number of our young people to go out on a Friday or Saturday evening and drink large amounts of alcohol with the deliberate intention of getting drunk. Personally I have nothing against this, and I do not even mind very much when they beat each other to a pulp, damage themselves in all manner of frightening ways and then ruin their health by gorging themselves on so-called “junk” food like Kentucky Fried Chicken and Fish and Chips with mushy peas. Professor Sir Liam Donaldson, the government’s chief medical officer, however, is more concerned than I am. And so we have the recommendation to his masters to increase the price of alcohol to at least double its current, absurd levels. Research consistently shows, I am informed, that the only way to stop people drinking too much is to make it too expensive for them to buy. We do not know how lucky we are to have such kindly people at the helm. Perhaps they might consider putting a tax on chocolate in the near future.