THE GOOD DOCTORS OF WHO

THE WHO’S CURRENT DIRECTOR-GENERAL, Dr Margaret Chan, appears to be one of those leaders in whom one can trust. Remarkably, the World Health Organization boss is actually a doctor. She also has experience in the field, gained while she was Director of Health of Hong Kong for nine years, where she launched new services to prevent the spread of disease and managed outbreaks of avian influenza and of severe acute respiratory syndrome.

YET HER RECORD may not suffice to deal with the mounting challenge that has burst the sty and boarded the Boeing, so to speak. She was grim-faced in her announcement yesterday that worse things are to come, even in “effluent” (sic) nations. We all hope that the good doctor will be able to put a timely end to this problem, but I would suggest reinforcements are needed.

DEALING WITH TROUBLE OF EPIDEMIC PROPORTIONS has been the job since time began of Doctor Who, a mysterious, shape-changing character who is regularly called in to save the Earth from whatever threat is on the horizon or already on the screen, and this doctor, indeed, has specific skills in dealing with this type of problem.

DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION, in “Daleks in Manhattan”, Dr Who faced the threat of a hybrid, mutated race called the Pig Slaves, who were humans who had been turned into pigs due to being of low intelligence. The Pig Slaves captured subjects for Dalek experiments. Some of these pigs hid in Broadway theatres, where they enjoyed the shows. Also, they were “extremely aggressive and virulent, but short-lived”, terms I seem to have heard recently about swine influenza A H1N1.

ALL ENDS WELL, MORE OR LESS, as is usual with Dr Who, when Who uses his “Time Lord DNA” to put an end to the mischief and escape into oblivion. Who warns, however, that the danger may not be over and that the Daleks and their pigmen may return. Something like what WHO has been saying in statements recently from the good Dr Chan’s camp. “Even if it goes away now, it may be back stronger in the Autumn.”

PERILS BEFORE SWINE

WHENEVER THERE IS A PANDEMIC, such as the one the world is facing at the moment, I am often asked the question, “David, are we in safe hands with the leaders we have?” Obviously the short answer to this question is ‘no’, or ‘never’. But many people are not happy with a simple statement of fact unless the issue is looked into in more detail. It is being announced today that the people in Scotland who were foolish enough to go on a honeymoon to Mexico are recovering on their own, but somewhat worrying is the government’s request, today, for thirty-two million face masks and fifty million doses of anti-virals.

NEITHER CAN I BE TOTALLY HAPPY about Gordon Brown’s announcement that the “government has been preparing for this pandemic for years” – yet even so there is a shortage of medicine and not enough masks to give to National Health Service workers. One wonders what this preparation has been involving, and those among my acquaintances who are more paranoid imagine tunnels under Whitehall and secret hospitals for government members on an island off the coast of Wales.

BUT THE SAFEST OF ALL HANDS must, once again, be those of our European masters, and particularly, in this case, those of European Health Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou. No one should doubt her credentials or her competence as the lady in charge of the health of 350 million or so Europeans. Indeed, Vassiliou, a lawyer, former first lady of Cyprus, Advisor to the Standard Charter Bank and the Bank of Cyprus, Chairwoman of the Cyprus Federation of Businesswomen and lifetime honorary president of the Federation of United Nations Associations, all besides being a member of the Cyprus parliament for four terms and serving on the boards of dozens of companies, is obviously the woman for the job.

YESTERDAY SHE WAS EXTREMELY HELPFUL when she stated that the European Commission has been very “pro-active” and that “consumption of pork is safe, as long as it is cooked…” So now we know. I’m not sure that Vassiliou is religious, but I would suggest that she have a little look at the Bible, and what it has to say about eating the vile flesh of the swine. Isaiah 65: 4, for example: “One of the reasons these people provoke the Lord is because they "eat swine’s flesh, and the broth of unclean meat is in their pots.""

MOVE OVER DARLING

SOMETIME COMEDIAN ROWAN ATKINSON may believe he has cornered the market on jokes involving the surname Darling, but I imagine that one can squeeze yet another one out, particularly after the joke budget the canny Scot came up with yesterday. We never expect good news when we are watching people who have our money tell us what they will do with our money and how much more of our money they want from us next time. Particularly when we know that what they will do with it will be to feather their own nests.

IT WOULD BE NICE, HOWEVER if these people were mildly attractive or sexy, rather than looking like a startled puppet from something created by Gerry Anderson. I admit that the taxman in the UK is not going to get his grubby paws on much of my money, as I live abroad, but if I were the one being robbed I would like to be robbed by someone who looks a bit nicer, like Berlusconi's European cabinet.

MEANWHILE, ECOLOGY AND “GREEN ISSUES” have even taken hold of the linguistic aspect of politics. We constantly hear about “green shoots” of recovery and “sowing seeds” for the future. Let us see whether April’s budget brings us the darling buds of May.

MIND THE GAP

ONE IS ALWAYS PLEASED TO SEE MINOR members of the Royal Family making fools of themselves, if only for the fact that this may lead the average “punter”, as I believe I have to term the lower class voters nowadays, to turn at least sightly against them. Knowing full well that this will never happen, Princess Eugenie Victoria Helena thinks that she can spend her “gap” year making a fool not only of herself, whenever a Daily Mail photographer is on or at hand, but also making a fool of the liitle old ladies who knitted scarf upon scarf to send off to the soldiers fighting to defend Britain from precisely the sort of tottie toff that is now scuppering our economy in blind ignorance of rules of decorum.

THE AMOUNT OF MONEY BEING SPENT on having two permanent policemen looking after our princess while she is on her gap year flitting about in the far east is probably enough to keep many pensioners in hip operations for years to come; but, then, they don’t really need it, do they? And, obviously, she does need a bit of whisky, beer and dancing on the bar in oriental haunts. It must keep her trim.

IN THE MEANTIME I AM REMINDED of Godzilla, a much misunderstood and oft-maligned do-gooder mistaken for a ne’er-do-well who had it upon himself to wreak havoc in the East, ending up destroying the Diet Building in Tokyo, perhaps because, as local legend always has it, not enough virgins were sacrificed to appease him.

BARACK TO THE FUTURE

JOHN FITZGERALD "JACK" KENNEDY, during his election campaign in 1960, asked several of his aides to study the Gettysburg Address. Kennedy had them ask professors of English in Johns Hopkins why the address, which in my opinion is the most eloquent expression of the new birth of freedom brought forth by reform liberalism, was “any good”, as he himself was at a loss to see its merits.

PRESUMABLY HAVING LEARNT THE LESSON of how to use simple words, straightforward sentences, rhyme and repetition, cadence and crescendo, all in patterns of twos and threes, avoiding excess in adjective and adverb, keeping to the point and getting off the stage before boredom sets in, Kennedy went on to be known as an orator on a level with Lincoln, and, of course, to be compared with Lincoln in many ways. One of these ways involved being unpopular with people who carry guns.

THE PRESENT LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD has also had his aides study Lincoln’s speeches, as well as Kennedy’s, in order to achieve the same level of charisma. One can see the effect of this so clearly in his “Philadelphia Declaration” on January 17th before he got on the train to Washington, in imitation of Kennedy in words and Lincoln in acts: "We are here to mark the beginning of our journey to Washington, and this is fitting, because it was here in this city that our American journey began. We are here today not simply to pay tribute to our first patriots but to take up the work that they began. What is required is a new declaration of independence, not just in our nation, but in our own lives -- from ideology and small thinking, prejudice and bigotry -- an appeal not to our easy instincts but to our better angels. Starting now, let's take up in our own lives the work of perfecting our union. Let's build a government that is responsible to the people and accept our own responsibilities as citizens to hold our government accountable.”

BUT IT IS IN IMITATING KENNEDY that Barack Hussein Obama falls a little short. Kennedy’s boys had decided that the presidency needed a “big issue” to make a name for itself, and had come up with the cute idea of going to the Moon, which Kennedy himself announced on the radio and the then new-fangled TV. And now, as of Wednesday last, Barack and his boys appear to have come up with the “big issue for the future” that might define his own administration. Not for Barack to dream of Mars, like his predecessor; instead Barack dreams of the day when one will be able to go “coast to coast in this great nation”, “without taking off your shoes” by rail, to California. Perhaps one of the "guys" in his staff might point out that this has been done before. Or perhaps one of them should write a new “Penn Station Address”. My suggestion is: “We choose to go to California by train in this decade and to Florida too, not because it is easy, but because it is impossible.” And if he opposes the car lobby too much he may end up imitating Kennedy and Lincoln in a way more than rhetoric and posturing.

ONE BETWEEN THE THIGHS

ONE SHOULD NEVER SPEAK ILL OF THE DEAD, I was always taught. Despite my questioning nature as a youngster I never inquired as to whether this applied to the politically dead, although I assume that avoiding speaking ill of politicians is something which neither comes easy nor naturally to anyone literate enough to read a newspaper or even watch the news. Fortunately for many of our leaders, particularly in southern Europe, the chronic absence of any coherent education policy has meant that the number of people capable of completing these tasks is relatively insignificant.

BUT EVEN IN COUNTRIES WHERE SOME people can read a newspaper, often getting past page three, unless they start reading them from the back, like most people in Britain, our miscreant politicians can feel fairly safe that it will never be actual policies, debates or manifestos than will bring them to their knees. A bad camera angle is more damaging than a scandal.

THUS THE ABSURD MERRIMENT involving Damian McBride, Gordon Brown’s press advisor and closest aide, e-mailing defamatory information to be included on a future Red Rag Blog, which would trumpet Gordon’s values and attack opponents, will largely go unnoticed. Although for some people this activity sounds like just not cricket, for most inhabitants of Britain, and particularly those on which Labour depends to win elections, it sounds like Double Dutch. Words like “e-mail”, “blogosphere” and “spin doctor” mean nothing.

TO SHOW A RED RAG TO A BULL, means to invite trouble; Gordon Brown’s “attack dog” Damian McBride has paid for his juvenile behaviour with his job, at least for now, but I very much doubt that Gordon will pay with his, at least for now. Abstract concepts might win or lose votes, but unintelligible gobbledygook will have no effect. Those of us in the know, however, can find amusement watching a giggly fool waving the red rag at the bull and then taking a horning in the lower midriff.

EASTER OF EDEN

LIVING IN A COUNTRY where people are happy to wish one a “Good Easter” and to walk through the towns in imitatio of Christ without feeling foolish, brings me to think of how sad it is that in Britain, and specifically in England, shows of religious feeling or belief are now considered as absurd as wearing plus fours and as politically incorrect as using words like “gollywog”, as was used by Margaret Thatcher’s daughter recently.

THERE ARE THUS AT LEAST TWO generations of possibly baptized British citizens who basically have no idea what Easter is about. These people confuse Santa Claus with Jesus, have never worn a tie and think that Adidas training shoes are the height of respectable fashion.

THESE COMMENTS ARE NOT APPLICABLE to those people who live in Britain and profess other faiths, of course, and we are past being used to hearing about local councils made up of scruffy, anorak-clad politicians banning demonstrations of Christianity in public in order not to offend other religions, but the specific problem of Easter has to do with the Church itself and its dumbing down of belief.

THE RIGHT REV DR TOM WRIGHT, Bishop of Durham, may be on the button when he says that the world wants to hush up the real meaning of Easter so as not to run the risk of removing the threat of anarchy and tyranny by instilling belief in resurrection among people, and he bemoans the fact that the Church does not stand up to society’s, probably legitimate, desire.

HOWEVER WHAT I DISLIKE is the fact that Easter as a deeply religious occasion now is on an equal footing with the noxious Easter Bunny and its sickening Easter Eggs. Anyone who doubts this can look at today’s Times and see, side-by-side, an article on the deeper meaning of Easter and one about how to make your own chocolate. What evil might good Christians have committed to find themselves removed from peaceful practice of their religion and be sent out to live in a sweet shop?

HONI SOIT QUE MAL Y VOTE

MY RECENT TRIP TO LIVERPOOL did not perhaps have the result desired. My status as an ex-patriot naturally led me to back Offshore Account, “a certain winner”, I was informed by the eccentric cockney who sold me the ticket. All was going well, with the horse leading the race until two fences out, when the commentator’s voice starts to get falsetto, and when the nag decided to stop running, costing me a pretty penny.

OFFSHORE ACCOUNTS, HOWEVER, seem to be on everyone’s lips at the moment, with governments all over the “free” world seemingly determined to put a stop to what they term criminal activity. Yet I have never understood what could possibly be criminal about wanting to keep one’s own money and not give it to members of the government, who will only squander it on frivolous motorway building schemes, farcical “green” projects, unending and pointless education bills or holiday hideaways in the sun for bank managers and their mistresses and/or rent boys.

ON THE SUBJECT OF CRIMINALS, the burning issue while I was in Liverpool, at least until the police “swooped” (an endearing image I always think) on a “nest” of terrorists in the North West, was whether criminals should be given the right to vote in elections. For a thousand years it has been understood as perfectly logical that “outlaws”, by their very nature, should not participate in electing lawmakers. Yet our bright European leaders, in 2005, decided that prisoners – convicted criminals – had a “human right” to vote, thus ordering the British government to implement European law.

IT IS TEMPTING TO STATE that in Europe criminals and politicians are much of a muchness, and that if we let criminals vote they will elect criminals, just as sure as one gets monkeys when one pays peanuts, and, rather confusingly, as sure as eggs are eggs. But – alas! – this is not true; also prohibited from voting in our own green and pleasant land are members of the House of Lords. And thus arises the question: should we give these despicable criminals the vote?

PRESENT MIRTH HATH PRESENT LAUGHTER

And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
´Tis that I may not weep.
Byron

ONCE AGAIN TO LIVERPOOL THIS WEEKEND to, among other engagements, attend one of the greatest sporting events on the planet, the magnificent Grand National Steeplechase at Aintree, a racecourse that appears to have been designed by someone who was having a laugh. In fact, one of the great advantages of the city of Liverpool is that, as in Ireland, neither it nor its people take anyone seriously nor expect them to be serious. This, naturally, extends to politicians, with Liverpool being able to claim such great political leaders as Derek Hatton, the former Trotskyist Councillor who turned into a male model and radio comedian.

IN FACT ONE HAS MORE CHANCE OF RESPECT in Liverpool if one can tell a good joke, kick a football, write a song, novel, poem or play, or play the banjo or ukulele than being an internationally respected figure on the dour stage of politics – as long as none of these achievements is taken too seriously, as highlighted by the wondrous comic poetry of Henri, McGough and Patten, the novels of Alexei Sayle, the (surely joking) songs of Paul McCartney, the one-liners by John Lennon (“I never really wanted to be a musician; I wanted to be a comedian, like Ringo.”) and the hilarious antics of the manager of Liverpool FC and the haircuts of the Everton FC players.

LUCKILY FOR THE UNITED KINGDOM, the population of Liverpool is not representative of the country as a whole, which is generally made up of stout, honest folk who take their politics to heart, or, which is equally beneficial to the nation, those who are so dull, thick-headed and/or lost in realms of dubious contact with reality – whether due to drugs, alcohol or television – that they find natural empathy with today’s politicians. If the people of Liverpool were the majority of the country we would end up with the sort of leaders “elected” by many of our good friends around the world: when some of them step up to the microphone we don’t know whether we are going to hear a joke or just look at one.

MEET THE GAFFER

SPECULATION WAS INTENSE YESTERDAY as to the outcome of Barack Obama’s first meeting with our borrowed Greek leader The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth and Baron Greenwich, Prince of Greece and Denmark, and husband to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. Given the Duke’s natural tendency – and probable desire – to come out with unfortunate remarks when the media look his way, and his “previous” in China, Egypt and Australia most lately, one could sense the twittering in the air about the latest potential gaffe.

HAVING UPSET THE CHINESE on a state visit, when he was caught saying that the Chinese would “eat anything”, having called Arabs “towel-heads” on a visit to Egypt, and most recently asking a ceremonial aboriginal at a specially held dance festival in Australia whether Aborigines “still used spears”, the content of his first remarks to the new US president were eagerly awaited. The scope for gaffe was mammoth and mother-of-all; he had only recently told Mylene Klass, the showgirl, he thought she was “fit” and insulted Simon Cowell, perhaps the most well-known entertainer in Britain, by calling him “a sponger”, added to by his dubious “apology” in saying that he could never have really meant he was a “sponger” as he has no idea who he is.

FORTUNE HAS NOT BEEN KIND to the Greek royal family over the last hundred years, what with the last “legitimate” king dying after being bitten by a monkey when strolling around in his own garden, and then bitten by the monkey’s mate while tending to his wound, as well as the unfortunate case of their actual last ruler, King George “man in a suitcase” II, who spent more hours on the boat-train between London and Paris than beneath the skies of Hera and died in Greece on April 1st 1947; he had returned to the throne and was much loved, but when his death was announced everyone thought it was an April Fool’s Day prank, and busily got on with their Ouzo and pistachios regardless.

PRINCE PHILIP SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN-SONDERBURG-GLÜCKSBURG did not let the media down, of course, although this time he has left us all with a bit of a mystery to solve. When Obama stated “I had breakfast with the Prime Minister, I had meetings with the Chinese, the Russians, David Cameron,” and Big Phil interrupted with, “Can you tell the difference between them?” we were left wondering whether this was racism or wry political analysis. Or perhaps just that dementia that Philip’s son seems so worried about.