KICK OUT THE JAMS

IN THE AGE OF THE SOUNDBITE, politicians over recent years seemed to have clubbed together, somewhat in the same manner as football players, in order to use the same type of language when talking about issue, as if fearful of saying the wrong thing had led them to stick to tried and trusted vocabulary and expressions in their search for linguistic safety.

OF COURSE IN THE CASE of footballers, using "over the moon" and "sick as a parrot", this became something of a cruel joke, when it was patently obvious that subjecting someone who had minutes previously scored the winning goal in a cup final to an interview on television for which he was clearly linguistically unprepared would only result in ridicule.

YET ONE WOULD NATURALLY expect higher things in terms of lexicon from our leaders, many of whom, including politicians on the left of the spectrum, went to our best schools and universities. 

UNFORTUNATELY FOR MANY OF THESE POLITICIANS, going to a "good" school may not be the best preparation for being able to maintain a grip on the reality of the country one is supposed to be governing, and thus being hopelessly out of touch with the so-called 'common man' has paradoxically become more the norm as parliamentary democracy has advanced in the West, resulting, some might say, in the phenomena that have led to triumphs for Trump, Farage and Brexit recently, and to the rise of Le Pen in France and the coming demise of Merkel in Germany next year. 

THE DIFFICULTY APPEARS TO REVOLVE around the curious emotion of empathy. Happily, our politicians in the UK have never stooped to the embarrassingly gooey depths of American politicians, as witnessed by both Clintons on campaign repeatedly stating "I feel your pain" in order to gain votes -- a remarkable strategy coming from two millionaire lawyers when talking to unemployed black families on minimum state benefits, but one which at least worked for Bill.

AND IT IS THE NOTION OF WORK that has inspired this latest missive. In purely linguistic terms, it is difficult for politicians in a country ridden by class discrimination to know how to address what used to be called the "working classes", and naturally it is even harder to be able to relate to them when one knows nothing about how they live, where they work and how much they earn, what they buy with this money, what they wear and eat, where and how they relax and what they want and enjoy.

THUS ENORMOUS GAFFES occasionally appear, such as Gordon Brown's stating that he used to watch "The Eastenders", and promised ever pensioner in Britain an extra 75 pence a week in their pensions. What he imagined one could buy with this money to liven up one's week is anyone's guess, but it clearly showed he had no idea how much a cup of tea and jam roly-poly cost in a local cafe. 

OVER RECENT YEARS OUR SPIN DOCTORS have tried to come up with new terms for the people they would rather never meet but who are essential for an election victory. Having abandoned “the working classes” (and more than just linguistically) they have turned to “hard-working families”, which was replaced shortly afterwards by “hard-working people”, itself ditched before the last election as it was deemed that middle-class office workers felt guiltily insulted.

NOW THERESA MAY’S TEAM has come up with a new term to take the place of the rather unfortunate but self-appointed term “strugglers”. These are those who are in work but finding life difficult; i.e., those for whom the “living wage” (a new expression for the old “working wage” is not even as comfortable as the laughably optimistic “minimum wage”. Thus we have the “Just About Managing” or “The Jams”

WHILE SOME OF THOSE WHO ARE IN TOUCH with popular culture may be reminded of the “pop” group The Jams, and their exciting album What the Fuck is Going On?, others may recall the band The Jam, the most vociferously anti-Thatcher and anti-Conservative musical ensemble since the beginning of rock music. Yet others will no doubt be reminded of the iconic album by Detroit group MC5, Kick out the Jams, no doubt something the Conservatives would be pleased to do given the chance. And no doubt something that will lead to this new term being dropped by the government before any future elections.

(My photo shows our Prime Minister wearing leather trousers from Turkey, for which she is paying 75 pence per week to Littlewood's online catalogue.)

ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK

I WOULD HAVE THOUGHT that by now the pollsters -- those that haven't been fired, that is -- would have come up with more intelligent ways of informing us about the likely results of the elections after their miserable performances predicting the outcome of the UK referendum on Europe and of the general elections in 2015 in the UK, when not one single polling team came up with the right analysis of the future.

IF I WERE A SUSPICIOUS PERSON I might even consider that the pollsters -- in the main liberally-educated graduates from decent upper middle class homes with parents who probably went on protest marches against nuclear bombs in the sixties -- have been more interested in projecting the way people ought to vote in their opinion rather than stating what people are really telling them.

THE MOST OUTRAGEOUS EVENT in this wishful-thinking-about-the-electorate is what happened over the cover of Newsweek magazine, which prepared and shipped out an edition (shown below) "celebrating" (sic) Hillary Clinton's victory. Interviewed by Dermot Murnaghan of Sky News earlier today, Jim Impoco, the editor-in-chief of Newsweek, held up an issue of the magazine live on air and threatened to burn it. Murnaghan wisely advised against this, suggesting a fire hazard, but the fact is that the issue is probably worth a few hundred dollars after newsagents across the USA and the UK received (and sold) it on Wednesday morning.

IMPOCO SENSIBLY ADDED that "this cover just shows that we are stupid." In a gleeful moment of me being allowed to mix up a few metaphors, it might be seen as unhelpful for me to add that the stupidity Impoco correctly admits includes the fact that his publication not only jumped the gun over the results of the presidential election, but also backed the wrong horse.

BUT THEY WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN so stupid had they listened to the only poll that made any sense to me. This was conducted by the company run by the British Lord Ashcroft, who had the good sense to ask people the most important question during the "run up" (sic) to this election, which was "Have you told your close family and friends who you are going to vote for?"

A REMARKABLE FIFTEEN PERCENT of people stated that they had not revealed their choices; this is particularly remarkable in the USA -- not a country in which the population is renowned for its dress sense -- where many people are happy to saunter around in training suits and baseball caps, often with political slogans or the names of sports teams written on them, and have bumper stickers on their enormous vehicles bearing such unnecessary statements as "No to Gun Control" or "Republican and Proud".

THUS AN INTELLIGENT READING OF THIS PERCENTAGE (i.e., one carried out by me) would lead one to believe that at least half of this 15% must be women who are going to vote Trump but are ashamed to tell their mothers/daughters/girl friends etc. As well as probably half of the other 7%, in all making nearly ten percent of the electorate.

NO WORKING CLASS MAN WOULD BE ASHAMED to tell his co-workers in the factory that he was going to vote Trump. And all of the screaming harridans who were going to vote for Secretary Mrs Clinton would have been proud of the fact and probably would have regularly shouted about this to their family and their female friends in the dorm, barrio, hood, leafy suburb or golf course, where they would meet up for discussions about Rousseau, eat burritos or burgers, drink mint juleps or enjoy charity bridge tournaments. 

THEREFORE, IN MY ANALYSIS, TRUMP would win about ten percent more of the electorate than the polls showed. Almost exactly what happened, and indeed what I saw on the TV screen when I woke up at seven on Wednesday morning; almost exactly what happened when I stayed up all night to watch the result of the UK referendum, and almost exactly what happened in the last general election in Britain. Unfortunately, living outside of the UK, I cannot bet money on the results. The odds were appealing.

COME ROMANIANS, COME

IF NOTHING ELSE, MY YEARS AT UNIVERSITY taught me to avoid politics and politicians like the plague. My father, in his infinite wisdom, had already primed me on many occasions about those people in life who were, in his (perfectly correct) opinion, "odd".

HE PERSUADED ME NOT TO JOIN the Scouts when he quietly sowed the seeds of doubt in my mind about scoutmasters with his gentle question, "David, do you think it is normal for a grown man to give up his weekends to go about wearing short trousers and camping with ten-year-old boys when he could be at home spending time with his wife?"

WHEN I TURNED EIGHTEEN he gave me his opinion about voting: "Just think, before you vote, 'Why would anyone want me to vote for them?'" To this day I have not come up with a sensible answer to this question other than that these people want my money and power over me without having to work in a proper job. Thus I have never voted in any capacity in my life.

AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON the main candidates for elections seemed to be foaming-at-the-mouth socialists who were deranged enough to believe that being chosen for a committee that basically was only responsible for selecting what music to play at the Friday night disco was one step towards smashing the major banking institutions, eliminating religion, ending poverty in the third world and forming world governments made up almost exclusively of black homosexual invalids.

AT KINGS COLLEGE LONDON the candidates at the hustings were usually decent, middle-class people who seemed genuine enough, but when I got to know some of them better I found that one, in my first year, still collected Action Man equipment at the age of 19, another had a passion for watching weather maps on TV and another collected Thomas the Tank Engine toys. Heaven knows what other perversions were waiting to appear in their future lives.

AT MAGDALEN COLLEGE OXFORD things were more straightforward. One chap, when I asked him why I should vote for him for a position on the Student Union Board had a refreshingly honest reply. "If you vote for me," he pointed out, "you will feel you are a part of a democratic process. If no one votes for me I shall simply tell my father to put me on the Board." This gentleman is currently a member of the House of Lords.

ALL IN ALL, MOST OF THESE people were odd. Which brings me to Keith "Vazeline" Vaz. Of course it is not "odd" for politicians to keep money given to them to give to charities. Of course it is not "odd" for married politicians with children to pay to have sex with young male prostitutes. Of course it is not odd for these politicians to openly text these prostitutes about how much "rogering" they will give them and how horny they are feeling. Of course it is not odd for politicians to defend one thing in public and do something else in private. Such as purchasing and supplying illegal drugs. Of course not.

HOWEVER, WHAT IS EXTREMELY ODD is for a politician to be so utterly stupid as Mr Vaz is. He has already barely managed to wriggle his way out of a series of scandals involving bribes, financial misdemeanour and selling of influence, and -- error of all errors -- has been critical of press freedom. Oddness is embodied in the fact that an experienced politician like Mr Vaz should believe that he could get away with all this behaviour without the press wanting to take an interest. 

EVERYONE LIKES A GOOD STORY, and Mr Vaz recently left, as they sometimes say, the book open on the dining room table, when he made the mistake of telling his Polish rent boys that he was interested in having sex with a Romanian lad. Vaz, in the texts he wrote and which were published by the Daily Mirror today, seemed particularly excited about the fact that the (non-existent) Romanian boy was "intact" and possibly didn't speak English but was ready for a bit of "rough" in return for drugs and money.

THIS ASPECT OF THE EVENT played into the hands of the press and into mine. For it was Mr Vaz who, on the morning of January 1st 2014, the first day that Romanians could come to the UK legally, went to Luton airport to personally meet the first Romanians off the plane from Tirgu Mures and to welcome them to "our country". I watched the press conference live at the time. "We want Romanians to come," said Mr Vaz. "They will be a valuable contribution to us all." Indeed.

(My pictures show a somewhat shifty Mr Vaz, at Luton Airport at 7.30 in the morning meeting the first Romanian off the plane, then a friend of his, and then buying them breakfast.)

WHAT LIES BENEATH

I MUST CONFESS I AM MILDLY AMUSED by the advice given by the British Government security services at MI6 before the visit of Prime Minister Theresa May and her officials to Hangzhou in China for the G20 summit meeting.

IT SHOULD NOT BE NECESSARY to warn today's politicians about the dangers of spying, and particularly of "honey trapping" when powerful diplomats and top-notch businessmen are gathered for talks in countries where the local populations are desperate to escape the regimes under which they live, and where a few hundred pounds, which any gentleman would have in his wallet for minor expenses between meals, would allow a local to live like royalty for a few years.

THE DISASTROUS VISIT TO CHINA by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in 2008 involved one of his close advisors being "spiked", "honeyed" and "fleeced", to use the jargon known to us who have worked for the security services, an incident which disgraced the whole mission, and particularly the government security team.

WHEN, AS A YOUNG MAN, I was involved in work for the British Government security services, we were always told to undress under the bed sheets so as not to be photographed by hidden cameras when staying in hotels. Although I was not "in field" in China, but in Portugal, I was still advised to carry a bed sheet with me to any public toilet and cover myself in it completely when using the sit-down lavatory.

I SHOULD STATE THAT IN PORTUGAL in the late nineteen-seventies this was also useful as a protection against mosquitoes, and that I grew to look forward to those moments of complete isolation from reality.

AS FOR UNDRESSING UNDER THE SHEETS, I may also state that there were some positives to this practice other than avoiding being photographed by cameras hidden in the air conditioning unit, radio alarm clock, wall-bracketed TV set or the more obvious smoke detector. I used to take a good deal of erotic pleasure in taking my clothes off in this manner, particularly when in the company of a beautiful young girl, an inept "spy" with no talent whatsoever for dissimulation and who was doing the same thing next to me.

THE OFFICIAL ADVICE TO THERESA MAY and her team is to "undress under the bedclothes" if one is "uncomfortable about being seen naked". I saw a photograph of the British G20 team earlier today, and either there are a lot of deluded people (albeit true that most politicians are deluded about their own worth and value) on this diplomatic mission, or there will be a lot of people undressing under the sheets.

NO PRIME MINISTER OF THE UK has ever been what one might call "my cup of tea", and if I were in close proximity with the present one I would be more than pleased to have her undress under the sheets, hopefully after having removed her kitten heels and left her corset in the bathroom beforehand. Someone should advise two members of her team that major blackmail may ensue if anyone gets a photo of their false teeth in a cup of water by the bed or of their hairpieces hanging on the bedstead.

GORDON BROWN'S DIPLOMAT was "fleeced", but at least this was after he had had the aplomb to take a seventeen-year-old prostitute to his hotel room; getting "fleeced" because someone has a photo of you bald and toothless when you portray yourself as dynamic and a possible candidate for the highest office is something a little smuttier.

EURODISNEYLAND

THE SOI-DISANT EUROPEAN COMMISSION was already a bunch of fools and madmen when it was headed by the absurd fascist clown José Manuel Barroso, with his arrogant ideas about saving the planet by banning 100 watt light bulbs and giving every washing machine and fridge an "eco" rating certificate which we now know was all a pack of lies.

BARROSO'S "CULTURAL PROJECT" for Europe was supposed to end up with us all being a sort of European version of the United States. However, although I know that Barroso is a limited person on the intellectual level, I find it difficult to believe that anyone with a smattering of intelligence could imagine that a literally fantastic system like this could work, with honest, hard-working clean Lutherans living on the same level as toothless ruffians who spend most waking hours lounging around semi-naked in cemented gardens outside houses without proper furniture inside.

WE REGULARLY HEAR ABOUT THE EU being "the world's biggest market" and how Britain will miss out on the possibility of trade. Yet of the 300 million people in the Union only about 40 million are prepared or able to spend cash on goods; the Puritans in the north, in Holland, Denmark, Sweden and northern Germany are generally afraid of being ostentatious with their money as they think they will go to Hell if they do.

THE EASTERN EUROPEANS, when they don't bury their money in the garden or put it in plastic bags and sink it into the well in the yard, waste it on building houses that they never finish; the Spanish, Italians, Greeks and Portuguese are perfectly happy to be ostentatious, and thus we have people who do not have enough money to change their underwear on a regular basis putting down deposits on expensive cars and houses which will be repossessed after a few months.

SO MUCH FOR THE MARKET over the last ten years. But Jean-Claude Juncker has taken this cultural megalomania to new heights in publishing a medal table which shows that the "nation" which won most medals at the Olympics was in fact the European Union.

OF COURSE THIS WOULD be perfectly legitimate if there were such a thing as a European Union team -- which the Eurocrats probably have wet dreams about -- but there isn't. How Juncker believes he can make a medal table grouping together nations which actually competed against each other at the games is beyond me. But so is so much about the fantasy land that is the European Union.

MAGNIFICENT BACKDROP

ONCE AGAIN TEAM GB has done well in the water at the Olympic Games, winning several of the sailing events. In an interview on the BBC with one of the ladies who won gold, she said how wonderful she felt and particularly referred to the magnificent backdrop for the event.

I PRESUME SHE WAS referring to the mountains around Guanabara Bay, Sugar Loaf Mountain and the Christ the Redeemer statue glaring down at a city that needs quite a lot of redemption. 

HOWEVER, THE REAL BACKDROP to this year's games is something more sinister: a human leg was found floating in the sailing arena and a severed woman's bottom washed up on the beach and was discovered by children paddling. A Rio police spokesman said this was a "regular occurrence" in the area. "He was probably cut up by one of the drugs gangs," he added.

US SWIMMERS GUNNAR BENTZ and Jack Conger were dragged off a plane and arrested after police believed that they invented a story about being robbed at gunpoint by criminals posing as policemen. A British athlete was in fact robbed at gunpoint, and yesterday all athletes were prohibited from leaving the athletics arena.

THE HEAD OF THE KENYAN team, Major Michael Rotich, has been sent home after being filmed asking for a £10,000 bribe for warning his athletes about when drugs testing was about to take place. 

BOXING JUDGES HAVE BEEN sent home after it was discovered they were making "wrong" decisions in boxing matches, particularly in favour of Russian boxers.

AND THE IRISH HEAD of the European Olympic Committee, Pat Hickey, was arrested after being found hiding naked in his son's hotel room in Rio. According to Detective Ronaldo Oliveira he had been illegally selling thousands of tickets over face value with the possibility of making a profit of up to three million US dollars.

(My photo shows a shoreline of Guanabara Bay that the cameras religiously avoid)

DEAD IN THE WATER

AS I HAVEN'T HAD A LOT TO DO over the last few days, I have been watching the so-called Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on television. I predicted some time ago (see Sunday Mornings passim) that this would be an utter and total disaster.

BUT I HAD NO IDEA how bad it could be. If anyone watches the coverage on a terrestrial channel they will only receive what is being filmed by the Brazilian people responsible.

ALL OF THE CAMERA ANGLES are wrong, the close-ups are too close, the voice-overs and voice-offs are an impenetrable wall of sound, something like what ended up getting Phil Spector into prison for the rest of his life.

AS ROWING AND SWIMMING are a little boring to watch, I occasionally take my mind off the subject and busy myself doing something else. But when a rowing team loses a race because a tiny crab hits an oar, slowing them down, I feel I am watching a comedy. To put the final punchline in all of this, the Croatian rowing pair who have just become "Olympic Champions" are named Sinkovic.

(My photo shows one of the several thousand military policemen needed to protect the rowing pool)

PARTY GOD

CIRCUMSTANCE HAS LEFT ME with my youngest son (I actually wrote "sin" originally) for the time being. These circumstances involve me having to watch whatever is on the television that he is not watching because he is playing with any number of mobile devices that are within his reach, unless it is the cat, which he now and again realises doesn't need batteries.

SO I AM INDULGING a little, earlier today on the sofa, watching the Canadian programme on Cartoon Network, called Adventure Time, There appears a horrendous, bearded, growling, gruffling, grunting animal. I ask him what it is: "It's a 'Party God'", says my son, with me thinking about the wrong vowel I might have put in the previous paragraph.  Party God? Yes, he tells me. I actually think this would be nice if it didn't look like a wolf and promised to be nice to me. But then it doesn't.

THESE ARE THE WORDS our children understand and we will never know anything about. Should we care? My photo shows a 'Party God'. There are lots more. Vote for them. They need your support.

FRÈRE JACQUES

ALTHOUGH MOST SENSIBLE British people pay hardly any attention to French language classes unless they are taught by a girlie with a bit of a pout, the one takeaway we get from hours of boredom while the assistant, with his cravat and dark navy bleu jacket that all the female teachers love and the over-the-top accent telling the girls about how Cointreau is made, is that we don't have to do physics while these chaps swan about the school.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, HOWEVER, is something that many bright young students looking forward to going to university, or "Uni", as these children call it nowadays, need to study.

IT WAS A BRUTAL PERIOD, made indescribably boring by the absence of any good pictures of the chaps and ladies involved, apart from a couple of paintings showing a one-breasted battleaxe who could perhaps do with a couple of days in the gym.

THE MATTER IS THAT it is estimated that between 1789 and 1797 over 1,500 elderly priests (as have been classified) were taken out of their beds at night, often hanged, sometimes whipped and humiliated publicly, made to fellate locals, on many occasions publicly buggered by the local "buggerer" (who usually worked at the forge) or forced into daemonic confessions with the threat of having hot irons inserted into them. Which were inserted anyway.

EVERY SCHOOLBOY KNOWS that "La France" is proud of its revolutionary history. And that what happened in France, all those years ago, paved the way for the 'democracy' we have today. Later on today we will probably get another swivel-eyed poetic discourse about nothing in particular from the French president.

AND SO TODAY? Someone can walk into a church while a Roman Catholic priest is saying Mass and cut his head off? M. Hollande, you are in a direct line, defending the values of the revolution: anyone can kill, rape, kidnap, murder or mutilate anyone else -- that is "Liberty, Equality.." and where is the fraternity? In big bank accounts throughout the globe. And yours, in particular.

THE CORBYN ULTIMATUM

Starring:

Matt Daemon as Corbyn Hazard

Ezra Pound as John McDonnell

Angela Eagle as Angela Merkel

ONCE AGAIN, NOW THAT THE LAZY, hazy days of summer are upon us, I am able to do more than merely comment upon issues of pressing national importance and reprise my occasional role as a film critic. 

THE RECENT RELEASE of a new British Film Institute movie, at a time when many British films are pooh-poohed by the international criticism, is an event in itself, but when it is one that aims to "out-Bond Bond", as it says here somewhere in the papers that the children working for the Labour Party left under my door this morning, it can only be seen as blockbuster material.

NOT, OF COURSE, IN THE SENSE of "straight to video", which often is perceived in the term 'Blockbuster', but meaning that it will run and run and run. Not, of course, in the sense that it will try to evade or avoid criticism by running away; rather it will take it on the chin.

THE PLOT: CORBYN HAS MANAGED to escape from Moscow, although he still has flashes of memory from his time when he was an agent for Operation Work the Treadmill. In London he starts his operation to take over the world. He manages to make contact with a mysterious "McDonnell", who promises security service support to help him do so. He gets him a ticket to go to Camden, in order to get a ticket to Hackney, and then to Cockfosters, after which he will come back to Islington before going to Lewisham, Barking, Sky News Studios, and then perhaps New Malden, before coming back to Islington again and then going to Hammersmith and then Barking again, then Ealing, or perhaps Elephant and Castle, and then, in a touching, unexpected final sequence, on to a snow-ridden Southend-on-Sea. He then gets a phone call from a member of his shadow cabinet, which he refuses to answer.

THE FINAL DRAMATIC SCENE, where we see the phone dangling in an old-fashioned "phone box" on the Essex coast, surrounded by snow, with Corbyn wandering off towards a crowd of admirers, all holding Café Nero all-day top-up mugs, with gluten-free quinoa bars sticking out of the top pockets of their asexual, shabby, ill-fitting dungarees over their baggy, shapeless clothes, is more than a metaphor for today. We hear the lingering call, "Corbyn, Corbyn... Are you there, Corbyn?"

SUNDAY MORNING RATING: He's not there

THE SPIRIT OF THE STREETS

IT WILL COME AS NO SURPRISE to many of my readers that I, although relatively fenced off in my home from what may be called 'terrorism', unless one includes the absurd VAT charges on goods and services that I and my good lady wife provide to the wider world, feel that, as they sometimes say, something ought to be done.

LIKE MANY OTHER PEOPLE, I have no idea what this 'something' that ought to be done is, or how it should be done.

YET I DO KNOW WHO should not be doing it, whatever it is. And these are the people who have not being doing it yet have been taking our money for decades. So, in common, it seems with so many others, I see that we have come to a situation in which we will allow -- or rather permit -- those who have no proven acumen, no 'track record', no 'red boxes read' and perhaps not even any desire to make a living out of politics to run things.

POLITICS HAS BECOME the equivalent of the Pokémon Go game: inept, confused individuals, spurred on by a desire to do nothing better than to get out of the house, often encouraged by their mothers, wives, fathers or husbands to do so, go gadding about the country in search of something fleeting, perhaps even ethereal, which wafts on a crisp and bitter wind from the East with a strangely metallic taste to it.

(My photograph shows newly-appointed British Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond on his recent visit to China)

BY JOVE!

IN ONE OF THE MOST REMARKABLE moments of human history, some clever gentlemen in America have managed to send a space vehicle to the planet Jupiter, to have a better look at it and to be able to more thoroughly inform us about where we came from, how our universe was formed and why we, as human beings, are different from bed bugs, centipedes or moths.

THE SCIENTIFIC ASPECTS OF THIS RESEARCH are, obviously, beyond my capacities of understanding, being merely a Master in the Humanities from London and Oxford and a university professor in media studies for forty years. My scientific knowledge extends slightly beyond the fact that I should take a 300 mg aspirin every day in order to avoid a heart attack. And I often forget to do so.

BUT EVEN I CAN APPRECIATE the value of our being able to contemplate Jupiter in this new light. Whereas once we only saw

we can now see

and many people will now rest easy in their beds knowing that there are no little green men twiddling about naked in the gaseous wastes of the planet ready to come out with what used to be called "ray-guns", brittly barking "Take me to your leader, Earthling". (Of course, the suicidal maniacs who would actually enjoy this scenario must be a tad disappointed).

I AM REMINDED, HOWEVER, OF A SIMILAR SCENARIO involving the United Kingdom Conservative and Unionist Party, also the object of some very close scrutiny at the moment. Without wishing to upset any of the delegates and members of this august organ, I have collated some pictures, not taken with the same high-resolution devices as the "Jupiter prober", which may give us some idea of how the party was last week at a meeting,

and how it is now.

EVERYTHING SUGGESTS THAT both the state of the gas-filled planet Jupiter and the windbag Conservatives will continue in a parallel scientific arc for years to come.

EURO 2016: THE FIRST ELEVEN

GIVEN THAT THE GOOD PEOPLE OF MANCHESTER do not figure highly on the international scale of millionaire earnings, eyebrows have been raised at the news that the footballer Zlatan Ibrahimovic, acquired for Manchester United by new boss José "I want players who sink as I sink" Mourinho, will be earning a touch over £260,000 per week.

ALTHOUGH IT IS FAIR TO STATE that most people in Manchester would not know what to do with such an amount of money, some perspective should be attached to this state of affairs. Over the course of his career, Ibrahimovic has scored slightly more than 2 goals every 3 games. His entertainment value is beyond anyone's ability to calculate, stadiums will fill just to see him play or be kicked off the park, and if he simply scores a little tap-in goal in a semi-final of any of the competitions that Manchester United may play this year his wages will have been paid in full.

IN THE LIGHT OF THIS fact, and given that UEFA has this morning published its official list of the best players at the EURO 2016 Competition, although in my opinion this is somewhat early, I have once again decided to be of public service and guide my readers through the team, including their earnings, when known, and their main characteristics. Besides being informative in general, it may provide help for those interested in purchasing in the transfer market.

FORWARDS:

11. CRISTIANO RONALDO (£270,000 per week) Fleet of foot and brilliant on either wing. Capable of swinging a game with a deft touch. Dependable in general, but a tendency to sulk if things go against him.

Sunday Morning rating: All is needed is a spark. 

9. ZLATAN IBRAHIMOVIC (£260,000 per week) If you can afford him, buy him. Proven winner time after time. Worth his weight in goals.
Sunday Morning rating: Lazy but effective.

7. GARETH BALE (£300,000 per week) Besides his ability to rifle in goals from any angle, is a leader of men, capable of taking his country far beyond what was expected. A legend in his own time. Sunday Morning rating: Works hard and has talent.

MIDFIELD AND WINGBACKS:

3. HERMAN VON RUMPOY (Undisclosed, presumed in excess of £15m) Left back in the last tournament, but still capable of stealing into the area.

Sunday Morning rating: Easily dribbled and has no tackle. Excels at the dead ball, where he feels at home.

2. DURÃO BARROSO (Undisclosed, presumed in excess of £100m) Like Von Rumpoy, a veteran strategist. Excellent in his time on the extreme right or extreme left. Ability to close opponents down quickly.

Sunday Morning rating: A moaner, but insanely gifted. 

10. NIGEL FARAGE (Undisclosed, presumed at £26,000 per month) Has announced this is his last tournament. The master strategist who managed to get his team out of the group stages. Keen to get back into management in the United Kingdom.

Sunday Morning rating: Will go far in coaching. 

8. FRANÇOIS HOLLANDE (Undisclosed) Dreamy playmaker, with a tendency to take his eye off the ball. Nearing retirement, after which he intends to declare insolvency and immunity.

Sunday Morning rating: Criminal talent.

DEFENDERS:

6. DONALD TUSK (Undisclosed) Rugged defender of the 2-3-5 system. Fierce in tackle but likely to buy a dummy or be nutmegged. Danger of being carded due to habit of shirt-pulling and lifting. Sunday Morning rating: Ruthless defender.

5. MARTIN SCHULZ. (Undisclosed) Master blocker. Generally used as a last-ditch sweeper. Motto: if you can't get the ball get the money.

Sunday Morning rating: Inept crook.

4. MARIO DRAGHI (Undisclosed, prints his own money) Defender often termed "safe as the bank of Europe" Weak on crosses occasionally, and unable to compensate in attack. Tends to rely on quantitative easing, which leaves gaps at the back and middle.

Sunday Morning rating: Talentless oaf. 

GOALKEEPER

1. JEAN-CLAUDE JUNCKER (Estimate at £66 billion in backhanders and tax relief for companies based in Luxembourg) Often seen as a safe pair of hands, always ready to go for the high ball but not afraid to go low if needed. Not afraid of penalties due to his diplomatic immunity.  
Sunday Morning rating: Will need help in the future in the penalty area.

THE FAMOUS FIVE GET INTO TROUBLE

by David "Enid Blyton" Pleasant

SUMMER HAD ARRIVED and school was over until September, and once again the five had come together to the countryside to chat in their favourite orchard and discuss their plans for the long holidays to come.

"I know," said Michael, ever thoughtful, and squinting through his glasses at a piece of paper he had pulled from his anorak pocket, "why don't we go fishing in the big lake beyond Westminster Green?" 

"Oh, Michael," lilted Stephen, far more practical, "you know perfectly well that we can't fish! We don't even have the tackle needed. We would have to ask the villagers for it. And, anyway, the girlies will soon get bored unless they catch something in the first few minutes, and you can jolly well be sure that isn't going to happen!"

"Who are you calling a girlie?" piped up Theresa, the tomboy. "I can fish as well as any public schoolboy, if not better. I may not be as good at gutting fish as Michael, but I can wait around aimlessly for hours on end doing nothing just as well as the next young man. Whoever that may be." 

"Well I'm not going into the village to ask for favours," rasped Stephen. "All those men hanging around with each other all day long and into the evening. It's not natural, that's all I say, there's just not lovely for you," he went on, lapsing into his Welsh drawl. 

THE EARLY JULY SUN WAS LOWERING ITS head over the meadow beyond the orchard where the five were gathered in their peaceful contemplation of the buttercups and marigolds, except for Liam, who was playing with his collection of tin soldiers, marching them up and down hills in his boyish imagination, making the sound of machine gun fire through his teeth, although the soldiers were in fact replicas of those from the Napoleonic wars.

THEY WERE ALL BEGINNING to think it would be best to go home for tea, scones and perhaps some crumpet for Theresa and Stephen when Andrea lisped her opinion rather timidly. "If we don't have this tackle you are talking about, and if David and George from the big farm have gone off to their mummies' houses for summer, then we really ought to go into the village and jolly well tell the locals to help us! Surely they understand this fishing business!"

"You foolish filly," barked Liam. "The locals are upset with all of us townies after they allowed Boris from the stables to borrow the bicycle and he never returned it! And they certainly won't allow us to get near deep waters!"

LONG SHADOWS WERE BEING CAST as a chill started to creep across the soft turf of the meadow before the five managed to decide what to do next day, which was always the problem for these children during the long recess. 'Children's heads on pillows without plans for 'morrow will ne'er sleep' was a truth to be remembered for these forty days. But Michael broke the silence as they were standing up to go home: "Wait! I know," he chirruped, "Let's all stand for leadership of the Conservative Party!" Beaming, he continued, "None of us has any charisma, any charm, any glamour, any ability or any possibility of winning a general election, but it will be a wizard way to start off the summer holidays!" Michael looked at the astonished faces around him. "Just think," he continued, "we can go into the village and dress up and have ribbons and things and people will make cakes and there might be dancing late at night, and..."

BUT LIAM'S VOICE MOVED IN TO BRING home the truth, ringing with some of the gravity he had inherited from his Scots father: "Ay," he said. "There may be many of these things, but demographic analyses I have been looking at on this bally new-fangled tablet device I have here suggests we are all doomed, and none of us will be going off to camp again, except perhaps for Theresa. And that won't last for long either."

DEWCH AR GYMRU

HAVING MANAGED, SOMEWHAT AGAINST the odds, to reach the age I now possess, I am rather proud of the fact that I have managed to convince (at least) myself that I am a reasonable person in both my domestic views and my opinions on local and world politics, something which may not have seemed apparent as the path I would forge when I was younger.

IT IS THEREFORE WITH SOME DISTRESS that I feel I am being tarred with a brush bristling with badger hair and primed for others rather than me; and this is simply because I defend a system based on individual rights, precedence, jurisprudence and personal and social responsibility over one bound by nominations, party listings, unelected officialdom, nepotism, and favour.

THE CURRYING OF WHICH IS ACCEPTED in most of the European countries who, at least until recently, have seemed not to mind who decides on the wattage of their light bulbs, on the sell-by dates on their yogurts, on the amount of elastic allowed in any given bikini top or on how powerful their vacuum cleaners, toasters or electric kettles may be.

IF I WISHED TO HAVE a Herman von Rumpoy, a Durão Barroso, a Donald Tusk, a Jean-Claude Juncker or a Martin Schulz telling me I was not allowed to buy a set of heat-based curling tongs for my wife's birthday then I would at least like the possibility to choose which anti-curling candidate to vote for. But we do not have that choice in the European Union. We are told who is in charge. 

THOSE NOMINATED TO RUN THE UNION, from which Britain will fortunately be able to escape, albeit never having been more than a 65% member, have no idea what they are doing, and the predominantly left-wing people who support this absurd idea must surely understand that the problem with international socialism is that sooner or later one runs out of other people's money. 

BEING LEFT WING MEANS caring; it does not mean taking money off everyone and keeping most of it for a bunch of unemployable politicians who spend on average more money on travel, hotels and "down time" than they do on producing much-needed reports to further the cause of aid to regions of Europe which once were relatively healthy and are now slipping back into the poverty and despair of the nineteen fifties.

WALES IS NOW IN THE SEMI-FINALS of the Euro 2016 competition. Wales is, according to all statistics, one of the European Union "regions" (sic) which has received most money per capita from Brussels. Wales beat Belgium this evening. I am sure this was merely a footballing phenomenon, in no way connected to the fact that all of the European money sent to Wales, particularly to the depressed "region" of South Wales, was unable to stop closures of libraries -- a fundamental resource for the unemployed, for young job seekers and for elderly people -- across the unpronounceable towns in the area. And Wales voted out, presumably because the money never reached the people who needed it.

WHERE ALL THIS MONEY WENT, OF COURSE, is a mystery beyond our comprehension, as they sometimes say. Yet money from the taxes of the people of these regions "in the good times" had been used to subsidise bullfighting in Spain, to support "traditional regional cultural activities."

NONE OF THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE these absurd decisions are directly responsible to the people who contribute to their wages nor to the people to whom they decide to grant money. This means that the money for the European superstate apparently comes from no one and from nowhere for those who receive it and goes nowhere and to no one in terms of comeback and justification of expenses from those who grant it. Anyone can do what they like with the money as long as they fill out the forms correctly.

THIS IS A RECIPE FOR BOTH CORRUPTION and medium term economic (and financial) disaster and ruin. And now we are seeing the beginning of it. And those who have seen through the wafer-thin curtain around the worst robbery of public funds in peace-time memory by the shabbiest bunch of retrograde sneaks are being looked at in the same light as the fools who voted for Brexit thinking that this would stop foreigners coming to Britain.

BRITAIN HAS ALWAYS BEEN AND ALWAYS will be open. In 1966 in my state primary school in Liverpool there were three Polish children, one Lebanese boy, a Nigerian girl and a beautiful Russian girl who stole my heart and kept it for a couple of years or so until I managed to forget her. Rather that, than cynical politicians stealing my money forever.

THE TEDDY BEARS' PANIC

IF YOU GO DOWN TO THE WOODS TODAY, as the song goes, you would hardly get a surprise to see the panic that Britain's decision to leave the European Union has provoked among the foreign ministers of the six founding nations, aware as they are, no doubt, that there may be some intelligent and honest politicians and people lurking in other "member states" (sic) who have now seen that it is possible to leave the union and still be alive the next day and may wish to follow.

THUS, LIKE LITTLE TEDDY BEARS off on a picnic, Paolo Gentiloni from Italy, Didier Reynders from Belgium, Jean-Marc Ayrault from France, Bert Koenders from the Netherlands, Frank-Walter Steinmeier from Germany and Jean Asselborn from Luxemburg went a-wandering in the woods to presumably find some manner of avoiding further exits from their corrupt club.

INTERESTING IN THIS PANIC-PROVOKED situation is the similarity between what I am describing as a Teddy Bears' panic and the lyrics to the song I am quoting. "They love to play and shout, they never have any care;" goes the song, a description almost perfect for our Eurocrats, and then the ominous warning to children everywhere, one that Britain has fortunately understood: "It's lovely down in the woods today, but safer to stay at home."

EUROS 2016

I NOTICE TODAY, SATURDAY 25th of June 2016 -- incidentally the day that my European Union/British Passport has expired -- that there is some dissymmetry in the fact that only one full day after what is being popularly called "Brexit", Britain is still in the unlikely position of having three of its four footballing nations playing in the Euro 2016 competition.

SCOTLAND IS, AS USUAL, THE EXCEPTION, having used her seventeenth-century opt-out clause to withdraw from football in the nineteen seventies, although allowing any Scots who show talent the freedom of movement to go and play football in England, where there is money.

OF COURSE LATER TODAY, barring some sort of absurdity, this state of affairs will be reduced to a mere two teams, England and Wales, paradoxically the two nations who voted most strongly to leave what is mistakenly referred to as "Europe" in a lot of the vulgar press coverage of the event.

I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO FAITH in either of these teams winning this competition, but, as strong as my glee in the vote on the historic day of the 23rd of June was, it would be stronger still to see the egg on the face of the unelected corrupt bunch of swindlers and crooks who run the arrogant, aloof European Union if the criminal François Hollande has to hand over a trophy to the captain of either one.

(My photo shows European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker taking a break from drinking brandy and discussing the rules of fair play with Michel Platini)

FLYING DOWN TO RIO

PERHAPS LIKE MANY PEOPLE, I enjoy a little bit of the Olympic spirit once in a while, and, as has been revealed in Sunday Mornings passim, I fully expect none of this to be on display in the pestilent city of Rio de Janeiro later on this summer. Although I am pleased to express my surprise at the speed of construction of the Olympic Village, above.

MY DISTRUST OF THIS YEAR'S OLYMPICS is not simply because of the legacy of Brazilian legend Jean-Marie Faustin Godefroid "João" de Havelange, former president of FIFA, member of the International Olympic Committee and once described as "the most corrupt man who ever lived", nor by the fact that the former President of the Brazilian Republic, Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva and the current one, Dilma Vana Rousseff, have been or are being hauled over the coals for charges of corruption in the extreme.

NO, IT PERHAPS HAS MORE to do with the recent spate of doping scandals in sport and the fact that the Olympics this year are going to be held in a city where it is easier to acquire drugs than it is to find clean drinking water.

YET ON A MORE PERSONAL LEVEL, I am amazed that drug-taking should be deemed illegal in sport. When I see some of the "events" that these athletes practice it is extremely difficult to imagine any sane human being wishing to indulge in them without some form of consciousness-changing stimulant.

WHY ELSE WOULD SOMEONE wish to do the pole vault, charging along a track with a flexible pole and hurtling twenty feet into the air then crashing onto a bouncy castle without the side protection parts? Or speeding down a hundred-and-fifty yard snow piste and flying off into the air with a couple of plastic planks tied to one's feet? Wearing spandex and a Smurf costume to ride a bicycle? And why a grown man would want to enter the 10,000 metres race, running round in circles for half an hour is beyond me.

I HAVE ALWAYS ASSUMED that these people were on drugs and that trying to prevent them from taking whatever it is that they need would be as foolish as attempting to get a jazz musician to play without (at least) a little hashish. Sport today is entertainment, as it used to be in Ancient Greece, when chaps and ladies would delight in watching naked men indulge in Greco-Roman wrestling after a few glasses of wine (all round). And, to be honest, not very many tennis fans care what Maria Sharapova has inside her body, as long as she can inspire someone to want to carry out a good backhand smash, as seen above.

IN FACT, I WOULD GO SO FAR as to say that sport in general, and the Olympics in particular, should take its lead from American football, basketball and ice hockey, and introduce drug-taking as a compulsory element. One can imagine the possibilities of sponsorship and the entertainment value of, say, the 400 metres hurdles on marijuana, the cocaine triple jump event, the 4 x 400 metres passing the joint, the heroin synchronised swimming or the legal high jump.

OF COURSE, THERE MUST ALWAYS be safety concerns: javelin and hammer throwers should be restricted to methadone, speed should be kept out of some pool events, and opiates, acids and such derivatives should not be allowed in the Marathon, as, in their confused states, even more athletes might get lost than usually do. 

(My last photos show a non Olympic event that will, coincidentally, be taking place over the summer. This is the three-legged bicycle race in which major British political figures will compete to see which of them (if any) still have a job when parliament reopens next September. Unfortunately, Andrew Mitchell (bottom), former chief whip of the Conservative Party, was disqualified when found not to be respecting rules over helmets.)

BOOM BANG A BANG AND BUST

ONCE AGAIN, I FEEL FORCED out of semi-retirement after yet another Eurovision Song Contest has been held, showing, as is always the case, how our European songwriters are capable of reflecting the pulse of our individual nations and of our collective identity much in the same manner as the troubadours and poets of old, whose balladeering and scribing revealed a remarkable rapport with the people.

WE WERE INFORMED OFFICIALLY that the winner of the competition was Jamala, from the Ukraine (above), with a song about the movement of and forced deportation of the Tartar people from the Crimea under Stalin, a sad moment in European history which deserves to be remembered in her touching ballad "1944". 

OF COURSE, UGLY RUMOURS ARE CIRCULATING that the current leader of Russia, Vladimir "Ras" Putin, is not very happy about the song, nor indeed about Eurovision at all, as, so it is reported by unofficial sources, he stated "It was all a long time ago, and everyone is happy now." Indeed, if the mood of the lyrics to the Official State Russian song, "Believe" written and performed by Sergey Lazarev and Putin himself, on piano above,are to be believed, Putin may have been announcing some hidden aspects of future Russian foreign policy: "Thunder and lightning, it’s getting exciting/ Light up the skyline to show where you are".

BUT AS USUAL WITH EUROVISION it is the also-rans that will really make the headlines in the future. Fortunately, most of the entrants will be forgotten forever unless they return to compete again or end up hosting the show, but there are occasionally some signs that certain contestants will be around for the long haul.

GERMANY DID BADLY YET AGAIN, with repeat contestant Angie Merkel and 'Donner und Blitzen' a somewhat depressing song about the forced movement and deportation of Syrian people into Europe and then out again, into Turkey. The song admittedly has some cheer involved at the end when the deported Syrians, now living in Turkey, come back into Europe when Turkey joins the European Union. My rehearsal photo shows Angie and her set designers working out where to put the Syrian dancers on stage.

THE USA WAS INVITED TO PROVIDE a special guest for this year's show, and as per usual the Americans showed the Europeans what a true performer can do when given the means that only the greatest financial superpower can summon up. This was Donald "The" Trump, with his haunting, Jim Morrison and The Doors style ballad "Get Out Baby, Now You're Fired", about the unfortunate forced movement of and deportation of Mexicans from California and Texas and how the USA closed its doors to any immigrants except leggy, busty supermodels who were prepared to marry millionaires.

BRITAIN WAS AGAIN A LET-DOWN, with the popular smiling duo Dave 'n' Georgie and their song "Stay". Although many commentators saw this as a paean to union and harmony, others saw it as a cynical mock-lament about the forced movement of and then deportation of hundreds of thousands of Eastern and Southern Europeans to factories, shops and hospitals in the south of England, only for them to be told that they had to go home again when unemployment benefit was eliminated in the country.

FOR MANY, HOWEVER, THE TRUE winner was the runner-up in the BBC's choice of song, which was the charismatic Bojo Jojo and his Shakespeare tribute "Out Out Damned Spot", which some believe will represent the UK in next year's event. The clever lyrics, taken from Macbeth, deal with one man's urge to form a new dynasty and enact the forced deportation of Dave 'n' Georgie from the British parliament.