Arrr

I wonder what he means by that?

If I read this article under a Delingpole or Booker byline, I'd emit an approving grunt or two. Maybe even half a tiny, despairing cheer. And shake my head, muttering, 'Yeah, but they'll never fucking learn, though, will they?'

But there, in the heart of darkness which is wrong about everything, all the time, we read a dilation on what to normal people has always been the bleeding self-evidently obvious by the man who gave his very name to the ecowankers of the world. Stap me. But not everything has changed, for dear old Moonbat allows himself a coda, a feeble final swipe at the eeeeeevil bastards who run the nukes which he now considers desirable.

But has he thought this through, thoroughly? Is he braced for being shunned by Lucas, Porritt and Huhne? (O Death, where is thy sting, etc.) For being called a 'Clegg' and burned in effigy on Brighton beach? Set upon on moonless nights by keening gangs of leaderless, marauding watermelons clad in nettle-dyed home-weave hempen cloth and wielding enormous lumps of tofu? How can he do this to them?

But let us be charitable. Let us suppose he does mean it. That George Monbiot has seen the light. Well, a glimmer, anyway. (He remains a pious warble gloamist.) But even that is bloody amazing.

Diary note: Earth Hour this Saturday

I'd hate to miss the party. That nice warm glow of self-righteousness, the virtuous solidarity 'n all.

What? No, seriously, this is a debate of the most enormous importance to which my conscience demands I contribute, as all responsible citizens of the planet should.

I intend to make sure that, as in previous years, the heating and the water system (including the immersion heater), plus every extractor and fan, lamp (including outside floods), electrical/electronic device, computer, TV, DVD player, hifi and battery charger is set to ON/FULL between 8.30 and 9.30 pm. Blinds open, of course, so that everyone can note this house's contribution to the warble gloaming debate. Let me know if you think of anything I've left off the list.

I may run the car, too. Headlamps full up, fog lamps (front and rear) on, interior lights on, hazard lights flashing. The reversing lamp will have to go by the board as I can't be arsed to sit in the car for an hour. No, I shall be in my nice, warm (oo, forgot the emergency electric heaters), brightly-lit house nomming some excellent non-organic beef (Argentinian... count the air miles) accompanied by Kenyan veg (more miles) and sluiced down with a glass or three of Antipodean (you get the picture) plonk in which I shall toast the damnation of the sodding watermelons.

Can't wait. Should I invite Caroline Lucas? I bet she's sparkling company. What? Rude.

Bastards.

Kind of you to free up my Wednesday, George, but you shouldn't have, really.

Tim Montgomerie wants to know whether Osborne has leaked his whole Budget to the Sunday newspapers?

That's one of those questions to which the answer is, 'Bleed'n' obvious, innit?'

So, George, what happened to 'telling the House of Commons first, not the media'? Another highminded principle ditched. Still, we're getting used to that.

I had planned to stay in on Wednesday so as to catch the budget on TV but clearly I needn't bother as we have the gist. I won't waste my time waiting for the couple of Osborne Surprise Nuggets, delicious as they will undoubtedly be, because then I'd have to wince/squirm/rage through either or both of the Two REds' oily faux anger as they whine that the wicked Tories... oh fuck it, fill in the rest for yourself... and anyway while we're talking about the economy they were both upstairs collecting the fares at the time, your worship, when their beloved mentor was driving us all over a cliff of his devising (with their help and support) and by the way none of that happened, Mr Speaker, it's all Thatcherite lies as I'm sure you will agree whoops sorry you're supposed to be neutral aren't you (suppressed smirk)...

Ah, the joy of an unexpected free day. What shall I do with myself?

Think of teh kitteh!

h/t Greer, Hilton, some other bugger...

I haven't laughed so much since the last time I cleaned out the sink trap

I turned on the TV last night... an increasingly rare occurrence... to see whether the hilarity, real or feigned, being enforced across all broadcasting platforms yesterday was reaching an enjoyable peak or waning.

My query was not answered, or not exactly. I hit the off switch within the minute. Jonathan Ross is unwatchable even when he succeeds in being funny and hands up anyone who can remember the last time that happened?

Ross's horrible mug was the disconcerting sight which greeted me when I switched on, but that wasn't the worst of it. He was telling a totally uncomprehending, obviously bored, allegedly-live studio audience that (Yay! Oi, I said Yay!) the presiding genius of Radio 4's (guffaw now, o ye cool ones) Wimmin's Hour, Jenni Murray (nevererdovver), had won an amateur comedy talent competition. (That is kind of funny in itself but not in a good way). The crowd's joy on receiving this news was, um, confined. Possibly because Ross was clearly on autopilot and couldn't give a flying fuck any more than they could.

This dispiriting few seconds was the close, for me, of a day in which the ubiquitous and terminally unfunny but Black-and-after-all-this-is-for-Africa-innit Lenny Henry had tried far too often (on Radio 3 FFS) to get me to give him money so that he can look good on the telly again next year even when not advertising cheap hotels.

Sorry, Len. I already gave. To Japan. Now FOAD, there's a good chap.

But you'll try again, won't you? Along with all your mates in the Cirque de Shite, all those unfunny 'stars' of 'comedy' (who the fuck is David Schneider?) who get their one chance in a year to get into my face. The great consolation is that for doing so, they are not getting paid (one assumes).

Except you won't get a penny out of me, you overrated, unfunny, sanctimonious, patronising, self-righteous, featherbedded bastards. The 50 seconds or so of which Ross deprived me last night is my last donation to your chance of work in the future and to your 'cause'.

Think of it. Think of all the money I might have given to Africa (all right, this is stretching it a bit) if you hadn't put me off the whole idea with your cavortings and grimacings.

Now...

Dear Prime Minister,

Is is true that you are providing matching funds, using my fucking money, to Comic Relief? You are?

Well, I look forward to receiving your justification of this decision in the context of inter alia the defence budget cuts (you do know there's a war on? Oh, you do - and oo look, you just started another one) and the big stick insane 65% marginal tax rate with which your government is beating off the only people who might, just might, otherwise have revivified our economy, but who are setting up shop in other countries whose governments are not up to their arses in the sort of economic ordure created by your predecessor and in which you seem to be content to let us flounder as long as we all have a jolly good larf on Red Nose Day and forget that our real government is a bunch of foreign oligarchs over whom we - and you - have fuck all control.

Very sincerely indeed, believe me,

Yours, possibly not for much longer,

Prodicus of Ceos

PS - Farage is looking chipper these days, isn't he? Say hi from me when you see him.

cc. Secretary of State for Bread and Circuses

Quote of the day/week/month/year/parliament

No sensible and discerning person could possibly believe that the Liberal Democrats are either liberal or democratic.

Eye-eye

One of my sad life's little pleasures is pondering the possible identities of the Eye's specialist writers who lurk behind the amusing bylines. The identities of some of them are widely known. The magazine's medical correspondent, Phil Hammond, makes no secret of being 'M.D.' and since he's one of the Eye's sharpest it's a feather in his ex-curricular cap to be able to boast that the sainted Hislop thinks he's both funny and right. Others ('Piloti', 'Old Muckspreader' et al) are known to the cognoscenti but we peasants out here in readership-land can only surmise.

It's more than probable that, at any one time, the unchanging noms de plume mask teams of people each of whom scribbles about the goings-on in his own arcane corner of a larger field, although the consistency of style would seem to indicate that, in each column, it's one well-informed specialist who writes regularly. Mostly.

Being a music lover and avid reader of reviews, I have long worrited over the ID of Lunchtime O'Boulez. I have a growing suspicion that it's the Spectator's opera critic, the delightfully acid and never-normally wrong (i.e., he agrees with me most of the time) Michael Tanner, who doesn't only 'do' opera.

Here's O'Boulez on ENO in the current Eye:

(The Met's) Faust (which Gheorghiu has ditched) is the one recently seen at ENO, done by Broadway director Des McAnuff as part of the English National Opera's lamentable series of stagings by people with little or no experience of opera. ENO has talked up this experiment as bringing fresh minds to old repertory. But all it has shown is that opera is a specialist undertaking that demands specialist knowledge.

And... he's right again, see?

So, either Tanner or possibly Michael White (no relation). No, not White. He's too amiable.

I am just praying to all the gods of music that O'Boulez is not the appalling Dame Norma Lebrecht. If you are in the know and you know that it is indeed Lebrecht, please do not enlighten me. My amour propre simply will not permit me to agree with that ghastly man about anything whatsoever. Were I to discover that I did, it would be proof that the sky was falling and I should have to kill myself. Would you like that on your conscience?

I was going to...

... but The Man got there first.

I did manage to tweet this yesterday, though.

EU Comm & French govt comments on Fukushima = unscientific irresponsible hysterical disgraceful grandstanding #Japan #tsunami

Stupid, malign bastards.

Can we leave yet?

Well, quite.

Has she no breeding, no culture? It's ketchup with fish and chips, you mannerless clod. HP sauce is for bacon butties and fried egg sandwiches.

Leg-Iron.

Cranking up

Slowly. The anger dissipated for a while there, in the face of the overwhelming fucking stupidity and evil on the part of those making the most noise. You lose the will to live after a bit, yet alone the will to blog.

But I'm getting angry again, and for that I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Nick Clegg.

The two-faced, unbelievably mendacious bastard is busily grabbing exclusive credit for all the constitutional and 'freedom' moves being made by the government, 90 per cent of which were promised by the Tories under Dave over the three years leading up to the general election.

Message: The only good things coming out of this government are Liberal Democrat policies rammed through in the teeth of opposition from the Tory bastards who would kill you and eat you, garnished with a sprinkling of grated baby, but for Nick.

And the bloody Dave-ites are letting him get away with it! Fuck me sideways... what does one have to do to get a sensible Tory Party around here?

Fuck off, Clegg. Oh, and thank you.

Sue Grabbit-Runne, QC: 'See this piece of paper in my hand?'

Currant Bun.

Et Al.

Et Al's friend.

Watch the birdie