Click here to see the
petition to make Jeremy Prime Minister
Education
Over the years I have filled this column with many things. I’ve suggested
Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon should have a fight in the Albert Hall. I’ve
revealed that Mars once crashed into my chimney pots and I’ve explained that
if you painted a picture using a sheep’s dingleberries instead of oils you
could sell it to Walsall borough council for £150,000.
In other words, when it comes to subject matter I have plumbed the bottom of
the barrel and then kept right on going. But I have never written about one
of the most discussed topics in Britain today. Education.
There’s a very good reason for this. I don’t understand any of the debates. Click
here to read the article
Environment
The fact is this. Global warming’s coming, so you can don your King Canute hat
and stand on the beach waving your Toyota Prius at the advancing heatwave,
but it won’t make a ha’p’orth of difference. But don’t worry, because I have
a plan. The biggest threat we face, according to the British Broadcasting
Corporation, is rising sea levels. Plainly, then, there is too much water in
the world, so why don’t we just call Nasa and ask it to take some of it into
space? Space is only 75 miles from the surface of the Earth, so why not make
a giant hosepipe, dip one end in the sea and take the other end out into the
void, where, of course, there is a vacuum. That means the water will be
sucked up the pipe without the need for any energy-absorbing pumps. Click
here to read the article
Corruption
It’s corruption … that could solve the Iraqi problem at a stroke.
The cost to the American government since the conflict began is put by some
observers at £100 billion. And they could have given everyone in Iraq a
small car for less than that. Actually, with an order of that size, I
suspect discounts might well have been available, so it could have been a
large car or even an SUV.
This is bribery, of course, but what’s wrong with that? It would have saved
25,000 lives, made everyone over there happy, removed the motive for the
London bombings and thus saved Britain £3 billion. Furthermore, it would
have provided a much-needed boost for the beleaguered American motor
industry. Make cars, not war. That’s what I say.
Click
here to read the article
Space
When I see photographs of gas clouds they are, to me, like pictures of faraway
beaches in travel brochures. They are an invitation to come and see for
myself. Space travel still has a glorious future: all we need is for the
Americans and the Russians to start fighting …
Watching an idiotic president promising a bunch of space geeks that they’d
have a moon base and ray guns and warp speed to the Andromeda system was all
very well, but without impetus it was never going to happen. That’s why I’m
delighted to see Russian bombers back in Nato airspace and radioactive
poison all over the restaurant tables in London. And it’s why I’m delighted
to note that Russia, buoyed by its new wealth and power, has announced plans
to build a moon base for missions to Mars.
It means we can go back to the good old days. It means we can go to the stars. Click
here to read the article
Religion
If (The Archbishop of Canterbury) really wants to bring peace and stability to
the world, if he really believes Britain can be a force for good and a
shining beacon in troubled times, then I urge him to close the Church of
England.
If we can demonstrate that we can survive without a church - and when you note
750,000 more people went online shopping on Christmas Day than went to
church, you could argue we already do - then, who knows, maybe the mullahs
and the left-footers will follow suit. Click
here to read the article
Australia
The Australians go to work in shorts and that’s a good enough reason to hate
them. Also, they have cookers in their kitchens but choose to cook their
prawns in the garden. And the only invention to have come out of Australia,
ever, is the rotary washing line Click
here to read the article
America
In America everyone wants to be a part of the great outdoors. They like the
idea of cutting down trees and shooting critters in the spine. Even the most
sockless preppy from Georgetown DC is able and willing to slip out of his
loafers at a moment’s notice and into a hairy shirt for a weekend under
canvas in the woods. What’s more, in America everyone wants to be a factory
worker. They seem to find manual labour and engineer boots rather noble.
Bruce Springsteen has more money than God but unlike Britain’s rock gods,
who wear tweed and Armani, he dresses like he’s spent all day up a telegraph
pole. Only in America could there have been a song called Wichita Lineman.
An ode to a man who spends all day long driving around a useless state, in a
pick-up truck, looking for broken telephone wires. Click
here to read the article
The
Queen
She’s stuck with her job, endlessly waving and asking people to hand over the
teapot. Of course, theoretically, she still has the power to start a war,
though the PM is capable of doing that on his own these days, and she can
still dissolve parliament.
This brings me on to my biggest point. Imagine having the power to send that
braying bunch of n’er-do-wells from the Palace of Westminster home, and not
doing it.
Not even for a bit of fun, during a party. Whatever you may think of the Queen
she has willpower, that’s for sure. Click
here to read the article
The
Monarchy
Of course it’s nonsense to hand over the reins of the nation to someone just
because they were born in a castle. But hey, we always have done and look
what happened when His Toniness replaced the hereditary peers in the House
of Lords with a cash for honours system . . . Click
here to read the article
Men
I was at London’s City airport this morning surrounded by a group of middle-aged
chaps who were going to Scotland.
At home, each of these men would, I’m sure, eat all their yoghurt and pretend
to be interested in Victoria Beckham’s opinion on interior design.
But at the airport, with no wives and girlfriends to keep them in check, they
quickly reverted to type. By 7.45am they were on their third pint and as I
boarded my plane, I believe they were beginning a farting competition.
This is not a criticism. I recently spent a couple of weeks camping in Africa
with 20 or so other men and you wouldn’t believe how neanderthal we became.
Or how quickly.
Every morning would begin with a conversation about who’d been for their
number twos, what the number twos had looked like, what they’d smelt of, how
much more there was to come, and whether any records for sheer tonnage had
been set. Click
here to read the article
Britain
Perhaps you’re saying that you’re proud to be British? But what does this mean
exactly; what are you proud of? Our provincial town centres with their
Styrofoam carpets or those pastry-faced people who work in petrol stations;
our National Health Service, our trains, our cricket team, our roads, our
government, our wobbly bridges, our Millennium Dome, Rover, our Hutton
inquiry, the British Library, British Airways, Britart, our education
system, Will Young — what?
Had we been around between 1850 and 1875, when Britain was the workshop and
the engine of the world, then maybe you could wake up every morning and bask
in the hope and the glory and the pomp and the circumstance. Maybe then you
could have put a sign in your garden saying, “Support our troops and Lord
Palmerston”.
But now? All we have is our world-renowned sense of humour and I’m sorry, good
though it is, I’m not going to spend £500 on a flagpole to celebrate Richard
Curtis’s dab hand with a metaphor. Click
here to read the article
