Tales Of Ordinary Madness

The Happiest Day Of Your Life

The extraordinary affairs unfolding around HRH the Prince of Wales and the marriage to his mistress Camilla Parker-Bowles lurch from parlous calamity to farce. Because both are divorcees and with Charles being future head of Church of England, it was untenable that they would be allowed to wed in a church so a hastily arranged civil ceremony was arranged to held in one of the Queens country piles in Windsor. However it came to light that if the rooms in Windsor were used for a civil ceremony that would enable any commoner to do so; an idea that the incumbent monarch quickly scotched.

So a switch of venue was hurriedly arranged across the road in Windsor Guildhall where it was subsequently discovered that the great unwashed had a legal right to witness the ceremony, an altogether distasteful thought for the newly-weds.

Worse was to follow. Eminent constitutional historians began to question the legality of the union altogether. According to the 1836 Marriage Act, Parliament had decreed that no member of the British Royal Family could be wed in a civil ceremony, an act that was only amended in 1949 and is open to some disputation as to whether it removed the said impediment.

This led to the edifying spectacle in the House of Commons last week of the Home Secretary claiming that the nuptials should go ahead because of the Human Rights Act, passed by Strasbourg, guaranteed that no let or hinderance should be placed on a couple's right to marry

One can't help but feel that they're both getting what they bloody well deserve (for once the majority of the British public agree with me) and why don't they just bugger off back to Highgrove (Charles country residence), live in sin and hire a new public relations officer...

Fear and loathing 2005

"No point mentioning those bats. The poor bastard will see them soon enough..."
R.I.P Hunter S. Thompson 1938 - 2005

In The Bleak Midwinter

Tis the time to be merry and full of Christmas cheer. Thanks to everybody for reading and I'll see you in the New Year. May your God go with you...

Publish And Be Damned

The usually bloody awful UK tabloid the Daily Mirror outdid itself the day after the US Presidential election result became known. Still it did better than its tabloid counterpart the Rupert Murdoch owned the Sun which led on the burglary of a D-list celebrity.

Money Doesn't Talk, It Swears

The controversy surrounding the broadcasting of a documentary made by the Republican-leaning company, Sinclair Broadcast, regarding supposed links between Kerry's anti-Vietnam campaigning to the torture of captured US soldiers has been resolved by the usual bottom line, money. Shareholders claimed the programme could harm their investment after Sinclair's shares fell 23 cents to USD6.26 yesterday, down from a high of more than USD15 in January and the TV company capitulated and shelved plans to air. As always, it is edifying to see impartial, informed political debate arrive at its lowest common denominator.

La Dolce Vita

The new European Union commission president, José Manuel Barroso, was facing turmoil after Martin Schulz, the leader of the European parliament's Socialist group threatened that MEPs would vote out his entire commission unless he backed down over his choice of Rocco Buttiglione as the EU's new civil liberties chief.
Schulz claimed he could muster a majority among the 732 MEPs for the move, which would provoke a constitutional crisis in the EU.

Mr Buttiglione, an Italian Catholic and opponent of gay rights, was rejected by the European parliament when he was presented to a commission that had to ratify his appointment. He was quoted by the Guardian that he had said during the hearing that he considered homosexuality a sin, and that marriage was intended "to allow women to have children and to have [the] protection of a male". This would indeed strike any sane person as an odd choice for civil liberties chief until one realises that the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is behind the appointment. This is the same head of a democratic state who, upon coming to majority power three years ago pushed through a change in the law making it effectively impossible for anyone to be convicted and jailed for false accounting. This could possibly have had something to do with same Berlusconi being indicted of false-accounting charges in Rome (a matter which the EU court is looking into).

The move to appoint Buttiglione is widely popular in Italy, an almost exclusively Catholic country and home to a Pope who still warns against his African flock using condoms despite the endemic spread of AIDS. The despotic, megalomaniac Berlusconi (he owns the vast majority of state television in Italy and, amongst other gaffes, once remarked to a German delegate in Brussels that a drama one of his companies was making about the Nazis would benefit from delegate's skills as a camp commandant) no doubt relishes the furore caused by this farce and looks upon it as strengthening his popular status at home.

You, Sir, More Knave Than Fool, After Your Master

Ambrose Bierce once opined that a patriot was 'one to whom the interests of a part seem superior to those of the whole. The dupe of statesmen and the tool of conquerors.' Dr. Johnson famously declared that patriotism was 'the last refuge of the scoundrel.' Consider the following:

BUSH (1st Presidential debate 30/09/04)

"First of all, what my opponent wants you to forget is that he voted to authorize the use of force and now says it's the wrong war at the wrong time at the wrong place.

I don't see how you can lead this country to succeed in Iraq if you say wrong war, wrong time, wrong place. What message does that send our troops? What message does that send to our allies? What message does that send the Iraqis?"

BLAIR (House of Commons PMQs 13/10/04)

"It would be more helpful if you (Michael Howard, Leader of the Opposition) would back our troops out in Iraq, rather than doing what you are doing now. I wish you would stop playing politics with this issue, which is precisely what you are doing, and remember that you and your party supported the war for
precisely the same reasons that we do.'

To juxtapose Jonathan Swift: "Fine words! I wonder where you stole 'em."

The Unspeakable In Pursuit Of The Inedible

Surreal scenes abounded yesterday on the floor of that mother of democracy, the House of Commons. Several well to do young men stormed the floor, the first unauthorised visitors to do so since Oliver Cromwell announced to the Rump Parliament "Let us have done with you! In the name of God, go!". The best the uninvited guests could muster yesterday was "It's totally unjust!". They were, of course, complaining about the governments bill to finally ban the hunting of foxes by letting specially trained dogs chase them down and rip them to pieces.

There had been a large, vociferous protest the whole day outside the House in Parliament Square where a large number of moderately wealthy to downright well off citizens had vented their spleen about how it was deuced unfair that they could longer practise this age old custom, how jobs would be lost and, anyway, none of the foxes had ever been heard to complain about it. One could argue that if fox hunting was all right maybe we should bring back bear baiting, cock fighting and the like but these "sports" were always the domain of the underclasses so nobody mentioned it. What was plainly obvious is that the theory of the old aristocratic practise of breeding to produce your offspring within your social strata does indeed produce certain mental processes that are not entirely healthy...

Every Sperm Is Sacred

It appears the American Mid-West is hurtling back towards the Stone Age as news reaches here that some doctors and pharmacists are refusing to prescribe and fill prescriptions respectively for birth control pills on the grounds that it is tantamount to abortion. The obvious next step is to ban masturbation on the grounds that spilling ones seed into an inappropriate receptacle is obviously a predestinate attempt at abortion.

Also the idea in the twenty-first century that a women's body is not her own is one to be applauded and that all prominent citizens of the Republican persuasion who back this lunacy do not spill their seed with anyone except their spouses and, heaven forbid, if they do and the condom fails, they'll bring up the love child as a member of their own family should the Republicans get their wish to ban abortion.

A Dog Is A Man's Best Friend

Many thanks to Simon Hoggart in today's Guardian for pointing out that a website has been set up to enable Americans to express their gratitude and to also pay tribute to the wonderful efforts of the British Prime Minister Tony Blair for his role in the "liberation" of Iraq. Apparently all submissions will be forwarded to Downing Street.

The site can be found at: http://thankyoutony.com

I trust all right thinking Americans will express their true feelings on this subject... and I hope none of our British readers will be tempted to scurrilously use this portal to communicate their feelings to Downing Street.