THE PANT-WETTERS OF GATWICK

A fire alarm in Gatwick airport. No one took it seriously. You’re dealing with people who think a tube of sun cream is a threat to the flight, so when they tell you there’s an emergency you think, "Yeah, yeah. Fuck off." I wanted to stay in the departure lounge and explain to someone in charge that I was ignoring their alarm, that they had blown their credibility when they confiscated my nail scissors, and that if I got I roasted alive it would be their fault.

But, of course, there was no fire. For the hundredth time, they were just dicking me around.

BLACKMAIL

If I worked for the Foreign Office in Russia I would probably spend half my salary on blackmail payments. My heart is bleeding for James Hudson, the British diplomat filmed with a pair of local tarts by Russian spies. Like most of these sex scandals it reflects terribly on everyone except the man at its centre.

Shame on the Russians, who still live in the same spy-infested tyranny they had in Peter the Great’s day. Shame on the smirking tossers who put the clip on the internet. Shame on his sanctimonious vindictive ratbag of an ex-wife. Shame on me, who searched for the clip on Google. And shame on Pizza Hut, who put my bodyweight in pizza leaflets through the door each month. They are not directly involved in this case, but damn them to hell.

What was he supposed to on his own on a wet afternoon in central Russia, thousands of miles from his friends and family? Read an improving book? Buy some fruit and learn to juggle? Apparently Yakaterinburg is known for its theatres, but how many gloomy Russian plays can one stand in a weekend? He’d have shot himself, sooner or later.

Were they underage? Did he mistreat them? Leave him alone, then.

CALIFORNIA'S CREDIT RATING SLASHED ON BRITNEY ENGAGEMENT

The state's debt rating was slashed to near-junk this week after the princess of pop was spotted with a massive sparkler on her wedding finger.

Californians should do what their forefathers did when times got hard: go west.

BROWN’S BRITAIN

-Graduates of mediaeval history reduced to working as pimps.

-Wiltshire Police acquire a spy drone and use it to photograph some hippies. (This was by Jeremy Clarkson in The Sunday Times, so it may well be untrue.)

-And this is simply the most retarded thing I have read in my life.

KRUGMAN’S CAT

Krugman has posted a photo of his cat on the New York Times website. It is just the sort of cat you would expect Krugman to have, all snooty and superior-looking. Acting like it won the Nobel Prize.

I am Krugman’s Russian Blue,
Pray tell me, sir, whose cat are you?

It is no secret that Krugman and I haven’t always seen eye to eye on the issues. He thinks we need a $28 trillion fiscal stimulus, for instance, whereas I believe that you don’t need a fiscal stimulus if you’ve got Jesus.

And there are those who say that this is a debate between one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, and Krugman, sparring as equals. Let us not drag families and pets into this clash of the heavyweights, they say. Leave the cat out of it.

But wait a minute. Once the Clintons appeared in public with their 13-year old daughter, the rules changed. She became public figure, and Rush Limbaugh could call her a dog with a clear conscience.

Sorry, but if Krugman is going to use his cat to bolster his public image, there is no reason why I cannot call his cat a dog, and write ad felinium attacks mocking and denouncing the animal.

As far as I’m concerned, it is open season on Krugman’s cat.

HE TOUCHED THE HEARTS OF SIMPLETONS EVERYWHERE

Michael Jackson is dead, but his songs will always be with us. So will he, in fact: he's made of plastic.

Obviously I had grown out of that crap by the time I went to secondary school, but I know you simple folk used to like him, and I respect your simple tastes. Some of his early stuff was good.

Whatsa matter you? Hey!
Why you looka so sad? Hey!
Gotta no respecca...

That song helped me through a lot of difficult times, though I don't know if I would use the word genius.

No display of ass-hattery will be judged excessive in the coming days. If Blair himself read a prayer at Jackson's funeral then led the congregation in an embarrassing dance, I would hardly wince.

HUGH GRANT

With typically English understatement he hoofed a photographer in the testicles.



If it weren’t for that man the foreigners would have realised years ago how violent and uncouth the British are. We could reel their streets at noon, smashing up bars and vomiting into the fountains, but there was always Hugh Grant with his floppy haircut, making out that we’re a nation of weedy booksellers.

Now that even Hugh Grant is snarling and taking socks at people, perhaps the truth will dawn.