The Bollocks log of a Bourgeois Dissident

November 2nd 2009

Sunday roundup. Respiratory expert Peter Openshaw told us that the success of Swine Flu vaccine "depends on emerging circumstances, the efficacy and availability of the vaccine, and the spread of the virus". Thanks for peering through the muddy waters on that one Peter: you're obviously ideally qualified to be a media quotiste. Just as David Miliband, it seems, is perfectly tailored for the job as 'High Officer for Foreign Affairs' at the EU. Gordon Brown thinks this, so we can at least be clear that he's the worst person on the planet for the job...as indeed he is.

The worst thing on Twitter is Stephen Fry, who yesterday revealed himself as a Twitter Quitter. Stephen has always been an exhibitionist (his awful peformance in the programme on depression last year irritated me beyond words) and most of us grew tired of his 'Hurrah for a good poo' nonsense months ago.

Most of us grew tired of New Label's logans many years ago, but their proposed new one to help the council tax pill go down - 'Putting fairness First' - is a cracker even by their standards. "Well we've thought about this in depth", says the Avoid Annihilation Coordination Group Chair, "and we think our big new idea going forward is to stop putting fairness, aah, as it were, somewhere further down the list after banning fox-smacking".

One person still not banned is Baroness Scotland, the Top Brass neck in charge of finding attorneys for fired generals. Still, it is good to see that there's a consistent culture where she works, because it now emerges that several of her civil servants are....illegal imigrants. The culture at the Beeb is equally reliable in that everything it does is dafter than a special-needs brush. Characters in kid's programmes can no longerbe described as drunk, because thanks to Tessa Jowell nobody is any more; and a recent Whicker edition was fronted by a serious voice intoning that "the following programme contains scenes of bullfighting". I abhor bullfighting myself (after boxing it's the most repulsive live sport I've ever attended) but I do think other warnings should've come before this one. For example, "This programme features a member of the Undead who sold his soul to Beelzebub in 1962, and will thus live forever".

Scraping the legacy barrel. I'm sorry, but I could not help laughing at the one remaining Blair supporter in Europe. Step forward that fine upholder of justice and chastity, Silvo Berlusconi. Actually, if the EU adopts the US Prezz + Veep approach to running things, then the Tony/Silvio ticket will be a lulu: the No 1 has a direct line to His Holiness, and his No 2 knows every prostitute in Rome. Things don't get much better than that. Tony might yet reign over the most dissolute Papacy for five hundred years: but with every day, it's looking more doubtful.

Although most of the UK's press are choosing to ignore it, we are but a spit and throw from the husband of a UK Cabinet minister spending quite some time in an Italian jail. Jessie Towel's insignificant other looks increasingly bang to rights; but all things considered, you and I sort of know that The Long Arm of the Blair will stretch out and pluck him from the clutches of all those Milanese midnight cowboys. Such a shame: his prison memoirs would've made for a highly entertaining book in time.

An acid test. Back to the issue of common sense. I'm investigating a dreadful case of corruption and corrupters at the moment. A lot of the time it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad. So I have a simple litmus test - and so far, it's working quite well.

I send each new suspect an email asking for charitable help - which is easy at the moment, as I'm involved raising money for a genuinely good cause. Those who reply and help I put in the 'white hats' box - as I do for those who write and say why they don't want to contribute. Those who remain silent go into the little black book.

Quite a few people in Plymouth seem to be wearing black hats. But it's too early to tell just yet.

Prejudice 27 Empirical data -349. I can't believe anyone was that surprised Drugs Tsar David Nutt got the push after his painstakingly researched view on Cannabis was ignored by the One-Eyed Trouser Snake. As the greatest fact-denier in history (he makes Holocaust deniers look like folks with the odd doubt about Big Bang) Brown is inherently incapable of dealing with a man whose business is divining the truth.

But equally concrete-headed are Tessa Jowell (access to drink), Harriet Harman (gender differences), David Miliband (we don't have an Empire any more), Alan Johnson (no money for the NHS, the effects of skunk), Peter Hain (freedom of expression), Andy Burnham (continuity of primary care) Cameron (the positive effects of grammar schools) and, well....all of the daft nadgers, really.

Rapidly catching up with 'It's the culture, stupid' as nby's mantra is 'Polemics are getting in the way of good governance'.

Like most people, I'm tired of politicians using old ideas as comfort blankets. I want some practical new ideas that might get us all excited again. But people who need battered little lambs and teddy bears to help them sleep are to be feared. Especially those who think they have been Great Men.

Long live the Elephant Party, that's what I say.

All or nothing. The Hull City manager Phil Brown's Chairman resigned in midweek, thus leaving the hapless team manager to be abruptly told by the power-play winner that he either won away at Burnley, or he was fired. Hull duly lost 2-0, so I suppose we can assume that by the time you read this, Brown will be looking for a job.

Do not weep for him: he put a lot into the task, but he will get a whopping payoff. However, the insanity of giving the heave-ho to a manager with just one game as the judgement criterion beggars belief - as indeed does the casual way in which £350,000 of shareholders' money will assuredly be tossed in the guy's direction.

To reiterate an oft-made point in this column, by far the most successful clubs in today's hopelessly adrift game today are managed by managers who've been in the job for a decade or more. All the great managers of the game - Busby, Stein, Ramsey, Cullis, Clough, Shankly, Paisley, Ferguson and Wenger - have been allowed a good three years and more to prove what they could do.

Hull's Phil Brown took Hull City from the depths of beyond and into a League in which - if we're being honest here - they don't really belong. Firing the bloke because, on a limited budget, he's having trouble staying there is almost beyond belief - unless you follow soccer as I do: in a kind of habitual, but increasingly desultory, fashion. The sport is played by thugs, and run by the insane.

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