The Week's Shiny Bits

Funny things happen in politics every day. Some things make you feel frustrated, some things laeve you confused, some things make you mad and sometimes, only sometimes things really make you smile. This week has presented the whole spectrum of feelings for me.

Frustrated...with the refusal and silence of Thabo Mbeki over the elections and violence in Zimbabwe. Frustrated also by a pittyful show of gesturing and posturing by world leaders. Everyone seems to be very keen to condemn Mugabe but as usual, nobody seems to be in any rush to actually do anything...Quelle surprise!!!

Confused...by the Nelson Mandella concert in London last night. I think the idea was actually brilliant but I was enraged by the decision by the TV channel that aired it to intersperse the music with inane interviews by inane presenters with inane artistes (some of whom could hardly string a sentence together and I would be very surprised if they were even aware of things like the Sowheto uprisings). I was enraged by the fact that every time someone farts on TV on Saturday night, they bring out the same prepubescent looking slip of a lass (Fearn Cotton) to jump all over the place, ask crap questions and oversell the occurrence almost to the point of orgasm. Surely this style of presentation would be better suited to children’s TV, QVC or ITV’s This Morning. Coincidentally I believe that’s where the other presenter of the evening cut his teeth.

I was also perplexed as to why poor Nelson was sat in what appeared to be a darkened tent on his own except for the company of Gordon Brown!!!???.... possibly one of the most boring men on the planet. What I mean to say is that Nelson, 90 years old and celebrating his birthday at a massive rock concert in possibly one of the most exciting places in the world was sat with possibly one of the most boring people in the world, a failing politician who probably only wanted to be there for his own image or to pester him for some kind of overt sign of public support, affection or endorsement. It would be like popping into Macky Dee’s or Thornton’s with your personal trainer or watching sex on TV with your parents; it just isn’t fun.

Disheartened...by stories from Italy that they re proposing to fingerprint every gypsy in the country so that they can keep control over them in some way. I find it a wholly shameful thing that what the Italians are planning to do is absolutely reminiscent of what the Nazis did to the Gypsies and the Jews before they made them wear badges, put them in ghettos and then liquidated them (ghettos then inhabitants). Where’s the condemnation from the leaders of Europe and the rest of the world on this one? Bloody nowhere!!!

Happy...about the resignation by the crook Wendy Alexander. It is bout time she went for the good of the country. Lets hope that her boss takes a positive lesson from her example and does likewise...sooner rather than later.