Feb 1st

International news

Abu Laith Al-Libi, a senior al-Qaeda leader has been killed in Afghanistan after a US missile strike in the North Waziristan area. Now I don’t wish to sound cynical but – I AM. I’ve never heard of this guy, I didn’t know we were looking for him. Really sounds to me like it could just be that there hasn’t been much “good” war news for a while so the next time the army kills a couple of local peasants they get a call “Hey, guys, yeah we need some good news. Just make up a name and a location and make sure it’s got some Als at the beginning and a Stan at the end and we’ll get it out in the press and pretend it matters.” OK boss so Al-Ronaldo Mac Al-Donaldo has been killed following serious fighting in the Cheese-On-Toast-istan area”. Incidentally can you tell I’m hungry writing this...

In a vain attempt to make us think we might have heard of him, they explain “He has appeared in a number of al-Qaeda videos” which is like saying “we’ve shot the dark-haired ugly one on the right in the Boyzone videos” – NOOOO! Shoot Ronan, go for Ronan!

Now they’re saying this dude is in the top half-dozen figures in al-Qaeda that we’re looking for. So I think they should publish a big list of the others, maybe in a big Blue-Peter-style patronising graphic. Like a big test tube which gradually fills up with terrorist blood every time we kill one.

Of course the graphic we really need is a big see-saw showing how many jihadi terrorists we’ve killed versus how many we’ve created with the blindly aggressive shoot-em-up we have the misfortune to call our foreign policy.

Health

And the UK is experiencing a surge in cases of gout. Add this to the recent reports of rising syphilis levels and seems like everybody’s got an 18^th century illness. I might develop consumption just to join in.

Experts blame the rise on an increase in the amount of sugary soft drinks being consumed. That’s the gout rise, the syphilis rise is probably more closely correlated with the consumption of sugary alcoholic drinks.

Nature

A bizarre new mammal has been discovered in Tanzania. The creature, a type of elephant shrew is described as having a long flexible snout and a bulky body with spindly legs. So it could be the bastard love child of Barry Manilowe and Vanessa Feltz. OK, sorry, didn’t mean to put anyone off their lunch!

Arts

A judge in Rio has banned a carnival float which was to have depicted holocaust victims and a Hitler figure. The story has echoes of Britain in 2003 when Felixstowe carnival was forced to apologise for it’s Fred West theme float, sponsored by Wilson and Son Patio Tilers.

History

A Chinese shopping list thought to be 300 years old has been found in a vase in a York stately home. Archaeologists are now studying the list to see what it can teach us about life in the 18^th century far east. One day our shopping lists could be discovered and analysed the same way so lets all plan to put one weird item on each shopping list we write just to confuse archaeologists of the future. Milk, eggs, pasta, giraffe dildo, muesli. Obviously don’t leave that list out for your Mum to get for you when she goes to the shops ... it could backfire.

Science

A DNA survey has revealed that everyone alive today with blue eyes is descended from a single common ancestor. Which means I’m related to Cameron Diaz, Angelina Jolie and Uma Thurman, shame none of them inherited the rest of my good looks.

Papers

The Daily Mail has a rather confusing front page caption “And the award for best prime minister goes to...” underneath a photo of David Cameron, who has never been prime minister and Margaret Thatcher, the worst prime minister ever. In fact Mrs Thatcher was being given a lifetime achievement award sponsored by investment bank Morgan Stanley who we all know are the people with the interests of the British public most closely at heart. Cameron took the opportunity to describe Mrs Thatcher as “one of the greatest prime ministers of all time”, saying she had rescued people from “despair”. That would be the despair of having a job, the despair of the protection of trade union membership over pay and conditions and the despair of not being at war.

Crime

South Wales police are to adopt American-style phone answering methods in an effort to speed up dealing with 999 calls. In the past they’ve been too polite to ask what the problem is and have had to spend the first five minutes making small talk about the weather. “Lovely day to be out getting mugged isn’t it...” They hope the measures will have the added effect of reducing calls from non-emergencies. Recent – genuine – 999 calls have included people asking for help retrieving £1 deposit from a supermarket trolley and asking whether it’s safe to leave a chicken in the oven overnight.

Lets hope though that the American style of policing doesn’t spread across all aspects of the service in Wales, how scary would this be: [welsh accent] “Up against the wall and assume the position, you cocksucker”

Statistics

15% of pupils in a survey said Winston Churchill worked in insurance. Their teachers responded (all together now) Oh no, no, no, no, no...

Jan 21st

Europe

And some French blokes – Edouard Balladur and Valery Giscard D’Estaing (who seems not to have noticed he’s got a girl’s name) have dared to suggest Tony Blair might not make the best EU president. They point out that he opposed the Euro, the European Constitution and then led his country into a needless and bloody war that almost all of his European colleagues had the good sense to avoid. Put that way I guess putting Mr Blair in charge of the EU would be a bit like letting Paris Hilton take over Northern Rock.

Politics

The Tories have announced they have chosen a successor to Ann Widdecombe. Her replacement Helen Grant is apparently very experienced for the role – having played the wicked witch of the west two seasons on Broadway.

Also in politics Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has been for a kebab. Basically this was a publicity stunt to try and prove that the streets of Peckham are safe to walk at night, in spite of her policies on crime. The thing is she was so confident about her safety, she took a minder with her. He had been instructed to do whatever was necessary to save her life, so presumably as they left the shop he ripped the kebab from her hand and threw it away.

History

One of the last two surviving French veterans of world war one has died. This is great news for the other one, Lazare Ponticelli who issued the following statement “It was all me, I did it all on my own, I killed all the Germans myself one by one with a pen knife. The other soldiers were rubbish.”

Education

Plans have been unveiled to introduce metal detectors into schools in Britain to prevent youths from bringing knives and guns to school. If the scheme is successful it could be spread to community centre, buses, trains and even prisons. Or to save time they could just install the detectors straight into hooded tops.

International Politics

The Canadian Foreign Minister has apologised after accidentally releasing a list of countries where prisoners are at risk of torture. Apparently the US and Israel were mistakenly on the on the list, when everyone knows they don’t torture. Ha ha ha. What a silly suggestion. In a related incident the Canadian Sports Minister issued a list of sports popular with young people and forgot to include water-boarding.

Art

The first official portrait of Tony Blair has been unveiled. The artist Jonathan Yeo has previously painted Rupert Murdock, The Duke Of Edinburgh and Beelzebub. He said Mr Blair had a “tigger-like” energy and said he thought he was happy that Gordon Brown’s prime ministership wasn’t going very well. Isn’t that just a touch childish? I mean it’s ok to be six and be happy that your playmates aren’t any better at finger-paining than you but this is running the country we’re talking about... Just as well the seats in the House of Commons are fixed in place or presumably they’d all be pulling them out just as their colleagues were about to sit down. Prime Ministers question time will soon start with David Cameron going “pull my finger”.

Newspapers

It’s usually the tabloids that pose the most ridiculous questions for their readers. The customary phone-ins on “Should we give all the good stuff in Britain to the French?”, etc. Today the Independent have run their own front pager, fortunately without the premium rate line. They ask: Should Richard Branson be allowed to make a fortune at our expense with Northern Rock?

And if there was ever a tabloid-style story well suited to the Independent, this is it: Jeremy Paxman has complained that Marks and Spencers underwear doesn’t give enough support. Cue innumerable photo-shopped pictures of Paxo’s head glued on to the body of a male underwear model. And quote allegedly the most terrifying political interviewer in the country “This is not just about the weak gusset issue”.

Paxo has quite a good point here though. Essentially the number of shops which can be actually relied upon to offer decent quality goods is falling like a stone. I mean no-one goes to Matalan or Primark and expects a garment tough enough to weather a spot of drizzle but it seems now that every store cuts every corner it possibly can and then acts innocent, hoping Jamie Oliver isn’t looking.

Now I normally flick through the Daily Mail just to get a bit of a mixture of stories for the podcast. However one story sort of leapt out over the weekend. Fascist columnist Richard Littlejohn had a piece about the Ipswich murders. Now I quote, about the women who were killed , firstly “in their chosen field of "work", death by strangulation is an occupational hazard.” Which seems odd partly because he’s used the word “chosen”. I’m not entirely convinced that they ended up working as street prostitutes because hairdressing didn’t seem challenging enough. Mummy when I grow up I want to be addicted to heroin. And secondly, another direct quote “in the scheme of things the deaths of these five women is no great loss.”

If any listeners happen to know where Mr Littlejohn lives do please share that info, because I’m sure he understands that in the business of writing noxious offensive bullshit, getting punched in the face every morning as you leave the house is an occupational hazard. And in the scheme of things Richard, your death would be a great loss. A really REALLY GREAT loss.