IT’S SO HOT!
Ah yes, June is busting out all over and so is the sweat of anyone trying to walk more than ten minutes, but the sensational weather belies the gloomy spectre of the news.
For months and months now, the despotic horror taking place in Syria has been allowed to carry on unabated, and this week the west’s inertia has produced the most ghastly results conceivable. Meanwhile the EU, set up from the ashes of a divided continent blighted by preposterous debts, rank unemployment, brutal extremism and a discredited centre ground, which has in the last twenty years witnessed ethnic cleansing in its own backyard, are busy sorting out penalty protocols for countries that exceed 3% of GDP. Stability, indeed.
While the options in Ireland’s referendum may have seemed pretty dismal, over in Egypt where once a short time ago hopes were so high, voters are now facing a classic frying pan v fire vote-off: A member of the Muslim Brotherhood or a former Mubarak hired goon. First the Arab Spring, now recoil.
On a happier note at least the European Championships are coming thick and fast, too fast for a limping Frank Lampard to catch up with in fact. Poor old Kevin Foley has been left behind too, to much controversy and mutual hurt. The Ginger Destroyer Paul McShane replaces him, but the really big news from Group C is that Italy are embroiled in yet another matchfixing scandal, with some of their team implicated in it. Oddly enough it may do them no harm: the last two big matchfixing scandals they were involved in were 1982 and 2006, and won the World Cup both times. Makes you wonder how big a bet they put on themselves.
The Italian football team have nothing on the British government of late though, which has gone all HBO on us. Secrets! Lies! Texting! With his erstwhile closest advisor Andy Coulson being done for perjury, and Jeremy Hunt being as impartial and balanced as a parent on the sideline of a children’s football match, this isn’t going to be a very happy Jubilee for Rex Banner. Sorry, Cameron.
Meanwhile over the Leveson enquiry, morally hollowed out smooth talker Tony Blair was in the chair, and found himself heckled by a very forceful albeit quite polite heckler as he gave his testimony. How he managed to bust in is anyone’s guess. It doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence in this age where Al-Qaeda are supposedly one earth wire away from blowing us all up at a terminal, but high-profile and high-security men like Blair or Murdoch aren’t safe from a harangue. Or a meringue.
Over in the States Republican candidate Mitt Romney has been self administering pies to his face with hilarious frequency, this week alone making headlines on three separate occasions. Jumping back into the birthers pool with majority shorn Cousin It Donald Trump was bad, but somehow worse is this fundamental iPad app spelling error. It’s stuck so much that if you type “Romney Amercia” into a Google search it doesn’t even suggest you made a mistake. In fairness, he stands a much better chance of becoming President of Amercia.
Mitt could do better than taking lessons on how to run for things from wee Xiaosa, the bestest doggie in the whole wide world. A Chinese stray who was thrown a scrap of food by a passing convoy of cyclists, he ended up following them for over a thousand miles. Aww!
