There are many ruses I might pull to avoid meeting some whiskery old Saudi
Arabian politician, but I would probably draw the line at adopting an
American child. It seems a little short-termist. That is what the foreign
secretary, David Miliband, did last week. Due to meet his counterpart, Saud
al-Faisal, he suddenly remembered that his adoptive son was about to be born
and disappeared to the US to witness the event.
Old Faisal reacted a bit huffily and declined to meet Miliband’s deputy, Kim
Howells, which is understandable – Howells is fairly awful. But it got the
Anglo-Saudi summit off to a ticklish start. Inshallah, the British
government will have attempted to put matters right in the traditional
manner when dealing with this repulsive medieval Arab kingdom, and bunged
them an enormous crock of dosh and taken the various dignitaries to meet
agreeable female company in Mayfair. That usually seems to work.
We mustn’t offend them because they are, of course, important allies in our
war against terror, not least because the leadership of Al-Qaeda was born
and bred there, and thus imbued with a fairly rigorous and unyielding brand
of Islam.
I imagine that the Saudis will have been mystified and affronted by the excuse
given to them, evidence of a profound culture clash. Say what you like about
the Wahhabis, but they are not what we call “new men”. I doubt very much
that King Abdullah II was crouched at his wife’s bedside with a National
Childbirth Trust pamphlet, a ventouse and a stick of incense, urging her to
breathe deeply while mopping her brow. I suppose the equivalent would be Mr
Saud al-Faisal pulling out of an important meeting because he was off to
watch a stoning. We hell-bound kufr would not understand that either. One
rather warms to Miliband as a consequence. Whether he likes it or not, he
has sent a message to the Saudis that despite copious previous evidence to
the contrary, not quite everybody in Britain will accede to their will and
epic self-importance.
Corruption inquiries might be shelved for reasons of political expediency; we
might also shut our mouths about their human rights record, lack of
democracy, corruption, misogyny and homophobia and refusal to permit freedom
of conscience. We’ll even roll out the red carpet – but we draw the line
somewhere.
Miliband may not have felt sufficiently courageous to tell the Saudis to clear
off for moral reasons, but at least he has a sense of priorities.
I just hope he doesn’t try the same trick with other totalitarian or corrupt
governments. Otherwise his home will begin to resemble the set of Annie:
“This one – Saul – was when the Sudanese visited. And Bathsheba over here
was the summit with Mugabe.”
* * * * *
The bison-faced, aristocratic television presenter Kirstie Allsopp has been
forced to apologise for an incorrect statistic used on her programme
Location, Location, Location. It cropped up during the show about the worst
and best places to live in Britain – arguably the most stupid and offensive
piece of television since “Dr” Gillian McKeith poked around in people’s
stools during You Are What You Eat.
Allsopp’s programme suggested that one in five families in Stoke-on-Trent were
homeless; in fact, only 13 families are without a home there. The
researchers - and presenters - had misunderstood the stats. I think they
misunderstood all the stats, frankly. Allsop informed us that if we were to
move to Merthyr, we would stand a one-in-five chance of becoming serious
drug users, a misconception that a five-year-old child would have spotted.
The whole programme was an empty-headed sneer at northern, working-class
towns on the grounds that they were northern and working class. Still, maybe
some good will come of Allsopp’s braying snobbery. Programmes like hers must
convince us that our obsession with making money from our homes, rather than
just enjoying living in them, is misguided. Allsopp is being urged by David
Cameron to put herself forward as a Conservative candidate. Reason No 306,
then, for never, ever, voting Tory.
It doesn’t seem Wright somehow
The celebrity ex-footballer Ian Wright was ticketed by a traffic warden and,
apparently, responded in precisely the manner you would expect from a winner
of the former Commission for Racial Equality’s media personality of the year
award. “F*** off back to your own country,” he allegedly told the hapless
black official. And then added for good measure, “you monkey.” The warden
was presumably perplexed at being thus described by a person who is, if my
eyes do not deceive me, black himself. This may account for his puzzling
response, which was to call Wright the worst thing he could think of . . . a
“white man”. The likeable Wright will be getting a visit from the old bill
for his alleged “hate crime”. I wonder if the same rigorous inquiry will be
applied to the traffic warden. After all, calling someone a “white man”
could well be classed as racist, too. Even if they’re not. Perhaps
especially if they are not.
It seems that on this occasion the word “white” was used in a pejorative
sense. It certainly can’t have been used in a literal sense, unless the
traffic warden is blind. So with any luck we will see a black man in court
for calling a black man a monkey and a black man in court for calling a
black man a white man.
A tale of lies, damned lies and bacon sandwiches
Which part of your body do you most cherish - your neck or your kidneys? Two
medical reports out this week: one says that drinking alcohol will reduce
your chances of getting renal cell cancer by about 30%. Another says that
drinking alcohol will increase your chances of getting neck cancer. By about
30%. I suppose most people will go for the neck. You can lose a kidney
without much bother. Lose a neck and you have to start buying collarless
shirts, if you want to see where you’re going. I’ve never heard of neck
cancer, mind. Maybe that 30% is on a base of four cases per year.
Another report said that after you’ve worked out in the gym, you’re better off
drinking a pint of lager than water. Then the report which got all the press
coverage: red meat, processed meat and bacon gives you cancer - colorectal
cancer.
You just knew the bastards would start having a go at bacon, didn’t you? One
by one the pleasures in life are chipped away - about the only thing you can
be sure won’t kill you is pomegranate.
* * * * *
Do you think Sir Paul McCartney has been ever so slightly . . . well,
gullible? His estranged wife, Heather Mills McCartney, instigated a series
of “therapy” conversations with him in order to rescue their disintegrating
marriage - and, it would seem, taped them. The woman told GMTV that the
tapes were explosive; she hadn’t released them hitherto because she wanted
to protect Paul, she said.
At this point, even GMTV’s presenters were swamped with nausea. But the hag
continued with her tirade of self-justification and self-pity, likening
herself to Princess Diana. “There have been 4,400 abusive articles about
me,” she lamented at one stage. Ah, well. 4,401 now. Keep ’em coming.
