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.

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