WHEN The Guardian’s beloved political commentator Jonathan Freedland decided to bash out his first thriller, The Righteous Men, he did so under a pseudonym, Sam Bourne.

The Guardian books desk hopefully sent it for review to Michael Dibdin, author of the splendid Aurelio Zen thrillers and on-off crime reviewer for The Guardian since 2003.

Bad move. Dibdin’s review noted the suspicious similarity of Freedland’s pseudonym to Dan Brown, and described his style as “a mixture of plonking facts and breathless platitudes”. It continued: “The novel’s spinal column dissolves in a puddle of chicken fat . . . You read on out of morbid curiosity about which bit of kabbalistic hokum you’re expected to swallow next . . . Really bad writing.”

Seeking to limit the damage, an editor branded the review “too negative” and returned to sender. Outraged, Dibdin passed it to The Times, where — in the true spirit of journalistic competition — it appears in all its glory tomorrow in our Books section.

• Cameron’s Conservatives may look kindly on greenies, but Tory MP Bill Wiggin remains stolidly red in tooth and claw. The Shadow Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries’ weekly surgery in Leominster, we hear, is sporadically enlivened by the crackle of breaking necks as the honourable member does away with live chickens for his more squeamish constituents. “I don’t do defeathering,” cautions Wiggin, who keeps his own livestock on a smallholding, “but it’s true. They bring them in for me to deal with. I refer to my surgery as ‘the dispatch box’.”
  
  
• Is fatherhood not agreeing with John Simpson? At a recent talk, the BBC newsman, who recently became a father at the age of 61, was asked if he was planning on returning to Iraq.

  “Yes, I’m going back soon,” he replied eagerly. “And I’m rather looking forward to it, actually. Now I have to go home and look after my two-week-old child . . .”

• Some valiant attempts at monochrome dress for the Tory Black and White ball, where the fake snow caused more than one uncharitable crack at the new leader’s expense. But the old guard were less eager to toe the line. David Maclean, the former Chief Whip, wore tartan. “It’s Black Watch tartan,” he barked, adding: “And I ’m an expert practitioner of the black arts.”
  

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  “I go up and down really quickly,” complains Mariah Carey of her weight, “because I’m a muscular person.” Obelix, you will recall, had a similar excuse.

• Tony Robinson didn’t like Jodie Foster’s new film. “If Mount Everest was made of s***,” he tells Word magazine, “then next to Flightplan, it would be a mere foothill.”

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