I Really Like John Reid, I Really Do, Honest

John Reid, the newly appointed Home Secretary, has my deep and unalloyed admiration, he really does. Not only has he gone into the Home Office, his 27th Cabinet job in as many years or something, and told them they are all a bunch of cunts, which is palpably true, but he is an old Stalinist tankie of the first order. "Red" Reid does not mess about, and is just the comrade to supply the sort of smack of firm Government that this country needs. Thank heavens he does not drink, and is no longer the man who once consumed possibly 10 whisky and lemonades at lunch. And no food. The lemonade, I think, was a very stylish touch. And his deep admiration for the Bosnian Serb freedom fighter Radovan Karadzic (whereabouts, I believe, still unknown - I'd suggest starting at John's house - if they can find a sliver of cannbis, they can find a large former pyschiatrist, surely?) is something that can only affirm one's awe for the man's judgement. If only he would rename the Home Office the Ministry of the Interior (MiniTer) then we could all certainly sleep safer in our beds. A friend of mine once asked Red John what attracted him first to his new-ish South American wife, apart from the raunchy films she auteuresses. "Her ahss", he replied, at which my pal leaned round and had a look, opining, "Yeah it is quite nice, actually". A fellow Scot broke in to say, in a mock-English accent : "He said her eyes, ya fucking twat."

All Men Are Rapists

In a "refurbished" Central London pub last night, cheap wood and brown paint, with those awful laminated menus on every table offering fish n chips and nachos "to share", with bar staff who seem puzzled by the concept of actually pouring a full pint, I had occasion, as you do, to use the gentlemen's conveniences. Walking past the obligatory condom machine, I noticed it was plastered with official messages, a bit like cigarette packets are now since the European Union put cancer in tabs. Under the coin slot was the exhortation "Don't put it in unless you have permission", and I don't think it meant the £2 coin. Although it may have been a knowing, post-modern, ironic joke, and very funny for it. Further down potential purchasers were warned "Intercourse without permission can lead to prison ". More direct and thanks for the reminder. Now, this is fucking (oh, the sparkling wordplay) ridiculous. One minute we are all supposed to carry condoms in case we give eachother unpleasant, or indeed life-threatening, diseases. The next minute we are being warned only to buy condoms if the partner in question has signed a formal, legally-binding agreement to sexual intercourse on the back of a beermat. Fortunately, being out with work colleagues and not being John Prescott, this was not a dilemma I faced on this particular evening. However, it made me think how totally ridiculous things have become. Personally, I believe the relationship between the sexes is more open than it has been for a long time. Perhaps it is because I am ageing rapidly, but in my youth political correctness (not the nonsense liberal PC of nowadays, but true political correctness) seemed to mean that nobody could make a move. That, thank fuck (see what I did there again?) has passed into history. But to start putting warnings about rape on a condom machine is such arrant nonsense that I would claim to have been left speechless if I had not spent the last few minutes writing this. Have you ever heard of a rapist who fumbled around for change for the johnny machine first? I really don't think so. It is, as ever, a mad world, my masters.

Down Among The Z Men

Alternatively, out and about with the halt and the lame. I had occasion, further details of which you will not want to know, to visit my doctor this week in deepest South London. Now, for historical reasons, this is my doctor - but his practice is in a part of the capital which I would not normally choose to visit except in a very fast car. Which was not going to stop. It is not that it is dangerous, or even particularly diverse. It is just shit. And what stunned me, in the mid-morning time when I was there, was the horror of what must be daily life for the bulk of the population. Strip away all those who were at work (probably not as many as we are led to believe), and you are left with people either wearing hoodies and don't-fuck-with-me expressions or those needing some sort of aid with which to ambulate. Sticks, frames, prams containing the future people using sticks and frames. The third world with a veneer of semi-civilisation. Children pushing children probably 15 or 16 years younger than they are and to whom they have recently given birth. Get on a bus and you enter a Breughel-like hell of disability, despair and pain. I tell you, I had to give my suit a particularly vigorous brushing afterwards. Oh, and Tony, I thought things could only get better?