The Questing Vole
1 t is to Lady Morgan, the Prime Minister's political secretary, that the role of co-ordinating New Labour's proposed system of 'kangaroo courts' (or 'show trials', depending on whom you believe) for lapses in party discipline appears to fall. How does Sally Morgan herself fare when we consider the matter of party discipline? In the 2002-3 parliamentary year she cast 38 votes in the Lords out of 226 possible. In 2001-2 she favoured Lady Democracy with 62 votes out of 172... That's around one vote in every four, overall.
xrewspapers can't, as we all know, be strictly answerable for the accuracy of claims made by their advertisers. Still less can they be expected to police the willingness of greedy and silly readers to buy into getrich-quick schemes, miracle slimming cures, horoscopes and the other practices on the credulous by which the unscrupulous get rich. However. The Daily Mirror might, I feel, have done itself and its readers a favour by declining to run the full-page advertisement from the 'International Parapsychology Centre' that appeared the other day and invited participation (-completely free') in an 'International Research Project' which claims to have isolated five factors 'that have no connection to chance' governing lottery wins, and aims to help participants 'win £250,000 within two months'. You just fill in some personal details on a form and send it to an address in the Netherlands. In small writing: 'The International Parapsychology Centre may elect to permit specially screened promotions to be mailed to you. Tick the following box if you do not wish to receive life-enhancing and money-saving promotions.'
T east likely of celebrity alliances is surely .L./that between Morrissey, lead singer of the 1980s pop band The Smiths, and the bashful Northern playwright Alan Bennett. Nevertheless, recalls Andrew O'Hagan of the London Review of Books, 'I remember Alan Bennett phoning ... in 1992 to ask if any of us knew about this singer called Morrissey, who'd just been round to his house and dropped a CD through the letterbox with a note suggesting tea. We told him Morrissey was just the bee's knees. "Oh," said Bennett. "Is that right?" And when they finally got the teapot out Morrissey wanted to spend the afternoon talking about the forgotten British comedian Jimmy Clitheroe and a host of old Ealing actresses whom Bennett had barely heard of. So it goes. Morrissey subsequently let it be known that 'he could retire happy because he'd had tea with Alan Bennett'.
f ever wagepayer was prepared to look askance at his or her accountant, it is now. An important survey conducted in advance of World Book Day appears to have discovered that accountants spend more time reading for pleasure — an average of five and a quarter hours a week — than members of any other profession, even taxidrivers. The question unaddressed in the survey, however, is: are those billable hours? Lawyers, according to the survey, spend as much time reading on the toilet as chefs and accountants put together.
Just like its two or three other viewers, I find myself unceasingly absorbed in Channel Five's meta-reality reality gameshow, Back To Reality. This week it came up with the goods yet again. Guest star Kerry McFadden. the recent winner, as all Spectator readers will know, of I'm A Celebrity. . Get Me Out Of Here! series three, found herself in conversation with the Big Brother refugee Jade Goody. She mentioned that she was going to be travelling back to her home in Ireland shortly. 'How are you going to get there?' asked Jade. 'Will you drive?' Kerry: `No. You can't drive to Ireland.' Jade: 'Can't you? You can drive to Scotland.'
Shockwaves continue to ripple out from the Great Janet Jackson Super Bowl Nipple Catastrophe. A website, www.thesmokinggun.com, has somehow unearthed some of the emails of complaint sent by web-literate (if not letter-literate) members of the Moral Majority. 'I am anything but a prude I have owned a strip club and later an adult site,' begins one, tut this is just pure lack of respect for american families and decency.' 'I'm a sex-offender therapist,' announces another, who reports that his -clients' are -incensed' that Justin Timberlake hasn't been arrested for sexual
assault. Another: 'I don't consider myself to be a finatic,but i do fear the wrath of GOD if our country continues it's moral decline.' (All sic and sick (sic).) Another was less worried by 'the Janet Jackson mistake', though, 'The commercial showing a horse breaking wind in the face of a young woman was far more disturbing,' he said, and suggested an additional investigation into a Viagra commercial. The horse thing was really bad,' he wailed in conclusion. 'I can't even remember what they were advertising.'
And, speaking of advertising, no sooner does this column deplore the 'Real World of Coca Cola' adverts (Group Hug', my furry hindquarters), than the soft drink company is being embarrassed by reports that its 95p-a-throw bottles of 'pure' water contain reprocessed tap water from Sidcup. Still I can't help feeling the outrage is a little synthetic. At least it's water. The real shocker isn't the mark-up on tap-water, but on the vile fizzy sugar-water that's the company's flagship product.
Readers! Worried about the exorbitant cover price of your favourite magazine? Advertisers! Sceptical as to whether our `pass-on readership' among the key ABC1 marketing sectoids stands up to the claims made for it? Both groups will find solace and instruction in the story of Des Withall, a subscriber of 15 years' standing who writes from Australia to say hello. When Mr Withal] finishes his weekly copy, he reports, he sends it on to another friend living in the Antipodes. Who duly sends it on to another friend. Every week, chain-letter style, this battered Spec passes through at least nine pairs of hands; and, testament to its power to bring people together, last year a party was organised for all the members of the chain to meet up. He encloses a photograph of the happy event, and adds — by way of giving hope to our distressed subscriptions department — 'perhaps in time some of them will become subscribers, particularly if! fall off the twig'.
An old gag, and one all the more welcome for that, comes lumbering out of cold storage just in time for the anointment of Tony Page — a man twice arraigned for 'gross indecency in public lavatories' — as New Labour's candidate for Reading East, following Jane Griffiths's deselection. 'Nice, for once, to have an MP with convictions!' bellows my correspondent, before mirth chokes him purple, and the Heimlich manoeuvre becomes necessary.
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