The Questing Voie he departure of Sir David Manning as
our new ambassador to Washington comes, most will think, not a moment too soon — even if it does deprive the PM of his foreign-policy adviser. Privately, there have been gaskets blowing in Whitehall over the government's apparent view that — and we leave aside the fact that there has been a war on, you know — if we don't have an ambassador to Washington for six months or so, well, hey, things will just sort of take care of themselves. Even the most special relationship needs nurturing.
Uvery two years, Ministry of Defence staff dare dispatched on Equality Courses to refresh their vigilance against sexism, racism, homophobia, biological essentialism and so forth. So how to explain the most sexist display of anything in ages to grace a government building? Right at the bottom of the marble staircase in the Whitehall building which houses (at least at the time of writing) Geoff Hoon is a display of 'nose art' from the Iraq war. Prize exhibit is a wasp-waisted, whipwielding dominatrix in stockings and stilettos, spilling from her black leather corset, and straddling a missile. Alongside is a message of greeting to the former Iraqi president which my source declines even to speak out loud.
ri an anything permeate Carole Caplin's aura of karmic equilibrium? The other day she was introduced at a party to Suzanne Kerins, the winsome tabloid reporter who, some months ago, made great hay in the Sunday Minor describing how she fended off the romantic attentions of Miss Caplin's boyfriend Peter Foster. 'A short, podgy, middle-aged man with bulging eyes and a red blotchy face drunkenly lurches towards me,' her story began. 'Suddenly, I feel his fat little hands around my waist. . . 'Did Miss Caplin harbour a grudge? Possibly. 'You're much prettier in the flesh,' she tinkled, before adding, 'but you could stand to lose some weight.'
Westminster City Council is advertising for a new Director of Finance, a tastysounding job with a £135,000 salary. 'The successful candidate will have to win arguments with government officials over grants, deal with the impact of congestion charging on the Council's income, and meet the demands on its social services whilst maintaining its reputation for prudence.' Perhaps with a previous Westminster Council head honcho in mind —Tesco heiress, Tel Aviv fugitive and arch-crook Dame Shirley
Porter — the advertisement stresses the importance of 'a framework of public accountability'.
The'Alastair Campbell vs the BBC' show (previously, the 'Alastair Campbell vs the Truth' show, a rather stickier wicket and one he was well advised to move on from) gives rise to a linguistic curiosity, viz, the invention of the verb 'to sex' — as in, `I sexed up the dossier, you sexed up the dossier, Alastair sexed up the dossier' etc. Has it occurred to no one that there is an equally good Anglo-Saxon synonym in existence, which is already a transitive verb as well as a noun? And it makes the issue clearer: 'I f—ed up the dossier, you f—ed up the dossier, Alastair f—ed up the dossier.'
On which front, though things have got a bit trickier for him now, the old rascal has been having the time of his life pretending to be cross about the BBC and the affront to his integrity. ITN staff still talk about Campbell's Wink — the giant, grinning stage wink with which, once he thought he was off camera, the spin master brought to an end his thunderous, tablethumping 'spontaneous' interview with Jon Snow on Channel 4 News. What he didn't know is that footage of the wink is thought to have been captured by the makers of a children's documentary about television news programmes, who happened to be filming in the studio at the time.
At the risk of sounding like — sorry, I mean. in the unshakeable certainty of
being a bore and a Bufton-Tufton and a pettifogging pedant such as daily deluges the newspapers with dame-school niggles about minor points of grammar, split infinitives and the decline of the Perfectly Good English Word 'gay'.. does the BBC not own a copy of Debrett;s7 On the day prisoner FF8282 strolled blinking out of Hollesley Bay, the 10 o'clock news announced that 'Lord Jeffrey Archer' had been released. Lord Archer, you fools, as he would be the first to insist. If they have an entire Pronunciation Unit dedicated to deciding that Niger is pronounced neesjya, you'd think they could manage a peer of the realm.
To the Hempel Hotel, for breakfast with the American anger-management guru Dr Jay Carter, author of Nasty People: How to STOP BEING HURT by them without stooping to THEIR level (over one million copies sold). Dr Jay is an amiable, psychobabble-spouting character with a row of pens in his shirt pocket. What inspired him? I wondered. 'My ex-wife. The only thing I got out of that 15-year marriage was royalties.'
Spotted: Richard Desmond, pornographer and intellectual, in the newsroom of his own Daik Express, insisting the figure in a headline of '12 million' be changed to '10 million. . because it sounds bigger'.
At the weekend, a pack of Formula One drivers rounded a bend at Silverstone only to find themselves forced to swerve at 185mph to avoid running over an unnamed capering loony who had made his way on to the track carrying placards affirming the essential goodness of Jesus. Was it another triumph for Aaron Barschak? No, it was Father Neil Horan — the original and, for my money, still the best such troublemaker. Father Neil has form in these matters. He predicted the arrival of the Apocalypse in the year 2000, and has performed 'peace dances' of his own devising at more than one sporting event. As a dancer, he says, he models himself 'chiefly on King David, but also on Riverdance'.
Tiose who cross Andrew Gilligan, rlrieanwhile, would do well to remember the fate of one who did so previously. In days past, when he was working at the Sunday Telegraph, one colleague, Jasper Gerard, teased Mr Gilligan into such a rage that Gilligan pinned Gerard down and used a pair of ordinary office scissors to transform his tormentor's hairdo into a crew cut of staggering brutality. Mr Gerard's hair has never recovered.
Quote of the week comes from the US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz. 'I think all foreigners,' he says, 'should stop interfering in the internal affairs of Iraq.' Is that satire? Or the beginnings of what they call an 'exit strategy'?
Previous page
