High on my list of things that send the old irkometer off the scale: this was provoked today when I saw an ad for a Public Enemy compilation on telly. It’s just this – if you want an American accent for a voiceover, hire a flippin’ American. Lord only knows there’s enough of them, getting on for 300 million in fact. Some fish-faced out-of-work actor from Birkhamstead just won’t do. I know we limeys should never forget the crime against the Queen’s English that was Dick van Dyke, but that was forty years ago now. Time to forgive and move on, chaps.

Good Lord. Has it come to this? Watching Our Beloved Leader Tony, he’s only been and gone and done it, innit? Muck About!

Yes, folks, the Prime Minister has uttered the phrase “turn round and say” in today’s monthly press conference. In this blogger’s humble opinion, we are mere days away from the Death of Spoken English, where the leader of the country prefaces every answer with “yeah, no…”.

This is the sort of English up with which I will not put. Prime Ministers should speak like Disraeli until the end of time. End of.

Now the gym we go to is a nice gym, and they do serve good coffee, but Â£2.90 for a double espresso? Blimey. Not only is that a lot more than the regular joe chain places like Nero and Starbucks, but it’s much more than the Best Coffee Place in Cambridge – namely Savino’s. I love Savino’s. It’s struggling a bit at the moment because of the upheaval during the building of Grand Arcade, but it deserves to survive because it’s so lovely. Do you get the picture? Jon and Savino’s sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G…

As you may know, they have a tradition of putting a different animal on the cover of each of their geektastic books. Are they having a laugh, then, that their MacOS X Panther in a Nutshell book has a bloody Alsatian on the front?

Four hours of driving in Summer heat was worth every bit: my new niece is an absolute darling. Of course, I don’t have to feed her every 15 minutes and I can hand her back when she cries. Both parents have that happy-but-could-easily-sleep-on-a-bed-of-nails-right-now look in their eyes. No.1 nephew is behaving brilliantly, being very loving and caring towards his new little sister. I’m impressed. More importantly(!) his football skills are coming on leaps and bounds. He can volley a ball at two and a half! Sign him up, Forest!

Just as terrible news followed good last week, so it’s happened in reverse this time. I’m an uncle again! Now I’ve got a shiny new (and undoubtedly bouncing at 8lb 12oz!) little niece. Just after I got the news this morning I was brushing my teeth, absent-mindedly shoving the electric toothbrush round my mouth when I found myself wondering why nothing much was happening. I hadn’t turned it on.

My thoughts, of course, are with those who were caught up in the bombings a week ago in London. It’s not helpful necessarily to blame the terrorism entirely on our country’s involvement as Bush’s poodle in the Iraq war. Plenty of us were against it, and maybe time will tell, but a line can’t reliably be drawn between that and the motivations of the perpetrators – at least for now.

In more general terms, though, I have to say I reckon we’re not doing ourselves any favours by acting like we’re the world’s policemen. What tactical advantage are we gaining by our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan when it’s sadly all too possible that the threat is at home? The WMD argument is dead in the water. Human Rights as justification is fine, except don’t imagine we’ll follow that to its logical conclusion: next stop Saudi Arabia! No? Zimbabwe? Egypt? Burma? Turkey? Certain bits of Cuba?

There is no question that any nation has not only a right but a duty to defend itself against any bona fide threat. I only quarrel over the manner of that defence. The total budget for a full-scale military involvement is toe-curling and I’ve often wondered what the CIA and MI6 would be able to do with even a tenth of that money. If we assume (probably perfectly safely) that the hard core of fanatics who actually carry out the atrocities are beyond our reach in both ideological or practical terms, we still have any number of ways to get close to them by exploiting the peripheries: their supporters, both active and passive. Whilst the suicide bombers are hell-bent on their vicious task, perhaps those that provide the safe-houses, the fake documents and the information can be broken or bribed. I have no qualms about my taxes being used to grease a palm if it means stopping the kind of horrors we’ve seen recently. Full-scale military action is far more, in this case, to do with being seen to be doing something about the threat than really tackling it. It’s tactical planning by tabloid. I can’t think of anything more frightening.

We may have crap cuisine, but we’ve also got the Olympics.

Ner ner ner ner ner.

I’ve always wondered, my French not being up to much, what Saian Supa Crew were actually on about. I mean, I love their music, but as for meaning I have no clue. They could be singing about world-conquering animated toasters for all I know. So for a wheeze I found the lyrics to their biggest hit, Raz de Maree, and bunged it through the Babelfish automatic translator.

SLY: Vamos has the playa, under the sunlight lamps of Saa.an Supa
With Sly de Bahia as with the buddah, exposure hot like Aaliyah
Ooh! aloa leaves your Himalayas, UV raid, A ‘ is has it there,
Sunstroke furia, ground-para necessary has.
Blade skin without pilpa pile hair, fire!

VICELOW: You can shout alleloua.a, if L ‘ Saa.an dies, but one will die
When Carlos runs or when y ‘ has a hurricane
In Europe, not D ‘ hurrah or D ‘ HIPPI hurrah, the flow is it,
Length like a boa, strikes cheek the balboa,
Athlatique like Bilbao, faeric like Bora Bora
Mystic such David Bowie, Vicelow, rapid like the wind,
Only while raising me I sleep
Ignoramuses like an evil of belly.

REFRAIN: Saa.an Supa clutches the mic without never drowning,
Rapid like the wind, carrying the hearts enflammaes,
A such flame the cyclone dacime the mass D ‘ starved,
Dasormais on the beach, C ‘ is the strong current D ‘ marae ((a))

LEEROY & SAMUEL: It is the strong current of marae,
On the microphone, ramane a bouae
Entraa.ne tous.les.jours, every month, if one needs any L ‘ annae
Sound servant boy, you can T ‘ marrer but on the mic, ‘ chuis entraa.na
Come to oim, if you want, J ‘ gives you particular courses
Daserte the sound, for the clash, do not be to you will tras endowed,
Explain A. your pals how much victims are touchaes,
It is the combination of both maa.tres, having the mania
Of aliminer, A. all dibidjays, evening this, your crowns
Will fall, acoute L ‘ acho of the tears of the sound servant boys having
Bluffa, locked up in a cage A. prasent, they cannot
Achapper, A. you not to flachir, all your acts one needs them
To assume, a sound moreover east fell, ouais but them
The following N ‘ has which has. mafier
It is the strong current D ‘ marae, on the microphone, ramane a bouae
Entraa.ne tous.les.jours, every month, if all is needed
L ‘ annae, sound servant boy you can T ‘ marrer but on the mic ‘ chuis
Entraa.na, come to oim, if you want, I give you courses
Private individuals.

REFRAIN

SPECTA: Are Oa. thus all passed?
Dabarque Specta maintaining all occurs to passed
Is Oa. thus your band of batards?
Are Oa. thus of dangerous strapping men?
The world is held!
Not not… Je hold the world and I break all that approaches has.
All that is used you as life that I maprise.S.S.C.

FENIKSI: Ha you! ME?
Do not seek your blase in a dictionary, associating words to which you
Know nothing there A. nothing, has mane A. nothing.
The name does not make the flow, but the flow makes that your name your-ca’.
They is well 2,3 interviews by Fraderico, then you will make rebounds
Radio out of radio, a tube A. Roberta & Chico, a rap which makes if
Cold in the back that it is believed sponsorisa by Miko
You laugh? How A.!
You start again A. to believe that are good for you, guy T ‘ are null!
Outside as in room.
Illico damarre, praviens other hypochondriacs
That you are pricked, will prick, spades with….

REFRAIN

Carnage. Funny, but carnage nevertheless.

Happy days, mucking about with the PHP to get RSS-based cherry-picking working for the index pages. That way, you won’t have to load my entire blog every time you hit the index page. It’s more difficult to explain than to write the code. That must say something about where my real talents lie – no surprises there, I suppose…