Plonk

In an otherwise somewhat sycophantic post about John Pilger, I rather liked this:

Once, it was said, Pilger had a house in Tuscany and invited some friends round for lunch. One of the guests sipped a glass of vino and said to Pilger: “Where does this wine come from?”

Pilger gestured grandly to his estate. “From the bottom of my garden,” he said.

Said the guest: ”Doesn’t travel very well, does it?”

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The serial killers (The Guardian)

I have a piece in the Guardian today about political memoirs. Here's an extract:

According to the rumours, Cherie Blair has received around a million pounds for her book and Prescott half a million. Nice work if you can get it, and lubricant enough to prise open the most tightly shut mouth.

But even if the Prescott family's other options for securing an income are somewhat more limited than the Blairs' - Cherie Blair is at the pinnacle of her lucrative profession, with a high-earning husband, while Prescott has no discernible skills to offer and a wife who does not work - it's not true that money is the only factor behind political memoirs. The first insider accounts of the Blair government, after all, came from Jonathan Powell, Blair's former chief of staff, and Lord Levy, his former fundraiser. Powell's advance will not have been huge, and he now

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Ken for Mayor

No, no, no, no, no! Here's my theory (like many of the best, it's best on total speculation). 

Ken wants nothing more than to be host of the 2012 Olympics. And he still thinks he has a right to be Mr London. He'll be the Labour nominee in 2012. Just you watch.

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Overworked and underpaid

I must thank my friend Leo McKinstry for pointing this out to me. There is a truly wonderful letter in today’s Daily Express which simply has to be read, from the parent of a teacher. It’s a spectacular example of the always enjoyable phenomenon of the whingeing teacher. From M Kilburn of Barnsley:

My daughter is a deputy head and recently decided to calculate all the hours she spends on school work. After she had done this, she worked out her hourly rate - it was less than two pounds an hour.

Stop knocking teachers like her who work hard and under extreme conditions...Dedicated, caring people like teachers deserve our support, not to mention every penny they earn.

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Comments

A few people have written to me about comments, angry that their posted comment has been 'censored'.

I'm not responsible for comments being uploaded, but I've spoken to the powers that be and have been assured that only two comments have not been published in recent weeks - one supposedly naming two paedophile priests, and another labelling someone as a 'Jew hater'.

Believe me, if comments were being censored then I would not allow those such as the one by 'marvin' in my post on the Brussels Journal. But they're not and so it appears.
 
I think it's simply a case of technological error - that a comment might have been sent but hasn't been received.

Anyway, free to email me if a comment you've sent hasn't appeared and I'll look into it.

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