I am currently halfway through Lars Von Trier's 'The Idiots', which shows nice young people acting as if they were mentally disabled in order to prove a point to the general public who are not as empathetic as they are.

The film has inspired me to develop a character for a short film of my own. He dribbles, gurns, grunts, throws tantrums and basically has no shame in the presence of his carer mother. But in the solitude of his own bedroom at night, we see his true self, a lovely, sophisticated, intelligent man who likes nothing better than to relax in front of a 'Little Britain' dvd with a glass or two of quality vino.

FIN.

Chris Evans seems to have had a new lease of life since he broke up with Billie Piper. He will be receiving part of our licence fee for a couple of Easter shows on Radio 2, the nation's favourite station for grown up pop music. These shows are possibly precursors to a new weekly music show.

Chris is 'looking forward to playing some great music on a bank holiday'.

I like this new ego-free Evans. It's now all about the music, as it was with John Peel. It sounds like he's finally grown up, and I for one am certainly looking forward to a show full of great music spun by the most gifted dj of his generation.

Whereas Frankie's 'Relax' has always seemed to me merely a sensible instruction on how not to tense oneself during unspeakable acts, hearing George Michael's 1987 hit 'I want your Sex' on Heart 106.2 today, I feel distinctly uncomfortable.

It's as if he's singing just to me.

And I want to run a mile.

So Chris Evans now finally realises that Billie Piper was too young for him.

When do you think he realised that he was too old for her?

Watching BBC4's documentary on Broadway in the 1920's, I was surprised to discover that not only did Al Jolson perform in blackface, allowing him the freedom to emote and give his all to the songs, but he also at one point in his career wrapped himself from head to foot in bandages in order to perform his tribute song to his 'Mummy'.

Al's strength of feeling for his ma was illustrated by the sentiment that he was willing to walk a million miles in the tight, chafing material just for a glimpse of a single one of the old woman's grateful facial acknowledgements.

There was not a dry eye in the house.

Jamie Oliver on 'Jamie's School Dinners' needs to wash his mouth out with fucking soap. 'Fucking' this and 'fucking' that. In front of dinner ladies old enough to be his mother. And with eleven year olds watching to get a glimpse of themselves on tv.

Foul mouthed fuck.

A chav, as far as I can see, is a young, white British person who wants to be a cool black American. There is nothing wrong with that, or the fact that young white people don't look cool no matter how hard they try.

According to chavscum.com, chavs are 'Britain's peasant underclass that are taking over our towns and cities', who look 'like a bunch of fucking pikeys'.

'Pikey', like 'paki' is a quaint term used by the Great British inclusive working class to illustrate a human being who is not 'like us'.

But these chavscum guys have good taste. They don't like hip hop or R&B or cheesy dance music like the chavs do. Not 'misogynistic' hip hop or the 'flippant misandry' (not in my dictionary) of R&B or the 'moronic trance and garage beats' of dance music. The chavscum guys take their music seriously. None of this commercial, listenable, enjoyable stuff. No mention of ho's, bitches and scrubs here. No relationship rubbish, no laughter, no tears, no GIRLS! Please, no GIRLS!

The terrifying thing is, I've probably enjoyed the same music and films as the chavscum guys. Some white electronic dance music you can't dance to, some serious indie shit (music and films) and God knows what else. So I'm a little bit Donny, a little bit Marie, a little bit chav and a little bit chavscummer. Without the bad taste, the racism or the misogyny of course. I am superman!

And Julie Burchill is superwoman. She knows it all she really does, and Sky One last night allowed her to tell us all about chavs and how she's proud to be one. She was shown walking around a cheap market, dressed as a woman in her 40's, not as a chav. No chunky jewellery, no chav clothes or chav mates but she was still a chav. A middle aged chav.

As far as I could gather, in her terms (and nobody elses), a chav is a white celebrity with a working class background who is comfortable in their own skin (i.e. sexily confident and shaggable, just like herself).

David Beckham is, Victoria Beckham isn't. Well if that's the case, how come they've just had their third child? Maybe he puts a paper bag over her head, eh Julie?

Just what is it about Victoria Beckham that gets up people's noses? She's talentless? So are 90% of pop stars. She's skinny? So are 90% of female pop stars. She hasn't got a 'natural' (i.e friendly) smile? I think that's it! She hasn't got a friendly smile and nobody in their right mind would want to be friends with a woman who doesn't smile like she means it. Really means it.

I don't trust her.

In the week in which it was announced that patients in a Liverpool hospital have been drinking the alcoholic handwash provided to combat the spread of so-called superbugs, Michael Howard's latest vote winner is a proposal to bring back matrons into our hospitals.

Eager and willing to get this country back on its feet, this week I have been away at Matron School. I do not cut a matronly figure, but this is no hindrance any more, the healthier-looking the matron the better. And of course in these equal opportunity times, many of us would-be matrons are in fact men.

And to all you sad Carry On fans out there who think a matron's duties are 99% breaking up shennanigans between randy male doctors and nubile young female nurses, you really are living in the past, aren't you?

Forward with Britain!

The Brits on tv last night was the usual celebration of corporate and individual wealth.

Hosted by multi-millionaire media businessman Chris Evans with a finale paying homage to multi-millionaire media businessman Sir Bob Geldof; homage to his contribution to music.

Now Sir Bob's outstanding contribution to the abolition of world hunger is well documented and a triumph for the human race, but just what has he done for music? A man who last week said he was frustrated with Africa (aren't we all?), that he now wants to concentrate on his music, now performs his two biggest hits from a quarter of a century ago, piss poor early Springsteen imitations, and releases all the Boomtown Rats albums for his adoring public of one cretin and his dog ('Give us your fucking money! You mutt!')

It really is time for a compulsory retirement age of 40 for pop musicians, and I'm being generous here. Just imagine, no more Sir Bob, Sir Cliff, Jools and Tom Jones, Queen with Paul 'Hernia Face' Rodgers....Heaven.

Of course, heaven contains the beautiful, sublime Scissor Sisters but also the ugly, plodding Keane. How the music industry intelligentsia voted for both these acts as producing the best International and British albums could possibly, just possibly be because they were the two top selling albums in the UK last year. Someone who likes Keane cannot appreciate good music. That person is a bland, witless, cloth-eared fool.

There was something wrong last year when Jamie Cullum won a MOBO (an ASBO would've been more apt), and there's something wrong this year when viewers of MTV Base choose Joss Stone as Best British Urban Act. The regressive, fog-horned voiced white teenage pensioner from priviledged stock is reinvented as a cool kid from the inner city? And Franz Ferdinand are chosen by Kerrang!TV viewers as best rock act? Kerrang! is ROCK! Franz Ferdinand are art pop. They don't mix! You've been had, Mr Brit!

As Peter Hain, the South African Secretary of State for Wales, on behalf of the Welsh people congratulates the English Prince of Wales on his forthcoming marriage, being half Cornish myself, I'd like to say a few words to the Prince on behalf of the people of his Duchy...

'Get off my land, you bugger!'

So Mike Read's Tsunami Song finally hits the charts.

'Cliff never grows old'.

I knew it.

60,000 copies of a song titled 'London Underground', taking the tune of The Jam's 'Going Underground', have been downloaded by people willing to buy filth in aid of Macmillan Cancer Relief.

It is the project of Adam Kay, 24, a junior doctor,and his friend Suman Biswas, a 26 year old anaesthetist, and part of a cd, 'Fitness to Practice', the proceeds of which go to the aforementioned charity.

'Today I gotta take my bike
Cos once again the tube's on strike
The greedy bastards want extra pay
For sitting on their arse all day
Even though they earn 30k'

So it's class warfare! The middle classes have had enough of these upstart thicko train drivers who do nothing but sit down all day when they should be up and down the carriages serving refreshments to the hard done by commuters who are transported to and from work in little better than cattle trucks. Christ, I bet those greedy lazy sods spend their time at work watching dvd's, they hardly need to keep their eyes on the tracks, everything being automatic nowadays after all. Noone shovelling coal like the good old working men of yore.

I'm reminded of a woman I sat next to on the train one morning a few months ago, moaning on her mobile phone in a loud voice about how she was kept waiting on a cold platform for 20 minutes just because some lazy train driver couldn't be bothered to get out of bed and her train was cancelled.

Or maybe, just maybe he or she was ill, you daft bint. You know, ill, unable to safely drive your train, unable to guarantee you'll still be alive by the time you should be in work, brain not functioning as it should, a bit slow, a bit like your normal state of mind.

Don't listen to the whingers. Most commuting is a piece of piss.

Pooh poohing New Labour's so called 'sly anti-semitism', engineered by those crazy guys who brought us the sidesplittingly hilarious FCUK campaign, (ugly tory mugs Howard and Letwin as a pair of pigs just insults pigs and Howard hypnotising us with a fob watch is Howard hypnotising us with a fob watch, not Fagin gloating over his spoils), I get to thinking about my dad's real anti-semitism. Yes, my sideburned 70's trade unionist firebrand dad often said 'Hitler was right about the Jews'.

In 1950, he had apparently cried when Al Jolson died. As he became more of a loony lefty between his teens and his 40's, how the fuck did he move from idolising a Jew to saying they all should be exterminated? (Unless of course he always thought Jolson was really African American).

In the week in which Bono sings an enormously emotional song to his dead father in front of a young pop audience who couldn't give a shit, I decide to call up the ghost of my old man and ask him a few questions on which he had an answer for when he was alive.

1. Religion?

Religion is just brainwashing.

Ok.

2. The Royal Family?

Parasites. Should be shot. The lot of them.

Ok, parasites. Maybe not shot, though. Just stripped of all their wealth and
made to work in call centres.

3. Same sex love?

I understand women...But men...It's just not natural.

I see where you're coming from, you dirty old man.

4. The Jews?

The Jews?

The Jews.

Hitler was right about the Jews.

You don't mean that.

Can I go now?

You don't mean it.

Michael Howard playing the immigration card? A man descended from Romanian Jews? What red-blooded, salt of the earth Englishman is going to vote for him?

Come on, tories! Get Kilroy-Silk in quick. He's available and mad as a hatter. And the people love him.

There follows a transcript of my interview with Nick Jolliwell, the government's 'booze czar', responsible for changing the nation's drinking culture...

What is the ultimate aim?

Education. Pure and simple.

So you think that by education, a whole culture can be altered?

It's going to take time, but yes.

Where does education start?

We mustn't make alcohol a naughty thing. Children need to see alcohol as an enjoyable part of life if taken in moderation. They need to start getting used to alcohol at a young age.

How young?

When parents sit down to a meal with their bottle of wine, give the child a little diluted wine. It's what they do in France.

What about babies?

Maybe dip in your little finger, let them suck it. Very diluted, of course. Just gets them used to it. Makes it part of normal life at a young age.

Do they do that in France?

Maybe.

And if they don't, they should?

Look, I just think having the family together, sharing a bottle of wine at the dinner table, good civilised conversation.

With children?

Certainly.

In French?

Maybe some French could be used. It's not a bad idea, you know. It's all good practice.

What about a family that say, doesn't eat together. Maybe they have their meals on trays in front of the tv, at different times?

I'm not talking about every day of the week. Sunday lunch is good. Once a week.

How are you going to get all families in Britain together for Sunday lunch?

These are just suggestions, Geoff. We're not going into people's houses.

How is relaxing the licensing laws going to stop young people binge drinking?

It won't.

Then why have longer opening?

Basically to stop flashpoints. When all the pubs empty out at the same time there's going to be trouble.

What, pub versus pub? The King's Arms versus the Queen's Head?

Just having hundreds of extremely drunk young people on our high streets at 11.30, you're going to get violence.

Because they're drunk?

Yes.

Because they drink a great amount in a short time?

Yes.

Which you can't stop?

No.

But if you stagger the staggerers...Say have one pub closing at eleven o'clock, one at twelve, one at one. That's going to stop flashpoints?

We're not telling establishments when to close.

So they could all close at midnight and we could have even more drunk people on our streets. The pubs and the drinks companies will make even more money.

But they'll have a responsibility. We want to make pubs more responsible.

What do I tell my seventeen year old daughter? How do I educate her when I know she goes out at weekends and gets smashed on alcopops and vodka shorts?

She shouldn't be getting served.

Ok, she's just turned eighteen. And she goes out at weekends and gets smashed on alcopops and vodka shorts?

She'll learn.

How?

The way we all did. By drinking too much and feeling so ill she'll never do it again.

How do I know she's not got the constitution of an alcoholic? Maybe she doesn't get ill and just drinks more and more?

The chances are she won't become an alcoholic.

What if it runs in the family? I binge drink.

I'm sure most of us do from time to time.

No. Every week. According to government figures I am a binge drinker three times a week. Am I to be educated?

It's your body. If you're not harming anyone...

Isn't it in the government's interest for us to drink as much as we can? Everytime we have a drink we swell the government's coffers.

Look, Geoff. Drinking is part of life. Most people know when to stop. Some people are predisposed to going too far. Some people get violent. But most of us are sensible, social drinkers. And here endeth the sermon...I think it's my round.

You got the last one.

Did I?

A premium rate phone sex line in Sherwood, Nottingham was staffed with forty local women rather than the advertised 'Filipina girls'. Boss Andrew Vanderahe, 41, was fined £65 with £1,000 costs for breaching the Trade Descriptions Act. 'We had to act,' said a council spokesman. 'So many men were being ripped off'.'

Hungry to get some meat on the bones of the report, I contacted one of the cheated callers. He made himself comfortable by his phone and in hushed, nervous tones, he described his disappointing experience...

'I wouldn't have minded, but she kept on and on about her arthiritis and how she's on pills for this and pills for that and how you can't get a decent piece of fish anymore and how there's not enough shelter at bus stops and how what with all those yobs about she's scared of going out in the daytime, let alone after dark. It was a good ten minutes before she got around to what she was wearing.'

A statement from the Home Office on the Yorkshire Ripper's day trip to the Lake District to visit the site where his father's ashes were scattered said, '...the individual was closely supervised at all times. At no point was there any danger to members of the public.'

And there was me thinking he'd been left alone with a machette, a slasher movie, and three teenage prostitutes.

Iraqi captives (looters) stripped and forced to simulate sex acts by British soldiers? Our boys? Our brave boys? I don't believe it! They're brave boys! They're British! British boys are brave! British boys have character. British boys have respect for people who are not like themselves. British boys are not racist, cruel, homophobic, cowardly. They don't offend people for a laugh. They're gentle and decent. They see the irony in 'Little Britain'. They're on the side of the underdog, the poor, the oppressed, the minority.

Oh, and by the way...

I'm a lady!

It's UK Radio Aid Day and we're all tuned into one of 288 commercial radio stations which are broadcasting the same shows from 6am to 6pm. Great dj's from the past such as Evans, Bates and Goodier are here to make the day go with a swing and give away prizes to those of us who text them at £1.50 a go. It's all for this year's good cause, the tsunami disaster fund, and I for one am having the most fun I've ever had.

Encouraged by Radio Aid, our office is doing so many fun things to raise money for the victims. And all it took was an email from the boss.

Things we are doing:-

1. The boss has donated £75 so that he can have his six month old baby for the day. His estranged wife left him during pregnancy and he's in a bitter battle with her to get access. But today they have put apart their differences and the baby is in the office. The boss wears cufflinks inscribed with the words 'World's Greatest Dad'.

2. We each pay £1 each time the boss changes his son's nappy. He is extremely keen to do this as he says 'It's a bonding thing'. He seems to change the nappy about once an hour. Either he changes it when it is not necessary or the baby was on the beer last night.

3. We pay for the boss to do the tea and coffee runs all day. I'm concerned that he may not be washing his hands so I drink bottled water.

4. We have a swear box (£1 for a 'shit', £2 for a 'fuck', but nothing for the 'c' word as that would be encouraging filth).

5. All the men in the office are sponsored by the women to wear thongs for the day. The men sponsor the women to wear decent knickers.

6. We have a lunchtime auction of unwanted Christmas presents. Everybody seems to have brought in their secret santa presents from office colleagues. Mine is a bottle of Hugo Boss aftershave.

7. We have an auction, too of childrens' paintings. There are no bids and parents are forced to buy their own kids' creations at £1 each.

8. We have a sweepstake to guess the weight of the baby. It's a fat thing and I've no idea how much babies weigh so I say 2 stone 7 pounds. I do not win.

In all, we raise £274 and we get a mention on the radio. They play Dido for us.

Congratulations, team!

Today's (large) graffiti on the inside of the train door as I get on brazenly tells me to

'FUCK OFF'.

I wish I could.

Prince Harry dressing up as a Nazi?

How could he stain his ancestors' name in this way?

Has he forgotten how his great grandmother almost singlehandedly saw off the Luftwaffe during the blitz on the east end of London, spending night after night shooting down doodlebugs?

Not to mention her brother-in-law who bravely infiltrated the heart of the beast by posing as the lover of an American friend of Hitler.

So jolly punk Prince Harry's in hot water again, this time for dressing up as a Nazi at a 'native and colonial' fancy dress party. His brother attended the party as a lion.

Well done, Harry for showing up the British Empire for what it was. We invaded countries and enslaved them, too!

And well done, William for dressing up as a native animal rather than blacking up as a native human being. You sensitive boy, you.

Carlisle is still under water of course because carbon dioxide is going to kill us all! CO2 + H2O = annihilation of the human race.

Unless...

Unless we rip up all the roads in the world, plant a tree every five metres, and like millions of Tarzans and Janes we can swing to wherever we want to go.

Or would you like to swing on a star?

I remember a woman,
A rock 'n' roll woman,
Dancing to heavy rock tunes.

A long-legged woman,
A whole lotta woman,
The only one in the room.

Do they still have heavy metal discos? And are they as gut-wrenchingly depressing as in the seventies, before the New Wave of British Heavy Metal lapped at the balls of impressionable young men up and down the UK?

Saxon, Samson, Praying Mantis, Angel Witch, and of course the all-conquering Iron Maiden who are back in the singles charts this week at number three with yet another very old song in several new formats, delighting their obsessive fanbase, many of whom must be in their forties.

A quarter of a century of earache is thus celebrated as the wave comes into the shore and recedes like thinning forty-five year old hair.

In addition, we've now got Elvis at number one for the next few months, almost completing a full circle for Top of the Pops. As it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end.

Shock, horror! Mohammed is the UK's twentieth most popular baby boy's name of 2004. And of even more concern to those neo-nazis among us, Joshua spends his third consecutive year at number two.

For the tenth year running, Jack tops the list. A no-nonsense heterosexual name presumably inspired by no-nonsense heterosexual Jack the Lad rather than no-nonsense heterosexual Jack the Ripper. Effete creatures with hairdresser names such as Geoffrey, Simon, or Philip don't even make the top hundred. Who'd want a name like those?

Jack the Lad is a young man who behaves in a very confident way, knows what he wants and how to get it, and will leave a trail of broken hearts throughout his teens and twenties. He's been wrestled from the clutches of the 1980's middle classes (posh Jacks never sounded convincing) and taken his rightful crown as king of the state school playground.

But tell me this. When was the last time a Jack won the World Cup with a hat trick? Geoff Hurst or Jack Charlton? No contest.

Midday. A three minute silence to remember victims of the tsunami disaster. Do not answer the phone, piss, shit, or throw up.

At a time when many religious people may be questioning their faith, I've decided to suspend my disbelief for three minutes and speak directly to God (silently, of course). So here goes...

Thank you God, that you have made me part of the most generous, caring nation on earth.

Thank you God, that I am able to earn so much so that I can give so much.

Thank you God, for sparing our fair isles from mass natural disasters.

Please God, give mankind the technology to predict such awful devastation so that people living in the threatened areas can be evacuated from danger.

I have the office radio on for the three minutes. Heart 106.2, of course. They play what can only be described as the sound of the sea, just in case we forget what caused the disaster. It sounds like they've planted a tiny microphone inside a seashell. The 'silence' is followed by Robbie Williams' 'Angels', the UK's favourite funeral tune. I can't think of a better song to convey the horror of terrifying death.

Barn owls bought as pets for Harry Potter fans are being kept in poor conditions (few people having barns nowadays) or released to die.

It's teenage mutant ninja turtle syndrome. Except in the earlier case, terrapins were released into the wild to terrorise indigenous species. Now soft domestic owls are given a harsh lesson in the realities of life.

What sort of children are we bringing up that can't distinguish fact from fiction? Do popular, hard kids say 'I want to wear spoddy glasses and I want a fucking owl!'? Or do unpopular, bespectacled wimpy kids plead 'Please may I have an owl, mummy? Ben's got one and he's ever so affectionate.'

Harry Potter's owl, Hedwig, is a snowy owl who delivers mail and presents between witches and wizards. Snowy owls are two feet tall, live in the northern tundras of Europe and America, and hunt lemmings for food.

Hmm, lemmings. So that's why the morons are buying barn owls.

In the week in which Sir Bob Geldof was bemoaning the proliferation of charity shops in town centres in Britain, especially in the town in which he lives (presumably because he's sick of seeing his old cast-off shirts which no human being in their right mind would buy)...

In the week in which Sir Bob harkened back to the good old days when such shops were small businesses (i.e. where have all the independent sweet shops/tobacconists/toy shops/pawnbrokers gone?)....

In the week in which we proved ourselves to be the most generous nation on earth by giving all our disposable income to victims of the Asian tsunami (didn't need a sanctimonious song, just a rising death toll on 24 hour news).....

Hold on, maybe we do need a sanctimonious song sung by say Christian of the millennium Sir Cliff Richard and written by failed Cliffalike shit-dj Mike Read which might raise a few quid more than Maxine Carr rattling a children's charity tin on any UK high street...

Jesus...

There's nothing that makes your New Years Eve complete like watching a bunch of like-minded people having a great time while you're sitting there wishing the night away, feeling sick, bloated, and painfully awake.

Thus it is with the golf club annual do and thus it is with Jools' Annual Hootenanny.

FrenchHenrySaundersEdmonsonRivronCornwellLaurieEnfield. A multi-headed comedy beast. But the ugly monster is not here to tell jokes or to entertain us in any way other than to nod its heads, drink bottled lager and say 'hello' to its mate Jools.

The logic is that 'funny' people will spice up Jools' turgid, plodding, middle-aged, half-dead ('live') music show and transform it into FUN just by dint of them being there. The problem is, when they're not being funny, funny people aren't fun to watch and can't save the show from dying on its arse.

Happy New Year.

The Queen's speech, apeing the Pope's, basically says that all religions and cultures should live together in a great big melting potty.

Apparently it is ironic that Prince Philip is so knowledgeable about different religions and cultures yet regularly puts his foot in it with his racist gaffes.

Today's graffiti on the train is:-

Those long hot summer nights

xxx

Obviously someone looking fondly back to those days when he/she was doing the nightshift and wasn't surrounded by blatant Christmas-week daytime superficial consumerism.

What puzzles people of other faiths, according to the Bishop of Lichfield the Rt Rev Jonathon Gledhill, 'is how we have allowed Christian standards of morality and justice to be swamped by a superficial consumerism'.

Well get your bloody finger out mate and convince those thirty-six million of us who call themselves Christians to start reading the Bible instead of 'Heat' and 'Nuts' magazines and listening to Cliff Richard instead of Robbie Williams and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.

Most disgusting moment on the documentary celebrating the making of the first Band Aid single was that unhygienic sex mad monkey Sting feeding pug faced Phil Collins half of his biscuit then popping the remainder in his own mouth. Little pug Phil licked the geordie warbler's fingers and drooled spittle down his arm, a selfconscious gesture of love and odedience in front of an unflinching camera.

On the single, Phil played his drums loud and Sting did fuck all like most of the self obsessed arseholes in the studio that day.

And people bought the cretinous piece of shit in their millions. Just think how much a decent song would have raised.

Watching the documentary on the making of the first Band Aid single last night, my years just fell away and I felt twenty years younger. Spandau, Duran, Bananarama, Paul Young, Culture Club...These guys were at the top of their game, purveyors of white soul, funk, reggae and pop at its best.

The single marked a breakaway from the early eighties' 'greed is good' morality to a new inclusive caring, sharing way of thinking as epitomised by Sting offering Phil Collins half of his biscuit, Phil biting off half and Sting popping the remainder in his own mouth. A beautiful unselfconscious gesture of love and compassion which said 'there is more than enough food to go round the world if only we would think about others a bit more'.

Now today, Phil's 'Against All Odds' is released by X Factor winner Steve Brookstein, a karaoke version of a bonafide pop soul classic with none of the original's sheer star quality. None at all.

You may sing his song, Steve. But you'll never share a garibaldi with him.

There being no firm's theatre treat this year (no Gilbert and Sullivan, Cole Porter, or 'bigamy's funny' Ray Cooney worth seeing this year), last night I took myself off to see the Ben Elton/ Queen musical 'We Will Rock You'.

Anita Dobson was a revelation as her guitarist husband, but the real highlight for me was a storming version of the anti-apartheid anthem 'I Want To Break Free' which Nelson Mandela most likely heard from his prison cell when Queen played Sun City all those years ago.

A VH1 poll confirms 'Fairytale of New York' as the UK's all-time favourite Christmas song, pipping even the poignantly grotesque 1984 version of 'Do they know it's Christmas?'

Yes, the true spirit of Christmas is a pissed Londoner singing in an Irish accent about broken dreams in America.

'I could've been someone', I sing just before I sick up the poisonous contents of the office party onto the back of the taxi driver's seat.

'Are you going to clean that mess up or am I going to smash your fucking face in?' he replies.

'Well? So could anyone.'

So old 'dad' Blunkett's resigned after finally realising he's let his party down, putting himself and the fruits of his frisky loins before his mate Tony.

How could he consider continuing to hold down a job of such enormous responsibility when his mind has to be all over the place? Priorities: access access access.

Politics is a team game and you've got to keep your eye on the ball. And if you're going to shoot, make sure it's in the right direction and not towards your own goal.

The guy's gotta be well gutted but it's a competitive world and he just ain't got what it takes.

'You're a loser, Blunkett! Go and clean the showers, you 'orrible little boy!'

News that the government are to get schoolkids to exercise for at least four hours a week by 2010. A tracksuited Tony Blair says it's daft for any school to oppose competitive sport:
'Most people understand life is going to be competitive, and anyway competitive sport is fun'.

I couldn't agree more. How on earth are our young men going to compete in a competitive world if they don't get competition on our (dwindling) school playing fields. There is nothing more character buliding than being in the middle of a scrum of heavy teenage boys, locking necks, being pushed from behind and in front, having your foot stood on by metallic studs, and getting your head smeared in the unwashed body odour of someone you once thought of as a friend.

Or running the 400 metres at full pelt when the most you'd ever sprinted before was fifty yards for the bus.

Or walking through a freezing river in the school cross country, walking because you can't run anymore because you're not super fit and probably now dying of exhaustion and exposure to the elements.

'Come on, lads! Come on! Think long-term!'

It's my birthday and according to my cards I am variously portrayed as a contented fisherman, a brash sports car afficionado, and a beer swilling cartoon dog, the life and soul of the party.

I hate fishing, flash cars and parties but they don't do cards for do-nothings like me. Maybe they're all saying 'get a life'?

That's greetings cards for you. How many mothers actually believe they're the best mother in the world?

It's my birthday and I'll feel inadequate if I want to.

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) together with the TUC (Trades Union Congress) have published a checklist on how firms could avoid their staff being poisoned or injured during the pre-Christmas festivities.

According to Roger Bibbings, RoSPA Occupational Safety Advisor, following the safety guidelines should ensure 'peace at work, and good times for all staff'. Me, I'd settle for goodwill.

Apparently, dancing on desks, photocopying parts of your body or other fucking idiotic behaviour are recommended to be discouraged as they could cause accidents. I say let the stupid wankers carry on doing what they do best, as long as they don't hurt any innocent bystanders and do have to pay for any damage done to property.

If they sever their bollocks on the glass from the photocopying machine, good. Bloody good. Just don't call it an accident.

Getting off the train last night, for the second night running we were serenaded by thirty little angels with thirty little voices like thirty little female David Beckhams. It's the local brownies' down-platform carol service.

What I don't know is whether they start singing as the train pulls into the platform or as the doors open for us to dismount. Or whether they carry on singing for the few folk on the London bound platform on their way to an evening of fun/work/home etc.

Of course it's not just for our pleasure, but these selfless little urchins are collecting our money for charity (British children's of course). They look so innocent as they sing so quietly and rattle their buckets so loudly. 'Peace on earth and mercy mild, God and sinners reconciled' JANGLE JANGLE JANGLE.

I'm sure they're going to be here all week (or at least until I cough up some money). The kids and their adult companions, including the woman in the wheelchair who's here to get our sympathy, and the little old fat man dressed as Father Christmas who's here to....

Wait a minute! This isn't right! What's he doing here? And why are his hands in his pockets?
Come on, girls. To the chorus...

'Hey! Santa! Leave those kids alone!'

Children's charity Kidscape are saying that as men who play Santa cannot be vetted, children should be banned from sitting on the great man's knee. They should sit next to him with the child's guardian watching to make sure nothing untoward happens.

I would go further and suggest that Santas be made to wear lycra body outfits so that any outward signs of dirty internal thoughts would be clear and could be acted on immediately.

What could be worse than hearing the same crappy songs at least once a day transmitted to your ears by London women's choice of radio station, Heart 106.2? I'll tell you what's worse. It's when they get hold of something you really like and give it the repeat Heart attack.

I can live with hearing Spandau Ballet's 'True' two hundred times a year. I've always known it's shit and always will.

But when it's a song I like, which I own and would like to listen to now and again, and a quick wit at Heart decides the song warrants a place on the playlist, and they play it and play it and play it. And I have to listen because I can't stop myself, because I like the song. I have to listen to it ten times or more a week. And I hum it. And I sing it. And it becomes part of me. More important than the thousands of other songs I like. I feel so in tune with it I feel like I wrote the bloody thing. I begin to despise it.

But you can't say to work colleagues, 'When I say I like a song, can you please turn it off next time it comes on the radio?'

'So you'd rather listen to stuff you don't like than stuff you do?'

Exactly.

Sex text with Becks celebrity Rebecca Loos' pleasuring of a pig in reality tv show 'The Farm' was not a breach of taste and decency, according to tv watchdog Ofcom. Apparently, masturbation of this kind regularly occurs on UK farms, as a prelude to artificial insemination of course.

Whilst investigating the seedy underbelly of celebrity life, I had the opportunity to talk to the pig at the centre of the furore. When I asked him what he thought of the media coverage of the event, he said:

'They called it pleasure. How do they know? The cack-handed cow had no idea. I just went through the motions like with all the rest. Rebecca Loos? Who's she? Give me Pinky and Perky any day (especially Perky). Ok, they may be getting on a bit but you can't beat experience. And no cameras next time!'

I shook his trotter and wished him all the best for the 'next time'. I came away thinking if this is reality, you can stick it.

A week after Prince William said he wanted to do his bit for his country (risking the possibility of throwing away a good education), his mother reappears from beyond the grave in a video which reveals more about her sex life with Charles.

Why oh why oh why can't we just remember her as a wonderful pioneering campaigner against prejudice and dangerous use of landmines and forget all this dysfunctional family stuff?

The graffiti on the back of the seat in front of me on the 06.55 to Charing Cross seemed to my tired eyes to read 'I love u so much from my ill heart'.

A beautiful, tragic thought from a man who has worked and played hard for forty years and whose internal organs are now experiencing the subsequent rewards?

No, on second glance, the 'i' in 'ill' was just about an 'a'.

A dyslexic, soppy teenage girl, then.

Having heard the Band Aid 20 single for the second time last night (in ASDA, followed by the earliest 'Silent Night' I have ever experienced), it still hasn't begun to sink in that there are people starving in the world. Maybe I need Dido, Keane et al to really pummel the message home, get a bit raw and overemotional.

Maybe we ought to let the hungry know it's Christmastime by sending them videos of ads asking us to spend millions on our rich relatives, and on enough food and drink to burst our ever expanding guts.

'There's a world outside your window. And it's a world of dread and fear.'

Yes. Yes. The world of dread and fear is Christmas itself and I can't bloody avoid it.

Ozzy Osbourne of tax exile family The Osbournes, is once again 'lucky to be alive' after he tackled a burglar at his Chalfont St Peter home. Although he had the masked raider in a headlock, the thief got away with almost two million pounds worth of Osbourne family jewellery.

Ozzy was quoted as saying 'it's not the money, it's the memories'. I was always under the impression that the one thing they can't take away from you are your memories. Maybe a part of Ozzy's brain is stored inside a very expensive watch.

The press conference later starred wife Sharon who seemed to be saying it was the money after all and that they had worked damned hard for their material goods, pulling themselves up from poverty in Brixton and Birmingham and that they had every right to spend their hard earned money on whatever they thought would be a good investment for their children.

Another child-man who will presumably never have to work is also in the news today. Otis (mmm yummy) Ferry's home has been raided by police and his guns and computer have been confiscated. Apparently, he has forseen a situation in which the countryside minister may well be assassinated if hunting with dogs is outlawed, although young Otis would not condone such an act, being a peace-loving guy.

Like his namesake, Master of Foxhounds Otis could soon be spending his time sitting on the dock of the bay, watching the tide roll away.

Maybe he should take up fishing.

Even more monkey noises, this time Barcelona v Real Madrid.

It's time for the non racists at the grounds to stand up and be counted and make monkey noises at all the players, black and white, white louder than black.

This is the twenty-first century! Admit Darwin was right! Pick fleas from your partners' bodies! Altogether now, 'Do Do Do the funky gibbon!'

If only pre-war Germany had had The Goodies.

Ironic rockers and peoples' band, The Darkness were the subject of last night's South Bank Show, an arts programme for virtually nobody.

Listening to the discussion about their brutally raw song about the ravages of heroin, I was shocked to discover the hold that that drug has on the youth of Lowestoft, and indeed all over the country. Even Lord Bragg knew all about it.

I must get out more.

Spain v England, football friendly, Madrid. England's black players are greeted by a chorus of monkey noises every time they touch the ball.

It was all around the ground, not just a few right wing nutters, it was smartly dressed women and children too, office workers and generally nice looking people.

But one thing they all had in common was that none of them were English, as we all know we've wiped racism from our multi-ethnic island where people of all ancestries are treated the same and we all use the word 'us' where some of us would once have used 'them'.

No smoking in restaurants and pubs that prepare meals!

And smoking barred from the bar areas of all pubs!

Is this the nanny state going too far or not far enough?

I'm not sure, but the touching image of a hand holding a lit cigarette, dropping coins into a Cancer Research jar resting on the bar of a public house will soon be merely a cherished memory.

News that obesity among kids has rocketed over the past fifteen years and the government are going to do something about it, i.e. ban fast food ads before the watershed.

This is a brilliant idea, as now decision making over what a child eats and drinks will be firmly back in the hands of their fit, healthy, nutritionally aware parents who naturally exist on diets devised by Dr Gillian McKeith.

Children will no longer get away with emotional blackmail, and we will see a future supernation of glowing faces, toned limbs and perfectly beating hearts.

The UK Music Hall of Fame grand finale on Channel 4 last night contained the usual ego wank and blatant self-promotion of the rich and famous, exemplified by Island Records/U2 who happen to have a new album out next week.

But the most subtle piece of product placement was Richard Branson eulogising Elvis 'The King' Presley followed by Virgin label band The Thrills making a cacophonous mess of 'Viva Las Legas', delighting their fellow Irish ironist, Bono of U2.

Today's news that Branson wants a piece of the government's great casino giveaway brings a warm, toothy smile to my lips.

John Peel's funeral (same day as Arafat's).

Musicians, deejays and public alike converge on Bury St Edmonds to pay their respects. Those that cannot fit into the cathedral stand outside in the rain.

There is a spontaneous burst of applause as the coffin leaves the church to the strains of The Undertones' 'Teenage Kicks', a song incessantly quoted as Peel's favourite song ever, not just the past quarter century.

The song is a paen to a young man's solitary enjoyment of sexual release: 'And it's the best I've ever had'. Or will ever have. Trust me.

The song's lyrics were not discussed on the BBC Six o'clock News.

I see Bryan's son and heir, Otis 'should have taken the' Ferry is second most eligible man in Britain behind Hugh 'Blinkie' Grant.

But this is the Tatler speaking. There are probably better off, better looking badger baiters around but this is England and the fox killer gets the vote.

We are encouraged to observe the two minutes' silence and it starts right now.

Not sure what I'm supposed to think of, not being religious. Haven't got a god to pray to and can't imagine spirits of dead soldiers.

Think of my grandad, gassed in the Great War, survived, smoked a pipe and died of lung cancer at a ripe old age. He was lucky, but not as lucky as me. Lucky old me didn't even have a draft to avoid.

Think of my old English teacher giving a breathless, luvvy performance of Wilfred Owen's 'Dulce Et Decorum Est' ..... 'Gas! GAS! QUICKBOYS! An ecstasy of fumbling...', and I control a snigger.

Don't think I'll ever grow up.

I see the level crossing suicide murderer did it 'all because of a gay tiff' according to the Daily Star. They've found out he wasn't a complete loner after all, not the only gay in the village, but he had a lover and killed himself and six other people because of a typically flouncy gay overreaction to a matter of the heart.

God bless the Daily Star and all its readers.