Jack Prat

Fresh from early release from prison after smashing a child's face in with a golf club, rehabilitated celebrity widower Jack Tweed is heading for an immediate return to bird for threatening to stab and proceeding to strangle a taxi driver while he was escorting Tweed to his destination. Before we all run to Jack Straw to beg that he once more intervene to assist the poor misguided lad, we should take a moment to applaud his defence. As a barrister even I have to admire the originality. The Beeb reports:

Tweed told police he had been drinking all day before going to a club where he
drank 10 vodka and Red Bull drinks plus a "couple of shots". He said he had
no memory of the taxi journey but doubted that he would have behaved in the way [the taxi driver] described.

Thus Tweed's plea of not guilty was apparently constructed on the grounds not that he didn't do it, nor that the alcohol negated the intent necessary for the mens rea of the offence to be proven by the prosecution. No, his defence was a glorious, candid shrug of "Dunno, can't remember to be honest. It might have been me. But it doesn't sound like something I'd do."

Tea towels and aerosols

Gordon Brown today announced a "compulsory volunteer scheme" for under 19s aimed at thrusting today's youth into the community while they're still pimpled and idealistic.

Anything that makes the lives of schoolyoungsters more stressful and unhappy than was mine is fine by me, notwithstanding the seemingly straightfaced Orwellianism of compulsory volunteering or the fact that the blueprint for the idea bears the carbon smudges of a Tory idea dismissed by the lesser-spotted Miliband as "hugely expensive". In fact the notion takes me back to the time my own alma mater enforced a similarly inspired "community service" on my peers as 16 year olds, the upshot of which saw me spend every Wednesday afternoon in a church-cum-museum cafe wringing out dishcloths and politely laughing at the bawdy banter of middle-aged dinner ladies. The finer points of HRT went over my head, but I did learn from an email posted on the kitchen wall that deodorants cause armpit cancer. Or antiperspirants. As a result I went home and promptly binned my entire Lynx collection. This was shortly before Lynx embarked on its strategy of silently discontinuing low-selling scents (Java, Indigo) and re-releasing them six months later under a new name (Mystico, Ramraid). Had I not been conned into throwing away my old sprays I would now be in a position to prove this cheap marketing scam and blackmail Lynx for every penny they have. I hope Gordon Brown thinks very carefully before subjecting future generations to this sort of financial detriment.

To be continued

I've decided to resume this blog. In truth I have decided to resume it several times over the past 18 months, but this time, having spent an unseasonable portion of time unlocking my account and made the considerable effort to translate this intent into HTML, I am confident things are different. This is the start of something new. Something brilliant, I dare say. Or at least something new. So hold onto your hats, oh large baying readership mob. Your appetite for musings will soon be sated. Starting tomorrow. Or the day after.