Oxford Mail

Robert Miller is a refugee from deepest darkest Devon, who claimed political asylum in Oxford after fleeing from the city of Exeter, where he had bravely flouted local conventions that Devon
should be pronounced "Deb'n", and asserted that there is a "t" in such words as bu-er, a spread traditionally used on bread, and mow-erway, a type of road.
Since arriving in Oxford he has holed up on the East Bank of the Cherwell, and now archly refers to the Cowley Road as his 'manor', to much mocking laughter.
He has tried to avoid coming to the notice of the authorities in Oxford as they might decide he is an illegal immigrant and boot him out, whereupon he would have "Reject" tattooed across his forehead
and be sent back to the South West in a cattle truck to compile fatstock prices for the Okehampton Gazette for the next 40 years.
He has had a long and dazzling number of careers in his life, including spells as a useless salaries clerk, rubbish salesman, joke admin assistant, and hopeless map digitizer (a post that he doesn't
actually know how to do or what it involves, despite spending a year doing it).
Other career highlights include spells as boss of a Colombian drugs cartel, white slaver for oil-rich Middle Eastern states and gun runner for the Republican movement fighting wicked British
Imperialism.
He has also so far successfully avoided being detained at her Majesty's Nut House for Criminally Crazed Delusional Fantasists.
He has managed to dupe his current employers, namely the Oxford Mail, into thinking that he is some kind of writer/sub-editor-type person, and is so far getting away with it. Just.

An utter disgrace

I vaguely watched that television two-parter those other evenings on Channel Four: 1066: The Battle for Middle Earth, about battles that took place that year between the inhabitants of these islands and invading Vikings and Normans.

Should we really be letting these people in?

Announcing a list of people she has decided to ban from coming to Britain because she doesn't like their opinions, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith declared, 'If you can't live by the rules that we live by, the standards and the values that we live by, we should exclude you.'

What to do

On That night in 1997, round at friends, when I could take no more they said don't worry, it might not be that bad, and for a while, I suppose, it wasn't.

So whose fault is that, exactly?

According to the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, humanity risks being "choked, drowned or starved by its own stupidity" if we don't take action now about issues such as climate change.

Take 'em for a spin, Ted

Good grief. Just when you think things can't get any worse, the government manages to soar to ever greater heights of lunacy.

Kick God out of the CoE. He's a racist

The Church of England has voted to ban its clergy from being members of the British National Party. I don't know why. I thought religion and fascism had a long and lustrous association. Just look at Spain. Or Ireland, come to that. But maybe that's just the, you know, left-footers. Papists. Pope-botherers. Maybe the good old Church of England is different, although one might have thought that telling other people how to live was the essence of both the BNP and CoE. On balance, though, the BNP would seem fairer-minded. Perhaps they ought to retaliate by banning any of their members from going to church on Sunday. Mind, they probably off worshipping Odin or something like that anyway. I wonder if Odin-worship would preclude them joining the CoE. Probably not.

Appalling, simply appalling

Jeremy Clarkson's comments about Gordon Brown really were disgusting. Was it really appropriate, after all, to call him "one-eyed" and make fun of his disability in that he lost the sight in one eye when a youngster? No wonder disability campaigners were outraged. And as for making childish, vulgar abuse, in calling him an "idiot", was just, well, childish and vulgar. But to accuse someone of being "Scottish", that really was outrageous. Appalling, simply appalling. He should sue. (Besides, I'm not sure he's well enough qualified to be an "idiot".)

Great new TV programme

Have you seen that TV programme where an egomaniac convinced he’s cleverer than everyone else travels back in time, saving the world, and often the universe, solely by his own efforts, although occasionally aided by a dozy sidekick?

Getting it right for once

Have you seen the new Bonn Square? It's fantastic. Big open paved square, sheltered by surrounding buildings, loads of seats. They've created a giant smoking area. When they put the patio heaters in it will be brilliant. Congratulations to (and you can't say this often) Oxford City Council. It's finally recognising the needs of important minorities.

Essential reading

In his column in Sunday's Observer (a paper stolen, I would like to add, from the bins of the Kasbah - I figure I fork over sufficient cash in the form of a poll tax to the leftists at the BBC under threat of prosecution without voluntarily giving any money to the Trotsykites at the Guardian), Will "I'm Always Right" Hutton, wrote, 'When the euro was launched ten years ago, an unnamed euro-sceptic currency trader - now almost certainly redundant [petty, snide conceited little jibe, don't you think?] - famously called it a toilet currency. Last week it climbed to an all-time high against the pound', and advocated joining the euro as a solution to our economic woes.

WHO should be in charge?

"This is no time for a novice" to be running the country, Gordon Brown told the Labour Party conference in Manchester this week, to much unctious fawning and applause.

Give me my share

It is probably true to say, I would grudgingly admit, that when the world's leading economists, financiers and bankers gather to discuss economic policy, mine is not usually the first name at the top of the list of people they wish to advise them.