It's Tough at the Top

With all that's going on in the world today, it can be difficult to keep in mind those unfortunates whose circumstances no longer rate major headlines, and yet who continue to suffer all manner of inconvenience. Therefore it is to be hoped that some thoughts and prayers can be spared for the victim of the Gaza crisis, who faces a seemingly endless succession of unpalatable choices. On the one hand, his far-right foreign sponsor has set up a hilariously named "board of peace" to oversee the territory's transformation from bantustan to beach resort; on the other hand, his far-right domestic allies are demanding a military junta to oversee its immediate and humourless colonisation by the master race. On the most superfluous hand of all, despite a ceasefire in which only one side has ceased firing, the Arab Untermenschen wilfully continue in their recalcitrant refusal to die out fast enough. Oh, the humanity.

Not All Fellow Travellers Go the Distance

Faced with the Trumpster administration's apparent willingness to start a war within NATO, a handful of Republican senators have had sudden attacks of scruple, in some cases not even coincidentally with their impending retirement from the wreckage they helped to complete. One dissenter went so far as to compare the Trumpster unfavourably with President Biden, proclaiming that a military attack on the white people of Denmark would be even worse than cutting short the war against the brown people of Afghanistan. Another suggested optimistically that annexing Greenland would do what domestic criminality could not, and bring about an end to the Trumpster's presidency; though whether a Vance presidency would constitute a significant improvement remains as yet unclear. Still, in straitened times one must take what one can get; and although the Trumpster and his head-tribble have yet to meet their Stauffenberg or Zhukov, a bit of whining among the Schachts and Papens may at least be a start.

Primitive Ways and Repellent Methods

While those in more civilised regions trust to prayer, the profit motive and occasional injections of sunlight and disinfectant, researchers in Uganda may have discovered a merely practical measure to prevent disease. Experimental treatment of traditional cloth wraps with insect repellent cut rates of malaria by two-thirds: a result which, lest further funding be correspondingly reduced, one researcher hastened to describe as a "business opportunity." The insecticide used in the experiment is "dirt cheap;" so it is fortunate that so few of the larger business opportunists care much about preventing malaria in Africa, or it wouldn't stay cheap very long.

Insufficiently Prized

While much has been made of the material and mineral reasons why the Trumpster and his head-tribble might wish to take over Greenland, little attention has been given to the possibility that one or both of them might believe it belongs to Norway. The latest Nobel peace laureate, who seems well worthy to stand with the likes of Kissinger, Obama and Bojaxhiu, has apparently attempted to placate the prizeless pair by offering her medal for the Trumpster's bling collection; but the gesture was quickly undercut by the Nobel organisers, who ungratefully proclaimed that medallionisation does not automatically imply laureatability. Doubtless this explains why Venezuela's tireless democrat is yet to be given a role in her country's mugging, despite a level of sycophancy that would do credit to a British prime minister.

Our Family Values

Despite fourteen years' stewardship of the nation's health by the Conservatives and their Liberal Democrat accomplices, the rate of women dying during or soon after pregnancy has risen by a fifth. Not even the omnipresent eagerness of our lords and masters to breed more Britons for soldiering and shelf-stacking has brought about any obvious concern for the well-being of the nation's incubators and brood mares, despite a pledge by a sometime minister for medic-bashing to halve maternal deaths by 2030. Similarly, despite the well-known British absence of institutional racism, death rates were higher among black and Asian women; and despite the infallible British instinct for fair play and helping the underdog, those in the poorest areas were twice as likely to die as those living among the real people. Despite everything, there still remain some who profess to be shocked.

Slippery Morals

Whatever its ethical flexibility in defending sex pests and collaborating with fascists, the Church of Rome has rarely been afraid to take a hard line against artistic freedom. A Catholic diocese in Germany has sinned exceedingly in thought, deed and image with a television broadcast which not only implied that childbirth through an intact hymen can be a messy business, but used a female performer to represent Baby Jesus. The expectable squeals of righteous indignation erupted from the expectable schools of theology, and the diocese duly expressed repentance for its deviationism and incorrectitude. It is certainly deplorable that believers in Christ should be asked to contemplate the idea that the offspring of a god and a virgin, with power over the living and the dead, might have a touch of the alien about it.

Foot and Mouth

Far-right politics makes for fragrant bed-fellows, and the strutting Caudillo of the Farage Falange has duly snuggled up with a foot soldier in the person of his fellow grifter Nadhim Zahawi. Sacked almost as often as Lord Mandelbrot the Infinitely Recurring, and rivalling Kwasi Kwarteng and Fishy Rishi in the abbreviated-chancellor stakes, Private Zahawi is proof positive that the Farage Falange will accept even former asylum seekers provided that their honesty and competence are such as to qualify them for high office under the National Johnson. His move to the Farage Falange, the nation's major party of migrant-bashers, capital-coddlers and Trump-suckers, will greatly discombobulate Team Starmer, also the nation's major party of migrant-bashers, capital-coddlers and Trump-suckers, and will lay to rest for all time any rumours that the Falange is barely distinguishable from the Conservatives, also the nation's major party of migrant-bashers, capital-coddlers and Trump-suckers. According to the strutting Caudillo, Zahawi's contribution to the cadres will be his experience in government: a claim which unfortunately shows up the Falange's demonstrated incompetence in financial matters, since Rachel Reeves or the Liberal Democrats could provide the same experience and would almost certainly come cheaper.

An Innocent Abroad

That dedicated public servant, Lord Mandelbrot the Infinitely Recurring, has commenced his latest rehabilitation by refusing any apology for continuing his association with Jeffrey Epstein past the point where he should have known that it was no longer to his personal advantage. Lord Mandelbrot was sacked as sucker-up in ordinary to the Tangerine Emperor once it became clear that Team Starmer had waved his appointment through without proper vetting for embarrassment - an understandable enough mistake given that Lord Mandelbrot had only got himself sacked two or three times before. As for Epstein's victims, the blame for their troubles lies with Society and The System, so Lord Mandelbrot has graciously condescended to draw a line under the whole ghastly business and to await with all due dignity his inevitable reappointment. At least the world is now aware that he never did anything genuinely inexcusable, such as suggesting that skin colour might be a factor in racism.

Children of God

Despite the modern taste for overextended fantasy sagas full of sex, violence and po-faced moralising, it seems the nation's youth are turning to the Bible in ever larger numbers. Having been deprived of the Christian education that made atheists out of their forebears, they apparently see the faith as some sort of counter-cultural force: so few of our lords and masters these days are the kind of people who favour eternal torment for their enemies, let alone believe themselves to possess the secrets of the universe and a monopoly of virtue. As always, the Bible's catalogue of arbitrary commandments and blatant inconsistencies, no less than its slavering recitals of punishment and massacre, should make for an admirable schooling in the ways of the world.

Treason, Betrayal and Lies

Doubtless owing to the malignant machinations of the beastly Euro-wogs and their asylum-seeker accomplices, the Farage Falange still appears to be suffering one or two local difficulties. Having promised to lower taxes while improving public services, several Falange-run authorities are now raising council tax by the permitted maximum of five per cent; although in the spirit of the January sales one of them is considering a bargain rate of 4.99. Fortunately, most Farage Falange voters are presumably those with sufficient Britishness of intellect to believe that the country could become more prosperous by cutting off its major trading partner and selling Marmite to Japan; so any electoral consequences will most likely be negligible.