This week's forecast

Bah! Rain.
Oh yes, and Libya.
Next week?
Who knows?

Watt makes a good copywriter

What makes a good copywriter? It's a vexed question.
Whatever your job, attention to detail is paramount.
As such, you may have been drawn by the potential slip-up in the above headline.
It would certainly have been possible to read it as a question. It has that certain 'sound'.
But rather than asking a question, I was merely stating a fact. Or, at the very least, an opinion.
Sound is important when it comes to language.
Bernie Watt, an erstwhile colleague, is a very good copywriter.
He is also a great musician.
When he writes, he instils rhythm.
It makes his work easier to read.
Of course, there are many other rules that go towards writing good copy.
Some are cast in stone, others cast aside.
But unless you make whatever you write easy to read, chances are it won't be read.
The fact that you've read this far must say something about my writing, if not my musical ability.
Maybe that explains why so much of what I write is crotchety.

Take time out in life before time takes you out

Straitened circumstances. Screwed-up thinking.

It often brings a wry smile to my face when I see people whose occupations seem to have been pre-determined by the names that they were given at birth.
As an example, I've just had my hair cut by a chap called Jim Barbour.
And so it was, with slightly less amusement, that I read about the UK's highest paid official in either central or local government.
His name is Phil Dolan and it seems to me that the poor council taxpayers in South Somerset district council have been 'doling' out their money by the barrowload.
I suspect that having opted for a salary, pension and severance package of £569,000, Phil decided he has had his 'fill'.
To add salt to the wounds, two of his underlings will each have to get by on a smidgeon over £300,000 for a similar sort of package.
Suffice to say, while neither of them will go short, the payments are nothing short of scandalous.
To get clean away with all that filthy lucre from a district that has only 162,000 residents is impossible to justify.
Across the country, services are being cut by local councils in the name of efficiencies.
Libraries are living on borrowed time. Hospitals are in intensive care. And boy, do they need it. Even schools are having to re-learn the three R's.
Rationalisation and Redundancy.
Yes, even education has suffered - that was only two.
Okay, so let's add R-ithmetic.
As pensioners grow older and colder, fat cats are getting fatter and fatter.
But there is one bright spot.
For the time being, we should be able to suspend all cold weather payments for the elderly.
Their blood must surely be boiling.

Lawyers on the payroll. Prisoners on parole.

There is scarcely a week that passes in which the term Human Rights isn't dragged ever deeper into the gutter.
This past week was a case in point.
And just in case the points escaped you, one related to prisoners' rights to vote while the other was to do with paedophiles who rail against their inclusion on the sex register.
Maybe if we were to tell them that the sex register is a place where you can register for sex, they would happily form a disorderly queue.
So what's going on?
Well, let's not just blame the vile wretches who perpetrate these crimes.
Let's also implicate the Human Rights Lawyers who perpetuate this 'I've been wronged' culture.
Are these lawyers really too lazy to carry on chasing ambulances or was banking too honourable a profession that they opted for a career change?
As decent humans, we demand the right to protect ourselves and our children by locking up dangerous criminals.
And as dangerous criminals, the flagrant disregard that they showed for the law of the land in the first place, ought to preclude them from having a say in who makes these laws.
In fact, I'm even beginning to wonder whether lawyers themselves should have the right to vote.

ST VALENTINE. WAS IT CUPID OR ST UPID?

St Valentine lived as a priest in Rome. He also died there.
In fact, he was murdered.
So 'whodunnit'?
Rome is a city of romance. Even the name suggests that much.
The first two letters of romance are RO which is a homophone of arrow.
We all know about Cupid's arrow.
And Cupid, as we also know, is the Roman God of Desire.
Has the story come full circle?
Was it Cupid that killed St Valentine?
What might have been his motive or was he simply trying to instil some desire and his mischief 'misfired'?
Far-fetched?
Maybe so.
But then, who are the mugs that are fetching, flowers, chocolates and alcohol every February 14th?

I've been a wily Rover for many a year

Why do you think my kennel is next to that cute little bitch?
Woof! Woof!

Saint Valentine's Day Massacre

Noses are red
though mine was once blew
Grammar is dead
And if this rhyme is anything to go by
Poetry is too

The death of punctuation?

For anyone who believes that punctuation is not important, try explaining the difference between the following:

MAN'S LAUGHTER and MANSLAUGHTER

You're not laughing now.

Press caught Prescott

THE PHONE HACKING SCANDAL

A typical conversation?

Prescott calls Dorneywood.

"Hello, is that the butler?"

"Yes, can I help Sir?"

"Hello Rab. It's John here. I'll be at Dorneywood this weekend. I'd like some croquettes on the lawn."

"Very good, Sir. And would Sir like the the newspapers delivered to his room?"

"Yes please. But make sure they are yesterday's."

"Yesterday's Sir?"

"Yes, I find they normally include a fish supper."

"Very good Sir."

"Oh and one final thing."

"Yes Sir?"

"Please don't use 'Sir' all the time."

"Mr Prescott?"

"No, try practising 'Lord'. I'm getting used to living like one."

Silvio BerLOUCHEsconi

This vehicle makes frequent stops

The driver has a weak bladder.

Shh!

I'm scared of dying but not of death
I live my life with every breath

For me the dentist holds no fears
I haven't had my teeth for years

To catch a cold is not an issue
If I can find myself a tissue ATISHOO!

The dark will never cause me fright
As long as I can reach a light

And cabbage ain't my favourite food
Though it can't be bad if it does you good

But there is one thing that freaks me out
I'll need to whisper....IT'S KIDS THAT SHOUT!

If someone is 'dead on time', why are they subsequently described as 'The Late......'?

Football is not a matter of profit and loss

It's far more important than that.
Well, that's what you'd glean if you asked fans of the clubs that occupy the upper echelons of the English Premiership. (As long as you refrain from using words like 'echelons'.)
While lesser teams make do with pumping high balls into the opposition's penalty box, the more fashionable clubs benefit from wealthy benefactors pumping high finance into their coffers.
More money pays higher wages which attracts better players which, in turn, draws bigger crowds.
There seems to be the vestige of some logic in this economic model.
But there isn't. At least, not on the scale that money is being paid to modern day footballers.
Last week signalled the closure of the transfer window.
Before it shut, Andy Carroll, who had only played half a season of Premiership football, moved from Newcastle to Liverpool for something approaching £40 million. He replaced FernandoTorres who had been shipped out for £50 million to Chelsea.
There's not another business like it and the owners could not have made their fortunes had they conducted their core businesses in that way. So what's their game?
Is it a tax loss? Is it ego? Or is it simply men and boys and the size and value of their toys?
This week we witnessed an even more significant event.
A pub landlady from Portsmouth fought for her right to beam in top UK games via Greece.
If Sky cannot dictate where we buy their viewing packages from, revenues will fall and so too will the money that they inject into the game.
Were the bubble to burst, the rich owners are wealthy enough to walk away. The fear is, by then, many fans will have walked away too.
For the future of football to be worth a punt, we need to start thinking more about the punters.
Today and tomorrow.
Otherwise, you won't need to be a prophet to forecast a loss.

Stuff his contributions. Let's have retribution.

If any alien beings had spent yesterday observing planet earth's social networks, they might well have wondered what the hell was going on.
Activity was frantic.
It was merely a reflection of the goings-on in the English Premiership transfer market.
Had they paid more attention to what was going on in the Bank of England, they would have been even more perplexed. That's because yesterday was the day that the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street chose to put an extra £1.4 million into the pension pot of its Governor, Mervyn King.
Coincidence or clever timing?
So when he retires in 2013, Mervyn King will collect a pension equivalent to £198,200 in today's money.
In his defence, the figure is also based on his own contributions.
I wonder if that includes his contribution towards making Britain the busted flush that it has now become.

I was laughing all the way to the bank

It was a different matter when I got there.
Thieving bastards.

There has to be merit in a meritocracy

Have you ever asked yourself, if you were to enter Mastermind, what would be your specialist subject?
Mine would be fuse boxes.
But whatever you go for, there is a degree of fatuity about so many of the subjects that contestants choose.
How can I be impressed by someone who has devoted their entire recent life to learning every available fact about paving stones, for example?
Far more impressive is a credible performance in the general knowledge section where you are liable to be asked anything from aardvarks to zebras, astronomy to Zoroastrianism or from AA Gill to Zsa Zsa Gabor.
Scrabble competitions are no different.
Contestants study seemingly endless lists of words with the sole aim of scoring more points.
Personally, I just don't get the point.
To encourage education, wouldn't it be far better in Scrabble if you could challenge your opponent's knowledge of the word they've just played? If they don't know its definition, then instead of accruing points, they get deducted.
And therein lies a metaphor for life in Britain today.
Too many people are rewarded for being thick. They should be punished.
Except where it comes naturally.
Me? Why fuse boxes?
As a kid, I spent many a lesson in the school corridor.
How thick is that?
Thick of me. Thick of my teachers.

Sexism? Let's have some realism.

Before I do anything else, I'd like to put my cards on the table.
My first card is of the 'get well' variety.
Britain is sick. Parts of our society have become morally debased and for too long now we have failed to respond to ever-increasing doses of political correctness.
The next card I'd like to put on the table is a picture of Jimmy Johnstone, the ex-Celtic winger and Lisbon Lion.
I collected it as a boy. I was once a Celtic fan and remain an ardent football fan.
Sadly, football is where so much of our moral turpitude manifests itself.
And while there are many decent people who attend football matches, if I were a recruiting sergeant for boors, I can't think of a better place to go.
The next card is my driving licence.
I would personally like to chauffeur Andy Gray from the Sky studios should he need to return to collect a few personal effects. Just so long as he doesn't collect any more of his obscene £1.7 million salary.
And that's where the realism should come in.
As good as he might have been at his job, I fail to see how Sky could justify paying him even half that amount.
Never mind the salary cheque, I think Sky should take a reality check.
Yes, Andy Gray is a boor who escaped the terraces for the comfort of the studio and the even greater comfort that his salary provides.
Yes, the comments he made were crass in the extreme. But the reaction - which is yet another overdose of political correctness - was out of proportion almost on the same scale as his salary.
And yes, things will be a lot brighter without a Gray Sky.
But I still think we have missed an open goal.
Wouldn't it have been far better to fine him £150,000 (not much more than a month's salary) and donate that money to the people who are fighting sexism where it really exists?
As a centre forward, Andy Gray was undoubtedly great with the head. Maybe he should start using it again.

Don't let anyone tell you they cant spell

That's hypocrisy.

Women used to fall at my feet...

...but I wash them more regularly now.

I used my dongle in a dingle but my connection was prone to dangle

The Curate's Egg. An alternative definition.

It's when your priest has a real apse.

It's nip and tuck at the BBC

Wrinkle, wrinkle, you're no star
The wonder is you got this far.

Ageism? The BBC are raven mad!

No more Autumnwatch - Producer reckons I've got crow's feet.

I've stopped digging

When the time does come
All said and done
And six feet below I lie,
I hope it's asked
Not why I lived
But why I had to die.

If an actor talks awfully, should he be in The Archers?

And how should he take his bow?

Elton John's latest accessory

Children are not commodities, but you are still dealing with futures.

A millionaire soon. A secret millionaire? Never.

It might go against popular opinion but I think that Julian Assange should rot in jail.
Why? Well, I just don't like the look of the guy.
(You really don't want me on your jury.)
Now I appreciate that this in itself might not constitute a significant enough body of evidence to convict him, but let me try and build a case.
He's Australian.
Remember, this is all circumstantial.
He looks like he has a cold and slippery 'wet fish' handshake. Admittedly, that is mere suspicion on my part.
He gives journalists a bad name. You can't achieve that without malice aforethought.
And when interviewed, his sentences last even longer than the one that I would like to impose upon him.
On a much more serious note, he has had a dalliance (or two) in Sweden that has led to some very serious allegations.
Far be it for me to make light of these matters, I do wonder if he would be pursued as vigorously as is the case without undue pressure being brought to bear from other quarters.
But that doesn't concern me.
I say let's pursue him anyway and if he's guilty, then let's nail him.
As the driving force behind WikiLeaks, he is the self-appointed arbiter of what he considers to be safe in the public domain
Who does he think he is?
As the recipient of two thirds of the organisation's salary budget, he is patently a self-seeking parvenu.
I now learn that he has signed a book deal worth $1.5 million in order, he claims, to fight his case and to keep his organisation afloat.
If he were a true martyr to his cause, he should hand the money over to genuine freedom fighters and then hand himself over to the relevant authorities.
Julian Assange. Aged 39.
Life, they say, begins at 40.
For him, I say, it should begin at Wormwood Scrubs.

Are Public School boys more likely to stick to their principals?

Gastroenteritis

Is it just another name for motion sickness?

I use alcohol as a crutch

So why does it always leave me legless?

The tide is high but I'm holding on

Hang on. That's a turd I've got my hands on.
And the moral of the story is:
In life, look after No. 1. Forget about No. 2.

Snow is like life...if you get my drift

I watch my feet in case I slip
This snow can be a farce
The moment that you lose your grip
You end up on your arse.

Donald Trump is a beefcake

But only insofar as a beefcake is dripping with money.

Whoever designed the suit of armour must have thought it would be alright on the knight

I recognize the handwriting on all my hate mail

Maybe I've taken this self-loathing a little too far.

Some MP's lack transparency while others you can see right through.

On average, they are a bunch of shysters.

My blog is a massive hit in the Spanish speaking world...

...ever since I recommended it to Juan and Ol.

Climate change. The evidence.

I wandered lonely as a cloud.
Not any more you don't.

I've just fitted a draught excluder to my drinks cabinet

I don't drink beer.

I'm scared. After 5 minutes of Jeremy Kyle I realised just how much I have in common with his guests.

Words fail them. They also fail me.

MY ALLOTMENT MENTALLOT TO ME

Does anyone have a 'patch' to help me get over the addiction?

This summer I made hundreds and thousands!

Nothing goes better with ice-cream.

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall

Too sedentary a lifestyle. Hence his epithet.
Well, at least he could look back on a 'great autumn'.

I saw three ships

Okay, that's enough naval gazing.

Spring has sprung!

It's about time I got a new bed.

Call yourself a Barber?

What's going on? A Barber not in favour of cuts?
Well, that's the case with Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC, an organisation that reads CUT backwards.
Come on Brendan, you'll soon be telling us to vote for Whigs.

I SWEAR!

Either I have Tourettes or things really DO get my goat.
I'll let you know in a tic.

Who gives two hoots? I do!

Unlike so many drivers, my personality does not transmogrify the moment I get behind the wheel of my car. I'm an intolerant and contemptuous old sod wherever I am.
But I'm working on it.
And so it was that I found myself driving to Broughty Ferry for my mandatory morning coffee when - suddenly and without warning - the car I was following took a sharp right turn.
It was at that point that I blasted my blasted horn.
I was not able to register the complexion on the face of the poor young girl who was the target of my two-note concerto because, in the short time it took for her to turn around, all colour had drained away.
But I would like you to understand that I was acting as a good citizen and a thoughtful road user.
You see, by tooting, it might just be possible that this particular offender reproaches herself on how she approaches junctions in the future. She could save a life. Maybe even her own.
And it was all down to me.
So come on, all those in favour of big hooters, let's all have a peep.

Unfortunate acronyms. No. 4. Bionic Man.

Believe It Or Not I'm Cowardly.

Is Evel Knievel's son the lesser of two evels?

Monsoon season

Could we be returning to the ark ages?
No? Ah.
Just a thought.

Miss Nomer?

If Essex Girl were to have a lisp, would she regard herself as Ethics Girl?

"This vehicle makes frequent stops."

It's the last time I buy a piece of British junk.

What's sauce for the goose...

The humanitarian in me (yes, there is a scintilla of that quality that lurks somewhere deep within my DNA) appreciates that it is incumbent on the Prison Service to afford the Soham murderer, Ian Huntley, full protection while in their care. Nonetheless, I find it difficult to shed a tear on learning that fellow inmates have meted out their own particular brand of justice.
We now learn that he is about to sue his 'protectors' (a.k.a. the taxpayer) for close on £100,000.
I say good luck to him and, for good measure, let's round it up to a cool one million.
Then, why not invite the tragic parents of the poor girls who lost their lives to sue the despicable sewer rat for every penny he gets?
Just as he seeks, let justice be done.

THE BIGGEST SPELLING ERROR EVER....?

Dynasty.
Produced by Aaaron Spelling. April 22, 1923 - June 23, 2006.

Companies don't use the word 'we' often enough in their promotional material

Especially when it is spelled 'oui'.

Retiral is an anagram of retrial. Coincidence?

11 lives lost in a single incident. £11 billion lost in a single quarter. £11 million lost in a single pension pot.
You might well ask, what is it about the number 11?
More germane, I would like to ask what is it about failure and reward?
Fred Badwin (a.k.a. Goodwin) and Tony Wayword (a.k.a. Hayward) will be remembered as the respective, but most certainly not respected, Chief Executioners at RBS and BP.
Neither could plug the leaks in their most precious resources and neither could accept that it happened on their 'watch'.
Well, you wouldn't want to tarnish a diamond encrusted gold Rolex, would you?

You wince some, you lose some.

As the rest of the western world discusses whether or not to ban the wearing of the hijab, it seems that Britain and the USA are considering drawing a veil over proceedings in Afghanistan.
Consider it done.
What Cameron and Barak would like to present as the possibility of a withdrawal next year is, in truth, an inevitability that is as clear as the nose on your face ...if only it were visible.
Two great superpowers stacked up against the Taliban who were there for the beating.
Little did we know that the cost in terms of human lives and economic woes would conspire to have us beating a retreat.
Now it's just a matter of time before terrorists beat a path to our door.
It doesn't take a mastermind to recognise the importance of "I've started, so I'll finish".

The difference between gravity and gravitas

With most composers, you always come back down to earth.
With Beethoven, Schubert and Mozart, on the other hand, their music has a gravitas that takes you to a higher a plane.....and leaves you there.
Presently, I am looking down at cloud nine.

Keeping your own counsel can mean no bullshit.....

.....and no bulls hit.

Bilge pumps at the ready!

Before I begin, I would like to put my cards on the table. I have a sneaking admiration for the sneaky - and sometimes not so sneaky - ways of John Prescott.
But before I go any further, I would also like to make it perfectly clear that there is not a single issue that he stands for - or purports to stand for - that I can agree with.
But that's not the point.
John Prescott is a politician's politician. The Norman Tebbit of the Labour Party. A pitbull on steroids. It remains a great mystery to me how he escaped the Dangerous Dogs' Act all those years ago and an even greater disappointment that he has not been muzzled ever since.
But let's not be in any doubt. There is not a single hoop that John Prescott wouldn't have jumped through in order to pursue his own ends. The hoops on the croquet lawn at Dorneywood were merely emblematic of that.
And so he is now elevated into the House of Lords as Baron Prescott or BP as I will now 'defer' to him.....that other great natural disaster to beset our beautiful planet.
I would just like to leave you with this little thought.
Having ably represented Hull in the Commons, BP has come a long way since his Merchant Navy days where he started his career clearing the bilge water from the hull of a ship.
There is also a certain irony in that he will now be spouting forth his own bilge in the House of Lords.
I look forward with eager anticipation to his 'made un' speech and even more so to its translation.
Into English.

If Robert Kilroy-Silk were to be a betting man.....

.....would that make him an amber gambler?

Unfortunate acronyms. No. 3. The Queen has a great SOD.

The Queen has a great sense of duty.

Coincidentally, she also has a great sod (Charles). It is because of her SOD (sense of duty) that she doesn't abdicate.

Unfortunate acronyms. No. 2. Doctor! Doctor! I've got a BOMB!

Doctor! Doctor! I've got a boil on my bum.

Unfortunate acronyms. No. 1. I'm going out in a BOG.

I'm going out in a blaze of glory.

Howler's English? English howlers!

On my early morning power walks, I'm rarely without my MP3 player. Occasionally, I'll select the radio mode just to reassure myself that the world still exists.

This morning I did just that, just in time to hear Radio 4's John Humphrys interview a Guardian journalist.

Oxymoron unintentional.

Now, one might be forgiven for believing that being a Guardian journalist is embarrassing enough, but that was obviously not the case for this particular hack.

He was being interviewed about his passion for collecting World Cup football stickers. A grown man with a 14-year old son! But let's not dwell on that embarrassment.

In successive sentences, he talked about the "amount of people" and the "amount of women".

For whatever reason the Guardian exists, patently they are not there to act as guardians for the English language.

One can only hope that this journalist's articles are as widely 'read' as the colour that ought to be suffusing across his fizzog.

As a stickler for the language, it's enough to make John Humph.

Hear, hear!

A research team in Ghent University, Belgium has established a link between listening to an iPod and poor hearing.

Oh really?

On the face of it, such findings seem pretty obvious.

Researchers may well have arrived at the correct conclusion but, to my thinking, the logic behind the cause and effect is seriously flawed.

It is merely the Gaia Principle being applied to the human body.

The vast preponderance of those who use MP3 players listen to the biggest load of unadulterated crap that masquerades as modern pop.

Noise rather than music.

At a conscious level, this is the choice they exercise even though I think it would be better exorcised.

Their subconscious agrees with me and subsequently rejects it.

Consequently, when the earphones are removed, the body continues to reject all noise leading to the assumption that the hearing has been damaged.

I put this very point to Dr. Hannah Kempler who led the study.

Her response was quite clear.

"Pardon?"

Did she honestly not hear me or was her subconscious merely filtering out my unadulterated crap?

Now I'll never know.

Two sticks. Unstuck.

Two sticks in hand, Caveman's smug look suggested he had just lit Cavewoman's fire.

Soon they would marry, real sparks would fly and, just as he fathered a troglodyte, necessity mothered invention. The wheel was 'born', Caveman got the hell out of there and introduced wild oats to the world.

The Ten Commandments

WARNING!

They may contain nots.

United. Untied.

'Let's celebrate, darling' said the anagram crossword compiler. 'It's our Silver Wedding.'

'Silver...' she mused, sipping champagne.

'...key word...'

'SLIVER!' she garbled, choking on a shard of glass.

'Olive' he purred.

'Olive...' she mused. 'I love..? O' evil..?

The solution? A scarf made from voile.

Tightened.

Her present. His future.

A citizen's arrest

A young man detained a suspected dealer in stolen goods by sitting on him until the police arrived.

Speaking to reporters, he claimed he only recognised the accused because of his most unusual gait.

He added, "We are all stakeholders in society and I merely looked upon what I did as my duty."

In short, man sits on fence with unusual gate and a stake to hold onto.

THE AUDI. THE AUDIT. THE AUDITION.

THE AUDI

The new Audi A3.

THE AUDIT

£16,085. 41mpg.

THE AUDITION

Arrange a test drive today.

Another one of my ads that are strewn all over the cutting room floor.

Any chance of a confession?

My local priest has spent his life in vestments.

My local bank manager has spent my life investments.

What did the pheasant say to the grouse?

I'm game if you are.

Boom! Boom!

(That's them both dead.)

The first cuckoo offspring?

The cuckoo has a funny call,

it sounds just like its name.

It lays its eggs in others' nests

so others get the blame.

Desperate times call for desperate measures

I'll have a triple whisky, please.

Whatever happened to Erry Wogan?

Witter v. To talk with an annoying lengthiness on a trivial subject.

Prefix it with a 'T' and you are restricted to 140 characters.

So what happened to Erry Wogan?

Don't mention the war...especially Abyssinia

Admittedly, Italian history is not littered with stories of great war heroes. That old joke about who put the last bullet into Mussolini (twenty Italian sharpshooters) certainly rings true.

There is an impressive range of mountains that runs down the spine of Italy called the Apennines.

Try scaling them and then try telling me that Italy is spineless.

But let's not fight about it.

Full stops that are edited out of text

Are we missing the point?

Change of climate or climate change?

Having been in Italy for scarcely a week, there is little doubt in my mind that the change of climate is doing me good.

There is even less doubt in my mind about the massive effect that climate has on our lives.

However, because of the terminology, it might be easy to overlook the fact that there is more than a subtle difference between a change of climate and climate change.

When I bought my airline ticket, whether I like it or not, I voted for both.

Gotcha! Goccia!

The Italians have a word for it.

In fact, the Italians have a word for pretty well everything.

Goccia (rhymes with Gotcha) , as I have just discovered, is a game that is played at Italian stag parties.

I hesitate to call it a game because although there are rules (well, there really is only one) it is not much fun for its participant (yes, there is only one of them as well).

A drink is poured - it could be a Sambuca, possibly a Limoncello or maybe something different altogether - no rules apply.

The bridegroom is then expected to down it in a oner.

With head tilted back and glass inverted, he must then return both to their normal positions.

The glass is promptly taken away and turned upside down.

If a single drop appears, another drink is poured and so the evening goes on.

And on and on and on....

I want amore, a more, a more

I don't know if it's in my blood but there's certainly something deep within me that makes me gravitate towards all things Italian.

There are times, it seems, that my love of Italy is completely out of proportion with reality.

But then, does that not define love?

It's the ability to see beyond the warts and admire things for what they truly are.

For sure, Italy has much to admire.

It may come as a surprise to most, for example, that Italy has more rules, more restrictions and more red tape than any other country.

But the real beauty is that Italians don't pay the blindest bit of attention to any of it.

Rather than worry about the curvature of bananas, towers that lean or buildings, such as the Colosseum, that remain unfinished, Italians simply live their lives.

They could teach the French a thing or two about joie de vivre.

Or if the Romans were still around, they would tell them to stop carping on about carpe diem and simply seize the day just as I am about to seize mine.

In fact, that's something I've been just about to do my entire life.

Mañana as the say in Spain, but practise in Italy.

If you detect a funny smell, report it

Just think, nine months before Hitler was born, there was a smell of rotten eggs.

If space is a vacuum, why don't we use it to clean up the volcanic ash?

Keep young and beautiful...

..or so the song goes.

Certainly, it's easier said than sung.

Having spent a wonderful night in Pisa, I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Laugh? Why not? Everyone else was.

Cry? Why not? I didn't realise they were all laughing at me.

Italy is full of beautiful people among whom I would never presume to number myself.

Not unless that number is a big deluded one.

Something went awry with my genes between my grandparents arriving in Scotland and me arriving on this planet.

And on the subject of jeans, how can an Italian seniorina, or even a seniora, wear them with such pizzazz?

Maybe it's the difference between numbers and figures....?

Although, to be fair, I don't give a number two.

Now where's that red wine gone?

To my head, I think.

Buona notte.

One, two, three O’Leary. How much more Michael?

There can be only two reasons why my grandparents left Tuscany to settle in Dundee.

The first is that they were economic migrants. The second is that they were insane.

With no history of mental illness in our family, I’ll plump for the former.

And so it is, I’m off to Sicily for a family wedding as an economic migrant of sorts – I’m flying with RyanAir.

But therein lies the myth.

RyanAir is the money magnet of the skies.

It wouldn’t do much for their bottom line if they were to stick to their fare in the headline.

That's why they look upon your pocket as the departure lounge for your money.

No need to check-in. Every conceivable opportunity to ‘cheque out’.

But hey, that’s business.

I suspect I’ll hear that sentiment a few times before I leave Palermo.

A pimple in history pimping for her husband

Ever since the day that Fergie was caught on camera purportedly getting her toe sucked by her financial adviser, I knew we had a problem.

I say 'purportedly' because my suspicion is that there was more blowing than sucking going on.

You see, the Fergie that we all know and love (to hate) is no more than an inflatable doll.

She is not just an airhead, she is all air.

But inflation is the least of her problems.

Spending is her biggest.

Fergie has blown a fair bit herself.

In fact, she is a microcosm* of Britain PLC.

It's just a matter of time before the News of the World entraps Cameron and Clegg in some seedy hotel room giving their 'all' for our country.

Despite this momentary lapse that has spanned Fergie's life, the newspaper was keen to point out that there is nothing to suggest a lack of judgement on Prince Andrew's part.

Oh yeah?

Who married Fergie?

*I withdraw my reference above describing Fergie as a microcosm lest it be construed as misrepresentation.

PSBR escalates with new coalition

With Cameron and Clegg now ensconced in No.10, the Public School Boy Ratio has reached new heights.

Sadly, if the rumour mill is to be believed, they are already fighting over the same FAG.

One Frederick Anderson Goodwin.

Let's just be thankful that there is only one Frederick Anderson Goodwin.

Your (PIN) number is up

I learned from a mini-statement in today's press that the inventor of the hole-in-the-wall machine has died.

So after years of standing outside the bank conducting his affairs, he will at long last be able to see what happens on the 'other side'.

But that raises a more serious point.

I've never quite understood the philosophy of a business that does its utmost to keep its customers outside, thus forgoing the opportunity to sell.

That was before Fred the Shed (yes, Shed) came along to shed more light on the matter.

He was inside busy filling his boots and, as a consequence of the hole-in-the-wall machines, there were no tellers to tell us exactly what was going on.

Yes, a certain inventor will have a few questions to answer at the Pearly Gates.

I wonder if there's a cash machine there?

Is Inheritance Tax the worst example of 'thinking outside the box'?

Good hearing. Poor eyesight. No foresight. Ah well.

I could hear a pin drop but I never saw the grenade coming.

The money I spent on a gastric band has all gone to waist

When I told David Miliband to BOGOF I really didn't mean 'buy one get one free'

I've just passed a motion of no confidence

That's better.

Ministry of Defence give in to Clegg

In what is being presented as a penny-pinching move, soldiers in the TA are to be limited to only 50 bullets.

With only 57 MP's in the coalition, Nick Clegg was acutely aware that his influence could be wiped out by a lone sniper.

The former Shadowy Home Secretary Chris Grayling, for example, is out on his own and is always sniping.

Never more so than when it comes to Cameron and Clegg cohabiting at No.10.

First Cabinet 'leak'?

Cameron and Clegg tell Ministers:

"We went into politics to make the world a wetter place."

Job done.

Now and then

Now:

Dave "Let's put Party Politics aside."

Nick "Yeah. Come on, let's party."

Then.....12 months later:

Nick "Party Politics is getting in the way."

Dave "Yeah. Come on, let's part."

'til debt do us part.