Glob-a-log

Everybody loves a good detective story – or a James Bond kind of movie, with master criminals trying to conquer or destroy the world and heroic detectives or secret agents thwarting the villains only in the nick of time.

Unfortunately, in the real world our criminals are hardly ever that obliging. Most of them are, to be honest, incredibly thick.

In stories all true villains get away with murder for most of their careers – ot at least till the dying pages of the book or movie. In life, some of these criminals have trouble getting away with a bloody bus…:

A Zimbabwean man stole a bus because he needed transport to pick up his driving licence, state media reported.

The Herald newspaper said Stead Mashushire waited until the driver of a bus parked in a central Harare rank had gone to buy food before ordering all the passengers out and driving off in the vehicle.

The court ordered Mashushire to undergo a psychiatric test.

Still, even though master criminals may mostly be fictitious, there still are the so-called career criminals. People, as the saying goes, with only a nodding acquaintance with decency or morality – if they’re not just simply nodding off, that is:

Dozy raider Mark Smith proved he was as thick as thieves when he fell sound asleep under his victim’s bed.

He had crept past Heather Stephenson while she was ironing.

He rifled gems from a jewellery box and helped himself to a cheque book, but the vodka and valium he had already downed that morning was taking its toll.

And when stunned Mrs Stephenson came upstairs, she found Smith fast asleep under her bed.

Mind you, it is a good thing most criminals are that stupid. For while it’s true that you might not find many master criminals in real life, the same goes for Sherlockian detectives. Policemen who aren’t fantastically thick are quite thin on the ground.

You know, how even the best fictional detectives sometimes have to stumble over a clue – when they find, for instance, one of the whiskers of a very rare Siamese cat in the half-emptied food bowl of a common tabby.

(From which they conclude that the gorgeous blonde has in fact killed the diamond necklace which slept with the Maltese falconer during the raid on the nuclear station – but that, as they say, is another story.)

In real life, this stumbling over a clue goes more like this:

Cambridge, Mass. police have arrested a man after finding 123 stolen parking meters stashed away in his home.

Police say they went to Thomas Gannon’s apartment on Plymouth Street to arrest him on Monday night because he was wanted for larceny in Everett.

As they were about to handcuff him, officers say they noticed the parking meters.

So, the police go the apartment, talk to the suspect, have a nice cup of suspect tea, talk about the weather, read their host his rights, after beating him up a bit… and then cuff the guy… and then, and only then one of the more discerning coppers somehow notice that there are also 123 bloody parking meters lying around the place.

Oh, such bliss when the penny dreadful finally drops! And what amazing and glorious powers of observation…

On the other hand, there are some cops who are very good at noticing even the smallest and silliest things.

Which doesn’t necessarily make them great detectives though. Moral incompetents: yes. Bloody morons: indeed. Wannabe Mussolinis: quite.

Great detectives? Well, you be the judge of that…:

Eight-year-old Samuel England was left in tears after a police officer ordered that his toy gun should be broken in front of him.

The family say the officer called at the family’s home and said it was an offence for Samuel to play with an imitation firearm in a public place.

Samuel’s mother’s partner John Standen, 34, was told to destroy the gun or face the boy being taken to the police station.

Five minutes after the police officer had witnessed the destruction of the gun, he returned to complain about sister Sophie’s Barbie car. The six-year-old was travelling on the pavement in the battery-powered car at three miles an hour and the officer said it is only allowed in the garden.

You don’t need to be a Vulcan, like mister Spock, to be forever amazed by the illogical acts of man.

Though it would be nice to have those perfectly styled eye-brows and the pointy ears, when expressing this polite disbelief, they aren’t strictly necessary for the job.

All you need to do is read the papers, shake your head and roll your eyes, and take another disbelieving sip of lukewarm tea.

‘People are strange’, the Doors sang, all these years ago. Oh yes – and indeedy do…:

Telephone engineer David Russell, 38, was left with five two-inch nails stuck in his ribcage - one an inch from his heart - and two more buried in his forearm.

He told police at his hospital bedside that a gang of three yobs had attacked him and demanded “these people must be caught and punished”.

But in a bizarre turnaround he has admitted he faked the “attack” - then pleaded guilty to a similar hoax three years ago.

Which leads to at least one obvious conclusion: whatever ‘help’ or sanction was offered to Mr David Russel (38) evidently was as successful as the average English entry to the Eurovision Song Contest.

Still, it’s not just isolated headcases who can’t tell truth from fiction – and whose words don’t exactly match their deeds.

There’s the Roman Catholic church, for instance – with its history of calling certain sexual acts an anathema, while hiding child molesting priests from the law and shuffling them around from one post to the other.

Still, the R.C. church is hardly the only religious institution ever to be caught with its trousers (habit or halo) down. Protestant churches aren’t immune to the many failings of the spirit and the flesh either.

Neither are other Christian clowns, it would seem:

In December, 1986, a “Christian clown”, named Carlock wrote a letter to the State Journal-Register on the dangers of pornography. In that letter he calls himself a “Christian Conservative” and 16 year veteran of law enforcement. His complaint was over a cartoon which he refered to as “smut.”

He then wrote: “I have spoken with victims and offenders and have read many case histories in which pornographic materials played an overwhelming role in the events that have left lives shattered and homes broken.”

For the past 10 years Carlock and his wife, who goes by the stage name Smilee, have been “clowning” for youngsters at orphanages across the world. According to their website, they “are available for vacation Bible schools, children’s crusades, Sunday school, children’s church, church parties… and more [which] can be used to present the gospel of Jesus Christ to your children.” It also states that Klutzo is “an ordained minister (formerly with the Church of the Nazarene, currently with the Missionary Church International).”

Now, the Illinois “Christian clown” has been charged with possession of child pornography and sex tourism stemming from a trip to a Filipino orphanage. After several months of investigation A. Paul Carlock Jr., who performs under the name Klutzo, was arrested Tuesday at his home in Springfield.

By the way, I would simply hate for you to leave, somehow thinking that all Christians are these monstrous hypocrites who couldn’t follow even the smallest rule in the Book, if It was thrown at them by Judge Dredd or Babe Ruth.

Some Christians do follow the rules, however absurd they might seem to others – and they do so with a kind of happy, single-minded zeal that’s nothing short of astounding…

… or pathetic, really:

Is it really possible for a couple to be married for eight years not only without ever having sexual relations, but without even knowing that sex is necessary for procreation?

A [fertility] clinic spokesman said:

“When we asked them how often they had had sex, they looked blank, and said: “What do you mean?”.

“We are not talking retarded people here, but a couple who were brought up in a religious environment who were simply unaware, after eight years of marriage, of the physical requirements necessary to procreate.”

One would be tempted to say, ‘There’s one born every minute’, but that would be needlessly cruel to these poor, inconceivable and non-conceiving idiots – so yes, I’ll let it stand.

Okay, let’s talk about sex – and more specifically: how you go about ‘getting some’ in Prague.

In the West we’ve become used to the fact that almost all of life has become a political minefield - the dealings between the sexes being no exception to this, alas. In Prague things are more relaxed - and sex is easy. Most Prague women are not insulted if you propose sex. It’s not a big deal there.

That doesn’t mean they will actually sleep with you, of course, but it is safe - and quite normal - to ask. And women will ask the men as freely, if they feel like it.

The following three stories are deplorably autobiographical – but if you actually want to get laid in Prague, they do serve as a kind of instruction manual. A manual in reverse, that is.

1) When a Czech man or woman asks another person in the pub if she or he would like to go for a coffee, what is actually meant is, to put it bluntly, ‘Let’s fuck.’

As one of life’s natural ‘players’ I had picked up on this immediately, of course. (Insert hollow laughter right here…)

So, what actually happened was that, one night, some woman asked me if I wanted to go and have a coffee with her - and I said, ever so politely, ‘No, thanks, I don’t do coffee, but if you have tea…’

Some nanoseconds later she was gone and I was left scratching my head and wondering what the Hell I had said wrong this time round. The barman, when he had recovered from his laughing fit, then was more than willing to explain to me exactly what I had done wrong.

Ah well, one lives and learns…

2) One summer weekend a group of mostly young Czech kids and I were out camping, some two hours of rowing removed from Prague. We’d been drinking and smoking and laughing and singing and kissing a lot, when most of us decided it was time to hit the sleeping-bags. Most of the crowd paired off to have some claustrophobic sleeping-bag sex.

So, I told the girl who was practically sitting in my lap by now to push off to her own sleeping-bag or find someone her own age to play with. (She was all of seventeen or eighteen.)

“You don’t like me?”

“I do like you, but I’m way too old for you.”

“Why?”.

“You’re almost twenty (I exaggerated) and I’m 34. That’s why”.

“I’m eighteen!”

“Right.”

“So what’s your problem?”

“Look, you weren’t even born when Lennon was shot.”

“So?”

“Go find a boyfriend your own age.”

“I already have a boyfriend!”

Of course…

“Look, I just don’t think…”

“Hey, I’m not in love with you. It’s just sex!”

Anyway, in the end I managed to convince her that I would not have sex with her – after I’d formally admitted and agreed with her that I was one crazy foreign bastard for not doing so. No doubt she found a more willing one-night accomplice within seconds. (Leaving me feeling one part virtuous, two parts silly & bemused, with a twist of cheap regret & lust, of course.)

3) A Czech friend once told me that if you saw someone sitting in a bar, whom you would not mind going to bed with, you could simply go over and propose sex – as a way of greeting. My eloquent reaction was something like, ‘Wow.’

After enduring all my variations on the theme, ‘You really mean to say…?!’, my friend finally invited me to try it out on one of the women present.

“No way. I like to communicate with my victims first.” I answered.

So, having declined my friend’s helpful invitation to try and be more Czech about my sex life, we had some more beers and some more Fernets - and then I said, ‘Ah, what the fuck.’ and walked up to a table where three women were being terribly rude to an innocent bottle of wine.

I asked the first woman to look up if she wanted to go home and have coffee with me - and she just said, ‘Sure’, got up, took her jacket from a pile of other winter garments and asked me where I lived.

I immediately stuttered my way through the best Czech I could come up with and told her this whole thing had been my friend’s fault (such a brave and noble heart, that old heart of mine) and that I had not meant to actually take her home with me - ‘…but mind you, I do find you terribly attractive, of course, and it would be an honour to sleep with you… but I did not want to…’

Yup, I made a terrible mess of that one, but she was very kind and understanding about it - and moments later my friend had joined me at the table and after a while the barman joined us with a bottle of Czech champagne (cheap stuff, but good party booze and it gets you where you don’t need to go as fast as the real stuff) and then friend & barman told the women about all the other social mishaps this crazy foreigner (yep, me) was notorious for.

Two hours later the barman closed that bar, so that the six of us could pull a cabbie out of another bar, to take us to yet another bar our barman knew up close. And I ended up going home and having ‘coffee’ with the woman I’d first approached so clumsily, some hours before.

So yes, even I managed to have sex in Prague – but then, everybody does. I once even wanted to make and flog a T-shirt that would read ‘If you can’t get laid in Prague, you’re fucked.’

Anyway, there you go – and as I started saying: when you do find yourself in Prague and want to have sex, just relax, don’t do as I do and you’ll be fine.

Science can be fun – especially its applications. Who wouldn’t want to wear brightly coloured underwear in public, swinging from lampposts & high rises, beating up even weirder dressed criminals and – more to the point – making out with a painfully sexy redhead more or less at the same time?

The only serious drawback to that rather wonderful scenario was that, till now, you had to be bitten by a radioactive spider first.

No longer though – for science has come to the rescue…:

A suit that began life on the pages of a Marvel comic might soon make its debut in the real world, according to scientists who have worked out how to make a sticky Spider-Man type outfit.

The researchers say it is possible to make clothing that mimics the natural stickiness employed by spiders and geckos, which would allow a person to scurry up the side of a building or hang upside down from the ceiling.

(Now, I do understand that science can’t solve every little thing for us – so I won’t insist on swinging from lampposts or beating up supervillains. Just bring me that redhead first thing in the morning and you won’t hear from me again. Promise!)

Anyway, science is good – and innovation a thing to be welcomed and much applauded.

Most of the time, that is – for a number of irate pensioners would beg to differ…:

A group of pensioners who campaigned for a bench next to a bus-stop have been left angry and bemused after it was built facing away from the road in case they tripped and fell.

Council chiefs were worried that elderly passengers would stumble and topple over into the road in the scramble to board a bus so they installed the metal bench facing a 10-foot high hedge.

a spokesman for Age Concern said:

“This is extremely patronising.”

A council spokesman said:

“The bench was put in this position because it was thought to be less dangerous and more cost-effective. We are aware of the complaints and will be liaising with local residents to try and reach a compromise.”

We wish them the best of British luck. Especially because you seriously do not want to piss off British senior citizens.

As this unfortunate robber found out:

A fearless granny has told how she bravely stood up to a knife-wielding robber after he burst into her store and demanded cash from the tills.

Gutsy Ann Dix was behind the counter at Stowmarket party suppliers Phosphene when the man thrust a nine-inch carving knife towards her and said: “Put the money in the bag.”

But the knifeman got more than he bargained for when Mrs Dix refused and, grabbing a knife she had nearby, replied: “If you use yours, I’ll use mine.”

The startled robber, whose face was covered by a scarf and a hooded jumper, repeated his demand three times, before giving up and fleeing on foot.

And not to put panic into the hearts of those bench pressing civil servants but your average senior citizen can be quite territorial about certain things.

So, one word to the wise: I would put that bench exactly the way these elderly complainants want it. If you think your elevated, bureaucratic status will protect you against their rightful vengeance, think again.

Just remember what worlds of hurt your average ’sweet granny’ is willing to inflict on even their nearest and dearest, when these latter folks fuck with stuff that sweet old thing holds dear:

A furious gran stabbed her lover after he ate pork chops she cooked for herself. Hungry Tracey Wenn screamed the slogan from the Quorn TV advert:

“Eat my pork — feel my fork!”.

She then plunged a steak knife into partner Anthony Donkin’s leg.

So, remember that, you useless members of the bench switching classes. Or you might very well find yourself, like Spiderman, swinging from lampposts – but in a rather more stationary & far more passive fashion, and without the benefit of brightly coloured underwear, or a gorgeous redhead…

…who will be mine, I tell you! Mine!!! (Insert wild, maniacal laughter here.)

Surveys are fun – and sexual surveys are always hilarious, of course.

First though: cliché time.

Despite having lost about all the wars they started in living memory, Germans still have the reputation of being excellent soldiers.

They are less renowned for their sense of humour – and despite a history filled with periods of Wagnerian ‘Sturm und Drang’ you will not find the word ‘German’ very often in combination with ‘candlelight’ and/or ‘dinner’.

So, that’s where all these endless surveys come in: to try and get beyond those tired clichés and stereotypes.

Or not, as the case might be:

After a sexual survey published in Germany’s Bild newspaper revealed that German men don’t satisfy their women, male readers lashed back with angry letters to the editor. Besides questioning the validity of such sexual surveys — which are frequently contradictory by their very nature — the vigorous denial also proves a larger point. If you want to get a German male irritable, just call him a lousy lay.

Within a few days of the article’s publication, Bild’s offices received numerous letters from German men, irate at such a ridiculous survey and incensed that they were portrayed in the press as lousy lovers. Common to the male complaints was their explanation for why women feel sexually dissatisfied — it’s the woman’s fault.

“My wife doesn’t turn me on properly,” wrote one man, Peter M., from the northern town of Bremerhaven. “Men are visual creatures — and before you slap a quarter-pound of makeup over your faces, it would be better if you took a trip to the solarium, shaved your legs and thought a bit more about what men need.”

“Men have no choice but to satisfy their secret desires and fantasies in some other way,” said Fred W., from the western city of Mainz. “If their own wives weren’t so boring, there would be less infidelity, and fewer marriages and relationships would break up.”

Ah yes, men’s ’secret’ desires and fantasies. Most of the time these are hardly secret, of course – or even vaguely interesting.

One of the things featuring on your average male’s fantasy list are, of course, our celebrities – and even more weirdly, the subcategory known as supermodels.

Let’s just take one of them: Kate Moss – or rather more to the point: let’s not.

Everybody knows Kate. She used to be on all the ‘most desirable women’ lists, she’s sold a lot of handbags and other stuff – but why anyone would like to sleep with her…?

Anyway, those who still lust after Kate - and have her lusting after them, in their so-called secret desires & fantasies - here are three good reasons, why you shouldn’t.

First, for an in depth analysis of any star, where better to turn than to the those ’stars’ themselves. Indeed, the trusted star signs. Now, this is what the lovely Kate’s horoscope has to say about her.

CAPRICORN (Dec 22-Jan 19) You are conservative and afraid of taking risks. You are basically a chickenshit. There has never been a Capricorn of any importance. You should kill yourself.

Which is, admittedly, a bit harsh - but there is some truth in the claim that Kate is a desperately humdrum person. For celebrities to take coke and be anorexic is about as daring as it was for all those old-fashioned and very English civil servants to carry an umbrella and a copy of the Times with them at all possible times. Predictable & boring to the point of inducing catatonia, that’s our Kate.

That also brings us to a second excellent reason not to have sex with Kate Moss. So, take it away, Charlie Brooker:

Ever had sex with an incredibly skinny person? It’s like being attacked by a deckchair. They could have your eye out with one of those elbows. That’s not sexy. That’s terrifying. If the lights are off, you have to keep kissing them just so you can tell where their head is.

Quite.

And our Kate, thanks to certain (highly predictable) habits, is as supermodel skinny as you can get. So, for everyone still harbouring some far-flung fantasy vestiges: think deckchair. Think moderately majestic male member caught in a collapsing deckchair…

Still, if all of that doesn’t suffice, think cocaine, think junkies, think complete and utter, ending-in-tears decline, degradation and ultimately, of course, death.

The Kate Mosses of this world may leave a moderately appealing corpse, but while they live their soul would look more at home in a cheap hooker’s pay-by-the-hour pad.

Take away the cheap glamour, the make-up and the retouches and what’s left is this whorish distillation of despair:

A woman had her 5-year-old daughter and 2-month-old son with her as she took drugs and performed sex for money, New York police said.

While her children were in the car with her, she performed sex acts on at least two men for money, smoked crack cocaine in the car and even snorted cocaine off the infant’s stomach while she was breastfeeding, a police spokesman said.

Right, so now that Kate Moss (and most of her useless colleagues) are, hopefully, struck off the male fantasy list, what should – and could – replace the likes of her?

Well, the discerning human male could do worse than to take a close look at nature. So, instead of dreaming of boring, coke-snorting deckchairs, they could follow the example of some of their fellow male primates.

It seems that what these monkeys do actually works wonders for them.

‘Like a charm’ one could say…:

Capuchin monkeys wash their feet and hands in urine to get comfort or sex, research now suggests.

Many species of monkeys rinse their feet and hands in their own pee by taking a whiz on their hands and rubbing their feet

The alpha male of the group of roughly two dozen monkeys doubled how often he washed in urine when solicited by females.

“So we think the alpha males might use urine-washing to convey warm, fuzzy feelings to females, that their solicitation is working and that there’s no need to run away,” Miller said. “Or they could be doing it because they’re excited.”

People say it pays to advertise, and that you need to present your products in the very best light, in order to sell them.

That may be true but, as Times man A.A. Gill notes, you better get it right:

It was The Valkyrie last night. Mounted fit birds who pull corpses. This must be the most concentrated and emotional five-and-a-half hours available in the western canon. I went to the dress rehearsal in the £20 seats with a restricted view, which makes you feel like Spider Pig, but is a blessing because you only have to see half the set.

Why is it that opera design works to a completely different and lower standard than theatre, ballet or Punch and Judy? The sets invariably look like collaborations between a 16-year-old girl who wants to open a nightclub, a Kwik-Fit fitter and a drunk bank manager: hopelessly intellectually insecure and imaginatively verbose.

One of the problems with advertising is that most of the ads that are made are stupid – and almost all of them lie through their much-polished teeth. Sometimes hilariously so – like this fashion show’s ‘ready to wear’ claim:

A model presents a creation by the German designer Bernhard Willhelm at the Paris Spring/Summer 2008 ready-to-wear fashion show.

Sometimes, you also have to admire the sheer gall – or balls – of some of capitalism’s most eager flunkies.

Like Boots, who have tried to emulate the people trying to sell the Brooklyn bridge – or sand in the Sahara (or snow fossils.) A nice little scheme anyway, till someone took a closer look at what was on offer exactly:

The product is part of the Boots Expert Range, described as “the definitive answer to those everyday health and beauty problems we all suffer from, but keep putting off”. The back of the 125ml can boasts of the benefits of the product that it claims can protect the skin from “dryness”. But at a cost equivalent to £32.92 a litre, it is more expensive than whisky or the finest extra virgin olive oil.

According to the can it is a “gentle facial spritz specially formulated to refresh and hydrate. Hypoallergenic and fragrance-free it instantly cools and freshens skin. Lanolin free. Dermatologically tested”. Just one small word gives the game away that this is a triumph of marketing over common sense: the only listed ingredient is “Aqua”.

Boots admits that the spray is 100 per cent water but claimed it was justified in calling the spray “specially formulated”. A spokeswoman said: “The ingredient contained in Boots Expert Sensitive Refreshing Facial Spritz is water. This is clearly stated on the packaging as ‘aqua’.”

And since yesterday, Boots have removed the product from its website.

By the way, people also claim that the best kind of advertising is a deep love & passion for the product you make and offer to the general public.

That sounds convincing – but as with all other things, you can, of course, overdo it:

Mechanic Chris Donald loves his work. He has sex with cars.

And he admitted last night: “Some men like boobs and bums, but I much prefer curvy bodywork.”

Chris, 38, has a recognised psychological condition that makes him physically attracted to motors.

He has had sex with more than 30 different models in 20 years - plus two motorboats and a pal’s jetski.

Chris, who does have a girlfriend, confessed: “A nice car for me is a feast for the senses. It’s about smells, feelings and tastes. If I see a gorgeous Mercedes I know I’d love to jump into bed with it.”

The human mind is famous (amongst humans, that is) for noticing things – and we put that talent to good use in the very masculine business of problem solving.

A Triad man who was trying to rid his home of yellow jackets is now looking for a new place to live.

Authorities said Hugh Williams first sprayed insecticide in a hole next to the house, but that didn’t kill the bugs.

He then stuck paper in the hole and lit it, but the fire spread into the house and the attic.

Notice insect: burn down the house. In the ivory cubbyholes of the anthropology department they call this the ‘Genghis Khan syndrome.’

Another very human trait is curiosity. First we notice, then we meddle. There are crafts, arts and an endless variety of careers built solely on this urge:

A lorry driver has been prosecuted for smoking in his cab parked on a seaside promenade.

Leonard King, 55, of Kinmel Bay, Conwy, faces fines and costs of £260 from Llandudno magistrates for smoking illegally in his workplace.

A dog warden spotted King smoking and flicking the stub out of the lorry’s window. He also received a fine for depositing litter with the stub.

At many a wild anthropology party, sometimes a fearsome silence stalks the room. Then someone has just told yet another tale of these busybodies, who, in the trade, are known as ‘Tintins’ & ‘Dorothys.’ (This type of neurosis is not gender-specific.)

Medals always have another, curiously flippant side, and so it is with this noticing business. As much as humans like to boast about their noticing skills, their inquisitiveness and their problem-solving abilities, at times they can be as dense, as dull, and as (self-)aware as a slow-boiling lobster or a parson’s egg:

Doctors in New Zealand who misplaced an elderly patient’s false teeth during surgery found them four days later, lodged in his throat.

The 81-year-old man went in to hospital for back surgery in February 2005 and his upper denture was removed before the operation, said a Health and Disability Commission report.

Even though the man complained of “extreme pain” after the operation and nurses noticed he was “very chesty”, no suspicions were raised.

It was only after he stopped breathing two days later that doctors put a laryngoscope down the man’s throat and found his dentures. They removed the teeth and resuscitated him.

Wherever anthropologists hang out and cut loose after a hard day’s work, anecdotes about these types of idiots rise upwards, like the sparks. In the trade this syndrome is known as ‘Reaganitis’ - or by its longer, and ever so slightly more scientific nomer:

‘hostagesforweaponstherearenosteenkinghostagesforweaponitis.’

At times though, when things happen and do get noticed, the mind simply boggles, fogs over, shrugs and then tries to forget about the whole bloody thing:

Police in a Colorado town say they have no leads on a man wearing no pants who entered a linens store but could find no cover-up.

The store manager, walking to the pillow display, found a man with a clean-shaven face, nothing on below the waist and two pillows strategically placed.

Apparently the man took his shorts off because they were tight and misplaced them, the manager said. After being asked to leave, the man found his shorts on a nearby shelf and put them on.

This is the kind of thing that has serious and well-respected anthropologists crying in their beer, calling for their mummy and wishing they’d become garbage collectors, like their slightly mad and smelly uncle Harold.

Let’s start with some feel good, mood music:

Rick Solomon, the playboy who bedded Paris Hilton in the socialite’s infamous sex tape, has been revealed as the mystery poker player who stole Pamela Anderson’s heart.

In a recent interview with talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, Anderson revealed she had fallen for a poker player who offered to pay off her $250,000 gambling debt for a night of sex.

Anderson refused to name names, but candidly told DeGeneres that she eventually succumbed to the rich fan’s offer, explaining, “It worked out, I liked it. … I paid off a poker debt with sexual favors and fell in love. It’s so romantic.”

Indeed – the most romantic story since Mel Brooks came with the idea for a musical, called ‘Springtime for Hitler: A Gay Romp With Eva and Adolf at Berchtesgaden.’

Anyway, as I said, that was just for starters, or, in a vernacular closer to the hearts of the Pamela Andersons of this world: a bit of fluffing.

To the main dish then, brought to your table through the efforts of the Guardian’s Marina Hyde:

If you read just one piece about the political and humanitarian crisis in Burma today, do make it the Associated Press’s interview on the subject with Sylvester Stallone, which offers a moving reminder that one of the most vital things we do with our western freedoms is demand a celebrity angle on every single story, no matter how palpably inappropriate.

And so it is that the news agency casts its eyes over the murdering of protesters, the brutalising of monks, and asks the essential question. Namely: what does Rocky think of this?

Indeed – and wouldn’t we all want to know?

Well, here’s an example of the intensive research Stallone did on this subject. In the interview he states:

“I called Soldier of Fortune magazine and they said Burma was the foremost area of human abuse on the planet.”

Quite. Who needs Amnesty if you have a subscription to the Soldier of Fortune magazine?

More to the point though, Marina is quite right. Celebrities do love to get ‘involved’ these days.

It started with the Vietnam war, with the likes of Lennon – and Jane Fonda. Others followed in these hallowed footsteps - like Sharon Stone, with her famous lip service for peace in the Middle East.

And now all our celebs seem to want to have a go at it.

No doubt we would have Michael Jackson organizing pyjama parties and O.J. Simpson ‘not killing’ yet another girlfriend to bring peace, love and happiness to the world, if only their PR teams would give them the go ahead.

Of course, it’s nice that all these celebrities want to be involved in making this a better world for all of us – even if the only reason they do it is that they don’t want some vulgar war, a wannabe famine or a rather tiresome set of politicians get bigger headlines than the celebs do, when they walk their dogs, go into rehab or sexually assault and/or murder their loved ones.

Still, these efforts should be a bit more organized, in order to have more impact. Sure, it must be awful to stand next to Sharon Stone, to get kissed by her and also have to listen to some soft porn clich̩s about loving your neighbour Рbut, in the end, that sort of thing only takes about an hour, two hours tops, and then you can go on with the rest of your life.

So, what we need for our world leaders is a much more sustained and intimate exposure to our celebrities. We don’t want them to watch Tom Cruise jump on Oprah’s couch for a few minutes. No, we want them to be locked inside a room with our Scientology friend, forever and ever amen, if need be - if it takes that long for these politicians to see the light.

Yes, it really is that simple. All we need to do is:

a) bring all the world leaders together in the Big Brother house
b) stock it to the rafters with the world’s most truly disgusting celebs on offer, and
c) throw away the key

Hell, and even if this doesn’t lead to world peace, it will be brilliant TV and certainly no more than all of these poor excuses for human beings deserve.

Last week the Sun reported, with its usual restraint, how

two Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs) “just stood there” while a ten-year-old-boy drowned trying to save his step-sister.

The story was a little bit more complicated than that but still, it was not a good day for the boys in blue – or whatever colour these wannabe cops are wearing on the job.

What’s more, even though these two unfortunate limpets weren’t regular policemen, the public at large held the police as a whole responsible for the drowning.

And so, the big police guns came together, to try and do a bit of damage control. A P.R. job, if you like – but one with a decidedly weird take on the whole ‘Reassuring the public’ thing.

Not only that, but right after the drowning of these two kids, this one was, as police announcements go, as deliciously well-timed & well-calculated as the time that one L.A. cop said to his colleagues, ‘Right, let’s beat the shit out of that lowlife Rodney King.’

Anyway, the following has now become standard police policy:

Police officers in one of Britian’s biggest forces have been warned not to hold out a hand to drowning swimmers - in case they are pulled into the water themselves.

The guidance is contained in a health and safety policy document which says officers should also think twice before throwing a lifebelt.

The document, Health And Safety - Water Safety - states:

“Devon and Cornwall Constabulary does not expect or require any member of staff to enter water in a rescue attempt of any person or animal under any circumstances.”

Brilliant.

This probably also means policemen can no longer help old grannies cross the road, in case the old dears panic and push the helpful copper under an oncoming lorry.

Or help a kiddie tie his shoes, in case the little brat kicks the assisting officer in the face.

Or help a lost tourist find his way, in case it’s Osama Bin Laden in disguise, who’s on his merry way to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

So, what are cops allowed to do these days - apart from watching kids drown, that is? Harass or even arrest the occasional nodding junkie?

Think again:

When bus driver Paul Gibbs was told two passengers were smoking crack cocaine, he thought he would do the community a favour.

As he drove the number 47 bus past a police station, he pulled up outside while passengers ran in to alert officers.

But, to their astonishment, police said they were too busy to investigate the crime and suggested they call 999 for assistance.

Mr Gibbs, 48, waited for five minutes outside the station before reluctantly driving off when he realised no one would help.

But bizarrely, ten minutes later, police sent two officers on horseback to chase the suspects.

Unsurprisingly, they had little luck catching the bus on busy London streets and the two men later got off the vehicle scot-free, unaware that they could have been caught.

Nice one.

Still, this same, burning question remains, What do those dumb cops do – in between not saving the tax payers’ children, and not arresting the odd coke head? There must be more to the job than saying ‘Now then…, now then…; move along!’ a few times a day, and drinking tea, and taking the occasional bribe…

Well, bring out your time-worn trumpets, your hand-painted Hosannas and your house-trained confetti guns, for here it is. This is what your average policeman does – and faces, in the line of hazardous duty:

Detectives from a ‘hate crime unit’ have asked an art gallery to turn around a sculpture of Buddha with comical genitalia, on the grounds that it upset passers-by.

Police said they received a number of complaints from members of the public who saw the bronze statue - which shows a penis and testicles in the shape of a banana and eggs - on display in the window of the Saint Giles Street Gallery in Norwich.

Maybe it’s time just to forget about this whole policing business. Let’s dismantle the entire service and help those idiots find more sensible employment somewhere else.

Like selling Mecca Cola at the British National Party convention.

Or maybe, and to end where we more or less started, simply give them hammer & chisel, a lead-weighted coat and a one-way ticket to the nearest, bottomless ocean, to start a new – and hopefully brief – career as undersea sculptors.

P.S.: I know that the caption photo doesn’t exactly show boys in blue - unless you want to be uncommonly sexist, that is. Still, what are you going to do about it…? Shoot me? Sue me? Call the cops…?

I’ve always wanted to write a book column. Not about new books coming out but about older books and writers, that people might never had heard of before.

I’m not sure this one column will be the start of such a series but it will give a few quotes from some books I love – and love to reread.

If anyone who reads this will go on reading these or other books by the authors I mention I will be very pleased indeed.

The first writer I’ll quote is Robertson Davies. Davies is no longer as widely read as he deserves to be but if you want very clean and effective writing, dry wit and intelligent stories, he’s your man. He is still at the top of the field when it comes to creating and effectively depicting characters. He has been compared endlessly with Charles Dickens. There is some merit in that: both writers are great at creating characters, but whereas Dickens leans to the sentimental, Davies does not. He has a clearer eye and is, in my mind, the better writer.

You can find more information about Robertson Davies on this Penguin website.

The quote is from ‘Tempest-tost‘, the first book in his Salterton Trilogy:

“The reverend John Mackilwraith was a failure. The reason for his insufficiency, if it could be discovered now, probably lay in his health. He never seemed to feel as well as other men, but as he had never known good health he had no standard of comparison, and he accepted his lot, almost without complaint. That is to say, he never complained of feeling unwell, and he rarely complained in an open manner about anything else, but his whole way of life was a complaint and a reproach to those who came into contact with him. He was unsatisfactory to his congregation, because when they complained to him of misfortunes they were uncomfortably conscious that he had misfortunes of greater extent and longer duration. At funerals his mien of settled woe somehow robbed the chief mourners of their proper eminence. At weddings his appearance was likely to turn the nervous tears of a bride into a waterspout of genuine apprehension. [...]
The reverend John was no doubt to be pitied, but pity is an emotion which cannot be carried on for years. He was a gloomy and depressing parson.”

The second writer I’ll quote is Allan Gurganus. This from the A.G site:

[His] novels, stories and essays stand as a singularly unified and living body of work. Known for their dark humor, erotic candor and folkloric sweep, his tales are now widely available in English and translation. Paris’s La Monde called him “a Mark Twain for our age, hilariously clear-eyed, blessed with perfect pitch.”

This is from his wonderful novel: “Oldest living Confederate widow tells all“:

“My aunts - like lots of folks who live together from birth till old age - had divided up who to be. They were each good at different-type emotions - they respected one another’s territory. You couldn’t quite think of them as separate, more like three plants sprung from one pot - root-bound, leaf-entwined hybrid ivies maybe.

The three girls had loved one boy. He’d gone off to college up North, he’d come back sick, he’d published one poem in The Atlantic Monthly while away studying at Cambridge. The poem, my mother said, was about spring - how everything looked bleak and bare till your buds came and your birds got back from Florida - not all that original.

The poet signed his name with his middle name only, Randall. He had ghost-colored skin, he drooped across furniture, looking boneless. The sisters played piano for him constantly [...]

[...] Randall - when finally pressed about which adoring sister he would marry - got tactful: his color improved and then, roses in his cheeks, the poor boy died of consumption at age twenty-three. Randall had no aptitude for marriage.”

The third author I’ll quote is Leonora Carrington. This from a L.C. website:

Author of, among other things, two plays, The Flannel Night-Shirt and Penelope, as well as of an account of her experiences during a period of separation from the artist Max Ernst when she was pronounced incurably insane, Leonora Carrington entered the surrealist movement in 1937. An artist whose painting recurrently evokes magic encounters, she brings to the practice of storytelling a sense of occasion that endows her tales with quite a special atmosphere. Her stories are not characterized by a mood of wonder of excitements. Rather, these celebrations of the marvelous are marked by a singular matter of factness; as they are, also, by an element so mysterious to the French, that in defeat, they refer to it helplessly as l’humour anglais.

The feeling communicated in the stories Ms. Carrington tells owes much to her distinctive point of view. This is not at all the viewpoint of militant feminism. It is, however, so characteristically that of a woman as to make Leonora Carrington’s tales noteworthy examples of how narrative may be approached and handled under surrealist influence. In the most positive, creative, and revealing sense, her imagination is feminine. It enriches her stories with numerous details that contribute to undermining the barrier separating normality from the universe where her characters are in their natural element.

Two quotes from her novel “The hearing trumpet”:

“At times I had thoughts of writing poetry myself but getting words to rhyme with each other is difficult, like trying to drive a herd of turkeys and kangaroos down a crowded thoroughfare and keep them neatly together without looking in shop windows.”

“The fact that I have no teeth and never could wear dentures does not in any way discomfort me. I don’t have to bite anybody and there are all sorts of soft edible foods easy to procure and digestible to the stomach. Mashed vegetables, chocolate and bread dipped in warm water make the base of my simple diet. I never eat meat as I think it is wrong to deprive animals of their life when they are so difficult to chew anyway.”

There’s an excerpt from “The hearing trumpet” here.

And just for the Hell of it, I’ll leave you with yet another Robertson Davies quote, this one from his book ‘What’s bred in the bone.’

“It was in a garden that Francis Cornish first became truly aware of himself as a creature observing a world apart from himself. He was almost three years old, and he was looking deep into a splendid red peony. He was greatly alive to himself (though he had not yet learned to think of himself as Francis) and the peony, in its fashion, was also greatly alive to itself, and the two looked at each other from their very different egotisms with solemn self-confidence. The little boy nodded at the peony and the peony seemed to nod back. The little boy was neat, clean and pretty. The peony was unchaste, dishevelled as peonies must be, and at the height of its beauty. It was a significant moment, for it was Francis’s first conscious encounter with beauty - beauty that was to be the delight, the torment, and the bitterness of his life - but except for Francis himself, and perhaps the peony, nobody knew of it, or would have heeded if they had known. Every hour is filled with such moments, big with significance for someone.”