Touch her bum (if you must!)

No it wouldn't normally be any of this blog's concern to her that star watching Lib Dem MP Lembit Opik had copped off with Igora Kopalegova*, one half of delectable Romanian pop duo The Cheeky Girls. In fact nobody other than Mr Opik's ex, weathergirl Sian Lloyd should really give it too much thought. Strange, then, that the denizens of Private Eye magazine have made a rare detour into Hello! territory with a piece questioning the immigration status of the Pontins headliners. Has Ian Hislop gone soft or are they trying to tell us something?

* Possibly not her real name

Rugger bugger

Now it's none of my business if Telegraph rugby hack Mick Cleary wants to write a long and pompous knocking post about rugby league on his blog. Opinionated bollocks is a perfectly acceptable way of using the blogosphere - in fact random abuse is this blog's stock in trade, although some of us would appreciate getting paid for it. Mr Dreary almost redeemed himelf anyway with an equally dull and obsequious semi-apology a few hours later.
No, what really got Mr Osato's goat was the fact that his comment fell prey to the Daily Telegraph censors. No naughty words (for once) just a tongue in cheek suggestion that Mr Cleary was pitching for the Telegraph's weekly award for attracting the most comments, in an attempt to justify their decision to get rid of all their decent hacks in favour of 'news hubs' and a multi-media brave new world including the wildly successful Telegraph PM. Unfortunately the new policy of 'interaction with the readers' doesn't seem to extend to accepting criticism. Barclay Brothers. Twats. Bring back Conrad Black.

Is Bush back on the bottle?

Now Mr Osato is far too small time to have any contacts in Washington or the senior side of the US Government - but he is struck by the writings of the New Statesman's North American correspondent, Andrew Stephen (who is somewhat better connected.

Rumours persist here (and I have heard them repeated at a very senior level in the UK, too) that Bush has actually resumed drinking; I throw this into the mix not to sensationalise, but because I have now heard the rumour repeated at a sufficiently high level that I believe we must face the possibility that it might be true.

Of course, the rumours may not be true, but if they are, if Bush is even thinking about cracking open the Smirnoff, it's yet another sign that the American people (or, more to the point, the Supreme Court) chose a man who isn't cracked up for the job.

Fortunately daddy Bush's troops seem to be coming over the hill - top US columnist Maureen Dowd compared the situation to a parent trying to deprogramme a child taken away and brain washed by a sinister cult. Better late than never, I suppose...

Nomination #1 Reid all about tit

I used to quite like John Reid. Anyone who tells it as it is about smoking is ok by me and I learn today that he’s married to a Brazilian film director (although that was on Wikipedia, so treat the information with caution!)

But the bollocks he came out with at the weekend about closing ‘loopholes’ which let the supposedly guilty off the hook.

Most of these loopholes surely come about because of the incompetence and negligence of various agencies of the Home Office, the very organisation he described as ‘not fit for purpose‘ just a couple of months ago.

So is Reid’s strategy to lower the standards of the criminal justice system to meet the level of ineptitude of the police, the immigration service and the CPS?

Perhaps if he really wants to close the loopholes he needs to make a change closer to home. If a copper, or some other official, makes an error which lets a guilty man (or woman) off the hook, sack ‘em. No fat salary, no fat pension, just give them the boot. That’ll teach them to py a bit more attention to the paperwork. Otherwise it’s a long roll back to the days of balls being ‘accidentally’ shoved into drawers and faces ‘accidentally’ colliding with nicely polished boots. Just because we beat it out of ‘em doesn’t mean they’re not guilty, right guv’nor?

Reid’s campaign to ‘put the victim first’ also saw him put the boot in to innocent people wrongly convicted of horrific criminal offences and now he’s messing about with the rape laws.

So, in supposedly putting the victim first, Reid is creating a new class of victims, men and women whose lives are destroyed because we’ve got a Home Office and a Home Secretary who are not fit for purpose.

More before Spooks - maybe

UPDATE
And he's a lying twat as well

Welcome

Welcome to Twat of the week, which is going to do exactly what it says on the tin. Ever week I’ll be trawling through the world’s twats and giving some very personal reasons why they deserve this coveted accolade. By Sunday I’ll have made up my mind and decided who gets a real slating.

Hopefully I’ll collate the scores and award an overall twat of the year at a point in time to be decided - if I stay interested for that long.