Mad World
Current affairs enters the realm of the surreal a full two weeks before the start of the silly season

Operating under the assumption made by Parkinson's Law - that in this era of 24 hour coverage, national and local concerns will expand to fit the time allocated to them - I was entertained by the Today Programme this morning.

Naughtie: Okay, so say we stop eating beef. The demand for cows will decrease and the methane emitted by their belching will be reduced over time. But what about the cows that are already alive, eh? They'll grow old and die over many years - burping and farting all the way - adding to the environmental crisis that we all face. How long does a cow live? How many burps does it do a day? Does the Government need to convene an Independent Inquiry(TM) to look into this issue? Why hasn't it done so before? We're a mere calf fart away from Armageddon, I tells ye!

Superb. But the insanity doesn't end there.

Depressingly, al-Quida have now promised to crack out the semtex in response to the decision made to give a bauble to a self-important buffoon. Frankly, I am of the opinion that in a free society we should honour who we damn well choose, but I am finding it difficult to channel Voltaire when the person who has come to symbolise the Fight For Free Speech is Salman bloody Rushdie. Maybe my lack of understanding of his literary offerings can be put down to my comprehensive school education (and the fact that Rushdie always looks insufferably smug), but he always struck me as the kind of person who couldn't write out a shopping list without using a thesaurus to make it look more interleckshual. Still, sometimes you can't choose your friends or your enemies, right?

Another one getting into the spirit of the silly season early is David Cameron who was described in another context by Tony McNulty yesterday as "prancing around". I like that description; the Boy Dave's attempt to distract attention from the fact that he's proposing benefit cuts to single mothers in order to give married Jeremys and Jocastas tax-breaks, by dancing around the podium like a low-rent Michael Flaherty was most entertaining. Less entertaining for the people who would be affected by this policy if the Conservatives ever got back in, but why should the Tories bother about them, eh? Most of them don't vote anyway.

Finally, we come to last nights Panorama on the failure of electronic tagging. I'd love to work as an investigative journalist: "yes, yes, that's interesting. Could you repeat what you just said loudly and clearly into this oversized comedy flower on my lapel?"

Whilst accepting that there is an issue with both the effectiveness of the technology and the way it is monitored, some of it was quite bizarre. What was almost comedic was the way in which Panorama interviewed a number of yoofs who had ripped off their tags who were outraged that The State hadn't hot-footed it round faster in order prevent them reoffending. Yes. Because free will is like soooooo twentieth century. The programme concluded with a shot of Jack Straw (the Minister for Justice) with the voice-over reminding us that he was the one, as Home Secretary, oversaw the introduction of tagging and is now the one implementing it in his new Ministerial capacity. Thus we are primed for the inevitable "off with his head!" style reportage over the summer when the widely predicted prisons crisis is upon us.

Ah well, time to get on. T'intern has just informed me that I'm wrong over Cameron's marriage proposals, when clearly I am right...now where did I put my semtex?