Some sad news

My strictures against my one-time newspaper of choice do not extend to its excellent crosswords. Veteran setter Araucaria, alias the Rev John Graham of Cambridge, has used a puzzle to announce that he is dying of cancer. May God bless you, "friendly vicar", you've been a blessing to many people for many years.

Human rights latest

Proof positive that human rights are an infinitely movable feast: there is now a human right to broadband. The BBC says the UN says so, so who are we to argue?

The classic sea shanty "Boney was a Warrior", which I sang in one of its many variants at primary school but which I strongly suspect is no longer considered appropriate for impressionable young minds, clearly needs modernisation:-

He went to Saint Helena,
Away, a-yah!
There he was a prisoner,
Jean Francois!

That isle, it had no broadband,
Away, a-yah!
Thus from Twitter he was banned,
Jean Francois!

Boney broke his heart and died
Away, a-yah!
Away in Saint Helena
Jean Francois!

Vee heff vays

Just been watching a documentary about Victoria and Albert. I won't bore you by enumerating the ways in which it irritated me, instead merely noting that the actor reading quotes from the Prince Consort did so in what Frau G speedily diagnosed as a fake German accent. Even if they couldn't get Andrew Sachs (a German who, come to think of it, himself owes his celebrity status to a fake accent), we have a sizeable German community and one or two of them must surely hold Equity cards. Strange, when it has become unthinkable for an actor to black up, that it's still OK to pretend to be a Kraut.

PS Happy New Year.

Cognitive dissonance: always in fashion

A random and entirely non-seasonal observation: when did models stop being exploited, objectified victims of the patriarchy and become feminist icons?

A happy and peaceful Christmas to anyone who should happen along. No promises, but I might manage a more substantial slab or two of curmudgeonliness before 2013's wage slavery gets under way.

Cute foster kids you've got there...

...be a shame if anything happened to them.

Not, I grant, the exact words used by Cameroonian posh boy Matthew d'Ancona to warn us off overmuch involvement with Ukip. But the bottom line is unmistakeable.

Voters of Rotherham, may I respectfully suggest that a lost deposit would send a salutary message to Mr d'Ancona and his ilk?

A papal knighthood

'The papal knighthood given to Jimmy Savile "should not have been bestowed", a Vatican spokesman has told the BBC.'

No. it should not, though no blame attaches to its award unless the Vatican was better informed than his colleagues and bosses at the BBC will admit to being.

'The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales confirmed it has written to the Holy See to ask if the honour can be posthumously removed.'

No, it cannot. He held it while he lived, and death removed it from him. There's no more to be said. Unless we want to go the whole hog by exhuming his corpse so that we can put it on trial. Let the secular world wallow in post-Christian superstition; Archbishop Nichols ought to know better. One appreciates that for painfully obvious reasons he feels the need to be seen to be doing something, but this is simply the wrong thing.

The penalties now faced by Jimmy Savile are not a matter for the Church or any other human agency. A papal knighthood is just part of the worldly pomp which we will all be stripped of when we go to meet our Maker. It's not for us to judge how repentant he was, or far his many good works were done for good motives. Those of us who are conscious of having done a lot less good and no little harm in the course of our lives would do well to pray for his soul.

Set my people free

Much rejoicing at the Curmudgeon's Arms last night, following the annoucement that live live music licences are to be thrown onto the bonfire of red tape. A veritable cultural renaissance is in prospect. We've already booked up-and-coming local tribute band Puppy Riot.

The neighbours? Oh, no doubt they will get used to it in time.

One or two of our regulars got so carried away that they were on the verge of lighting a celebratory fag. Luckily, however, they were reminded just in time that the law requires good citizenship and consideration for others.