DUFF & NONSENSE!: The Sunday Rumble: 26.5.13

I discover Dexter: A delightful day yesterday. Off to Salisbury in the sunshine with the 'Memsahib' and a lady friend to see a production of Rattigan's Less Than Kind; written in 1944 it has more or less been lost to view in the intervening years. Billed as a light comedy, 'light' was exactly the word! It lacked that dark thread that all great comedy requires but Rattigan was still in his 'apprentice' years as a playwright so we cannot judge him by this early work. However, there was a bonus. As the ladies chatted in the sunshine whilst we waited for curtain time, I sloped off in to the shopping centre and stumbled upon 'The Works', a shop that is difficult to define but which always has piles of cheap 'pulp fiction' for sale. The sign said "3 for £5" so, natch!, I had to find at least three books which I might enjoy. Actually, it was hard going (I know it's hard to believe given my prediliction for pulp fiction but I do have some slight standards!) and I couldn't find a third. There were one or two on this character Dexter who now has a TV series to himself. I remember reading the blurb on them but as the eponymous, er, hero was a psychopathic killer I gave it a pass. Big Fail! I started reading it on the train home and didn't stop laughing the whole way. It is very, very funny; dry, sardonic, bloody and cynical and the good news is that Mr. Jeff Lindsay has written several of them so there is more, er, fun to come.

No wonder they're rioting in Yerdie-Burdle-Land: It's funny how one tiny item of news can change your mind, well, my mind, at any rate. As you know, if you read this blog regularly as I'm sure you do, I remarked earlier on the literally non-stop riots in Stockholm which have destroyed their reputation as a nation of 'Peace 'n' Love' dollops forever. Because I am somewhat to the right of Attila the Hun I instinctively sided with the forces of law and order without knowing any of the details. However, today I learn via those rascals at IHTM that the Swedish police are busy, not with clamping down on rioters, but issuing parking tickets to the owners of the burnt out wrecks of cars left in the streets:

Were I the owner of one of those cars I suspect that I might feel like throwing a few bricks at 'the Plod', or, 'the Ploddle-loddle-lurbles' as they are know in Yerdie-Burdle-Land - er, how's my accent coming along?

For God's sake, give Dave a break! I gather there is a certain amount of grumbling in the prints today because Dave has done a bunk to the Mediterranean with his family for a holiday, and this, just after Drummer Rigby was slain. I would suggest that the 'shocked and appalled' engage their brains. The death of a single soldier is not enough to disrupt a Prime Minister's schedule, nor should it be seen to do so. Let's face it, Dave is definitely not the brightest PM we have ever had and I would prefer to have him operating his minimal skills whilst relaxed and rested rather than the flustered and flummoxed condition he normally appears to be in. I am reminded of Montgomery who informed his staff in no uncertain terms that he was not to be disturbed for anything whilst he took his usual four or five hour nap every night. It was essential, he reckoned for a commander to be always refreshed and alert, not ragged, bagged and shagged - well, perhaps not those exact words but you know what I mean!

Well, that's the last time I use Sainsburys! For the benefit of my foreign readers I should explain that Sainsburys is a nation-wide supermarket chain and I am shocked, shocked, I tell you, to learn that they are about to start selling Krug champagne, which is Good News, but the Bad News is that they are limiting sales only to stores in more affluent, up-market areas like Chipping Camden (sole prop: D. Cameron Esq.) Naturally, I assumed that my nearest store in frightfully posh Sherborne, jewel of the south west, would be chosen, particularly in view of the fact that I grace its portals at least once a week where it is reckoned that I could get a shopping trolly round their aisles quicker than Lewis Hamilton! But no, for some inexplicable reason the grocers at Sainsburys think we're not good enough for Krug champagne. Well, Tescos are attempting to open a supermarket in ancient Sherborne and the residents are up in arms but they'll get my vote!

Campus culture rules: One of the Fox News commentators, I forget who, remarked apropos the current scandals miring and wiring the American body politic that it was the culmination of campus culture at work. From everything I read and hear about American (and British!) universities that is exactly right. They are no longer centres of excellence attempting with humility to edge their way towards truths, instead they have become bastions of politically correct, Left-wing dogma which will allow no dissenting voice. The alumni of these establishments have gradually risen over the past 30 or so years to the highest levels in the government machine and now their blind fanaticism is clear to all, well, at least it's clear to those who do not share their views. How America is to rid itself of this metastasizing malignancy I do not know.

Here endeth the Sunday Rumble