bing!

i'd buy insurance from this man.

saving grace

for every daft and depressing thing the beeb does—employing the gross and grosser chris moyles and graham norton, overpaying its 'talent', fawning to the euroweenies in brussels—it also does the odd marvelous thing, like restoring kenneth clark's "civilization" series in high definition. well done, you fellows.

avuncular advice

i told my nephew if he wants to blend in he should get as fat as he can as fast as he can. nothing else will do.

one and a half cheers

the pre-publicity for sebastian faulks' new book and bbc2 series "faulks on fiction" has been in the manner of german troops massing on the russian border in 1941 prior to operation barbarossa: steady and clamorous.

faulks kicked off hostilities with three portraits in the "telegraph" on jeeves, fagin, and becky sharp. good choices, what?

the jeeves piece was perfect; concise and exact, the tone just right. score: a hit.

the attempt to essay becky sharp was awkwardly done. faulks insisted on calling her a hero, in the masculine sense, which isn't quite the thing. sharp is tricky, though. too tricky for her creator, thackeray, at any rate. faulks' mistake is to see sharp as an admirable character, like tom jones. she isn't. she's selfish, immoral and opportunistic. though she's certainly the best thing in the novel by a long way. score: a technical draw.

unfortunately things come unstuck with fagin, whom faulks also wants to excuse from moral censure. it won't do. fagin is the worst of villains. a corrupter of youth who deploys an ingratiatingly mannered politeness to ensnare oliver into a life of depravity. there's a good reason dante's design of hell accords a worse fate for frauds, conspirators and corruptors than thieves or murderers. score: a miss.

let's hope the series makes it way to oz. (we had to wait almost 2 years for the "extras" christmas special, and we're still waiting for "fantabulosa").

to do-ishness

the great ocean road half marathon plus 1·9km (23km) in may. pricey though. still, the great thing about this event is the scenery (weather permitting; the dying weeks of autumn can be a bit iffy) and the enjoyment of inconveniencing the locals for whom the road is closed to traffic for half the day. it's like the london congestion tax only the innocent aren't made to suffer. but, good weather or bad, it beats sloughing through bradford or barnsley.

selected for the first eleven

a new biography of palmerston has just been lowered onto the shelves. a good thing that. palmerston is one of my favourite english prime ministers; along with salisbury, pitt the younger, and dizzy. in any cricketing list of the best english prime ministers palmerston is among the first fellows picked; being serious, straightforward, a capable administrator and, most importantly, zealous in the national interest, never permitting the crown to be bullied by third world upstarts. his only drawbacks being that he never declared war on france or scotland (england's eternal enemies).

a list of the best ministers inevitably suggests, ipso facto, the worst. they are: brown (scotch and spendthrift), gladstone (a preaching windbag who badly let the side down in the sudan), chamberlain (weakness abroad is seldom applauded by the english) and, of course, heath (for dragging england into the european union). that last one is a real doozy.

can't remember

the last time i had a kugelhopf.

australia day afterglow

the highlight of the glutinous australia day celebrations was an address from barry humphries—in the person of dr sir colin leslie patterson, cultural attaché to the court of st. james.

here patterson recounts an incident while flying over the country:

"the pom next to me asked me if i could hear a distant thumping. 'what's that rhythmic pounding?' he enquired. i was as mystified as he was. 'could it be a kangaroo is down there?' said the stupid bastard. 'no, mate,' i said. 'it's 22 million australians patting themselves on the back!'"

wonderful stuff.