For the Egyptian Islamists, there are some things one simply can’t compromise about. Put more accurately, for Islamists, there is nothing they will compromise about, but the Egyptian context does show the degree of madness these people need to make them vaguely happy. I cannot think of another culture in the world outside Islam (except perhaps mid 20th century Japan) where a sentence of life imprisonment against a former leader would be greeted with cries of shame, corruption, it’s a fiddle, and the bugger must die.

“What we want is death” could have a very strong appeal over the next decade, especially in relation to the last three UK Prime Ministers, the bankers, the Brussels Sprouts, Harriet Harman and Wolfgang Schäuble; but if you think for a second about even that small group of ne’er-do-wells, the result would be like the Robespierre Terror or the Stalin Purges times ten. Even thinking for one second, however, is a capital offence among Islamists, and so they want former President Mubarak dead.

In fact, if one polled the main group of protesters, I’d imagine we would find 45% for brief crystalline stoning first followed by extra-slow piano wire strangulation, 40% for half-crucifixation and then being disembowelled alive, and only the 15% residue of hardliners pushing for something really nasty.

If Mubarak dies, will it deter the other 62,549 Arab nutters waiting in line for a chance to be the next one? No, it won’t. And let’s face it, we all know that what is to come in Egypt will be far, far worse than even Mubarak.

What the Americans want is Zombies, says Le Monde this morning, in probably the most peculiar item of the day. Cannibalism is on the rise in the US, says this august newspaper – and it is thought by some to be connected to Zombie movies, Zombie games, or Hell, even Zombies. Lots of Americans believe in Zombies, it seems. Ergo sum, lots of Americans must be Zombies. No, there’s a flaw in that logic somewhere; but then, who needs logic when you’ve got the beliefs of Mitt Romney?

And who needs individual freedom when you’ve got the New York Times? Mayor Bloomberg of New York is lauded in the NYT today because of his zero-fat tolerance policy. Says the Times:

‘With an obesity problem like ours, we can’t just say grow. We must say no, at least to some things some of the time. The prohibition Bloomberg wants to implement, if it survives the fury he has whipped up and gets approval (which is expected) from a city health panel, is on the sale of sugary soft drinks above 16 ounces in restaurants, movie theaters and other places where a person is buying an individual serving, not an amount to be shared.’

Waydergo! Could we perhaps educate kids, treat sufferers or, in the final resort, stop food manufacturers and retailers from being jerks? No, we are East Coast pc pillocks, and so what we must do is ration greed. I love it. Food salespeople in theatres will also hire a small crack corps of snoopers to follow the fatties and check they share multiple purchases. A slightly larger regiment will be required to watch and see if fatty’s mates also come and buy six 150 oz high-sugar cokes and then take them all back for sharing. As this won’t be illegal, we’re not clear yet what the 260 new employees will do about it. But the non-farm payrolls will look good. Yes!

And so inevitably to the BBC, whose news website this morning scoops the field with ‘Jubilee pageant to honour Queen’. Blimey, is it 60 years already? Are we sure it’s for the Queen? Not for Gary Bettman, American National Hockey League commissioner, celebrating his sixtieth birthday today? I mean, what has the Queen ever done for hockey in the US? Zip, right? But no – she gets the pageant, he gets a few balloons. Is there no justice?

But despite this, the Sunday Telegraph says, ‘The Queen is our favourite Monarch ever’. I know the Maily Telegraph has an old readership, but where did they find all these 1,800 year old people able to make the comparison? Yesterday the paper said that the Jubilee is for everyone, not just Monarchists (a patently daft statement) but this one today surpasses that with ease. Getting on for 90% of the population today have only ever known the Queen’s style of monarchy, so as Brian Clough would’ve said, “She’s in the Top One”.

But the Mail on Sunday made it two weekends in a row where they see someone else’s story and then work a slight variation on the cacophony. Fair play, the Torygraph merely nicked a genre off The Sun (Your Top Ten Royal Corgis etc), but the MoS takes up the theme of best ever, and runs with ‘Greatest show on Thames for 350 yrs’. Let’s all have a heated debate: is this the greatest show on the Thames for 350 years? Have Your Say! Is the Mail the worst, nastiest and most derivative newspaper in Britain? Yes, it is.

But there is one thing Her Maj has done, and she really is the first Monarch since Edward VII to manage it: the French like her lots. It’s official: Le Figaro says The Queen is cool, and as a result the UK monarchy is as strong as ever.The Figleaf is wrong about the second conclusion (Charles III will bugger everything up within five years) but they like her because she speaks fluent French and has more or less stuck to what she thinks. As all expats in France will be well aware, no nation sticks to what it thinks like the French.

Le Figaro bases its conclusions about the Royaume in Grand Bretagne on the obvious inside track of ‘Carolyn Harris, spécialiste des monarchies européennes’. It’s a dying trade, your study of European monarchies. I bet that before doing this job, Ms Harris was a miner. But you need the Latin for the mining. So now she’s an expert on Royalty. We wish her luck on this, the day of Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee.

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