First of all, apologies for leaving 63 comments pending approval after the last two posts: but Italian internet simply isn’t up to opening a wordpress admin sub-page. Now I’m back in civilisation, it’s being attended to. But again, please bear with me: I’m still moving around for very good reasons, and so reliable access is sporadic.

The death of David Frost while on a luxury cruise must rank as one of the most symbolic events of recent years. Although often derided as a copycat satirist in the early days of the Private Eye clique, the fact still remains that old Frostie still appeared in some landmark shows, gave Jon Cleese his first big break, and came closest of all to making Nixon look as guilty as sin on prime time television.

His beknighted Lordship did of course go on to make some truly dreadful errors and front some appalling daytime shows; so the death of this one-time enfant terrible become fat-cat Peer on a rich-buggers’ cruise might seem like some sort of revenge. But this isn’t what I mean: there are no truly effective satirists like Frost and Cook, or Ingrams and Booker as was any more, because today’s lunatics are beyond parody….and they don’t GAF about satirical digging – no matter how outrageous the accusations might be. In 2013, only the Jeremy Berkeley-Hunt defence need be applied: “I have done nothing wrong”.

So it is that the necessarily peripatetic Slog continues to push swords into the top-neck of the Bull-beast, albeit without any sign as yet of blue blood gushing from a deadly wound. The Minister for Illegal Wars Defence Philip Hammond has said that MPs could vote again in the Commons on UK involvement in Syria if the situation in the country is manipulated further by us “becomes more obviously one of Assad atrocities”….although he thought “probably not”. Or perhaps so, and then again who knows, maybe not. Whereas Nick Clegg said such a thing was “unthinkable” – presumably in the same way he once said dropping immediate PR as a bargaining chip would be “unthinkable”….until he thought about it, and then took the part-time six hours a week job as Deputy Prime Minister.

Well there we are then: as always, the Coalition is as one. I particularly liked Hammond’s use of Assad atrocities, if only because it made old Bashar sound like a commercial concern: ‘Assad Atrocities, purveyors of Chemical Weapons to the Syrian Citizenry’. I think this may be the beginning of the end for Cameron; but I’d feel better about that prospect if I had a scintilla of confidence in the Ed Miller Band. And I’d feel better about the reduced chances of war if I hadn’t been shown this piece from 2011 in the Mail:

‘In 1930, a mere nine years before the outbreak of World War Two, Americadrew up proposals specifically aimed at eliminating all British land forces in Canada and the North Atlantic, thus destroying Britain’s trading ability and bringing the country to its knees.

Previously unparalleled troop movements were launched as an overture to an invasion of Canada, which was to include massive bombing raids on key industrial targets and the use of chemical weapons, the latter signed off at the highest level by none other than the legendary General Douglas MacArthur.’

So much for the Special Relationship. But as Erdogan the Mad told the world’s media today that ‘the limited strikes which the United States is reportedly planning against Syria would not be enough’ – and pushed for a broader military offensive – some of us were forced to recall the claims by Erdogun that Syria had breached Turkish airspace….a load of old bollocks which the shrewd Turkish populace chose to dismiss, much to Recep’s extreme annoyance. This was prior to The Great Democrat’s attack on demonstrators asking for, um, a little more democracy please.

But not to worry about bias re this one, because an organisation much used by the wannabe Syrian invaders (it being the only one they are prepared to use) – the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights –  turns out to be a glaring propaganda front operated by Rami Abdul Rahman out of his house in…..Coventry.  The not very firmly on the ground in Syria Abdul Rahman admits he is a member of the so-called “Syrian opposition” and seeks the ousting of Syrian President Bashar Al Assad. Right-ho then, Come all Ye Congressmen to hear the “absolutely conclusive” evidence for Assad’s use of chemical weapons….but not in public at the UN: like, for example, JFK  did in 1962 over the Cuban missiles.

Larf? Well, not entirely.

Meanwhile, the spinners busy trying to sell us some special fracking are coming up against a wall of concern that grows at the rate of about ten metres a day: West Texas having seen its water level shagged by the frackers, The Texas Tribune reported last Thursday that counties in which there’s active drilling have seen their roads deteriorate in recent years….and because the US is broke, there’s not enough money to fix them. The plan affects about 83 miles of asphalt roads in four South Texas counties—Live Oak, Dimmit, LaSalle and Zavala—and two West Texas counties—Reeves and Culberson. So everything’s alright here and there’s absolutely nothing to worry about….as indeed there isn’t in veteran fracked State North Dakota where it seems that Real estate developers are finding loans and investments hard to come by from Wells Fargo, private equity firm Carlyle Group and other major American financial powerhouses for new department stores and other commercial property, as well as residential developments. 

It seems that these august, non-Communist hairy-Occupy institutions are worried about, er, the effects of fracking on the surface safety when it comes to, you know, minor things like foundations for office blocks, potential earth tremors caused by the process….which doesn’t of course produce any ill-effects at all, in exactly the same way as coal mining in the UK never produced a single incident of land collapse, houses disappearing, or land being condemned for building purposes in Yorkshire.

And in Fukushima which, as you know, is a long way from Yorkshire and therefore nothing to worry about, Reactor number 4 has already started to subside, so it’s structural integrity is weakened. This exacerbates still further the problem of extracting the spent fuel rods from the storage pond, already made near-impossible given that the crane used to do this was wrecked in the explosions of 2011.

Soon there will indeed be nothing to see in Fukushima, as the entire place starts melting down, prior to heading for the Earth’s molten core and all stations to Northern Italy. When it pops out somewhere south of Turin, like the Alien from John Hurt’s chest, no doubt Olli Rehn will be nearby to tell us all that this is a major oil gusher which must, surely, prove to be the turning point for the Italian economy…..pretty much as Yannis Stournaras told the Greeks yesterday that the boom in Greek tourism is a sure sign that growth will return to the Hellenic Republic in 2014, or was it 2041. Either way, in Western Greece’s Arta last weekend, the average occupancy rate was under 25%. Rather lower, one would’ve thought, than the take-up on the last voyage of the Good Ship Frostie.

It’s all bollocks, and that’s official.