You can’t go far wrong quoting the Good Book, you know. And I speak as someone whose knowledge of scripture would not make the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland pale by comparison.
Like the cruise ship entertainer who boasts “a song for every occasion”, it covers all major food groups when it comes to apt comment on current events.
Of late, for example, we’ve been inundated (thank you, Noah’s flood) with words of wisdom about plagues and apocalypses and all that jazz with every second event, from weather to infection rates, being described as “biblical”.
So I feel quite justified (if not entirely safe from divine retribution), by way of response to the current lobbying scandal to ooze its way through the corridors of Westminster, in paraphrasing that old traditional hymn: “There is a Greensill far away, without a City wall…” But with plenty of friends in high places, it would seem…
Of course, by promising “a full lawyer’s investigation” into the role of major political figures in the support and downfall of the Greensill finance company, not to mention egging on poking and prodding of the subject by various government committees, it’s also a golden opportunity for Boris Johnson to stick it to David Cameron who, up to this week, was languishing a mere and lowly third in the list of worst Prime Ministers ever.
And to put a spoke in the ever-spinning and upwardly-mobile career wheel of Chancellor Rishi Sunak, hitherto the only slightly tarnished golden boy of Covid.
In the process, it might just take a bit of the heat and attention off the Prime Minister’s own activities and those of his battery of less-than-efficient ministers by finally calling someone out for a socking great error of judgement, not to say downright (allegedly) corrupt behaviour.
Wouldn’t it be fun for him actually to find someone at fault for something and do something about it for a change? And in the shape of Mr Cameron, not even a discredited member of his current government with a job for the boys to lose?
He must be rubbing his hopefully well-sanitised hands although he might do well to ponder the weight of another apposite biblical warning: “Judge not, lest ye be judged”.
Naturally, Mr Cameron has promised to “respond positively” to any questions which, if you interpret it in its finest details, doesn’t actually correspond to telling the actual truth.
I suspect that that positive response might come in the shape of: “It wisnae me” or involve the use of the Barnard Castle defence: “I wasn’t there.”
The problem for me is the dual nature of all this, or perhaps I should call it two-faced. It’s a double-dunter of the most blatant sort.
It’s actually difficult to work out which is worse. The fact that David Cameron might actually, really think that he didn’t do anything wrong.
Or the fact that he expects us to believe that he actually, really didn’t do anything wrong.
What does it say about the state we’re in? I’d say we were living in a banana republic except that that’s an insult to otherwise blameless bananas
Lobbying for that response from the bulk of the general public might be beyond even his much-vaunted people and PR skills.
Then there’s the third wave. That’s the fact that he actually, really might not have done anything against the actual, real rules. Which calls into question those rules and who made them, of course.
That, I suspect, will be another story, and one that we might not hear too much about in the corridors of power, let alone enjoy a happy-ever-after ending.
What does it all say about the state we’re in? I’d say we were living in a banana republic except that that’s an insult to otherwise blameless bananas. And, as a monarchy, to republics.
And another thing
I, apparently, have a flob.
An unholy cross between flab and slob? Either might well apply but no. A flob is a trendy hairstyle, even if it sounds like what a Flowerpot Man might sport under his hat.
Now, looking at me and spotting any kind of hairstyle would be a triumph of hope over experience, not to mention as unlikely as Keir Starmer saying something interesting.
My heid has had no contact with skilled human hands since, depending on how you count your calendar, the previous decade.
But completely by accident and due to growth a hedge fund might covet, I have a flob – a flat-ironed bob.
I feel I should come clean here and state that the proper title for it is a mess. I also blame it for the state of my garden.
Every time I bend over to take out a weed, a curtain closes over my face and I end up hooking out an expensive plant.
However, I do now have a hair appointment. Maybe it would be churlish to mention to the stylist that I have come by my current look by doing zippo for six months so she shouldn’t find it much of a challenge.
But then, it would also be wise to remember who is holding the scissors. Or the flat-iron…
