Quote of the Week No. 28 : On things presidential

Sixteen degrees at 9am. An overcast start has been blasted into a bright, bright sunshiney day.

Here in the house on The Rock we don't read the newspapers. First, what with the children, the chickens, the garden, the logging operations, the huntin' (of which more soon), the job and the still unfinished house, we don't have time. And second, having done my internship as a cub photojournalist at The Sunday Times, I believe I have a privileged view of what sells newspapers, and it isn't always the whole, unmitigated truth. So why bother?

Instead, we get our news and commentary either from BBC Radio 4, The Economist or from Chairman Bill.

This week, Chairman Bill tells me that Tony Blair, ex-Prime Minister of Great Britain, and ex-leader of New Labour, is addicted to pole position and has his eyes on the top spot in Europe, President of the European Union. Instead of lending his grand socialist statesman's experience and expertise to a beleaguered nation perhaps hit hardest of all its European partners by The Crisis - i.e. the UK - Tony wants to have his Hugh-Grant-little-boy face engraved on coins from here to the borders of Turkey, to whizz about the place in the European equivalent of Airforce One and perhaps be invited to parties at Silvio Berlusconi's mansion (where he might find himself one of those Italian secretaries Silvio mentioned recently). He might even try rebranding the European Union as 'New Europe' and we may soon be thinking of ourselves as 'The Continent of Cool'...

Chairman Bill has noted the strange absence of democratic process in all of this, and I really just wanted to add the words of Douglas Adams, always an astute political commentator, even from beyond the grave : "Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job."

Ye have been warned!