The week in tatters

This week's Britain's Got Talent produced some of the oddest sentences I have ever heard on television. "Anyone prepared to die on my show gets 10 out of 10", "We were told to wear less clothes, so we're wearing less clothes" and "Ladies and gentlemen, give a warm welcome to Piers Morgan!" The made-over Susan Boyle appeared on Sunday, blossoming from a dumpy woman into a dumpy woman with dyed hair. Items that Susan has touched are actually being sold on eBay - the whole town of Bathgate has apparently beaten all estimates by going for £23.

An elderly woman in London stored her mother's body in a freezer for up to 20 years. I don't understand why she kept mother in the freezer for 20 years, especially as she'd no longer be edible after two years. She had wanted her mum to have a more dignified resting place, but the binmen refused to take her. The lady said she lost weight through the stress, plus the fact that it can't have made going for a choc ice any easier. At least she got to rest in peas. Asked why she did it, she said she had no choice as the fridge was full.

The World Beard and Moustache Competition took place last weekend, and was won by a woman from my home town of Oxfordshire. The only news that beat this, was a piece featured in the tabloids about a 66-YEAR-OLD woman, who has become the oldest new mum in Britain after giving birth to a baby boy. I'm amazed she needed to have a caesarean section though, you'd think at 66 she would have needed some masking tape down there just to stop it falling out. She says the most important thing is that she is able to give the baby a normal, happy childhood. Which he will have. Right up until she dies. It's going to be unusual having someone in their seventies picking up a child from school who's not a paedophile.

Internet is child's play.

THE curriculum in primary schools is to be revamped so that children are familiar with blogging, podcasts, Wikipedia and Twitter. Aren't kids already familiar with all of those? The average primary school child is already more relaxed with computers than a Nasa scientist. Talk about putting a strain on the teachers, the only people qualified to teach children aged seven about how the internet works are children aged eight.

Another problem with this is that information technology is moving so quickly that, by the time children leave school, computer applications like Twitter will be as dead as the dodo. Although pupils won't have been taught what a dodo is. They'll be saying as dead as Myspace.

A COMPUTER scientist has invented a shoe that can be used as a phone. He says it could mean less people losing their phones. Fair enough but it'll probably mean a lot more people getting dog shit on their ear. There's a guy in my street who's been talking into his shoe for years. How is he supposed to look mental if everyone gets a shoe phone?

Sack MPs and get 600 Mumbai call centre guys to run UK

Well, what do I think about the expense claims?

Gordon Brown welcomed a "Lumley" of Gurkhas into Downing Street. He looked delighted having them there... a pleasant change mixing with a group of people who only want one house each. The Speaker of the House of Commons, Michael Martin, has resigned. He wants to spend more time with his houses. Did you see him try and worm his way out of it? He looked like someone was shovelling sausages down his throat till his was choking on them, and for once, not enjoying it. When the camera zoomed in on his swollen, vodka induced capillary burst face, I seriously thought he was having a stroke, even then the Clarkes surrounding him trying to help him would just be trying to force his pin number from him so they could get the money back he owes, or take claim of his £170,000 pension.

One Lib Dem MP has received death threats over his claims. He is said to be thrilled someone has noticed him at last. Only a handful of MPs have been shown to be not abusing the system. Animals and wives yes, but the system, no.

The MP Sir Hope Peter Viggers was forced to retire after spending £1645 on a "duck island". Looks like a great investment as he'll soon be living on it. He has now lost his job because of those ducks. I think the next time he rehouses them it may well be in a pancake with some hoisin sauce.

A new body will control Parliament finances. The government has set up OfParl. They should add F**k to the start. The Tories say only a new government in Westminster can save Britain. I agree. The Swedish one.

In any other profession they'd have been replaced years ago by an Indian call centre. I think that's how we should go at this. Sack all MPs and just have a team of 600 guys in Mumbai, working 24/7 running the country. "Press one to speak to your elected representative, press two to complain about the bins in your area, press three to declare war on Iran."

Feeling the heat.

Health chiefs are advising that all British homes should be painted white in order to cope with climate change.

Personally, I'm not sure how much difference reflecting the sun's heat is going to make to your house when it's 20 feet under water.

An Army test pilot is the first British astronaut. Tim Peake admits he's on the end of a very long waiting list to go into space. Which right now includes everyone on Earth. I can't wait to see a Brit up in space, grumbling about the weather. I just hope his spacesuit isn't supplied by the British Army. Solar radiation will make short work of a goldfish bowl taped to a bin bag.

Honour before greed

Story one on News At Ten last Wednesday was the latest revelation about high-spending, free-loading MPs. Story two was the coffins of four British soldiers returning from Afghanistan. It made for a stark juxtaposition.

On the one hand you have Government ministers and backbench MPs who have been squeezing every last penny out of a very generous allowance system to ensure their homes are equipped to a high standard. On the other, you have four brave young men laying down their lives in the service of this country. One a story of greed, the other a story of sacrifice. Two very different attitudes to public duty and serving this nation. What a contrast.

And it’s a contrast made starker still by news that urgent equipment needed by our troops on the front line in Afghanistan is still not getting through on time. Fewer than two-thirds of consignments – 57 per cent – reach our battle units on time. After eight years to get it right, that is surely not good enough. I spoke this week to a young officer who has just returned from Afghanistan and who told me they are still driving around in vehicles that offer inadequate protection. He lost men in a roadside bomb because better vehicles failed to arrive. They can equip their homes all right, but not our boys in the firing line.

HOLD ON TO YOUR HORSES.

Politicians are finally acting on the public outcry over their outrageous expense claims.

From now on, MPs are going to use a far fairer system of allowances, like the one used by President Ceausescu of Romania, just before he was marched from his golden palace and shot.

This has been a difficult subject to write jokes about when every time I try to exaggerate a punch line for comedic effect, an even more exaggerated expense claim is revealed.

I mean, what are they going to claim for next - a moat? Douglas Hogg was ridiculed for having a moat round his large mansion. To be fair, it is in the middle of a Sheffield Council Estate. Why does anyone need a moat cleaner? It's full of water. It kind of cleans itself. In his defence, the moat needed cleaning after the drawbridge broke under the weight of the chandelier being delivered.

In this country, let us not forget that a man's home is his castle. Although, in the case of many Conservative MPs, a man's castle is his second home.

Douglas Hogg claimed to have his moat cleaned and Michael Spicer claimed to trim the hedge around his helipad. They couldn't have made the Conservative Party look any more like aristocratic idiots unless they had claimed cash for "the lute player's fees to entertain the peacocks" and "a termination for scullery maid and third class ticket for her crossing to New Amsterdam".

Alex Salmond claimed £650 for curtains. To be fair, if his flat hadn't had curtains, we'd have paid out far more than that to his neighbours in compensation. Shadow ecology secretary Greg Barker has kept his green credentials through this scandal by keeping unused appliances and lights switched off in his second home. He has achieved this by not actually living there.

Many people have wondered why John Prescott needed to claim for two loo seats. Simple, one for each cheek. One MP claimed £135 to hire an electrician to "change the lightbulbs" in his house. Which, if nothing else, proves one thing: Politicians might be thieving b******s but they've got nothing on the real experts - tradesmen.

Ann Widdecombe has claimed the crackdown was going too far, saying: "It is becoming a competition that 'my shirt is hairier than yours'." If anyone is hairier, with or without a shirt, it's got to be Ann Widdecombe. If this expenses scandal gets any worse, they'll be digging a moat around Parliament.

Mr Hogg also paid £600 for someone to kill his moles. What was he killing them with? An Apache helicopter? The list of what MPs have claimed expenses for is incredible.

Tampons, horse manure, an ice cube tray, light bulbs and a chandelier. Coincidentally, those are the exact same items that Peter Andre has been offered in his divorce settlement.

Some MPs are still trying to justify the allowances system, saying that without it they would be forced to buy things using their salary. Last year, MPs were fighting against the disclosure of their second home expenses because they said it would be a risk to their security. It turns out it was a risk to the security of their overpaid jobs.

It was The Daily Telegraph that printed MPs' expense claims and its readers were furious. They have to pay for their own tennis courts, chandeliers and clean moats. One Tory showed she was still in touch with the public. Cheryl Gillian claimed £4.47 for cat food. Which is now the average British shopping list.

Oliver Letwin made a huge claim to have his "tennis courts modified". Judging by his multiple chins this means "fitted with a fridge". What I'd like to know is if MPs can claim for all those things, then what aren't they allowed to claim for? Chocolate fountains? Cream horns? Golden baths? Or are all those sexual practices allowed, too? The big news is the suspension of Elliott Morley. I think I'm with the general public when I say Elliott Who? Morley has been stripped of his role as international climate change envoy. Just as well, as his solution to climate change was for a second Earth about 100 miles away from the old one..

I.D cards

Id cards are to be made available from post offices. Fantastic! The queue in there already takes an hour and people are only buying stamps.

What's it going to be like when they're scanning irises and taking DNA swabs? The queue will be so long it will be quicker to have a letter delivered by passing it back along the line until it gets to your destination.

There are a lot of practicalities about the ID card scheme the Government don't seem have taken onboard. For example, how are they going to get fingerprints off people from Bicester? It's going to take at least a couple of hundred thousand years for their hooves to evolve that far.

Brings me out in a rasher

I'm not feeling as gloomy as usual this week as I've been able to get a whole train carriage to myself just by sneezing and wearing a sombrero. Gordon Brown says Britain is one of the best-prepared countries to handle a flu pandemic, which is especially reassuring after he said we were one of the bestprepared countries to handle the worldwide recession. The first confirmed case of swine flu in my area (Oxfordshire) was diagnosed this week. The good news is that Oxford people might have to wear face masks. Something I've been petitioning for many years.

Thousands of people have cancelled there holiday to Mexico to avoid catching the virus. If I'd spent any time at all in Mexico and all I came back with was swine flu, I'd be delighted. My doctor would be saying: "The good news, Mr McGowan, is you've got swine flu. The bad news is you've got gonorrhea, dysentery, hepatitis B, alcohol poisoning and you seem to have been shot in the spine." Most cases have occurred in villages containing massive pig farms. What are they moaning about? I would have thought having a blocked nose for them would feel like a two-week holiday.

The whole country is terrified they will be killed by this. The biggest killer in the UK is heart disease. And yet we're all sitting at home on our sofas eating KFC, too scared to go outside for some exercise in case we bump into a sneezing pig.

I'll say no more.

GRRRRRR

Just when it looked like Gordon Brown couldn't get any more politically inept, he's found a way. Having spent hundreds of billions trying to prop up the economy, you'd think paying the comparatively tiny amount that it would cost to allow ex-Gurkhas to settle in the UK would be a political choice preferable to telling some war heroes and Joanna Lumley to piss off.

I mean, even ignoring justice, what was he thinking? Has he got a very early start the day after the next election and so wants to make sure the result is confirmed by midnight?

What's his next move going to be - changing his name by deed poll to Mussolini?

When the heartaches are Special K

For many years now, my palate has been trying to kill me. In the end, it's bound to succeed. But it won't look like murder - it'll be ascribed to something apparently innocent, like "heart disease", "type 2 diabetes" or "exhaustion due to lifting mince pies". In reality, it will have been slow poisoning.

Everything my mouth tells me about what foods do to my body is a lie. If it screams: "Yes! Devour! Consume! More of this please! This is the very stuff of life itself!", it means I'm eating a Stilton and streaky bacon sandwich, deep fried in goose fat and served in a bucket of double cream. If it's saying: "Oh no, there's something wrong here - you might want to spit this out. Are you sure this is even food?", it's because I'm struggling through a salad.

I do eat some fruit and vegetables, but out of grim duty because I believe the people who've told me it's necessary - I have come to recognise my taste buds' malevolent purpose - but without that "finish your greens" tutoring, I would happily eat three meals of carcinogenic cholesterol a day, because that's the only sort of grub that genuinely feels to me like nourishment.

At least I can ignore all those conflicting scientific reports, saying that blueberries are or aren't superfoods, salmon gives you or cures cancer, cheese enhances scepticism or wheat is a sign of intolerance. I say let's stand the scientists down. I can tell everyone exactly what foods are good or bad for them: I love the latter and think the former taste like shit. (Metaphorically - I can only assume, given that eating excrement is very bad for you, that to me it would be ambrosia.) It's a useful skill, I suppose. But I'm not letting my palate off the hook - it still means me harm, even if it hasn't mastered reverse psychology.

So I was interested by last week's news that breakfast cereals are delicious. I'd assumed the opposite: advertising vitamins, minerals and slow-release energy, they sounded as mouthwatering as a cream cracker-eating race and so I hadn't eaten any for years. But it seems the manufacturers were being modest.

A survey of 100 cereals by Which? found that 31 had more than four teaspoons of sugar in them per bowl and many contained more sugar than a helping of Tesco's dark chocolate fudge brownie ice cream, while 100g of Tesco Special Flakes have the same salt content as Walkers ready-salted crisps.

They sound like a delicious treat after all, I thought to myself, and so much more convenient than frying eggs and bacon. Just add milk and my indulgent delicacy is ready. So I went out and bought myself a variety pack, opened a nice bottle of wine and tucked in.

It's sludge. They all turn to sludge. They start off a bit crunchy, which is fine, but then they go soft and gooey - and not in a nice way like caramel or egg yolk, but more like slurry or milk after a summer in the sun. The taste isn't actually horrible - all that sugar and salt must help a bit - but it's throwing good after bad. Ludicrously tasty it isn't.

What is ludicrous is that something that has the advantages of delicious killer ingredients uses them to such little effect. It's the first time in years that eating something bad for me has failed to hit the spot. It was as depressing as KFC chips; this, I thought to myself, is no way to die.

No wonder the manufacturers had to pretend the cereals were healthy. And they certainly taste healthy enough for people to believe it. You don't feel you need to check the ingredients for dangerous goodies when there's a party in your mouth but no one's brought a bottle.

How did we become a nation of breakfast cereal eaters? Does the gruelling nature of consuming it appeal to a sort of neo-Christian urge to self-harm? Is it like mortification of the flesh - we assume it's virtuous because it's unpleasant?

If so, we've created a huge market for a weird product that isn't good for us and is nowhere near as nice as toast. Even toast with margarine and diabetic jam is like a night alone in a cake shop compared with a bowl of All-Bran. I was given All-Bran a few times as a child on the basis that it keeps you regular. Looking at it, I found that plausible.

Breakfast is often called "the most important meal of the day" but it must be the least important. No other meal would be given over to mass-manufactured dried and reconstituted shards of shit knows what that you have to moisten in order to be able to swallow. They don't sell lunch cereals that you add gravy to.

I would rather leave my early-morning hunger unsated than have it die such an inglorious death; to be suppressed, rather than assuaged, by sludgy brown flakes. I mean, "flakes" for goodness sake! It sounds like a dermatological symptom. You might as well call them scabs: "Kellogg's Bran-Scabs - never has so much sugar been so effectively suppressed by the bland illusion of roughage!"

There are breakfast cereals that don't contain loads of salt or sugar, but they taste even worse. People try to jazz them up with fruit or yoghurt. It never works - they'd be better off deep frying the stuff and serving it with a mayonnaise dip. Now there's a tasty delivery mechanism for riboflavin.