Toilet Humour

For those of a delicate disposition I warn you that things are about to get moderately lavatorial.

As any fule kno the bog is pretty much the best place to read. Thus I keep three books in our downstairs facility. One is a book of bad jokes, another is an early edition of Brian Glanville's magisterial History of the World Cup, the third is Taking Sides, a thrift store purchase and being a collection of Bernard Levin's journalism. It is to Mr Levin that I must give credit for today's bons mots - a phrase of his accurately captures the phenomenon that I have encountered over two tortuous afternoons. Levin talks of mental sludge and we're drowning in the wretched stuff.

This is, I have realised, the very apex of the season of mental sludge. It is party conference time. Yesterday was that unbearable git Ed Balls; today was the uber-weird Ed Miliband. Next week it will be Citizen Dave and the Boy George. Do you sometimes wonder if democracy isn't all it's cracked up to be?

But Balls first. Now Balls attended both Oxford and Harvard so we can pretty safely assume that he is quite clever. Which begs the question, why oh why did he presume to deliver such an intellectually lumpen heap of pudding-brained drivel? Does he really think that such crap can enlighten any intelligent audience? No, dear reader, he does not - the only people he wants to engage inhabit the floating centre of a few marginal constituencies. The rest of us can go hang.

As for Miliband, well he managed to say the word 'together' fifty-three times in his pile of platitudinous pap. Fifty-three effing times. We get it Ed. And the bogey men he fingered for our supposed ills? Well, the usual suspects - tax avoiders, fag manufacturers and owners of mansions. The current politburo speak is to drone on about those with the 'broadest shoulders' bearing more of the load. This is lazy insufferable twaddle. And next week we will hear more of the same  ... but different. Sod the lot of them.  A truly frightening conclusion.