Monday
Like most people, I assume, I had always thought the Remembrance Sunday service at the Cenotaph was a time to think of those who died in the two world wars and later armed conflicts. It turns out that Richard Tice, the deputy leader of Reform, sees it differently. I was listening to Dicky being interviewed on the Jeremy Kyle show on TalkTV – yes, I know, I’ve only myself to blame – when suddenly he went into a tirade on the BBC’s coverage of the service. His principal complaint was that Nigel Farage had not been given enough air time, though he later morphed into a rant about antisemitism. I never did quite work out how the two were meant to be linked. I’m sure the BBC will reflect seriously on this lapse of judgment in its debrief of the programme and will next year have several cameras trained on Nige throughout the service. It should be renamed: “A Nation Mourns with Nigel.”
On the subject of rethinking the ceremony, it could now be time to dispense with the tradition of inviting every former prime minister. We’re now up to nine, and it’s more a roll call of shame than of honour. The idea of seeing Liz Truss in the lineup for the next 30 or 40 years is likely to give some of us PTSD. Those who can remember who she is. There will come a time when even Liz won’t remember why she’s there. But it says something that Liz wasn’t even the biggest embarrassment. That fell to Boris Johnson, looking as if he’d just got out of bed. He couldn’t have made less effort if he had tried. A shambles of disrespect. If he had been a former Labour prime minister, the rightwing press would have had a field day.
Tuesday
We have a new dog. Stella, a five-year-old cockapoo, whom we adopted 10 days ago. It was love at first sight. She seems to enjoy all the things we like doing, she can walk off the lead on Tooting Bec Common and she is already a firm favourite at the local cafe. She is adorable, loves a snuggle and is sitting next to me as I write, every now and then giving me a nudge with her nose. We found Stella thanks to those of you who read this column. Back in the summer, I wrote about how there was a dog-shaped hole in our lives. How we were finally ready to love again after the death of our beloved Herbert Hound in April last year. But there were many obstacles. We knew we couldn’t get a puppy, as Jill’s illness and my job meant we just wouldn’t be able to devote the necessary time to training her properly. And we also knew we wanted another cockapoo because that was what Herbie had been.
To cap it all, we didn’t want a dog that had had a tough life and might be emotionally scarred: again, our lives were complicated enough. Now try finding an adult cockapoo who has come from a loving home. You can’t. No one wants to part with their cockapoo. However, one couple emailed me to say that they were heartbroken that their family circumstances had changed, and they were reluctantly looking for a new home for Stella. I would love to name them and thank them here for the trust they have shown in us by giving us something so precious. But they may not want to be identified. So from Jill and me, a huge anonymous thank you.
Wednesday
It’s probably not the most politically correct response to a man who has been found guilty of eight counts of fraud by misrepresentation and one count of fraud by a failure to disclose, but I can’t help having a sneaking admiration for Kashim Chowdhury. We hear so much these days about people claiming benefits and unable to find work, yet here we have a man who – at one point in 2023 – held no fewer than five full-time public sector jobs at the same time. That makes him borderline Stakhanovite.
It goes without saying that Chowdhury did this by mainly working from home – even he couldn’t manage to be in five places at the same time. But even so. Quite how he got away with working simultaneously for Defra, the Department of Health, the UK Health Security Agency, the Department for Business and Trade and the Food Standards Agency is a mystery. Maybe Chowdhury was just one of those people you find in most organisations, usually in a side office. No one can remember quite what it is he is meant to be doing but everyone is too polite to ask, so they leave him alone to get on with doing what he does best. Which in Chowdhury’s case, is getting another job. You can only imagine that he is an absolute ace at job applications. Gets called for an interview every time and knows how to charm AI and real people. Can sound convincing when he insists that his greatest strength is as a team player. Someone prepared to go the extra mile. Who will work all hours. Even if that work is somehow doing no work. It does make you wonder if any government agency actually took up his references. “Mr Chowdhury hasn’t been seen for a while … though he appears to be an expert multi-tasker.” It seems that Chowdhury is facing a prison sentence. Let’s see how many jobs he wangles for himself inside.
Thursday
Most cricket fans will remember when the Australian Cameron Bancroft was caught on TV tampering with the ball during the third Test against South Africa in Cape Town in 2018. It was the biggest cricketing scandal of the century. The captain and vice-captain, Steve Smith and David Warner, were sent home in disgrace along with Bancroft and were suspended from cricket for 12 months. Bancroft got a nine-month suspension. After serving his time, Smith has been a virtual ever-present in the national side ever since. His tear-stained press conference long since conveniently forgotten. Until now. The Australian opening batter Usman Khawaja has now given his version of the events in his autobiography – and they don’t square with the one the governing body Cricket Australia (CA) would have had us believe for the past eight years. Far from being a one-off aberration, he says, the ball-tampering was done with the knowledge of the whole team and had been used in previous Tests. (On Friday the Australia Test captain Pat Cummins described Khawaja’s claims as “complete and utter nonsense” and “100% wrong”.)
We have been told the tampering was all a mystery to the bowlers, and that they hadn’t noticed that the ball they had been using five minutes previously had changed shape. Strange. Every bowler should know the exact condition of the ball. It’s literally their job. But maybe CA wanted to minimise reputational damage and avoid suspending key players from future matches? Maybe that’s not the question. Will we see CA bluff this one out and hope the scandal goes away? Or will it suspend the rest of the team for a year? More importantly, will it look into whether the rest of the team lied about their involvement? Don’t hold your breath.
Friday
One of the pleasures of doing live shows is the questions from the audience. Several times now, I have been asked what essentials I would like to stockpile. Something I had never previously given much thought, having been a child in the 60s when you used to get government information films instructing you to sit under the kitchen table in the event of a nuclear attack. Even to my 10-year-old mind, that seemed like an exercise in futility. But now we have moved on and it makes some kind of sense to have a small stash of essentials to get you through a cyber-attack.
Sea levels are going to have to change massively for Tooting to be submerged by floods. Apart from water and some tinned tuna – the nice stuff from Ortiz, not the ones that taste like cat food – and tinned peaches, what I really would like is something to keep me entertained. I’m guessing if we’re in the middle of a national emergency then all football will be postponed. Currently, that counts as a blessing, as Spurs’ prime purpose in life is to torture me. So it must be a book. I don’t fancy M John Harrison’s Booker-winning The End of Everything. A publishing friend says it’s a book that creeps up on you on third reading, but I’m not sure I want to read the same book three times inside a week. On the other hand, I am loving Luke Kennard’s Black Bag. That should do it. And if you want to ask me anything else, there are still a handful of tickets left for my last show of the year at the Huntingdon Hall, Worcester on 26 November. Please come along.
Digested week in pictures
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