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Opinion polls: Love Them or Hate Them or Don't Know or Other, there are an enormous number of them around at the moment.
This is, unusually, due to the upcoming elections for the European Parliament. I say "unusually" because Euro elections typically register no higher on the public-interest-o-meter than, say, the opening of a refurbished branch of Shoe Zone.
This year matters are different, thanks largely to the spectacle of a Government on its last legs.
And I really mean last legs: I mean having to roll its trouser tubes up and pin them to its buttocks-style last legs.
Suddenly the European elections are a hotly anticipated upcoming event, with talk of Graham Norton taking over coverage duties from David Dimbleby, a red button drone-along-a-returning-officer option and a follow-up European Elections Confidential programme on BBC3 hosted by Nick Knowles (or a sausage skin stuffed with lint, if they want to go for a presenter with a bit more charisma).
So, never ones to forgo kicking a man when he's so down he's bumped his nose on the Earth's core, the papers have been gleefully publishing the mathematical details of Gordon Brown's predicted trowelling at the ballot box.
However, these opinion polls make for disturbing reading.
It seems that now the expenses scandal has finally confirmed the long-held suspicion that MPs are dodgier than a daytime TV phone-in quiz, the public are turning their backs on mainstream parties in favour of those on the fringe. And to be frank, that fringe is wonkier than the one on a five-quid haircut.
The major beneficiaries of voter drift have been those intellectual powerhouses UKIP and the BNP - both living, frothing proof that you can stub your brain when attempting to think.
What does this show us? Possibly that it's all very well having a democracy but that it can be a bit disappointing when you see it in action.
But then we all knew that - democracy is, after all, based on the will of the people and as anyone who's listened to London Live knows, the will of some of the people could probably do with going through a couple more drafts before it's ready for a public outing.
More likely, though, I think that it just shows us there's a dearth of dangerously loopy, populist tubthumpers in the political red corner.
There used to be as many of them as there were combinations of the words "party", "socialist" and "workers": the Socialist Workers' Party, the Party of Working Socialists, the Workers' Party (Socialist) to name but three. We need their modern equivalents to restore balance to our New Politics.
So today I am announcing the launch of a new party: Militain't, a sort of Militant Lite for the modern age - same crazy views but with me instead of Degsy Hatton, a new flexi-demo system to help enable today's busy activist to get the agit-prop/life balance right, and the very real possibility of rejecting the euro in favour of the rouble if we get in.
It's what democracy was meant for. Join us.
• I know that ground has been broken on Crossrail now and that the Olympics do need a bit of getting ready for, but as a seasoned user of TfL's services, it seems to me that each weekend's planned engineering works and service alterations are ever more Byzantine and faffy than the last.
Take this coming weekend: there will be no service on every second carriage of the District and Circle line, and Hammersmith station will be closed altogether to people who've never owned a dog.
The Metropolitan line will be operating a fancy dress-only policy and no Victoria line trains will stop at any stations with an "l" in the name.
Meanwhile, bus replacement service replacement services will be operating on all bus replacement services, and riverboats will be diverted via the Diana Memorial Fountain.
I'm only guessing here, clearly, but I bet I'm at least half right.
Art market lays a massive egg
I quite like modern art. Was there ever a mimsier cultural standpoint? I do, though - I quite like it.
But when push comes to being sold at auction for a vastly over-inflated price, I much prefer watching modern artists and their various acolytes and ancillaries getting into a bate. No one does consternation, fury and flapping about quite like a modern artnik.
Which is why I've so much enjoyed the hand-wringing about what this week's recession-steeped Sotheby's sale means for their brick-hard egos and capacious wallets.
Jeff Koons's massive, stainless-steel egg only fetched $5.4 million? Lawks! Arrange a bailout! Mind you, it was a silly time to sell it - those things always go for a reduced price after Easter, don't they?
Nul points for Eurovision
Eurovision is a big event in our house. Mrs A and I get the kids to bed early - ensuring slumber with the use of a wind-up Bucks Fizz music box - and settle down to our own special tapas made up of snacks from each of the countries: bitterballen for the Netherlands, dolmades for Greece, Wotsits for any countries whose names we can't pronounce and so on.
Imagine our distress, then, at sitting down to this year's contest only to discover that it wasn't rubbish.
What is the point of Eurovision if it's not rubbish? It's never going to be good, either, so all you get if it's not rubbish is three hours of flashy mediocrity - and if I'd wanted that I could have watched that Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull DVD someone inexplicably sent me.
Still, I'm not sure it was as impressive as the Russians were making out; at one point we were informed the set contained 30 per cent of all the LCD screens in the world. Big deal.
Stand in Soho long enough watching passing idiots bellowing into iPhones and you'll have seen the other 70 per cent before you know it.
Reader views (2)
- Tom Wilde, London
I agree, we need to extradite ourselves from the lunacy of a Federal Europe and return to a democratic Britain with fully accountable politicians.
- Frank, Home Counties, England., 22/05/2009 15:42
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Sorry Chris feels that UKIP are part of a lunatic fringe. Their defining policy - taking Britain out of the EU - is actually supported by a majority of the public according to a recent BBC poll. Therefore perhaps "lunatic majority" would be a more appropriate description than "lunatic fringe"?
- Tom Wilde, London, 20/05/2009 11:51
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