John Prescott dead in the water

There is little scope for scoops here in Oxford, but I thought I had one the other day when I came across John Prescott floating on his side in the Oxford Canal.

With flabby, pallid, bare flesh, blotchy skin, a little cocktail sausage beneath a bloated belly, dull, round eyes and his mouth open, he looked like an obese dead fish. I looked more closely – it was a dead fish.

If I had any scruples about portraying the former Deputy Prime Minister as a dead fish (and I don’t, at all) they disappeared when a photograph in the Times this morning reminded me that Prescott had once compared Peter Mandelson to a rather ugly crab. They were both, notionally at least, on the same side – indeed, I think Mandelson was on one of his probation periods in the Cabinet at the time. Prescott cannot complain if the same is done to him.

By the way, the slug-like thing where Prescott keeps his little sausage is not the result of Photoshop artistry. It was really there.

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Prescott and the cocktail sausage

The top right hand corner of page 4 of Thursday’s Times had a short piece about John Prescott – Two Planks Prescott as he is known – who is withdrawing from his Hull constituency at the next election.

Immediately abutting it, in the top left hand column of page 5, was a story about an old man from the north, someone much younger, and an incident involving a cocktail sausage. I am sure there is some connection between these stories but I can’t quite bring it to mind. Perhaps a chemical stimulant of some kind would help get it up there.

Gordon Brown is rather devious

I heard this snippet as I passed an old couple out for a walk this evening. Gordon Brown is rather devious the man said. I have no idea what the context was – perhaps there wasn’t one, maybe she had just said “a penny for your thoughts” and he said the most obvious thing which came into his head.

It is a nice piece of English understatement though, more subtle than the hackneyed ones about the Pope being a Catholic or as to what bears do in the woods. Gordon Brown is rather devious. A host of other examples come to mind.

• Tony Blair is less than honest
• Jade Goody is a little uncultivated
• The Health & Safety officer was fairly cautious
• Caroline Flint is not uninterested in influencing your lifestyle
• The traffic warden was less than understanding
• The Equalities and Diversity officer did not really focus on the opposite viewpoint
• The highways officer was a little slow to grasp the point
• that is not very clever, John Prescott
• Patricia Hewitt did not find it easy to face the challenges of her responsibilities
• Hazel Blears can be a little annoying

And so on. It begins to sound like those tactful obituaries where a wealth of criticism is lightly buried behind a muted phrase, so that “He did not suffer fools gladly” means he was a domineering bully.

Gordon Brown is rather devious. Someone ought to offer a prize for understatement of the year.

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Yvette Cooper cries “Pax” over flood-plains

Housing Minister Yvette Cooper is pressing ahead with plans to build thousands more houses on flood-plains. The proposals came out in a week when half the south of England was under water. The government is not entirely to blame for all the damage, but it cannot be denied that thousands of homes were ruined either because they were recently built on flood plains or because their neighbours’ houses now stood on land which used to absorb rainwater.

Gordon Brown Weather

It has rained almost continuously since Tony Blair announced the date for his departure and Gordon Brown’s succession was ensured. An augury, I think, for what we can expect now that this unpleasant man is Prime Minister.

In the days of the late Queen Victoria, fine weather was called “Queen’s Weather” because (according to the 1894 edition of Brewer’s Phrase and Fable) the sun usually shone when Her Majesty appeared in public. It seems wholly apt that the misanthrope Brown should bring down storms, floods and just perpetual greyness on us.