The Wardman Wire

Great North Pun

Steve “The New Murray Walker” Cram doing his usual witty and incisive commentary on the Great North Run, giving full value for his fee and simultaneously educating that athletic ignoramus Brendan Foster:

“The reason he has such a big lead, Brendan, is that he has been running very quickly indeed”.

Catflaps ‘R’ Us

Independent on Sunday Gossip (they call it “Comment”):

“Karl Lagerfeld: A weird old man in a ludicrous getup”.

said Janet Street-Porter, the walking, talking definition of “weird old woman in a ludicrous getup”. She’ll be moving into the Reliant Robin just as soon as the catflap has been fitted.

Mandy Pandy Pudding and Pie

David Cameron interview on the Politics Show yesterday.

Question: Is it not true that in the Conservative Party, a “Mandelson” is defined as the time interval between meeting Peter Mandelson, and him being rude about Gordon Brown?

David Cameron: “Yes”.

Ouch. It is worth noting that David Cameron avoided the question until the specific and direct statement. My opinion is that he needs to sharpen his claws, as Peter Mandelson’s firm reentry back into the tent means that New Labour’s box of dirty tricks is fully back with us and operational. They’ve never gone away, but the difference is that people who get in the way will now be shafted thoroughly and competently - journalists will be bullied, “plausibly deniable” briefings will “emerge”, and straight lies will become much more common - starting with Mandelson’s denial of the statements made to George Osborne and so many other people.

Gossip time.

Enemy Infiltration. Demon Eyes.

Corker.

Presumably David Cameron will now have heard of A Hilton Esq for perhaps the first time.

Political Hairdo Lotto

In DC’s defence, slightly bouffant hairdos of short-people at eye-level can make candidates eminently forgettable. For example, the selection below the fold.

Derek Draper is the leader of Labour’s new rebuttal unit. I went looking for his blog and couldn’t find it. Anyone who can’t engage in conversation and is dealing with blogs is likely to end up with a case of “Japanese students on bikes for the first time in their lives going round a traffic island the wrong way looking like Martians” syndrome.

Not having a blog, Dolly cannot engage in conversation and rebut this post in blog-fashion, nor can I tell him it exists because there is nowhere to ping. Ah, well.

Derek, if you find this post and want to rebut it as you do have a blog - or even post-prebut it with a changed story on an earlier timestamp somewhere else after the fact (we learnt some lessons the first time round !) - please leave a comment below under your real name from Labour HQ, and I’ll be delighted to update my article to be a self-post-buttal of my pre-emptive-butt-all due to your after the fact post-prebuttal.

If you switch the focus from one-way rebuttal to two-way debate and dialogue, you’ll get an enthusiastic welcome (nearly) everywhere - and you are welcome to Guest Post here.

OK?

Cleggover with an Iain Dale tie (then) plays Much Better (now)

Purely in the spirit of being a nasty, vindictive blogger targetting the Mainstream Media because nonsense is sometimes published about “bloggers”, I can report that in the 10 Editorial Days from 19 September 2008 to 30 September 2008 the corrections column of the Guardian contained no fewer than 41 separate items, which comes to around a thousand a year if you multiply it up.

I should note that:

• Some of these are gorgeous spelling errors or typos: “Ordnance Survey, not the Ordinance Survey“, “Mike Harding, not Mark Harding“, “A glotteral stop“.
• Some are funny (and the corrections correspondent has a sense of humour): “It’s not a hospital, but a school for boys, although it did once provide the venue for an episode of Casualty “.
• One looks actionable: “We apologise for unfairly failing to give her an adequate opportunity to respond and for making inaccurate personal references about her.”
• There are a couple of absolute howlers: “Margaret Thatcher was MP for Finchley, not Grantham. She was born and brought up in Grantham.”
• It can take days to publish a correction.
• I am using the Guardian purely because they make the information available in an easily accessible form.
• These corrections are - presumably - ones reported, and do not include columns or articles based on incorrect facts, a vivid imagination or gibberish.

It is almost five months since I retired George Gallohasbeen from the role on this blog equivalent to the Fool in a Morris Dancing Troup (OK: “side”), who adds to general mirth by simply making an appearance.

I have been looking for a replacement, and I think I have found one in the person of Paul Flynn, MP for Newport West.

Paul has come out with the following:

J.K Rowling has sprinkled some stardust over the Labour’s campaign and a very useful £1million. For once we have got the presentation right. Here is the authentic voice of a struggling single mother who benefited from Labour’s policies. Her gift also highlights the vindictive spiteful moralising of the Tories.

I can’t resist this, and I have to run it now in case Europe loses the Ryder Cup. The Shredding of Phil Mickelson:

The 28-year-old rookie from Mansfield, who scraped into the team as an automatic qualifier, has had to put up with references to his winless career on the European Tour, nailed the kind of triumph that many a champion would kill for. A long, match-winning putt for birdie on the 17th green saw off Phil Mickelson and Anthony Kim.

Mansfield continues to be the UK’s unchallenged capital of sport:

Oliver Wilson joined Rebecca Adlington in the pantheon of Mansfield sporting greats yesterday when he sealed the final automatic place in the Ryder Cup team.

Photo: Clusterflock. For some reason the Daily Mirror can’t bring itself to print the picture of a male golfer when a blonde can be linked to the story. As Becky B might say: “What, with these shoulders?”. Oh well.

Here’s the button: