News From Cornwall

Hoping to escape the media attention I’ve been attracting in London, I thought I’d come down here to Cornwall where life is more relaxed and we’re all free to suck our moonshine popsicles in the front seats of the tractors that we regularly drive/plough through the quiet village squares/ponds.

Metaphorically, I’m also ‘in Cornwall’ in regards to my communicating with the virtual world. I’ve had so many emails complimenting me for my ‘beautiful daughter’ that I’ve decided to put a moratorium on replies, in addition to the usual block on people asking me to read their novels, short stories, poems, sign their pots and mugs, or contribute funds to good wellbeing of Iberian donkeys. To put it bluntly: it’s become too much and I’m calling a time out until people read my blog more carefully and begin understand what ‘The Richard Madeley Appreciation Society’ is really about.

I suppose too that ‘celebrity’ finally has me beat. Out there is an insane world full of raging vanity and even more raging stupidity. I want no more part of it. As I cast my eye over the news today, from the weighty to the frivolous, my suspicions are confirmed: you’re all mad! Or at least as mad as a morning spent with Colonel Gaddafi’s hair stylist.

This morning’s news is headed by the announcement that Ken Livingstone is getting married at a zoo. There’s no word yet on whether schoolchildren will be able to watch any part of the mating ritual from across the safety of a concrete moat, but this will no doubt come as a relief to the teachers who’d thought they’d had it tough explaining biology when the baboons got frisky.

Meanwhile, the courts have decided how Michael Jackson memorabilia should be marketed, despite the protests of his still grieving mother who wanted the process to be ‘competitively bid’. Nothing says grief quite like a mother making tough business decisions from behind a sodden handkerchief.

The so called ‘Toxic Waste Ship’ has returned to the UK. Unhappy that the gig was over so quickly, Peter Andre promises to ‘cruise again’ in the near future.

Victoria Beckham won't eat on airplanes because she’s she wants to keep her weight down. As part of a carbon offset scheme, she’ll also be planting tubs of watercress each time she’s crosses the Atlantic.

Simon Cowell has been attacked for exploiting contestants on ‘X Factor’ and ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. A performers' rights union aims to end the use of non-paid talent on the shows, though there’s no word yet on the use of paid non-talents.

A Tory MP has apologised for making a sexist joke. This unusual move was prompted by complaints from within his party that he hadn’t made a sexist racist joke mocking the NHS and unemployed homosexual French sheep.

Lindsay Lohan was involved in a heated row in a New York City delicatessen. After losing her phone at the deli, she later went back to claim it back but grew angry when she could not prove that the phone belonged to her. Staff explained they didn’t know who she was. If it’s any consolation to deli staff everywhere, I have absolutely no idea who Lindsay Lohan is either. I thought she was Xena: Warrior Princess.

‘Legendary director Tarantino is back’. ‘Legendary’ is a word that publicists often use to confuse Joe Public, here in the hope they’ll forget that Tarantino has only made two really decent movies: ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Jackie Brown’.

‘Legendary’ directors the Wayans Brothers are also back, with their latest comedy, ‘Dance Flick’. Already rated 2.9 on the Internet Movie Database, the film is the subject of frantic betting that it will reach the critical heights of ‘Little Man’ which scored 3.4. (N.B. ‘Legendary’ here is a word that I use to remind Joe Public that the brothers have never made a really decent movie.)

X-Men director, Bryan Singer, is to remake John Boorman's ‘Excalibur’, the story of Arthur, the legendary King of the Britons. (N.B. ‘Legendary’ here is a word that I use to remind Joe Public that King Arthur was probably American, chisel-jawed and had a highly lucrative sponsorship deal with Burger King.)

Meanwhile, back in the world of significant things that we should really care about: Colonel Gaddafi was grinning like an X Factor judge as he welcomed ‘legendary’ Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi into the next round of the ever popular game show ‘No Deal or Deal Involving Swapping Murderers For International Trade’. He thanked everybody from Prince Andrew to Gordon Brown for freeing the man found guilty of killing 270 people over Lockerbie. (N.B. ‘Legendary’ here is a word that I use to remind Joe Public that the scale of this man's crime cannot be understated.)

The release comes only weeks after Ronnie Biggs was set free, much to the disgust of the tabloids that previously earned millions off his infamy. Biggs was found guilty of smug and arrogant behaviour after escaping from Wandsworth Prison in 1965. In Brazil, in the 1960s and 70s, he routinely adopted funny hats and t-shirts. The fact that nobody actually died at the hands of the Great Train Robbers mocks the system of compassionate release which was clearly intended for use by people who have murdered 200 people or more. Who next? Tax dodgers or OAPs refusing to pay their council tax? I find it disgusting.

Hand me some more of that moonshine. I’ve got a tractor to drive in an erratic fashion.

***

And on a personal note: I’ve had an email from Elberry who tells me that he has deleted his blog. I’ve always been as envious of Elberry’s bravery as I have of his intelligence and willingness to post pictures of woman in various states of undress. May he find freedom beneficial to both his spirit and his bank balance.