GADAFFI SANE – ‘IN COMPARISON TO BLAIR’

Events in North Africa are moving so quickly at the moment that all of this may seem like some quaint historic document by the time you read it. At the time of writing, Gadaffi is still holding on to power. Watching the last gasps of Gadaffi’s regime is a bit like watching videos of the Rolling Stones on their last world tour. The guy really is a bit like Keith Richards but with slightly less grasp on reality. But with guns and fighter jets. And while the World will be safer without him, it will be a lot less colourful. I reckon what led many people being duped into thinking Gaddaffi might be sane was the fact that most recent photos showed him posing with Tony Blair. Let’s face it, most people are going to look fairly normal when they’re sat next to that grinning, God-bothering nut-job.

David Cameron was quick to condemn the Libyan leader for using his vast armoury on his own people. We should maybe have a word about that before we sold him all those arms in the first place.

Many of the recent uprisings in North Africa have been organised on Facebook and Twitter. In Tunisia in particular, young people used social networking to organise and spread information. Bit different from the UK, where the major use of Twitter is to find out if Stephen Fry is having a cup of tea and a Hobnob.

Likewise, compare the reactions of those in power to peaceful protest. In Egypt, the people took to the streets in protest and Mubarak resigns. In Britain, people take to the streets in protest, Cameron says he’s staying for at least another four years, and tries to make it look like it’s all Nick Clegg’s fault.

And while the West rightly condemns regimes where the head of state is an unelected dynasty, handed down from father to son, it is still in Britain’s interests to do business with these states. And when dealing with regimes where power is handed down from father to son regardless of talent, who better at doing that business than Prince Andrew? He can be contacted on payment of a five-hundred grand fee to his ex-wife.
Sarah Ferguson, we are told, has been invited to neither of the two royal weddings in 2011. On that subject, I read that Kate Middleton is now the Western World’s top fashion icon ahead of Lady Gaga. But not as much fun. It would be highly entertaining if Kate turned up at Westminster Abbey dressed from head to toe in raw meat. The Duke of Edinburgh would probably shoot her.

There has been much speculation about how, as a commoner, Kate will adapt to life in the Royal Family. Her father used to be aircraft cabin crew, which means he’s probably a gay man in the closet. So joining the Royal family should make her feel quite right at home.

Violent unrest this spring was not solely confined to North Africa. To Scotland’s shame, the fifth Celtic v Rangers game this season saw possibly the most disgusting outbreak of sanctimonious drivel from press, police and politicians in Scotland. You expect it from the Daily Record, but politicians should know better. According to Annabel Goldie, the Old Firm game is a major cause of domestic violence. Hardly likely to stand up in a court of law:

“Your honour, I admit I did slap the wife about on the night of Wednesday 2 March, but in mitigation it was all a result of the fracas in the dug-out between Neil Lennon and Ally McCoist”

This is similar to the complete bollocks that David Cameron came up with, where he blamed multiculturalism for racist attacks. I may be naïve, but I had always assumed that racism was to blame for racist attacks.

This year to date there have been five Old Firm games, and major trouble at one of them. For politicians to blame all of Scotland’s social ills on the behaviour of certain players in one game of football is a most ludicrous example of shifting the blame. This season there will be seven Rangers v Celtic games. If in any given period between August and May there were to be only seven days on which incidents of drunkenness, sectarian violence and domestic abuse occurred in the West of Scotland this would be trumpeted as progress.

As for the incidents that happened on the pitch, it really only was a matter of time before the timebomb that is El Haji Diouf was going to detonate. In his first month in Scottish football, the Senegalese player had appeared uncharacteristically well-behaved, obviously making a conscious effort not to lose the plot. It was a bit like watching an alcoholic trying to stay on the wagon. He was bound to crack, eventually. Part of the entertainment was in the anticipation of it happening.

Diouf is a bit like the Gadaffi of Scottish football. Violent, volatile, dangerous, deeply unpleasant and mentally unsound. But life would be so much duller without him