Playing sardines

There's nothing women like more in a man than warmth, intelligence and humour. So when wannabe novelist Tony Parsons told the Portuguese Ambassador to keep his 'sardine-munching mouth shut' his walk back from the pub must have looked like the chase scenes from A Hard Day's Night.
But despite his obvious charms, no fewer than 485 people grassed Parsons up to the Press Complaints Commission.
I think we can be fairly certain that Kate McCann wasn't one of them. Yet how blooming she looked on her recent tour of the Low Countries, and how tasty the talented Mr Parsons looks in photographic reproduction (in his case the only sort the Croc can bear to think about). Has Tony discovered the health benefits of little oily fish? Is the true reason Kate refuses to return to Portugal a deficit in the barbeque arrangements?
Is this new wonder diet their guilty secret?

cheap at half the rice

Rice is in the news this week. Mindful of its mission to educate and inform, the BBC held a Rice Day to tell us how poor people are coping with huge jumps in the price of their staple foodstuff.
There are even helpful FAQs to explain why "prices are increasing sharply for some of the most basic foodstuffs traded on international commodity markets". Who or what is to blame? Everything from historically low prices to global warming and ethanol production. Oh and the greedy Chinese, who are not only persecuting the Tibetans, but have the effrontery to sell us container loads of plastic toys and buy cheeseburgers with the proceeds. But surely that means they're eating less rice, not more? Why are there riots in Haiti and not outside MacDonalds in Milton Keynes? Well the Chinese dinners thing is a red herring. The real problem is that they're keeping domestic rice prices down by cutting their exports. Other Asian countries are doing the same.
And there, surely, is the real story.
It's there in those three words - international commodity markets. Demand for rice is outstripping supply. Some farmers are hoarding it. Shoppers are buying a bit extra to keep in the back of the cupboard. Market forces dictate that prices will rise. But the market which really matters isn't in anyone's village or High Street, it's the global market, where commodity prices are determined not only by how much is produced and consumed, but by tariffs, protectionism - and speculation.
Speculation, as Money Week unblushingly reminds us, can make you lots and lots of money. But if profiteering while the poor starve makes you feel a bit sick, don't worry. They'll also tell you 'how to make a fortune from the Chinese water crisis'.
I hope I haven't put you off your dinner.

I learned something today

Oh all right then. Here is a 'fun' croc shooting game, for people who like 'fun' croc shooting games.
By the way the croc-murderer in the basket isn't a donkey, it's a water buffalo, as if you care.
I googled 'carabao' but I could have saved a couple of calories by saying it out loud instead.
Did you know that crocodiles kill their prey by getting in a line and pushing rocks over a cliff? Neither did I. But then until a couple of years ago I didn't know that it was OK to drive tanks into other people's countries, bomb the sh*t out of them, and fill the papers with a load of scary crap to justify it all. Stap me, I had this crazy idea that millions of people fought a world war over that one, within living memory too.
Now of course I know better. We have so much to be grateful for.

easily distracted

Blogger asked me to give a location. 'United States Outlying Islands' caught my eye, but 'Vatican' truly was tempting. Who blogs from the Vatican? Correct. Allegedly.
This was of course a distraction - and distractions seems to me a good thing to have on a blog, especially since the blog is a distraction in the first place.
So the first of my favourite distractions is...Pope Pez.

reptile of the week

the blog is not about shooting actual crocodiles. it takes its title from management-speak: in order to get through your problems you need to shoot the crocodile nearest the boat.
that's not true of course. sometimes you need to shoot the crocodiles in the queue, because you know you won't get time to reload.