Falling Standards

According to a survey by Bath Spa University (which is one step below the Bath Londis University), the kind of dog a person owns reflects their personality. It said that owners of labradors are 'agreeable.'
I have a labrador. No we're not. Argument over.
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The paucity of decent female columnists - and there are notable exceptions - is ever more apparent when reading the Evening Standard. What was once a great paper for London is now a collection of stories about Boris Johnson and the latest back slapping charity campaign. Plus the editorial cure for insomnia, an interview by Mihir Bose.
Sarah Sands, who I once thought of as an intelligent writer, now peddles drivel for the paper. Tonight she sought to make an argument against arch atheists Stephen Fry and Richard Dawkins.
She'd been to see them in a debate on the existence of God. Naturally they were witty and urbane and logical. Unnaturally, her way of countering their argument was not.
In a nutshell, she tried to prove that God exists because of two TV programmes she had recently seen. A documentary on Leonardo da Vinci proved there is a God because so many of his paintings were holy and the sitcom Rev did so because, er, it was funny.
And that was it. That was the best she could come up with to try and prove there is an omnipotent being in charge of creation. A decent painter with a spiritual side and a decent sitcom about vicars.
I don't believe in God but I have spoken to and heard many people who make good arguments why I might be wrong. And for atheists to make their argument, they need a robust opposition because that encourages a better debate.
Poor old Sarah Sands does the theist cause no good at all. Nor her reputation come to that.
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There was once a sketch on Not the Nine O'Clock News where two politicians are insulting each other on a TV debate when one keels over and dies. The other immediately stops slagging him off and goes into a speech about what a wonderful MP the dead man was.
Mark Antony said something about the good men do oft gets interred with their bones. But not if you're an MP they don't. Oh no. When an MP dies all the sycophantic journos from the lobby line up to Tweet what a great bloke/woman they were, no matter what.
I've no doubt Alan Keen was a good bloke. He liked football, and not in the Tony 'I remember Jackie Milburn' Blair way either. He died too soon and was a great constituency MP somewhere in West London miles away from his Middlesbrough roots.
But while he may be remembered as a Boro scout and a keen player against the mainly public school XI of political journos, arguably his best known accomplishment while in office was to fiddle thousands of pounds of expenses on the public purse for him and his MP wife, Ann, to claim for a second home they never lived in.
They were known, not unkindly, as Mr and Mrs Expenses. So among all the praise, perhaps we shouldn't forget just how many of our 'decent' MPs had their hands in the till all those years.
For me, as a Labour supporter, I feel it is somehow worse when it's one of your own who does it.
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The more I take my son to his various sporting commitments, the more I can only admire the poor sods who run the various football and cricket teams, tennis clubs and swimming lessons for juniors.
Particularly football. Standing on the touchline, belting out tactics to a bunch of 12/13 year olds in the freezing cold, looks like hell to me. But having to deal with stroppy dads and stupid mums telling him what to do when they clearly have no idea, is a nightmare.
To all those dads who run teams, who fall out with other parents, who have to balance the hopes of all the kids, good and bad, not to mention balance the books, collect the fees, persuade one of us to run the line and bring the corner flags in, I salute you.
And no, I'm not going to to do it. It's bad enough running the line at football or trying to score at cricket without trying to acquire the patience of a saint, which I clearly don't have.
My attitude is to stand as far away from most of the other dads as possible and have a sneaky fag while they argue about whether or not to play five in the middle.
They think it's all over...it is now - Solly