Bernie the dolt

Yes we know it's raining. Yes we know there's a hosepipe ban (in the south). But no we don't need it repeating every single day by every single newspaper, Twitter account holder and television presenter, comedian and pundit. 'Some drought eh?' has become the most boring phrase in Britain.
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Bahrain is a bit like our weather. Part Sunni, part Shi'ite.
However, thanks to Bernie Ecclestone's relentless pursuit of adding a few million pounds to his multi billion pound bank account, we all know a bit more about the desert kingdom these days.
If it wasn't for Bernie, the tabloids would not be covering the problems of Bahrain in the way it has. Special mention for the Daily Mirror for a feature this week that explained the situation concisely and informatively. That's what tabloids can do when they try. And if the readers are bored, they're still never more than a couple of pages away from a Simon Cowell story.
You can say what you like about Cowell but when it comes to repulsive billionaires, he's no Bernie Ecclestone.
Of course, Bernie isn't doing it to highlight the injustice and anti-democracy violence in some faraway land. He reckons there's a lot of fuss whipped up by the media who don't really know what's going on.
He knows what's going on because the ruling family have shown him the nice quiet streets of the capital, Manama (now sing the Muppet song, doo doo doodoodoo).
Meanwhile, in the villages beyond the scope of Bernie's prune-faced glare, around 1,000 demonstrators have 'disappeared.' Often helped by Saudi tanks probably sold to them by, er, us.
You always know when you are dealing with a particularly nasty regime when you start to get statistics on the 'disappeared.' El Salvador, Pol Pot, Saddam, the Gulags, Ruanda - every great mass murdering dictatorship has been at it.
In Manama (doo doodoo doo), all you get are convoys of young men from Saudi Arabia driving to the brothels and bars of a country that is run on strict Middle East interpretations of Islam. That is, alcohol and adultery are illegal. Unless you are a rich Sheikh from across the border prepared to pump lots of money into the country. Or part of the US military which still hang out in the region.
So Formula One has educated us all about the state of play out there.
We should thank its midget bosses and jockey-sized drivers, their Pussycat Doll hangers on, the big name alcohol and cigarette companies desperate for the exposure and the fact that machines racing round a circuit attracts around a thousand times as many reporters as an Arab Spring uprising.
Quite why Bernie needs the money is not certain. He's already older than Mr Burns judging by the looks of him and he certainly doesn't spend it on haircuts.
The drivers say that sport has nothing to do with politics. One can only assume they are too young to have heard of apartheid. Or too stupid.
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I have deliberately not mentioned my day out at the FA Cup Semi Final up to now. However, what I would say, is that for a national sporting centrepiece, Wembley Stadium has the worst toilet facilities of any ground since Southampton knocked down the Dell.
And that adds to the other downsides such as the lack of atmosphere, the £6.50 burgers and £4.50 pints of beer and hour long wait to get on to a tube train.
Plus making the game a 6pm kick off to ensure that a good majority of the fans were drunk, abusive and more prone to violence (the family next to me walked out early after a rant too many from fans behind them.)
The queues for the gents was round the block a full hour before kick off. I didn't dare venture there at half time in case I missed the second half. Actually, perhaps that wasn't a bad option in retrospect.
Once inside the loos themselves it was chaos and there was no system of queuing (even at lower league clubs you get better organisation).
It's not so bad for the ladies. Like any modern stadium, the organisers like to show how much they care about equality by building as many toilets for women than men. Then they go and host a lot of football matches where 80 per cent of the crowd are male and wonder why there are no queues at the ladies but chaos at the gents.
So, FA. Move the game to a decent time and a decent ground and have done with it.
That's all...Solly