Paris, Paranoia and Ed Balls

Sorry, sorry, here I am. Things got a little out of hand in Paris and these old bones and this grizzled head needed some downtime. Having saved the world in Canada, I failed to save English rugby in France in spite of some Mission Impossible heroics in a phone box surrounded by agitated French riot police. (As ever, I thought they were after me. It's my special paranoia. I always think ambulances with their sirens going have been sent for me, and, at the sight of fire engines, I assume flames are spurting of out of my clothes.) Some English guy had declined to pay for a drink and Sarkozy had sent down an executive order to terminate him with extreme prejudice. Great city for a neutron bomb, Paris, take out the people and leave the buildings. And so we lost the cup, the worst football team in the world reverted to type and Lewis Hamilton did not become World Champion. A bereft nation must cling gratefully to Sven's wild ride at Manchester City. Sven rocks - two words that would once have seemed as unlikely as 'Cool Gordon' does today. And speaking of Brown, I note that his 'most trusted' apparatchik Ed Balls has been screaming that his boss is a coward. I've never liked Balls, with his glibly impervious face he looks like the sort of man who does not know what he does not know, a fatal failing and one that is all too common among political courtiers. We have democracy because politicians were finally forced to accept the depths of their ignorance. To forget this is to forget everything. I think Balls and many others, encouraged by our dumb need for simple stories, are showing signs of amnesia.