Against his will: pity those handling Bin Laden’s jihad bequest
|
Version 0 of 1. Monday A day out with David Cameron is always a treat, never more so than when he is talking to young people about the EU. Dave never seems quite sure if he should be doing his Down Wiv Da Kidz or Serious Statesman schtick when confronted by anyone under the age of 20, and manages just to sound mildly condescending instead. At University Campus Suffolk in Ipswich, he was trying to convince everyone that Project Fear was actually Project Fact while sticking both thumbs in the air like a second-rate children’s entertainer. Not everyone appeared convinced by Dave’s message that Britain would find itself locked in a third world war in which millions of people would be butchered if it left the EU, but I found it extremely uplifting. When teaching my kids to cross the road, I used to say to them: “You’ve got a choice here. If you cross when the light is red, you’re going to die a horrible death.” They would invariably burst into tears and accuse me of scaring them. “Don’t be silly,” I would yell at them. “I’m actually giving you a very positive message about how to stay alive”. Tuesday It’s not often I feel sorry for lawyers, but spare a thought for those charged with executing Osama bin Laden’s will. US intelligence officials have just released details of the document. After a few bequests of gold bars, diamonds and a Samsung 48-inch TV to family and friends, Bin Laden demanded that the rest of his £20.7m fortune should be spent on jihad. How the hell is a lawyer supposed to make sure the money is going to the proper good causes? For every genuine jihadi who wants some cash to buy a plane, there are going to be dozens who just want the thrill of having an AK-47 under the bed and an iPhone 6s to natter about establishing a caliphate with other similarly minded fantasists. Is there a website on which terrorists can submit tenders for the cash, along with their full CVs? And what’s to stop Bin Laden’s family suing a lawyer for doling out cash to the wrong kind of terrorist. Would that my own affairs were so complicated. The only thing my executors will have to keep an eye on is making sure my kids don’t dump all my books at Oxfam. They are about the only valuable thing I own. Wednesday Just three days to go until the happiest of days and still no wedding invitation from Rupert and Jerry. I guess I will just have to go to see Spurs v Arsenal on Saturday instead. Of all the tabloid speculation about the great union of the Murdoch and Hall clans, the most bizarre has been the news that all six of their daughters have agreed to be bridesmaids. I rather think that if I was to tell my daughter I was getting married for a fourth time at the age of 84 to someone I’d known for about 10 minutes my own daughter would tell me to get lost and see my shrink if I asked her to be one of the bridesmaids. Though, I suppose it could be different if there was a £12bn inheritance at stake. For that kind of cash, she might even smile in the wedding photos. Thursday The morning after the night before and everything had gone entirely as predicted. Faced with the prospect of going top of the Premier League with just 10 games to go, Spurs bottled it. There was fear on the faces of both the players and the fans before the game, and the team inevitably went on to give its most hopeless display of the season. Vertigo never goes away. To make a bad, freezing cold night worse, the police treated the event as a major crime incident. Having been penned into a cul-de-sac at the end of the game, Spurs fans were held far longer than was necessary and I didn’t get home until midnight. Curiously I woke up feeling far calmer and less disoriented than I had the morning before. Familiar, disappointing service had been resumed. In my case at least, being a Spurs fan is a genuine psychiatric disorder. Friday Yet another medical breakthrough that comes far too late to do me a blind bit of good. Had scientists found the genes that make men go grey and bald 25 years ago, I could have been spared the look of sheer, sadistic delight on my wife’s face when she first noticed the first signs of a bald patch. Hair loss is one of nature’s more depressing habits; a constant reminder you’re getting old and past it. When I had a new byline picture taken, a reader emailed to say that though she much enjoyed the sketches, she found the photograph frightening and off-putting. I replied to say she should count her blessings. She only had to look at it; I had to live with it. Digested week digested: Project Frightening Fact |