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| On the niceness of Mr Nice, and the mystery of the shrinking python | On the niceness of Mr Nice, and the mystery of the shrinking python |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Monday | Monday |
| The death of Howard Marks has allowed many to reminisce about what a wonderful bloke Mr Nice really was. I’m not sure I quite get it myself, given the only thing anyone outside his close friends and family knew him about him was that he had been a moderately successful drug dealer who had spent eight years in an American nick. Even assuming none of the people he sold dope to came to any harm – a long shot I’d guess – there’s still the stupidity factor. Nobody I’ve ever met has become sharper or more interesting when they’re stoned. If you’re going to take drugs, spare me the schmaltz. Or at least have some consistency. You don’t hear people saying, “What a great bloke he was. One of the world’s best tax avoiders. Saved himself and his friends a small fortune. Singlehandedly managed to close down several mother and baby units” at funerals. Or maybe you do. | The death of Howard Marks has allowed many to reminisce about what a wonderful bloke Mr Nice really was. I’m not sure I quite get it myself, given the only thing anyone outside his close friends and family knew him about him was that he had been a moderately successful drug dealer who had spent eight years in an American nick. Even assuming none of the people he sold dope to came to any harm – a long shot I’d guess – there’s still the stupidity factor. Nobody I’ve ever met has become sharper or more interesting when they’re stoned. If you’re going to take drugs, spare me the schmaltz. Or at least have some consistency. You don’t hear people saying, “What a great bloke he was. One of the world’s best tax avoiders. Saved himself and his friends a small fortune. Singlehandedly managed to close down several mother and baby units” at funerals. Or maybe you do. |
| Tuesday | Tuesday |
| The mystery of the Malaysian python deepens. First it is found alive on a Penang construction site where it is measured at 8 metres (26ft), then the next day it turns up dead and is remeasured at 7.5 metres. Both the whereabouts of the missing half metre and the cause of death are unknown. One reptile expert suggested that the snake might have committed suicide – who knew pythons were prone to existential crises? – after coming into contact with people. Others reckoned the death might have something to do with the kicking it was seen getting from some of the builders. What seems absolutely certain is that contact with humans did the snake no favours. I’ve always believed that snakes and humans should be kept as far apart as possible. Forty years ago, I was finally persuaded by a friend to go on holiday with her to Kenya after she persuaded me there was no chance of ever seeing a snake. On the second day in the Masai Mara, I was spat at by a spitting cobra. My friend thought it was the funniest thing she had ever seen and appeared rather disappointed I hadn’t been bitten. The relationship didn’t last. | |
| Wednesday | Wednesday |
| Having been bounced into publishing his tax return by David Cameron, George Osborne sensibly decamped to the US for meetings of the IMF and the G7 to avoid the fallout. That allowed him to miss Jeremy Corbyn’s dry observation at prime minister’s questions that he had paid more in tax than the chancellor’s family firm. As did most of us, since Osborne & Little has paid precisely nothing in corporation tax for years. Fortunately for George, though, the soft furnishings business did manage to pay him more than £40,000 in dividends, which sorted out a holiday or two. The most revealing part of the sudden rush to fiscal transparency has been the hierarchy that has emerged. Cameron pays more in tax than Corbyn, while Boris Johnson has paid more in tax than Cameron earns. “I look up to him because he is upper class, but I look down on him because he is middle class.” Like Ronnie Corbett, the rest of us just get a pain in the neck. | Having been bounced into publishing his tax return by David Cameron, George Osborne sensibly decamped to the US for meetings of the IMF and the G7 to avoid the fallout. That allowed him to miss Jeremy Corbyn’s dry observation at prime minister’s questions that he had paid more in tax than the chancellor’s family firm. As did most of us, since Osborne & Little has paid precisely nothing in corporation tax for years. Fortunately for George, though, the soft furnishings business did manage to pay him more than £40,000 in dividends, which sorted out a holiday or two. The most revealing part of the sudden rush to fiscal transparency has been the hierarchy that has emerged. Cameron pays more in tax than Corbyn, while Boris Johnson has paid more in tax than Cameron earns. “I look up to him because he is upper class, but I look down on him because he is middle class.” Like Ronnie Corbett, the rest of us just get a pain in the neck. |
| Thursday | Thursday |
| Related: How Kevin Pietersen could prove himself the master of reinvention | Marina Hyde | Related: How Kevin Pietersen could prove himself the master of reinvention | Marina Hyde |
| The Wisden dinner in the Long Room at Lord’s is always one of the highlights of the year; a celebration of the publication of the cricket almanack, and a sign that summer is not far off. This year’s dinner was all the better for lacking some of the spice of last year’s when the outgoing chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, Giles Clarke, managed to pick a fight with almost everyone. Including himself. Not surprisingly, Clarke was not invited this time round. Some of the fun of the evening, which included a lovely speech by the novelist Kamila Shamsie, was tempered by the news that the England cricketer, James Taylor, had been forced to retire after being diagnosed with a serious heart condition. Jonny Bairstow, one of Wisden’s cricketers of the year, paid a moving tribute to his team-mate. Just how thrilled Taylor will have been to have received commiserations from other colleagues is anyone’s guess. Not so long ago, Kevin Pietersen was rubbishing Taylor for being the worst batsman ever to play for England; this week he has been sending sympathetic tweets. Keep it classy, KP. It’s not all about you. | |
| Friday | Friday |
| A freedom of information request has revealed that the speaker of the House of Lords, Baroness D’Souza, has yet to experience the chill winds of austerity. Among the many treats the noble baroness allows herself at our expense are an annual allowance of £4,000 to decorate her office with fresh cut flowers, outside caterers – the ones in the House of Lords just aren’t up to scratch – for entertainment and a PR consultant to keep stories like this one out of the papers. What most sticks out, though, is the £1,100 junket to the Royal Opera House with a Russian delegation, that included drinks and programmes. It’s the programmes that really stick in the throat: few people ever bother to read their programmes from cover to cover and whenever I go to the opera I always just help myself to one of the free sheets giving a full synopsis of the plot along with cast and production team biographies that the opera house thoughtfully provides. Surely that’s quite enough. But then I am a bit of a cheapskate. Unlike the Baroness, I don’t leave a chauffeur-driven car parked up outside for four hours at a cost of £272. |