Anyway, I’m back in the land of rubbish penalty takers and eagerly waiting for the next episode of the Saddam Show. Actually I was just watching Fox News (not that I’d recommend that to anyone but if you realise that they’re there just to wind you up it’s actually a really good laugh for about 10 minutes – about the time it takes for you to realise that they actually mean it and you have to switch over to UK Gold repeats of Dad’s Army to recover)

I digress! So anyway, Fox News was carrying a debate between some right-wing guys and some extreme right-wing guys and their topic of debate? — whether the New Iraq (you know the one where freedom reigns) should pay for the cost of their liberation !!!!

Words fail me! … But they didn’t fail the right-wing guy or the right-wing host of the debate – they pointed out to the extreme right-wing guys that to bomb the Iraqis homes, kill their civilians and then to rebuild those homes and ask the remaining civilians to pay for the rebuild was a bit smelly… even by right-wing standards. Is there a glimmer of a conscience lurking within the dark heart of Fox News – probably not – it’s an election year and there’s no point putting all your eggs in one stinky basket now is there?

And talking about phoney wars and licences to print money I spoke to a British soldier serving in Basrah yesterday on the phone.

To be precise I spoke to a nephew of mine who’s serving out there. Swealtering in 50 degree heat being shot at by irate Iraqis and having to cope with the paucity of resources available to your average British sqauddie thanks to government defence cut-backs. Anyway, my nephew wasn’t complaining – he volunteered for the Army and being shot at is an occupational hazard in that line of work. (though the question still remains why did Tony send him out there in the first place but historians will be asking that question for the next hundred years at least – hey whadyaknow! Tony did have the hand of history on his shoulder afterall)

Apparantly, the food is hot too – there’s loads of South Asian’s out there sub-contracted to do all the ity-bity civilian jobs including catering (that is when they’re not being nabbed by the head-hunters of darkest Falluja). Also I was told, you can buy almost anything you want really cheaply in the New Iraq as long as you pay in Dollars. The problem is getting things back to dear ol’ Blighty – the cost of postage is often three times the cost of the goods inside but most of the time it doesn’t matter because the stuff has a funny habit of disappearing once it gets to customs. Oh well! it is a war zone afterall and not Butlins.

Speaking of which and attesting to the great British ironic sense of humour, the military camp into which they withdraw to, when our valiant troops aren’t getting shot at for our glorious leader, has been set out as a giant Monopoly Board.

Pssst! There’s a rumour going round that there’s an Iraqi cash buyer looking for a ‘get out of jail’ card.