On yer Bikey Wike

See, it isn’t just me.

Some 30,000 other curmudgeons are left feeling somewhat jaundiced by the antics of Wossy and Wussell. It’s not that I’ve turned po-faced in my old age – it’s because they simply aren’t funny… and no-one is brave enough to tell them. They tarnish the rest of the organisation where I know for a fact that most are trying hard to drive up standards for a fraction of the salary.

I won’t bore anyone further with a rant about quality but refer you to Clarkson’s comment that it’s about time TV became “a beacon and not a mirror”. That would at least be a start.

I had plenty of time to stew on this during the four hours I spent in the M40 gridlock but my mood was at least lightened by the cartoons below which I reproduce here. (I know I shouldn’t but I shall urge you to support the cartoonists with your patronage and to salute their wit – now they ARE funny).

Credit where it’s due

I’m often berating the England boys in this arena so I just thought I would publicly applaud the Gerrard-Rooney combo for last night. Bit frail at the back at the moment by there were some neat moves well executed by the team.

By the way, could anyone lend me a trillion or chip in to buy shares for a plot of land to grow food?

You have to be careful what you wish for. Sometime back I said a recession might return some quality values…but…er, I didn’t have soup kitchens in mind.

A couple of billion should do it

Maybe I just expect too much, but am I alone in thinking that we are all in desperate need of statesman-like global leadership on this financial farrago?

I’d be the first to admit that I don’t understand the head-scratching hard sums but is the other stuff really that difficult? Is there no-one to stride out onto the stage, take affirmative action with a convincing erudite speech that tells everyone to calm down, go to work as normal and do business as usual?

Then perhaps our own government could do something cheap and cheerful to save the day (and when I say cheap I mean £400m or so rather than £500 billion to underwrite UK banks). For example:

How about a really tasty prize and a contract for the winner of an engineering competition to improve the sewerage system or invent a silent, clean emissions car.

Or a national exhibition to showcase artistic and scientific talent and future marketable products.

How about a comprehensive review of our entire transport network and then spend our tax on a 21st Century integrated solution. We’re only a tiny island – it can’t be that hard.

What about giving a fraction of that money to start our own fast-track fusion research or another brilliant idea which will help reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.

If the government can redirect £500 billion of our cash overnight then surely they can finance better pensions for the elderly, build and upgrade the council housing stock, create thousands of school jobs to reduce class sizes, and buy up brown- and green-field sites to distribute to community projects or for citizen allotments. Maybe they could even buy back all the public utilities to return control of our vital infrastructure and stop the profits being sent abroad. Just a thought.

If I can dream up a few positive, blue-sky projects to stimulate the creation of a few jobs and a better quality of life at half the cost why can’t these blithering, dithering nincampoops?

The ‘old curmudgeon’ will no doubt be in trouble for that so if you’ve got some similar ideas, fire away. And while you’re at it, tell us a joke to cheer us up.

PS. It’s not just me you know. Clarkson this week described us Brits as “bovine masses” living in a “sea of purple and blue snot”. Quite.

Light and shade

This cartoon really hit the spot with me so enjoy.

Sorry, but I've nicked Matt's genius from The Daily Telegraph

However, neither the Telegraph or any of the other media outlets will allow comments on the fact that they’ve chosen to use their front pages to tell us that the dancer and sometime Channel Five presenter Natasha Kaplinsky has had a baby, so I have to do it here:

I soooo don’t care!