Corbyn and Cauliflower Man

On the night that Jeremy Corbyn won,

over on the World TV News Channel,

following a harrowing look at the destruction in Syria

they showed a journalist asking Jeremy Corbyn

where he got his jumper from.

All over the world, within a few seconds,

we viewers could flip from

thinking of whole cities in Syria

lying devastated to:

Jeremy’s jumper,

and I wondered if any journalist has ever put a

microphone under David Cameron’s nose

and said

‘So, Mr Cameron, do you think you can

renegotiate the terms for Britain’s membership

of the EU and where did you get your shirt?’




Following the jumper revelations,

in a matter of seconds,

this world news package wanted to give us

an insight into how people have reacted to

Jeremy Corbyn’s victory

and once again they went to see the

all-in-one, standby, representative British voter:

the bloke in the market selling cauliflowers.




Why is it always him?




Spare him a moment’s sympathy:

Around every election time

thousands of journalists scour the country

trying to put their finger on the pulse

trying to gauge which way the wind is blowing

and they all end up at his market stall.

He’s just trying to sell cauliflowers.

That’s his job.

He goes to a wholesale depot at 4 in the

morning and buys

the cauliflowers that are just on the turn

and puts them on his stall.

He’s tired, he’s cold,

can’t you journalists leave him alone?

he’s just trying to get rid of 50 cauliflowers

and you’re asking him

what he thinks of Jeremy Corbyn?




Who knows -

possibly the only thing he remembers

about Jeremy Corbyn -

thanks to you guys -

is where Jeremy Corbyn

got his jumper.

Owner of national newspaper says, Why didn't they listen to me?

As owner of a large national newspaper, I would just like to say that I'm in a state of some confusion as to why or how so many people didn't listen to me on the subject of the leadership of the Labour Party. Quite apart from the message it sent to great people like Tony Blair and Peter Mandelson, it's almost as if all those people were putting two fingers up to me.

Why owner of national newspaper wants Labour leader who is a Tory...

As an owner of a national newspaper which always backs the Tories, I would like to say that it's my job to bring out a newspaper which is full of long explanations as to why the Labour Party should have a leader who agrees with Tory policies but who will nevertheless be someone my newspaper doesn't support. 

We will explain over and over why the Labour Party (which my newspaper hates) should not have a leftwing candidate because this will be disastrous for the Labour Party (which my newspaper would like to see rot in hell anyway).

People run

People run away from war:
my father’s uncle and his wife
ran away from war.
They ran from one side of France to another.
But the authorities divided people up:
some who ran away were good;
some, like my father’s uncle and his wife,
were not so good:
they were not born in France.
So they were put on a list
and had everything taken away from them.
They heard that people like them were
being put on trains and sent away to the east.
So they escaped and ran across France
again.
This was a good move,
they were safe now,
all they had to do was wait.
While they were waiting
the authorities in this place got defeated,
they were seized, put on a train
put in a transit camp, then on another train
to another camp,
where they were killed.
People run away from war.
Sometimes we get away.
Sometimes we don’t.
Sometimes we’re helped.
Sometimes we aren’t.

Nice review of Uncle Gobb from 'Readingzone'.

Uncle Gobb and the Dread Shed (with Neal Layton) publ by Bloomsbury.

Malcolm is an ordinary ten year old boy who lives with his mum and her brother, Uncle Gobb. Uncle Gobb has been a very important person for many years, and as a consequence is extremely bossy, as well as being very fond of worksheets, asking questions, correct answers and telling Malcolm do more homework. One day at school, answering the questions on yet another worksheet, Malcolm discovers something interesting - at the very bottom of the piece of paper it says 'Gobb Education'. Could this have something to do with his uncle? Malcolm and his friend Crackersnackers start investigating and realise that Gobb Education is responsible for all the other things that make school boring, such as the Getting On Well Chart, the Worksheet Chart and the Behaving Sensibly at Playtime Chart. Tackling Uncle Gobb about this involves a lot of questions, two very unusual genies and the Dread Shed, in which children who do not do well at school can be locked up. Adult readers will recognise a certain, unlamented former Secretary of State for Education and a lampooning of his policies, whilst children will enjoy a zany and funny exploration of the absurdities of school life.

Unemployment figures. Not.

How to make sure

that it looks as if unemployment is going down:


Take two people who want to work 40 hours a week

and give them each a 20-hours-a-week job.


This is one 40 hour job

and one invisible, uncounted unemployed person.


Release a monthly figure telling us that unemployment

is going down.


Rely on the press and TV to say that unemployment

is going down.


Unemployment figures.

No, it doesn't.

Thyroids: a connection with Oliver Sacks

Somewhere in the late Oliver Sacks's archive is a ten page letter from me, (prompted by him) on what it felt like to come out of ten years of severe hypothyroidism. He was very interested in altered states - particular those not caused by narcotics - though he was interested in those too. I was interviewing him for the World Service about his very good book on migraine and mentioned that I had enjoyed an essay he wrote where a man with hypothyroidism faded away in the corner until it was diagnosed. They gave him substitute thyroxine (which is what I take), he recovered but he died soon after. By recovering it brought a cancer tumour to life.

(The essay by Sacks on hypothyroidism is called 'Cold Storage' and it was first published in Granta.)