The
best picture of the week has to be the archive shot, flashed round the
world, of Mark Felt, who we all now know to be Deep Throat.
In a
bizarre, John Wayne pose, hand quivering over his FBI-issued “piece”,
it was a stark reminder of how differently our American cousins operate.
I’m
a sucker for anything funny, but not much made me laugh this
week. I’ve had to make do with topping up my collection of odd
bylines.
The Financial Times is a rich source of extraordinary
names. Behold: Scheherezade Daneshku, Salamander Davoudi, Ivar
M. Simensen and the mind-boggling Frederike von Tisenhausen
Cave. Additions
to my list this week include Widget Finn and Harry Wallop. I couldn’t
tell you what they write about, but by gum, I’ve got byline envy.
Jeremy Clarke’s Low Life column in The Spectator is always completely brilliant, and this week is no exception.
He hates his next-door neighbours’ cats, one of which has casual homicidal tendencies born, Clarke suspects, out of boredom.
He throws tea at it “mug and all” when
he sees it in the garden and ponders that two or more pet cats, like
the over-use of exclamation marks, “denotes eccentricity on the part of
the owner”.
In other animal news, the coverage of Crazy Frog’s
success, in all the papers, was extraordinary in its depth and
persistence. One aspect that really got everyone excited was the issue
of Mr C Frog’s troublingly humanoid “bits”.
It was amazing to see
that The Sun, usually so steadfastly prurient, had, in an act of blithe
hypocrisy, blurred out the offensive appendages.
This calls to mind Americans again and their let-it-all-hang-out sex ‘n’
violence-soaked movies sitting uncomfortably with the fact that they’re not allowed to say “crap” on talkshows.
The Guide’s Soulmates in The Guardian never fail to cheer me up.
“Foul-mouthed,
chain-smoking trollop with a PhD in rocket science sought by dissolute,
40-something journalist.” Come on, which one of you was it?
Esther Walker is a writer for The Times
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