Tony Blair lifted his head above the parapet as the Chilcot Enquiry into the Iraq war hit the news again, “not down to me guv,” his position on the delay.  There’s a surprise.  After much argument, Adrian held sway, and we agreed we could understand the block on complete publication of the communications between George W and Blair.  The Americans are our allies, have been since 1944, and that’s sufficient reason.  But Chilcot et al have seen and heard every word.  A journalist said this puts the onus on them to ‘man up’, a modern term we don’t understand.  If their analysis of the communications tells them that Blair had already made the decision to go to war before the nonsense about WMD’s, they need to make that unequivocal. It’s time to go balls out, a term we do understand.  Failure to do so will result in Sir John being held in similar contempt to many of our politicians.  If the words ‘we need to learn lessons’, public sector code for I must protect my pension, appear anywhere in the report it will be time to abandon hope.  Get the truth published, we’ve waited long enough.

    On a more serious note, Charles Saatchi has decided to sell Tracey Emin’s iconic bed.  The sale will make it second hand, a brilliant irony.  Even when new it looked as though it had been through more hands, knees and bumps a daisy than most of us experience in a lifetime.  It could easily be sold abroad, which provides an opening for a contemporary new sculpture.  Numerous suggestions later we settled on a washing basket with several pairs of Jez’s used underpants as our sculpture.  The title took seconds to resolve – Skid Marks, unchallenged once voiced.  We’ll be disappointed if we don’t get shortlisted for The Turner Prize.  Full marks to Emin though; she pictured something when tumbling out of a slutty bed and made her name and hopefully, fortune. Not many would have seen the opportunity; our sort of girl.  In recent years, she’s been quoted as saying that she’s now regarded as an outsider in the arty world for voting Tory.  We had a look at a couple of her drawings on the web to gain a perspective.  We have no artistic credentials between us but none of us could answer Ben’s query of “what’s that supposed to be?”  A switch to UKIP might restore Tracey’s credibility.  She could design their literature and Nigel Farage seems like a bloke who pays his corner in the pub.

    Four of us, ex-regulars, have given up on BBC Question Time on television.  Adrian and Sam still watch, Adrian in hope, Sam to keep up his exercise regime which involves jumping off his chair to shout abuse.  Last week seems to have plumbed the depths according to their comments about two of the panellists; Joey Barton and Piers Morgan no less.  Maybe they should change the programme title to The Egos Have Landed, with apologies to Jack Higgins.  Adrian didn’t bother to check the Question Time viewing figures but we’d bet they’re going south.  Maybe it’s coincidence, but didn’t that happen with CNN?

    We’re old enough to think we’ve heard most things before but fraudster Juliette D’Souza takes the biscuit. She posed as a faith healer who could relieve life threatening illnesses, even help women to conceive.   She convinced victims that their money should be sacrificed by hanging it on a magical tree in the rainforest in South America.  Shamans would perform rituals around the money before it was sent back to the owner.  It came as no surprise that as the money took its extended journey, it got lost in transit.  Juliette missed her calling. She could have made a fortune in commission, working on the knocker to convince people she could save them money on their gas and electricity.  You don’t even get your collar felt for that scam.  Paddy thought we might be missing a trick.  He knows of a tree in a wood close to the pub where a girl lay down in the shade of its branches and became pregnant!   We decided we would have to seek younger help to make that business opportunity viable!

    Andrew Neil scored a bull’s eye on the Sunday Politics Show.  He was discussing the Newark by-election with Diane Abbott, the Labour politician.  Whatever points she tried to make were quickly put into perspective by her answer to Neil’s simple question “where is Newark?”  After an “um” plus an “er”, the show stopping “I know it’s outside the M25,” came as her considered answer.  Mind you, for £66,396 a year plus expenses it was no more than I expected of a politician. And they say us pensioners drain the public purse.  Out of touch metropolitan elite springs to mind but locals of Newark would simply refer her to the anagram of their fair town.