‘Fruit Salad Lady’ and Alan Yentob’s appearance before MP’s on the Commons Select Committee verged on disbelief. Every criticism put to the lady was discarded as pointless and without evidence. She even seemed unable to accept that the charity went bust, not her fault of course. Perhaps she could learn from from history. Socrates summed it up when he said ‘confidence breeds carelessness, slackness, disobedience’. I don’t believe he ever mentioned over confidence. How ‘permasmile Batmanghelidjh’ kept her position and relieved the taxpayer of millions of pounds is astonishing. It certainly raises questions about the competence of those in government that signed off the payments. David Cameron’s other half, Samantha, called Batmanghelidjh ‘an inspiration and a doer’. She certainly ‘did’ a fair number of people. Maybe Samantha influenced Cameron, who like most politicians has no concept of business. No one with an ounce of commonsense could have believed the garbage Batmanghelidjh spouted, termed a torrent of verbal ectoplasm’ by one MP. Then we looked at her ‘minder’, Alan Yentob, and anything seemed credible. Still, he is a Creative Director at the BBC and this entire nonsense was certainly creative.

    As the latest ever increasing figures of loss and warnings about cyber attacks on our bank accounts are published, most institutions are trying to lever us into ever more on line financial transactions. We find it difficult to work out the logic behind the two positions. Meanwhile, the telephone scammers continue their trade. I’ve had so many calls purporting to be Microsoft that I’m beginning to feel like an employee of that organisation. We spend a fair amount of time discussing the best way to deal with them. My latest call came from a gentleman with an almost impenetrable accent who said his name was Martin. He wouldn’t believe me when I told him my name was Abbas.  Clearly, one of us was lying!

    A zombie themed festival in Fort Myers, Florida went from myth to reality last week. A gunman killed one and injured four at the charity event Zombicon. The Walking Dead series will never seem realistic again.

    It could only be a matter of time before the self-perceived great and good entered the refugee debate. Church of England bishops – 84 of them – have written to the Prime Minister suggesting 50,000 refugees should be settled here over the next five years. They suggest they will encourage congregations to make spare housing available. But not David Walker, Bishop of Manchester. He won’t open his six-bed home to refugees for ‘cultural’ reasons. We assume that is Bishop Code for “I’m not having them screwing up my lifestyle” The Bishops enter the debate at a time when C of E congregations are dwindling rapidly, almost 1 in 4 having single figure worshippers based on a survey of 16,000 churches. At some stage these bishops might focus on selling their product but that may need another miracle or the second coming. In the event of a second coming, we can’t help thinking the bishops would be queuing to offer accommodation.

    As the church enters the fray, Angela Merkel may be wishing she hadn’t offered an open door. Even members of her own party are now demanding restrictions to the influx of people. It can’t be long before she demands more help from EU members. It will be interesting to hear their response.

    A re-enactment of the 1881 gunfight at the OK Corral went pear shaped last week as one of the players accidentally used live ammunition. The Law of Sod was clearly at work since the sheriff got shot rather than the outlaw. If Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday were looking down on the re-enactment they probably wished they’d have thought of the idea of only one side – theirs – having live rounds!

    With Russia shoring up his beleaguered army, President Assad of Syria has the confidence to leave the country for a visit to Russia. It can leave no doubts about where his allegiance now lies. For Putin, it simply reinforces the message that he has run rings around NATO. With Russian support, Assad should be able to retake as much of Syria as he desires before negotiations about a final solution. NATO say that a final solution must end with Assad vesting control. We’re not sure that will work for Putin.