Some are more equal than others...

I'm currently in Westminster, London (at the Institute of Directors), where just down the road our PM has today announced that he wants to end the 300-year-old law of royal succession which gives the eldest male child (if there is one) the right to become Monarch of the Realm.

Well, much as I agree with ridding society of unjust discrimination and antiquarian irrelevances, the leader of a government which introduced the £9,000 a year tuition fees that will probably exclude the poor from the Establishment for at least a generation, should surely be targeting something else if his often-stated claims to desire "social mobility" are to be taken seriously?

That the currently underprivileged may now have no way to lift themselves out of their deprivation for decades, it's not in any way reassuring to be told that our country's leader is working hard towards making sure that the as-yet-unborn offspring of our most pampered couple can enter the world knowing that its gender won't prevent it becoming the next unelected Head of State.

Beyond the Pale..

The BBC today reports that Fulham have become the latest football club to erect a statue outside. This famous old institution has joined the likes of Liverpool, with Bill Shankly outside Anfield, Ipswich who've got Sir Bobby Robson standing proud outside Portman Road and Leeds with Billy Bremner's arms forever raised in triumph at Elland Road by putting Michael Jackson on a pedestal.

Yep, you read that right, Wacko Jacko, the "King of Pop", a man with a history of extremely questionable behaviour, who according to the club's owner and chairman Mohammed Al Fayed, "loved Fulham and wanted to attend all of the matches". Although he only actually managed to turn up once (for a match against Wigan in 1999), Mr Al Fayed apparently thinks "it is something that I and everybody else should be proud of".

Proud?
Will the Jackson statue become more plastic as the years go by; just like the real thing?
Will it lighten over time; just like the real thing?
And will children be allowed to touch it; just like the ...

Wanted: Party Organiser for Charlie Sheen!

Many of you will do something nice for your mum this weekend, but I very much doubt that you think it qualifies as deserving of a medal. Unless of course, you're Prince Andrew. He, like me, has just spent a day in Northern Ireland. Whereas I was running a series of college workshops and visiting the HEA ICS Subject Centre, he was there as part of his role as unpaid trade ambassador, something for which he's received his latest honour for personal service to the Queen, the Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order to add to his earlier honours for the same thing, the Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order and the Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.

Now I don't want to sound churlish, but how often has he been in the crush to get a seat on a north-bound train out of King's Cross, or spent the night in a Travelodge/Premier/Holiday Inn? His "business", as far as I can see, is all first-class and five-star, and while he might not receive a salary, he's unlikely to have paid for anything either.

Ten years travelling the world "representing British interests abroad", whatever that means, is not something most people outside of unelected dictatorships would consider worthy of a chest-full of medals, and is for most us, something we'd have preferred to have been an April Fool joke.