Special Guest Blogger: Dick Cheney

People keep asking me if I have any regrets. Regrets? I had five heart attacks and a transplant and if my own cardiovascular system couldn't stop me, a few pesky historians certainly wouldn’t.
My political career was a wild ride. We toppled statues, we rearranged the middle of the world like a game of Tetris, and I managed to shoot a man in the face and get him to apologise to me. If that isn't the American Dream, I don’t know what is.
People often asked what it was like working with George W. Bush. I liked the man. Truly. He had the enthusiasm of a Golden Retriever and the attention span of a moth in a lantern shop. My job was simple, I was the guy who told him which way the wind was blowing, and then go out and buy a massive industrial fan to make sure the wind blew exactly where I wanted it to.
George liked things to be simple. I remember sitting in the Oval Office while he’d go on about bringing democracy to Iraq and I’d just nod, sip my lukewarm coffee, and think, George, you can’t even bring a consistent syntax to a prepared speech, but sure, let’s go with the democracy thing.
Now, let’s get to the elephant in the room, or rather, the missing WMDs in the desert. People say we lied to go to war. That’s such a grubby, pedestrian word. Journalists are so unimaginative. I prefer to think of it as proactive reality-shaping.
When we were looking at the intelligence, it was a bit like an abstract painting. Some people saw a smudge while I saw a nuclear centrifuge.
Sure, the aluminum tubes weren't for uranium. Sure, the yellowcake from Niger was basically a fan-fiction novel written on a cocktail napkin and Saddam was not mates with-Al-Qaeda but does that really matter in the grand scheme of things? We had a feeling and more importantly, we had a lot of Halliburton stock that wasn't going to increase in value if we just sat around the Rose Garden eating pretzels.
I remember watching the Shock and Awe campaign from my office. It was beautiful. It looked like the world’s most expensive Fourth of July display but did the Iraqi's greet us with sweets and flowers? Well, they threw things. Shoes mostly but the lack of gratitude from the Iraqi people was disappointing. We gave them the gift of total chaos and the opportunity to rebuild their entire society from scratch using nothing but grit and American-funded contractors who didn’t speak the language. If they couldn't make that work, that’s on them. I was a big picture guy.
When you’re the Vice President, you realize that laws are more like enthusiastic suggestions. Waterboarding? Please. If you can’t handle a little moisture in your lungs while we ask where the hidden trigger for the imaginary bomb is, maybe you shouldn’t be a terrorist. Or a suspected terrorist.
Or a perfectly innocent non white person.
We have to talk about the 2006 quail hunt. Poor Harry Whittington. There I was, just trying to enjoy a quiet afternoon of killing small birds, and Harry decides to jump right into my line of fire.
The media went nuts and made it sound like I did it on purpose. If I’d done it on purpose, Harry wouldn't have been able to give a televised apology to me afterwards for getting in the way of my gun i i had.
I didn't even send him a "Get Well" card. I sent him a bill for the ammunition he wasted by stopping it with his cheek but that’s the kind of manners we’re losing in this country nowadays, today if you grazed a guy with a few pellets of 28-gauge lead and he sues you for emotional distress and starts a
GoFundMe.
I always knew people thought of me as some sort of cinematic antagonist part Darth Vader, part Ebenezer Scrooge, but with a better security clearance but I may not go down in history as the most likable guy, but I was never running for Prom Queen. They talk about the trillions of dollars spent and the million dead Iraqis and the loss of thousands of American soldiers but I find that kind of math boring.
The world is a messy place. Someone has to be the one to stand in the shadows and make the hard, incredibly profitable decisions that the simple folk can’t handle. While George was out there trying to find the right words to describe a crusade, I was in the back room making sure the oil kept flowing
and the defense contracts were signed in triplicate.
As for the Iraqi people? I hope they’ve enjoyed the last twenty years of… whatever that is over there. We did our part. We removed a dictator, we lost the receipts, and we left behind a lovely Mission Accomplished banner that George really, really liked.
I remember when that Vice movie came out with Christian Bale. My grandkids told me he gained forty pounds to play me. Forty pounds? For Pete’s sake, I’ve had heart attacks that burnt more calories than that. Bale did the sneer alright, I’ll give him that, but he lacked the quiet, simmering joy I get from reading a well-drafted oil lease agreement.
My heart had been giving me problems for years which surprised many as until then even I didn't think I had one, but until the end I spent my last days fly-fishing in Wyoming where the air was crisp, the kind of cold that reminds a man he’s alive which, given my medical history, was something I try to
acknowledge at least once an hour. The fish don't ask about weapons of mass destruction. They don't bring up the insurgency. They just bite the hook, much like the American public did in 2003. It’s peaceful.
I lived in the world as I wanted it to be. And if I had to lie, cheat, and shoot a lawyer to get there? Well, that’s just a Tuesday in my book.

Red Card For FIFA

Gianni Infantino did not have a great pre-World Cup as he was widely derided and ridiculed for inventing and then presenting a peace prize to, of all people, Warmongering Donald Trump just after he dropped a bomb on a girls school in Iran and then things got a bit awkward for him during the Competition when he received a telephone call from his new best buddy who stayed awake long enough to ask for the red card for the USA's main striker be overturned which it duly was.
Now the FIFA President is being barked at amidst a backlash among major football bodies for his plans to commercialise Football by creating an investment vehicle holding commercial rights related to the World Cup and sell a portion of it to private investors for $4.2 billion led by Donald Trump’s son-in-law’s brother.
So far the 55 European Nations in UEFA have said they would a boycott the World Cup if it goes ahead and have been joined in condemning Infantino's plan by the 41-members of the North, Central American and Caribbean Football Association and the 47 team Asian Football Confederation if he presses ahead with his plans.
If the boycott goers ahead it would lead to the sight of Spain and Portugal boycotting their own World Cup next time around which is almost as weird as Sheikh Salman bin Ibrahim al-Khalifa, the Bahraini royal who leads the AFC, issuing a statement, calling for 'the highest standards of ethics and good governance' which is refreshing to take an ethics lesson from a guy like this who, during the Arab spring, busied himself with identifying, imprisoning and torturing dissident players and other athletes.
FIFA has issued a statement where they say that 'Nobody is selling football' which would mean we have very much misunderstood the idea of literally selling stakes in football to private investors but at time of writing, Infantino is still insisting that he was pressing ahead with the scheme despite Uefa’s boycott pledge so good luck with the next World Cup.
This is a massive own goal on the part of Infantino who should very soon be renamed OUTfantino and he can take his pathetic and humiliating peace prize with him.

Special Guest Blogger: Trojan Prince Ganymede

Alright, everyone, settle down, pour yourselves a nice tall glass of whatever you mortals are drinking these days. Nectar’s not really available for public consumption, sorry. You will just have to trust me that it is well worth the hype. And no, you can't just come up here. Safety regulations, you know. And
my employer is a bit particular about unexpected guests. Especially if they are likely to spill anything. Spilled nectar is a nightmare to get out of the carpet.
Anyway, you might have heard whispers of me and seen a statue or two, perhaps even marvelled at my being genetically blessed with a face that could launch a thousand ships, or in my case, a single very enthusiastic eagle.
I was just a simple shepherd boy, you see, back in the good old days in Troy. Life was good. Fields were green, sheep were fluffy and I spent a considerable amount of time distracting a particularly amorous king of the gods.
And that is where my adventures truly began. One minute, I’m contemplating the existential joy of shepherding and the next I’m soaring through the heavens, clutched in the talons of a rather magnificent, but utterly terrifying, eagle. It was quite the recruitment drive. No job application, no
interview, just a sudden, unsolicited relocation package that involved a lot of altitude and a distinct lack of safety harnesses. Turns out, that eagle was none other than Zeus, in one of his more avian disguises. He'd decided, rather unilaterally, that my face was simply too beautiful for my mortal coil. It needed to be enshrined amongst the gods, serving them at their eternal happy hour.
So, here I am. The universe’s most exclusive cupbearer. Imagine being the head waiter at an eternal, slightly dysfunctional family reunion where everyone has superpowers and a penchant for drama.
My job description was to pour nectar and look pretty while doing it and occasionally wiping up the dribbles of an over-enthusiastic Dionysus while preventing Hera from noticing Zeus’s latest dalliance with a particularly fetching cloud nymph.
Life on Olympus is an experience and as the ever present observer of all divine shenanigans i've seen it all from Zeus losing his temper and accidentally zapping his own sandals to Poseidon complaining endlessly about the lack of decent seafood options and I've been watching them for millennia, bless their little hearts because I see that they're basically powerful, immortal toddlers with a tendency to throw world-ending tantrums.
My adventures aren't exactly epic quests involving monsters and damsels in distress. My adventures are navigating a particularly crowded Olympian banquet without tripping and subtly refilling Zeus's goblet and avoiding eye contact when Hera walks by, and making sure the ambrosia never, ever runs out.
But amidst all the eternal drudgery, the endless pouring, and the constant need to remain impeccably groomed you know what else bears my name?
A moon and not just any moon but the largest moon of the planet Jupiter. As in, the Roman equivalent of Zeus.
One day, I'm polishing a goblet, minding my own business, and someone mentions it. 'Oh, by the way, Ganymede, they named one of Jupiter's big rocky bits after you.' My jaw nearly hit the floor. The planet named after my cosmic eagle-abductor, and its largest moon, a colossal sphere of ice and rock, is called Ganymede.
It’s overwhelming, utterly ridiculous, and frankly, a bit of a flex. I mean, most people get a park bench, maybe a commemorative plaque. I get a celestial body visible through telescopes, a gigantic chunk of the cosmos, silently orbiting, forever echoing my name.
Sometimes, when I have a quiet moment I look out from Olympus, past the clouds, past the stars, and imagine that immense, icy sphere. My moon. It's a bizarre sort of legacy for a shepherd boy who just wanted to tend his flock.
May my Moon shine brightly and forever reminding the universe that even the most lowly amongst us can end up with the most unexpected, and hilariously grand, of destinies. Just don't ask me to go visit it as the commute is a nightmare.

Here's One For You Andy

The UK has surpassed 2 million individual solar panels but as the amount it would take to power the UK by Solar Power alone is roughly 350 million to 400 million, we still have some way to go although nobody yet has picked up my proposal of laying Solar panels along the 262,300 miles of road which is just laying there outside in daylight from dusk to dawn or what about alongside the sidings of the 20,000 miles of train tracks?  
The UK has over 12,000 wind turbines distributed across both onshore and offshore locations and according to someone who someone knows, it takes only 7,000 large-scale, modern wind turbines to power the whole of the UK and they sometimes provide too much electricity that they have to be switched off which seems  a complete waste.
Obviously the UK cannot solely rely on wind or solar power and neither puts in enough of an appearance consistently to make it viable but with a bit oif creative thinking we could put two fingers up to the electricity companies currently ripping us off and make our own, so get on it Andy Burnham.

Special Guest Blogger: Lady Annabel Goldsmith

Usually, when people hear the name Annabel Goldsmith, they think of one of two things, either a nightclub with very expensive gin and very famous velvet curtains, or a family tree that looks more like a dense briar patch of politicians, journalists, and environmentalists. It’s a bit daunting, really. Most
people leave behind a nice set of silver spoons but I seem to have left behind a series of tabloid headlines and a daughter who was basically the Queen of Pakistan (in spirit, if not in law).
Let’s start with the nightclub, shall we? It is a peculiar thing to be a Legacy because your first husband, Mark Birley, decided to name a basement in Berkeley Square after you. For years, I was the only woman in London who could say she had a basement full of Duke’s sons and supermodels, and yet I
never had to pay for the plumbing.
People were always coming up to me and saying that they had had the most scandalous night at yours in 1974. I always smiled and nodded, despite the fact that in 1974 I was probably at home trying to convince a toddler that mashed carrots were not a projectile weapon.
My legacy, in that department, is essentially being the patron saint of the 2:00 AM hangover. It’s a noble calling, I suppose, but I’d like to think I’ve contributed a bit more to the world than just a venue for people to lose their dignity and their Chanel earrings.
My secret lover for over a decade and then second husband, Jimmy (Sir James Goldsmith, for those of you who weren't on the Christmas card list) was a man of gargantuan appetites and even larger opinions. I see him in all of my children. Zac is busy trying to save every tree in the northern hemisphere, Ben is rewilding everything that isn't nailed down and Jemima is out there being brilliant and making films and reminding everyone that the Goldsmith genes are remarkably resilient.
I spent a great deal of my life trying to save the tiger. I’ve always felt a certain kinship with tigers, they are striped, they are moody, and they prefer to spend their days lounging in the sun while someone else brings them snacks but that was me, perfectly imperfect, slightly chaotic, and always, always refusing to take the world as seriously as it takes itself so cheers, darlings and don't worry about the future because it's going to happen anyway, and usually without your permission. You might as well have another drink and enjoy it.

Tell Us Sweet Little Lies

The Pentagon are facing accusation of a cover up to hide the true cost of Donald Trump’s war of choice in Iran and have belatedly put out that the number of US troops killed in the war on Iran ​is sat at 18 with 430 US troops injured, but not admitted so far is the damage the Iranians are doing to US military Infrastructure in the region.
While Trump may be happy to show Iranian buildings being exploded., they are not so keen to even admit that in the region the Americans are taking a huge pounding themselves.
Iran’s airstrikes have had far more bite than the Americans would care to admit and have even restricted the use of satellite imagery supplied by commercial providers although the Iranians and Europeans, feel no such restraint.
There has been a reported 228 structures of pieces of equipment at U.S. military sites across the Middle East having been damaged and destroyed by Iranian forces which includes hangars, barracks, fuel depots, aircraft, vital radar, communications and air defence equipment had been struck by Iran’s forces and forced some U.S. bases to relocate their personnel out of missile range.
The European Union’s Copernicus satellite system reveals damage or destruction inflicted at the U.S. military Camp Arifjan and Ali al-Salem Air Base in Kuwait and at the 5th Fleet Headquarters, the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defence radars and equipment located at Jordan’s Muwaffaq Salti Air Base and two sites in the United Arab Emirates, another satellite communications site located at al-Udeid Air Base, and an E-3 Sentry command and control aircraft and a refuelling tanker at Prince Sultan Air Base in Saudi Arabia.
To add a further stinging insult, the defences used to cope with Iranian strikes are staggeringly expensive, a million dollar missile to take down a £20,000 drone which explains why the war so far has cost America £37bn and they are now asking for more.
The floundering, corrupt Trump Administration must have known that their war of choice would be a gamble, but it has backfired hugely in terms of financial, lives lost and moral ineptitude as America finds itself, as the French said at the UN today, no longer a beacon for human rights.

You Think You're A Man (Not For Another 14 Years)

In the UK, the legal age to become an adult is 18 years old so you can officially do grown up things such as buy alcohol, serve on a jury, open a bank account, vote in elections or get a tattoo but while the law says you are officially mature enough to do all these things at 18, Neuroscientists at the University of Cambridge say the human brain doesn't mature into Adulthood until you are 32.
The boffins scanned the brains of 3,802 people from infancy through age 90 and concluded that the age of 32 marked one of four key changes the human brain experiences among five phases: Childhood, adolescent, adult, early aging, and late aging brain.
They identified ages 0 to 9 as childhood (Rapid growth in volume and formation of initial neural networks), and adolescence beginning after this point (Long phase of refining communication pathways, peak efficiency, and continuous rewiring) and lasting until about age 32.
Adulthood lasts from 32 until 66 (Architecture stabilizes, marking a plateau in personality and intelligence), then the next phase shifts into early aging from 66 to 83 and the last major turning point occurs around age 83, which the researchers describe as late aging of the brain (Gradual reduction in overall network connectivity).
Different mental skills peak at entirely different times across your lifespan, meaning there is no single age when your brain is best at everything.
Psychological and neuroscience data break down the peak of your brain functions at distinct ages so your peak information processing speed is 18–19, the capacity to hold information is at 25, when you hit 35 you are crest of being able to perform complex mental calculations peaks, social and emotional intelligence is best at 40–50 and you are at your most emotionally stable at age 65–75 and your vocabulary and cumulative knowledge is at its height from 68  to 72.
So if you want to win at a pub quiz, get a team of 68 to 72 years old although their short term memory is way past its prime so you may need to repeat the question 5 or 6 times to them.

Special Guest Blogger: Ace Frehley

It was a wild ride from the Bronx kid who just wanted to make some noise, to Space Ace, the guy who looked like he was beamed down from a glittery, pyrotechnic spaceship. Who would've thought? My mum probably just thought I needed a haircut and a proper job. Little did she know, being a proper spaceman was the job.
We started Kiss, and man, what a concept. Four guys in makeup, platform boots that made me question the structural integrity of my ankles almost every night, and enough stage smoke to choke a brontosaurus. People always asked me did we ever take it seriously? and I always say, Seriously? We
were dressed like cartoon characters! We took the music seriously, and the show seriously. The rest was just glorious, loud, beautiful chaos.
I mean, imagine trying to nail a guitar solo while  knowing that at any moment, a rocket might shoot out of your guitar. Or that you might just trip over your own feet in those ten-inch heels. It built character, I tell ya. Or at least, it built a very strong sense of balance and an even stronger pain tolerance.
The smoking guitar. Ah, yes. My signature move. It started as a cool idea, right and then you try to make it happen and you’re backstage, messing with wiring, trying to rig up some kind of smoke bomb in the neck of your prized instrument. Half the time, it just fizzled. The other half, it worked too well,
and I thought I was going to lose an eyebrow. But when it went off just right, when that smoke came billowing out, and I hit that bend... pure magic. Or pure engineering failure that somehow looked cool. Either way, the crowd went wild.
I still remember the first time we tried it and i was told just hit this switch and a rocket shoots out the headstock. Sounds simple, right? It was, until the rocket decided to take an unscheduled detour towards the drum kit. Or the ceiling. Or, God forbid, the front row. We got better at aiming, eventually.
Mostly. My main goal was always to avoid hitting Peter Criss in the head. He was already a bit...temperamental.
I wasn't the most technically proficient guitarist. There were plenty of those guys, and they’re all fantastic. I don't need them to say I was the quiet, introspective artist. That wasn't me.
I want them to say, Ace Frehley? Man, that guy was cool. He rocked hard. He had killer riffs. He made you smile. And he looked like he was having the time of his life, even when he probably just wanted a nap.
The end came after I fell down a flight of stairs at home and severely injured my head which led to a fatal brain bleed but I want people to remember the pure, unadulterated joy of strapping on my guitar, plugging into a wall of Marshall amps and just letting loose. The way the crowd lights up when
you play that first chord.
Maybe they’ll remember the anthems, the solos but if it's the times I nearly blew up the stage, then I will take that.

Burnham Or Starmer, Still the Labour Party

I am hearing many calls that as Andy Burnham is the new Prime Minister, there should be an election because nobody, apart from the people of Makerfield, voted for him.
The truth is nobody, apart from the people of Holborn and St Pancras, voted for Keir Starmer because we don't vote for people, we vote for the Party and whoever happens to be the leader of the winning Party, by default, also becomes the Prime Minister.
That is why each parties Manifesto's are so important and as long as the new leader sticks to the manifesto, it should be the same trajectory regardless of who's backside is sitting inside number 10.
This is as true as when the Conservative Party went through their role call of Prime Ministers as it is for Labour, the only reason Labour would want to call an election early is if they wanted to change the Manifesto, otherwise it is business as usual only with a different face.
If a Member of Parliament switches sides then i would fully support a by-election because you may have voted for a Party Member who jumped ship to another Party and therefore switches one Manifesto to another which was rejected at the last election but otherwise whether it is Andy Burnham or Keir Starmer at the helm, it is still the Labour Party that the nation voted for who are in power.

Special Guest Blogger: Prunella Scales

I blame the Sunday supplements who used words like venerable, iconic and National Treasure when describing me. National Treasure is a particularly terrifying term, isn't it? It makes one sound like a dusty Ming vase kept behind velvet ropes in a drafty museum, or perhaps a slightly chipped gargoyle on the side of a cathedral.
I always said that i only became an actor to be people much more interesting than I am and would say things more intelligent than anything I can think of myself and i was cast in many comic roles  before my big break in 1975 when i was cast as a Hotel Managers wife.
To the world, I suppose, I am Sybil Fawlty. It’s a cross I bore with a certain amount of floral-printed pride. For decades, people have walked up to me in supermarkets, squinted at my face, and then shouted "BASIL!" at the top of their lungs into my ear. It is a testament to my vocal training that I haven’t reflexively slapped a stranger in the frozen pea aisle.
People seem to think I spent the 1970s trapped in a cupboard in Torquay, permanently holding a telephone and a cigarette, waiting for John Cleese to trip over a radiator.
Then, of course, there is my life with husband and fellow actor, Timothy West.
We have spent a significant portion of our golden years on canal boats, which is an interesting choice for two people who are supposedly venerable. If you want to test the foundations of a fifty-year marriage, I highly recommend steering a twenty-ton piece of iron through a hole the size of a needle’s
eye while your husband shouts instructions at you from the towpath.
There’s something remarkably grounding about a canal. You can’t be a Grand Dame of the Stage when you’re covered in duckweed and trying to fend off an aggressive swan with a wooden spoon.
Being an actor is a peculiar way to build a legacy. We spend our lives becoming other people, only to realize at the end that we’ve left bits of ourselves scattered all over the place. I left a bit of my heart in a rehearsal room in 1962, I left a bit of my sanity in the Fawlty Towers kitchen, I left my favorite pair of gloves in a dressing room in Birmingham and I’ve certainly left several layers of skin on various brambles along the Grand Union Canal.
Dementia claimed me but let it be remembered that Prunella Scales was a woman who was married to a very loud man, lived on a very slow boat, and occasionally shouted at a tall hotelier.