Another week has come and gone and, sweet mother of God is it almost August? Where does the time go? Anyway, as the summer steadily dwindles before our eyes and the White House continues to implode, Diary has mused on the topic of communications directors. Unlike those contacted by Trump's latest appointment, the Mooch, literally not one charity comms person has ever phoned Diary up threatening to fire whole departments or make crude references to self-fellatio. And that's not fake news.
Anyway, onto this week.
‘I’m not bitter’ – the Rob Wilson story
“The general election didn’t go to plan – for the Conservative Party or me personally”. So begins an article in The Times written by former minister for civil society and generically bearded man, Rob Wilson.
As opening gambits in self-authored political eulogies go this is, if nothing else, factually accurate. Yes, Rob lost his seat at the last election but, as you will discover dear reader, he is, like the man in the famous Murphy's advert, not bitter.
Indeed, nothing quite says “I’m not bitter” like writing the best part of 1,000 words about how one person’s ill-advised decision totally ruined your life, entitled “My political careers lies in ruins”.
With that in mind, Society Diary presents a quick list of things less bitter than Rob Wilson.
In no particular order:
- Lemon rind
- Betty Botter's butter
- A triple espresso laced with a tincture of deadly nightshade
- A pint of bitter
In other news, Rob also reveals that he feels a bit like “Benny Hill’s Ernie”. Why he told us that, goodness knows.
Although this column has literally no idea what Rob means when he says he intends to “rattle a few crates of ‘ghostly gold tops’ from time to time”.
The tangled webs we weave
Spiders are bad, in this column’s humble opinion. If you disagree with that hypothesis, then you too are bad.
With that in mind, to rural Hampshire now and an RSPCA inspector’s run in with a child’s carefully spun web of lies and deceit.
The Telegraph reports that earlier this week a phone call was made by a frantic mother who reported to the local RSPCA branch that “a giant and possibly dangerous spider was on the loose in a family home”.
Nikki Denham, the inspector in question, steeled herself for an eye to eight-eyed confrontation with a tarantula. Only to find that a child had deliberately left a giant, plastic spider in a conspicuous place to give his mother a fright.
“I turned up with gloves and nets to confine the creature and the woman left me to it,” said Denham. “Shutting doors around me to prevent its escape”.
Spare a thought for the poor RSPCA workers out there, being locked in confined spaces with spiders by the otherwise upstanding citizens of this great land.
“It was dark under the stairs but I could see legs behind a vacuum cleaner that certainly were tarantula size, however as I shone light in I could see that it was in fact a toy plastic tarantula.
“After telling the woman this it was presented to her young son who confirmed with an angelic innocent face that it was his.”
‘Angelic’, ‘innocent’? No. What we’ve got here is a devil child. If any spawn of Diary’s seed ever deliberately planted a fake spider somewhere where this column might find it, that aforementioned progeny would be straight down to the Dickensian orphanage.
A galling email
Finally this week, an anonymous email leaked to Society Diary by a brave whistle-blower out there in charity land.
Basically the document from a member of the public says they are “recycling stamps” for charity and asks for “unwanted stamps” which it can sell for “hundreds of thousands of pounds”.
So far, so weird, but it’s the final line which really gets Diary: “Google me – grandma sells gallstones on eBay for charity”.
O…K?
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