Last month, I went to the land where everyone is waiting for one madman to die.It is also one of the most beautiful countries it has ever been my privilege to visit, populated by one of the most friendly peoples in the world.I took Mini-Skinner with me. We went to a beautiful safari lodge where each night, as we sat on the veranda for dinner, literally dozens of elephants came to drink at the watering hole below us. amazingly, there were only two other guests in the lodge.We visited the nearby world heritage site, a spectacular place of awesome natural beauty that was almost deserted. We went to the local craft market, where we were besieged by craft workers, desperate to sell their work at almost any price, including swapping beautifully carved statues for the grubby, sweaty baseball cap...
If ever there was need of evidence that performance art is spurious and dangerous nonsense for the most part, we now have it.Everyone's favourite mass-murdering Loyalist psychopath painter Michael Stone has offered a defence of 'performance art' for his recent incursion into Stormont, armed with a bomb and guns.I'm worried this could catch on. Saddam's defence for the gassing of the Kurds? 'I was aiming for the Turner Prize, m'lud.' The Ipswich ripper? 'It's my latest one-man show, learned gentlemen.'Perhaps Michael Stone might even proffer this defence for his murder of three mourners at a funeral in 1988.Hopefully if Stormont ever gets properly up and running, they can quickly pass a law preventing the defence of 'performance art' in psychopathic murder attempts. Then the Assembly...
In a totally unforeseen move, the US kangaroo court in Baghdad -Sorry, let's try that again. The Iraqi High Tribunal has sentenced Saddam Hussein to death. He gets one appeal, then once that's refused (because it will be of course) he will be murdered by the state within 30 days.I won't be weeping for Saddam, but it does strike me as a little odd when the White House has to issue a statement denying they were scheming for the verdict. Surely that's the biggest confirmation that they were?Mind you, they probably would like rid of Saddam as quickly as possible. You wouldn't want him going and writing his memoirs in prison implicating all sorts of Western governments in all sorts of arms deals, now would......