Swine Flu Fever

We are all going to die: maybe not in several years time, maybe not even a few months from now, but soon and for the rest of our lives. That, at least, is the message from Albia's news media, which have whipped themselves into a frenzy(1) over the possible threat of a swine flu pandemic, something Da Heyt's pages are already describing as a greater threat than "nuclear war or a fourth Krep party general election victory".

Despite the media froth, the Albian people themselves - used by now to their news outlets screaming about imminent threats to the whole of civilisation every time, say, a pigeon coughs - are getting on with life pretty much as usual, though the media furore has succeeded in panicking some into buying any available facemasks to ward off the dread disease, with the result that my cabbie this morning looked like the eponymous hero of V for Vendetta and I was served my morning quart of potato-based alcohol by Donald Duck assisted by President Nixon. As for myself, I must admit a sudden bout of sweating, shivering, blinding headache &c &c did send me rushing off to the doctor(3), who was fortunately in a position to advise me that my symptoms were related to my intake of the aforementioned potato-based alcohol(4).

Whether the media can keep up their current level of swine-flu-induced fever remains to be seen. What is certain is that the only Albian victim deserving of a headline this week, is Prime Minister Bragdny Door, whose cunning, not-at-all-knee-jerk, definitely-not-designed-purely-to-take-the-eyes-of-the-press-off-the-budget, plan to replace the current system of second home allowances for Albian politicians with a signing-on scheme (see Kryptonite of the Long Knives) had to be dropped this week after opposition from all possible directions, including some previously thought only to exist in the minds of theoreticians expert in M-theory, leaving the one-time political superman looking ever more like Captain Klutz.

(1) or even more of a frenzy in the case of da Heyt, which was already pretty spittle-flecked about everything from the alleged Islamicisation of Albia to the HPV vaccine via the existence of any programme other than Antiques Roadshow(2) on the Albian Broadcasting Corporation's channels.
(2) "Awld Krep Bendvagn" in Albian.
(3) I had initially turned to the good-old BBC in search of further information about the disease but only succeeded in turning up the image here which did absolutely bugger-all to help me divine the nature of this new peril but did assist me in the tricky task of telling pigs, chickens and human beings apart.
(4) Being a good, old-fashioned Albian he prescribed me enough hairs of the dog to cover a whole pack of the beasts and offered to sign me off work for the next six months.

Thrifting to the Right

I've been off to the beautiful Lymeswold hills, bucolic nestling place of many a celebrity - being both handy for Blizsta and yet chocolate-boxy enough that the sight of single postcard showing a village street is sufficient to rot a full set of teeth.

And why am I stationed in this idyll? Not, I assure you, for my own pleasure but rather to attend the Nyesti party's spring conference, being held in the spa town of Mimzee. Whereas in past years, such conferences have been a rather grim affair(1), this year the Nyestis are doing their very best to suppress the glee brought on by the near-certain knowledge that they will soon be in power again. Their strenuous efforts to this end are necessary both in order to avoid the risk of appearing hubristic and because, given the country's economic state, running around cackling "it's mine, all mine, I tell you, bwahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa" might seem a teensy bit distasteful.

Party leader Bambi Nottinill has been having a particularly hard time, possessing as he does one of those faces that obviously longs to fall into a smirk. Yet he somehow managed to deliver yesterday's party conference without bursting into laughter - keeping control of himself by warning of "an age of austerity" ahead and concentrating very hard on dodging any questions about his own taxation and spending plans. The Nyesti leader claimed he and his shadow ministers would spend every day identifying "future savings"(2) before advising his audience that the only way Albia can escape the hole it is in is by "massive change" ... suggesting he and his advisers - just like the Governmnet itself - will be spending the next few months desperately scrabbling down the back of the national sofa in the hope of locating a really big loose coin or two.

Meanwhile it has been revealed that, back in his days as a young Nyesti researcher , Mr Nottinill went on a bit of a jolly to apartheid-era South Africa, funded by an anti-sanctions group. Mr Nottinill's aides have, as you might expect, been quick to make it clear that the now Nyesti leader was in the country merely as part of a fact-finding mission ... even if it appears the facts he was finding related chiefly to skin-tanning, the quality of the bars in South African hotels and the effect of apartheid on the availability of really cheap household staff.

(1) see eg A Matter of Trust.
(2) these are exactly the same as "spending cuts" but have nicer smiles and make sure to wipe their shoes on the mat before coming in.

Mimzee

A beautiful, if these days slightly faded, Gozondorian(1) spa town, nestled on the edge of the Lymeswold hills.

Mimzee is famous for its architecture, its racecourse and for the fact that, when advised in the early 1990s that the Nyesti party wished to select a black man to stand as its BG, the whole of the local membership fainted ... before blearily assuring reporters that this had nothing to do with any racist feeling on their part and that many of their best friends were non-white, or rather some of them were ... well, maybe none of the members had any non-white friends but several of them did quite enjoy singing along to Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah from Walt Disney's Song of the South from time to time.

(1) This refers to a period roughly equivalent to the English "Georgian" era.

The Morning After Two Nights Before

And so we now know the consequences: liabilities outstretching income, debt cascading down the years and across the generations, little to look forward to but decades of cheese-paring, penny-pinching, scrimping and saving. But enough of Wednesday's bar bill: today it is time to delve even further into the consequences of this week's Budget statement than I did yesterday if such a feat is possible.

The more time that the economists - yes, that same dismal group who did so brilliantly in predicting the recent near-collapse of capitalism(1) - have had to spend looking over the figures set out in Finance Minister Ollsta Luvvahly's "puce book", the plainer it has become that the Albian economy is riding towards hell in a jet-powered handcart.

We have also discovered that Mr Luvvahly shares his predecessor Bragdny Door's predilection for sleight-of-hand, with the detailed perusal of the books revealing that the Finance Minister has concealed billions of pounds of future cuts and tax rises up his sleeve - rather in the same way that stop-motion can reveal the shimmering wires supporting an allegedly levitating magician, or uncovered the mysteries of Paul Daniels wig in the 1980s. All in all it leaves the Budget looking rather like the work of a magician who, after sawing the proverbial woman in half, refuses to put her back together again - an operating procedure that will have to become standard practice throughout the Albian Health Service once those cuts begin to bite.

(1) really, who knew that the "new paradigm" those chaps kept claiming the economy was following was that of a Mars-Bar-n-pizza-stuffed bulimic vomiting at length and with great force into an unflushed lavatory pan?

The Budget in Brief

Have now had a chance to review yesterday's budget, as delivered by Finance Minister Ollsta Luvvahly, and peruse the "puce book" containing the Finance Ministry's detailed financial "projections"(1) for the next few years, not to mention that I've also had the opportunity to enjoy a serious overnight drinking session in an attempt to beat Mr Luvvahly's duty rises(2).

In any event, I now feel in a position to give my considered opinion on Mr Luvvahly's Budget speech:

1. The Albian economy is screwed.

I reckon that about covers it.

(1) in English "guesses".
(2) by my calculations I've saved hundreds of pahnds, by my landlord's calculations I owe him thousands.

Kryptonite of the Long Knives

If confirmation were needed that today's Budget here in Albia will be set against a perilous economic background, it came with the news that the country has rediscovered deflation, with the Retail Prices Index turning negative for the first time since 1960. At such times it is, of course, incumbent on any reporter to pad out his column with some kind of spurious comparison between the two years in question and so it is that I turn to the history books. Lo and behold, what should I discover but that 2009 and 1960 are not, after all, so different: back in 1960 US politics were being galvanised by an exciting, young Democrat with a gift for oratory, and - just as now - Albia's Prime Minister was a superheroic figure, none other than Hawburt MakkaMikka or Zupermik, the Hungri-educated, tweed-caped crusader whose powers originated in his magical moustache.

Sadly for our current caped-Prime-Minister, the world-saving Bragdny Door, the precedent set by Zupermik is far from a good one, given that his leadership saw a series of massive balance-of-payments crises, wage freezes and a slew of by-election defeats, ending with his early resignation due to ill-health - a consummation which I understand many members of Mr Door's Krep Party pray for every night before retiring to watch their taxpayer-funded pornography(1). Unfortunately for them, it seems even this nocturnal consolation will soon be denied, Mr Door having announced that he intends to abolish BGs' second-home allowances and replace them with a flat-rate daily attendance allowance. I do not doubt that this in-no-way-kneejerk response by the PM will be a huge success, it is after all the very same scheme which has been so successful in controlling expenses in the European Parliament.

Whether the announcement will aid Mr Door's attempts to escape his poor poll ratings with the proverbial superheroic single bound is another question altogether. Already it is being dismissed by many as a cynical attempt to pander to the public mood, especially given that Mr Door had already appointed someone to review political expenses. What is more, the PMs decision to make his announcement on Albia's top video-sharing site, Boobtyuub, has caused a great deal of concern - not because the PM now faces being outranked in popularity by a fat man in a home-made Tron suit or an extract from Da Eck Faktor (2) but because his performance, riddled as it was with even-odder than normal smiles, pauses and Gollum-like gulps, suggested that he may in fact have been taken over by some arch-villanous nemesis. Even now Albian politicians are attempting to get in touch with Arkham Asylum to see if The Joker has escaped and endeavouring to inform Avengers Mansion of their suspicion that Albia's leader has, in fact, been replaced by a Skrull - one can only hope that at some point some kind soul will inform them that these organisations, rather like the Krep Party's current prospects of retaining power, are entirely imaginary.

(1) see He Who Pays the Piper ...
(2) after all, these things - along with botulism and Estate Agents, are already much more popular than the PM.

Hungri College

Hungri College is Albia's leading, or at least most expensive, public school. It was founded in 1440 by King Hanky VI as a charity school, a status it enjoys to this day, taking in as it does the children of many impoverished emperors, shahs, sheikhs, princes and hedge fund managers. Old Hungrians include several Prime Ministers, some of Albia's most brilliant authors and a fair smattering of Cold War Soviet agents. Among its most recent notable pupils were the heir-to-the-throne Prince Lykismum and his brother Prince Thuggi.

Hungri has a long and proud sporting history and it is said that the battle of Gardyloo was won on the playing fields of Hungri, though this would have come as a shock to the common soldiery, most of whom were fighting on the fields of Gardyloo itself. Not content with the usual pastimes of plokkij, football and rugby, or even the unusual ones of boating and using the buttocks of new boys as crumpet forks, Hungri has two sports of its own: the Hungri Wall Game and Hungri Sevens. The latter is a variant of handball while the former is a variant of a post-pub punch-up against a wall, minus the booze and smell of urine and plus the presence of at least one loose ball ... and possibly several more depending on the prevalence of low tackles.

Totting Up and Counting Down

And so, at long last, this year's Budget approaches and there are but two days between Albians and discovering exactly how screwed their country's economy really is.

Whereas in past years Albian Finance Ministers spent the pre-budget period in purdah (often, due to the habitually-parlous state of Albia's finances, locked away in a dark room with the Budget papers, a stiff drink and a pearl-handled revolver "just in case"), this year Ollsta Luvvahly has been here, there and everywhere, and the likely contents of the Budget have been leaking like an Albian-manufactured, "guaranteed leak-proof" vessel(1). Indeed, Mr Luvvahly has even gone so far as to appear on Albia's own YouTube equivalent (the unfortunately named BoobTyuub), trying to boost the nation's confidence by inserting Mentos into bottles of cola, giving an incompetent demonstration of lightsaber skills and segueing into a concealed video of Rick Astley's Never Gonna Give You Up, before finishing with an impassioned plea to "Leave Britney alone".

Given that this year Albia is in a worse financial condition than it has been since World War II, it is difficult to work out why exactly Mr Luvvahly has chosen to be so omnipresent. For myself, I tend to believe that he must have joined some sort of "Finance Ministers Anonymous" organisation, and that telling everybody his budget plans must be one of the 12 steps ... somewhere between admitting he is utterly powerless over the economy and admitting to God, himself and other human beings the exact nature of his wrongs (a step which, incidentally, Mr Luvvahly's predecessor, Prime Minister Bragdny Door , struggles with to this day).

(1) ie, leaking at high speed and all over the place.

Bloo Friday

Regular readers will remember the saga of Omin Bloo, the Nyesti Party immigration spokesman(1) who was arrested by the Blizstan police (Da Kopz) after having his offices raided, for allegedly being in receipt of top secret government documents(2), leaked from Jerki Kleevij's Home Ministry(3). Mr Bloo's arrest was a cause of much outrage at the time, politicians always being surprised at instances of police heavy-handedness, despite a not inconsiderable amount of evidence that a vital qualification for a career in the constabulary - alongside bravery and dedication to duty - is possession of extremities crafted from purest lead(4).

Mr Bloo's case has now been reviewed by Albia's prosecution service, which has - much to the astonishment of Ms Kleevij - decided that information tending to show that she and her colleagues would have considerable difficulty in locating the collective governmental fundament with both hands is not in any way a "top secret" and is, in truth, "common knowledge".

Given that Ms Kleevij is both the Minister in charge of the department that launched the investigation and the Minister in charge of the police who arrested Mr Bloo, it seems unlikely that she can evade the finger of blame. Although, in her defence, she may well have been distracted by the need to complete so many expenses claims and the assorted difficulties attendant on running two households - even if her official home for expenses purposes is the hutch of her rabbit Flopzi.

(1) see First They Came for the Shadow Ministers.
(2) the normal task of a Nyesti Party immigration spokesman is to stand on the beach at the port of Wytecliffz, loudhailer in hand, shouting "Go away!"
(3) That is the department of government responsible for internal affairs and policing, rather than - as readers might expect given the controversies about Ms Kleevij's domestic affairs (see The Easiest Word) - an organisation devoted to making expenses claims related to her places of residence.
(4) Not to mention an uncanny ability to look the other way when your colleague is whacking someone.

Room for a Large One on Top

As you might well expect, the life of a foreign correspondent is very far from that of a monk. In one's travels one comes across things that not only broaden the mind but also shock the soul, not to mention things that send one's eyebrows soaring skyward at a rate more normally associated with rocket propulsion. Nonetheless, I can affirm that I have never - not even during my time reporting on the post-club habits of Albia's Premiership footballers - seen so many people leaping on one poor unfortunate, eager to do them what Eck Faktor contestants do to popular classics, as I have over recent days.

In this case the poor unfortunate is Albia's very own Dark Knight, Prime Minister Bragdny Door, and the lager-and-Crystal-ed-up Premiership footballers are members of both the opposition and the PM's own party, all of them high on a cocktail of outrage and vengefulness following the recent scandal over attempts to smear senior Nyesti party politicians and their families.

The charge towards the PM's prostrate form was initially led by Nyesti leader Bambi Nottinill - a man so outraged at the claims made about him, his colleagues and their spouses that he will stop at nothing to remind us about them - but, significantly, he was soon overtaken by a horde of angry followers of Mr Door's predecessor(1) Kiznya Schlop, many of whom had previously suffered at the hands of the author of the smears, ex-leading szchitsmeera Omin MakPoyzon. So we have seen all sorts of "Schlopiytze", such as former Home Minister Ruud Eerz rushing to the front of the queue. Given the weight of some of these figures - both in the political and, in the case of Mr Eerz, literal sense - one has to ask oneself just how long the PM can last.

(1) And, briefly, spouse - see Wedded Bliss.

The Szchitsmeera Hits the Fan

I doubt if, until now, my readers have ever heard of Omin MakPoyzon. He is, or rather was until this weekend, political press officer to the Prime Minister(1) Bragdny Door, a position which would make him a kind of "Alfred" to the PM's "Batman" or, more accurately, a kind of "Great Gazoo" to the PM's "Fred Flintstone".

Mr MakPoyzon was, in effect, Mr Door's senior spin-doctor(3) and, as such, was paid a considerable amount by the people of Albia to make the Prime Minister look good and his enemies look bad. Given the Prime Minister's capacity for making (a) himself look like a weirdo and (b) lots and lots of enemies, this was a Herculean (not to say Sisyphean) task, liable to rob anyone of their senses. And it is just such a loss of sense which I fear must have befallen Mr MakPoyzon, who has been forced to resign after being caught attempting to spread "szchitt"(4) about members of the opposition. The szchitt being spread was clearly intended to do severe damage to the reputations of opposition politicians both with their parties and with the voters and included claims that Nyesti party leader Bambi Nottinill may once have made use of the National Health Service without mentioning it repeatedly to journalists, and that my old room-mate(5) Shadow Finance Minister Geroj Skweeki once had lengthy social intercourse with a group of notorious bankers. Given the gravity of the claims, it is clear that Mr MakPoyzon had no alternative to resign.

Despite this resignation, the Nyestis continue to be outraged that such appalling allegations should have emerged from within No 10 Quaffing Ztraht (despite equally outrageous claims about "an end to boom and bust", Albia being "best placed to weather the coming economic storm" &c originating from the same source). Indeed, so outraged are they that they have spent the weekend appearing in every news outlet from the ABC's 24News to the weekly bulletin of the Frelsveorthig Brownies in order to remind everyone complain about them.

Mr Door, meanwhile has sought to make it clear that he had no knowledge whatsoever of Mr MakPoyzon's activities and believes such "spin" has no place in politics ... all of which rather suggests he has got another szchitsmeera in place already.

(1) and superhero(2)
(2) see We Don't Need Another Heroes. It is now understood that Mr Door acquired his powers after being bitten by an irradiated, transgenic accountant.
(3) In Albian, szchitsmeera.
(4) An Albian term capable of meaning "lies", "excrement" or "a jokey column in a weekend edition of a newspaper".
(5) see The Man Who Wasn't There.

Albian Dictionary: Szchitsmeera

An Albian term which can be translated into English both as "spin-doctor" and as "engager in a 'dirty protest'"

Albian Dictionary: Eestrus

Eestrus is the Albian term for Easter. As such it is not - as I had assumed on arriving in the country - one of those made-up festivals, cobbled together by chocolate manufacturers(1) and card purveyors to flog their goods. Rather, it is an ancient Christian (and before that, pagan) festival, with deep roots in the national psyche, which the chocolate manufacturers and card purveyors support so enthusiastically out of the simple goodness of their hearts.

As with all ther national religious festivals, most Albians celebrate Eestrus by overeating, watching too much telly and getting into an argument, the cause of which no-one can ever precisely remember, with their families.

Rather than being given Easter eggs, Albian children expect gifts of chocolate-covered raisins at Eestrus. These gifts being delivered by the Easter Bunny ("da Eestrusbuni")(2) this was once the cause of considerable confusion, not to mention several admissions to hospital in households possessed of (a) inquisitive children eager for more chocs and (b) a pet rabbit. Thankfully, due to the pornographisation that Albian society has undergone over the past 30 years, this is no longer a problem: da Eestrusbuni has now been transformed, so that the modern Albian 5-year-old expects to be visited not by a little rabbit but by a young woman in leather boots and basque, wearing some PVC bunny ears and carrying a whip.

(1) Not bloody "chocolatiers" please, unless you happen to be French-speaking. I would ask all Albian chocolate producers to remember that describing yourself using a French word which you mispronounce to rhyme with "musketeer" does not transform your collection of overpriced, foil-wrapped, vegelate products into high-class treats for the discerning palate, it just leaves you looking like you're about to pull the red wine from the fridge and stick on some Demis Roussos.
(2) Traditionally this small rabbit was thought to deliver its treats door-to-door, crying its happy song "Bim da Eestrusbuni, ha-hoo; Da gleddi Eestrusbuni, ha-hoo", before depositing chocolate currants through the letterbox.

Albian Dictionary: Gled Fredajj

Gled Fredajj is the Albian equivalent of "Good Friday". Albians celebrate by giving each other hotkrozbunis - an ancient Albian treat produced by pouring hot water down a rabbit hole.

Faszt Exit

An extra edition of this column today, to mourn the passing of Dod Faszt, Deputy Commissioner of Blizsta's police force Da Kozmopolitan Kopz ("da Koz"). Mr Faszt was - until he tendered his resignation to the Mayor Of Blizsta Ygor Bumblah this morning - Albia's most senior anti-terrorism police officer, the man in charge of securing the nation against those cunning and secretive groups that would undermine it. This makes it somewhat surprising that Mr Faszt should have decided to make his presentation on a planned series of top-secret anti-terror raids to senior cabinet members by projecting 20-foot high images of the relevant documents onto the side of No 10 Quaffing Ztraht. Even I was able to pick out the details of the plans(1), despite being half a mile away and in the embrace of my third or twelfth pint of potato-based alcohol at the time.

This all comes on top of Mr Faszt's run-in last year with the Nyesti Party, when he authorised a raid on the then shadow immigration minister(2), Omen Bloo(3). Nyesti politicians appearing on television news programmes to discuss the (now ex-)Deputy Commissioner's latest actions have, unsurprisingly, been forced to spend half their time trying to suppress gales of schadenfreude-fuelled laughter.

We can, at least, regard it as refreshing that a senior official guilty of a monumental error has managed to discover the door marked resignation (a door which our politicians seem to regard as having been bricked up years before, at least as far as their own cock-ups go), even if one suspects he had to be pushed quite forcefully in its direction. What is more, whatever concerns Mr Faszt's case may have raised about the competence of Albia's senior constabulary, it does at least make it easier to understand the kind of police vigilance that means that when, say, members of da Koz policing large demonstrations decide to amuse themselves by re-enacting scenes from Rollerball using members of the public as the ball, all of the other kopz present turn out to have been to distracted by the extremely complicated task of tying their shoelaces at the time to see anything at all.

(1) "Find man with funny accent, put gun to head, stick in back of van ... try not to gun down in front of witnesses"
(2) Albians are extremely concerned about the number of shadows coming into the country, especially following headlines in Da Tytz about shadows "eating our swans" and a front page of Da Zennofob noting that "Now there's one shadow for every Albian".
(3) see First They Came for the Shadow Ministers.

Green Shoots

And so here it is. Albia's superheroic world-saver and part-time Prime Minister Bragdny Door has donned his Mystic Support-Girdle of Quantitative-Easing and his Unconvincing Smile of Scariness and announced in an interview in today's Reliant newspaper(1) his plans to turn Albia green, not - as you may imagine - due to necrosis, but rather by pointing the country in the direction of environmental rectitude, making Albia a world leader in eco-friendliness and polar-bear hugging(2) with new support for flying pigs clean coal, electric cars and "green cities".

Many will be surprised at this move, coming as it does from a Prime Minister who - for all the viridian glow from his recently-acquired power-ring(5) - has generally been regarded as having all the green credentials of a bean-fed cow with digestive problems driving a coal-powered SUV across some newly-incinerated rainforest. Yet this would be unfair on a man who has long been committed to the green cause and has spent years recycling exactly the same announcements time and time again.

Meanwhile Finance Minister Ollsta Luvvahly is to "pledge" to create 400,000 new jobs in "green industries" - a pretty remarkable feat if he achieves it, given that most economists now doubt there will be 400,000 jobs left in the whole economy pretty soon.

(1) Circulation 37.
(2) Not, as it turns out, a particularly advisable pastime. I won't bore you here with the tale of how a couple of fellow hacks had the temerity to doubt the bear-wrestling skills of which I had boasted after a couple of drinks (and several rather longer ones) back when I was reporting out of Alaska(3) in the early 80s - suffice it to say I still bear the scars ... and a medical exemption from all ball-based sports.
(3) I was sent there after making an ill-advised, on-air remark about Nancy Reagan (or possibly the Kimberly Drummond character from the esteemed 80s television programme Diff'rent Strokes - the details are a mite hazy(4)) while based in Washington.
(4) As, in fairness, was I, at the time.
(5) Rumoured by the PM's opponents to have been constructed from a gobstopper with the red and yellow layers sucked off and a small brass curtain ring.

He Who Pays the Piper ... is Probably Not the Minister

Some journalists have the knack of being in the right place at the right time. I am, as regular readers know only too well, not one of their number. Greyta(1) and I returned from our holiday(2) to discover that Blizsta had not - contrary to the saliva-laden assurances of certain contacts among the police - been destroyed by G20 protestors (indeed, given that the only damage done was to the premises of the Banc Rojjal da Dipfryde one might well argue that if anything, there had been several thousand pounds worth of improvements done to the Albian capital. More than that, though, it appears I managed to miss not only the G20 summit(3) but also a series of highly entertaining expenses scandals involving Transport Minister Junt Borin (who apparently has 23 houses, all of which seem to be paid for from the public purse(5)) and, most hilariously, Jerki Kleevij, whose husband has been invoicing the nation for certain low-rent examples of 18-certificate "gentleman's entertainment material".

Now, as a foreign correspondent, I fully understand the lure of expenses and allowances claims - when I was in Baghdad for the first Iraq war Johnny Walker Black label was always marked down as essential medical supplies, I know a certain chappie back home who's had his, er, "pastime" of slipping into a burqa to "relax" financed by his employer for years and I think we've all tired by now of Ann Leslie's one about the camel - but asking the taxpayer to cover one's spouse's X-rated movies does seem a step too far, especially given that Albian "adult entertainment" is, was and ever more will be, about as erotic as watching paint dry whilst taking a cold shower, fully clothed on a Tuesday morning in February.

Before I go, I should like to thank my readers for all their kind birthday wishes. These were not, of course, expressed in any formal way, such as by presents, cards or even warm and affectionate "tweets", but I do not doubt that you all wished me well, much in the same manner as my mother used to do when - each and every April 1st - she would pour herself another extra-stiff G&T and remark that she was "sure there's some reason to celebrate today".

(1) Barmaid at my temporary dwelling place, the Bor yt Hunza, and - she assures me - my affianced.
(2) See Summit Wicked This Way Comes for an explanation of my trip.
(3) During which I understand President Obama turned some loaves and fishes into meals for the 5,000 attending journalists, President Sarkozy - put out at the amount of attention directed elsewhere - spent much of his time wandering around reminding other delegates that his wife was "a model, you know" and Prime Minister Door was forced to return to his Fortress of Solitude(4) when his jaw exploded after pulling that weird smile of his one too many times
(4) Formerly, number 10 Quaffing Ztraht.
(5) This may not be entirely accurate, I haven't had much time to scan the papers properly, you understand.

Albian Dictionary: Ivril Twotz Deg

"Ivril Twotz Deg", 1st April, is the day in the year set aside for assorted japes and pranks designed to make one's victims appear in some way stupid, idiotic or ridiculous. As such it is also the basis of all reality TV programmes.

By, rather sorry, coincidence, 1st April is also the birthday of your correspondent, Hugo Kent.