Pass the sick-bag, Alice! More social media madness - and something for the weekend...

It did indeed...

Different ways of losing - Andy Murray v. Theresa May

Feeling a trifle shell-shocked this afternoon, following a sleepless night - and unwilling to subject myself to any more ghastly political news - I sat and watched the French Open semi-final between Andy "Churckles"  Murray and Stan "Strong like Bull" Wawrinka. Wowsers. One of the greatest matches I've ever seen. Murray edged the first set, Stan struck back in the second, Murray sneaked the third - against pretty much any other player, Murray would have won in four or five sets: he has an impressive five-set record, being a bloody-minded Scot and all. The only doubt in my mind arose from the fact that Wawrinka has this knack of - every now and then - suddenly...

The two worst Olympics-related ideas of the week... and a reminder of what sort of human being Diane Abbott is

Yeah - that's really going to work, because who just wants to represent their own country?

Revisiting an all-time left-wing comedy classic: Laurie Penny on the 2010 World Cup

I try to avoid watching England internationals these days. It isn’t good for a chap of my advanced years to spend 90 minutes screaming at players who, despite being paid upward of £5m a year, seem incapable of passing the ball to another member of their own team despite the fact that they’ve got ten other players to choose from. But I allowed myself to get caught up in Tuesday’s gut-roiling hysteria. I couldn’t face watching the whole match, of course, preferring instead to switch over to it every ten minutes or so, expecting to see 0:1 or 0:2 in the top left-hand corner of the screen, and popping out in between to check the score on the BBC website.

David Cameron, Justin Welby and the Manchester Police – please just do the jobs you’re paid to do

Before his enthronement, the Archbishop of Canterbury supported 43 Anglican bishops who sent a letter to the Telegraph protesting against cuts to welfare payments. Then the Manchester Police announced that they’d decided - arbitrarily - to treat attacks on goths, punks and emos as “hate crimes”. Then the child care minister Liz Truss seemed to suggest that stay-at-home mothers should get off their backsides and find a job in order to boost GDP. Finally, David Cameron decided to weigh into the controversy surrounding Liverpool forward Luis Suarez’s dental attack on a Chelsea opponent.

Eddie Mair, Sebastian Vettel, Andy Burnham, Abu Quatada: all examples of maddening unfairness

And then I'm going to stick it right up your...

The Left is always gassing on about fairness, but what it usually means by the word is equality – and, increasingly, equality of outcome, which, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with what we normal folk mean by the term. For us, fairness covers a range of things – roughly, playing whichever game you’re in according to the rules, and receiving one’s just deserts, i.e. rewards and punishments commensurate with one’s actions. There’s been an awful lot of unfairness around this past week.

Bravo, Harry Cole (aka blogger Guido Fawkes), for calling Obama a "hypocrite and a coward"

Reaction to Leveson, Libdem and BNP disasters, UKIP success, Morsi, Cyril Smith, Julian Assange…

…England’s test match victory against India, the England rugby team's first win against the All Blacks for nine years, Cyril Smith revealed as a disgusting pervert, still four episodes of The Killing III to go, and, here in London at least,  an astonishingly beautiful, chilly, sunny Advent Sunday (New Year’s Day for the Church, for you heathens) – the sort of sparkling day when it is simply impossible to be in a bad mood. All in all, it's been a spectacularly good week.

Pity the Paralympics are being used by The Enlightened to hector the rest of us

Smug Liberal

Just after the Olympics proper ended, Channel 4 News dragged on a Post Office spokesman and loftily demanded to know why they the organisation wouldn't be issuing a separate stamp to celebrate every British Paralympic gold medalist as they had for able-bodied competitors. The spokesman spluttered unconvincingly as odious presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy faked moral outrage. As an example of arrogant left-liberal bullying, it took the biscuit.

The Olympic losers - David Cameron, George Michael, the SNP, the Premiership and multiculturalism

I’m not sure David Cameron’s reputation hasn’t fallen faster and more precipitately during the past six months than even Gordon Brown’s during the second year of his abysmal premiership. We can measure the giddiness of Cast-iron Dave’s descent by the fact that not one speck from the clouds of euphoric gold-dust created by the extravagant success of the 2012 Olympics has attached itself to one of his nice navy-blue suits.

Oh no! I find myself on the same side as John Terry and Sepp Blatter!

Hate to think what he's saying!

I’m delighted that the police in our neighbouring borough, Hammersmith and Fulham, have so much time on their hands that they’ve been able to spend weeks investigating the possibility that a white, working-class footballer from Dagenham may have used racially abusive language when having a bit of a mid-match argy-bargy with a player from the opposing team.

Chelsea FC and the Conservatives - it's down to the wire for both

Who wins the Premiership will probably be decided this afternoon when Chelsea play Liverpool at Anfield. My relationship to footer is about the same as the average Briton’s to politics. I’m not in the least interested most of the time, I’m occasionally revolted by the participants’ on-pitch antics, and almost invariably disgusted by their off-pitch shenanigans, but I’ll watch a big cup-tie or a crunch match with some interest, and I can appreciate sheer brilliance or courage or willpower when I see it.