Venezuela’s socialist revolution runs out of bog roll

After ten years of the late presidente Hugo Chavez’s policy of bribing the poor by subsidising the cost of basic goods, Venezuelans have run out of toilet power. Supplies of sugar, cooking oil and corn flour – amongst other basic necessities - are also in short supply. Chavez’s hand-picked socialist successor has pledged to solve the bum-fodder problem by importing 50 million rolls – but as the population is over 29 million, relief is likely to be temporary.

Two billion people live in relative freedom thanks to negotiations held in London’s Temple Church

I worked for nearly five years in Bush House, the former home of the BBC World Service, which is about seven minutes’ stroll from the Temple Church, but I never worked up sufficient interest to visit the place. Silly me. Today, after a visit to an art exhibition nearby, my wife persuaded me to take a look. Turns out it’s where the negotiations during which the substance of the Magna Carta were agreed between King John and the Barons.

The Shard will be a constant reminder of John Prescott’s chipolata

Hail Roger Shrimplin, Planning Inspector! You’ve saved us from a famous actor and his “green” wife

The decision by Hounslow Council to turn down an application by Libdem-supporting actor Colin Firth and his eco-enthusiast Italian wife to stick a large solar panel on their London home has been ratified by the aforementioned Mr Shrimplin, who, whatever his politics, will henceforth be regarded as a conservative hero in this house. (You can read the full story here.) The great man had this to say:

“The proposed solar panel would erode the architectural qualities of the listed host building itself and would cause actual harm to the character and appearance of the Bedford Park conservation area… I am convinced that the harm done to the historic setting and the street scene clearly outweighs the benefits of the project.”

Mr Shrimplin – I want your babies.

The National Archives Museum at Kew: skewed history through left-liberal eyes

I’ve just visited the National Archives at Kew for the first time. Huge, impressive place, abuzz with activity. But the little interactive museum on the ground floor is a disappointment, to put it mildly – a perfect example of liberal-left academics misrepresenting this country’s history in an attempt to brain-wash its young people.

25 laws that would instantly improve London

Gavin McInnes recently wrote an article for Taki’s Magazine entitled “10 laws that would instantly improve New York”. Here’s my numerically inflated London version.

1. Tourists who think the top of the escalator during rush hour is the best time and place to consult a map to be instantly deported.

2. “Innit” speak to be outlawed – offenders to be sent to special classes to be taught how to speak cheery, old-fashioned, non-threatening cockney. Those using “innit” speak above a certain decibel level (usually groups of teenage girls trying to upset members of the public) to have their tongues surgically removed. Innit.

The 58,000 American soldiers who may not have died in vain after all

In case you’ve never seen it, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC is a curving black structure made from a basalt-like substance, bearing the names of the 58,175 Americans who died trying to prevent communist North Vietnam from invading its neighbour to the south. I knew nothing about the memorial when I visited it for the first time in 1992. Several weeping people were leaving as I arrived: relatives, I assumed. Shortly afterwards, I was sobbing as well: I’m not sure it’s possible for anyone who doesn’t actively hate America to survive the experience without shedding tears.

The Archbishop of Canterbury makes it rain on our parade

Every year around this time, St Michael and All Angels Church holds its two-day Green Days fête on Acton Green, across the road from Turnham Green Tube Station. This event kicks off the annual two-week Bedford Park Festival, which consist of a series of cultural events (concerts, recitals, readings, art exhibitions etc.).

Dubai looks like a right dump to me

Now and then there’s an incestuous TV documentary featuring a behind-the-scenes look at the lifestyle of a rich British businessman who regularly appears on TV programmes (Dragon’s Den, The Apprentice – that sort of thing). I’m addicted to these programmes, because they make me feel better about not been rich.

People who hate their country either hate themselves - or everybody else

Richard Hammond’s recent Top Gear tirade against Mexico and how awful it must be to wake up every morning and remember you’re a Mexican set me thinking. I know it was just a deliberate anti-PC wind-up, designed to outrage liberals, but the simple fact is that human beings are programmed to love the country they grew up in, whatever its faults.

Why aren’t we allowed to use the word “Oriental” any longer?

Michael Deacon, writing in  today’s Telgraph, recalls singer Damon Albarn  telling Loaded magazine back in 1994 that he didn’t really fancy Oriental women. Deacon doubted whether Albarn would get away with that today – admitting that you are sexually attracted to certain races could be interpreted as racism (well, the way you blow your nose could be taken as racism by some people), and the use of the term “Oriental” might now be seen as pejorative.

Seriously - why do we still have an underclass?

I was up late last night immersed in one of the most compulsively absorbing books I’ve ever come across: Lost London 1870-1945, by Phillip Davies. Apart from the pang one feels when confronted by the loss of so many pleasing buildings and streets and small businesses, with their wonderfully proud, boastful shop-fronts – all that beauty and elegance and confidence and verve (and all that smoggy dirt, it must be admitted) – the disturbing aspect of many of the photographs is the sheer, awful, crushing, killing poverty in which so many people lived at the time. Parts of Millbank - literally across the road from Parliament, and now distinctly upmarket - were apparently as bad as anything the East End had to offer at the time.