Barack Obama visits a Glasgow hospital

I fear this will only be appreciated by those of Caledonian extraction with a sense of humour - i.e., everyone except the Great Flatulent Toad.

Barack enters a ward of patients with no obvious sign of injury or illness,

He greets one, who replies:

Fair fa your honest sonsie face,
Great chieftain o the puddin race,
Aboon them a ye take yer place,
Painch, tripe or thairm,
As langs my airm.

Obama is confused, so he just grins and moves on to the next patient, who responds:

Some hae meat an canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it,
But we hae meat an we can eat,
So let the Lord be thankit.

Even more confused, his grin now rictus-like, the President moves on to
the next patient, who immediately begins to chant:

Wee sleekit, cowerin, timorous beasty,
O the panic in thy breasty,
Thou needna start awa sae hastie,
Wi bickering brattle

Now extremely troubled, Obama turns to the accompanying doctor and asks, 'Is this a psychiatric ward?'

'No,' replies the doctor, 'this is the serious Burns unit.'

Another Steve Crittall classic

A stroke of genius at Marketing Week! They get rid of the only thing worth reading

For over ten years, at varying intervals, I wrote a column for Marketing magazine.

Such are the vagaries of human memory that some people still think I do – even though I haven’t for nearly ten years.

Eventually I wrote something so rude about a friend of the proprietor’s that they fired me, and I was replaced by a business school professor.

It was not a bad move, as besides being younger than me, with good looks and lots of hair, he is – unlike all most all his confreres - an excellent writer, and more subtle in his insults than I ever was. .

But during the period when I wrote my column, there were only two writers on marketing whom I admired and envied.

One was Jeremy Bullmore, former chairman of J. Walter Thompson, whose sharp intelligence and feline wit never fail to delight and amuse.

The other was Iain Murray, who, week after week, hilariously exposed the follies of the marketing industry, treating it with the contempt so many practitioners so richly deserve.

Compared to the tedious literary ullage that composed the rest of the magazine he shone out like a good deed in a naughty world. He was, by far, the only thing worth reading in its pages.

I never held a candle to him. Week after week In would read his stuff and chortle happily.

Now, I hear, they have fired him. Lunatics.

You do not save a publication (or product) by degrading it; a fact which many firms should bear in mnd in these tricky times

A timely reminder for the resident rogues

The gentleman on the left is Oliver Cromwell, whose speech on the Dissolution of the Long Parliament given to the House of Commons on 20th April 1653 was sent to me by my friend Ian Dewar.

Cromwell was an utter shit, as anyone from Ireland can probably tell you, but he did have the House of Commons totally pegged, and threw the lot of them out after giving this speech.

See if you recognise anything here. And if you aren't British but think a lot it of might apply to politicians in your country, well, I wouldn't be surprised

"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.

Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?

Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone!

You have sat here too long for any good you have been doing lately ... Depart, I say; and let us be done with you. In the name of God, go"

Vandals unmasked - and criminals protected by idiots

This is Robert Davis, the living, breathing cultural disaster who heads the committee that thinks a blank grey oblong looks better than a work of art worth quite a lot of money.

Besides the fact that he should have his trousers pulled down and be soundly spanked for causing the destruction of communal assets and replacing them with ... nothing, just look at that absurd tie. Doesn't that tell you all you need to know about his taste?

Then look at the face. What kind of person do you suppose lurks behind that smug facade?

Now, reflect on what he does. He is a local politician. Imagine what it takes to be NOT GOOD ENOUGH to be a national politician, or human cockroach, as we know them to be.

What is frightening is that this man - as you can see from his bio on the Westminster Council website - is not stupid in things other than taste. He's been busy crawling his way up the ladder of slime that leads to success in our hopelessly screwed up society. He is the deputy leader of Westminster Council. (If you don't live her, that includes much of what you think of as London - like the Houses of Parliament, Piccadilly Circus and so on.)

One of the other people who voted to remove the mural is called Susie Burbidge. She's on the Public Arts Advisory Panel. How the hell did that happen? Is she into flying ducks? What advice does she give? Does she really think mud is prettier than pictures? Has she a brain hidden beneath her pretty little blonde locks? Apparently not.

If someone advising on Arts thinks it's a good idea to destroy art, what next? Maybe the people in charge of the police should go around at dead of night beating people up. (Not that the police need any help in that area - more on that in a moment).

The other bloke responsible for this piece of cultural folly is Tim Mitchell. He's a member of The National Arts Collection Fund. With friends like Tim and Susie, do the arts need any enemies?

Back to the Nazis: one of their missions was to destroy art Adolf didn't approve of. I have no idea whether Banksy is a great artist, but people who know about these things think he may be.

One thing is sure: people were coming from all over the place to take pictures of the mural. Maybe they sensed what might happen. And people in the area who were asked about the mural were almost universally favourable. It is the job of people in local government to reflect what locals want.

The buffoon Davis and his cohorts failed to do so. They did not even ask anyone who works or lives around there. They destroyed something that had value and gave pleasure.

Hard to believe. Unless you reflect on this. A criminal policeman who two days ago viciously caused the death of a poor man was captured by the camera of a passer-by. He might otherwise have got away with it. New legislation makes it illegal to take pictures of police. Do the fools who run things here EVER engage brain before legislating?

Adolf would feel at home here: he really would. Mr. Davis and the other elected dictators in this country might like to think about that for a minute.

A touching tale for the young at heart

A fireman is polishing his fire engine outside the fire station when he notices a little girl next door in a little red cart with little ladders hung on the side and a garden hose tightly coiled in the middle.

The little girl is wearing a fireman's helmet and has the cart tied to a dog and a cat.

The fire-fighter walks over to take a closer look: 'That's a lovely fire engine,' he says admiringly.

'Thanks,' says the little girl. The fireman looks closer and notices the little girl has tied one of the cart's strings to the dog's collar and one to the cat's testicles.

'Little colleague,' says the fire-fighter, 'I don't want to tell you how to run your fire engine, but if you were to tie that rope around the cat's collar, I think you could probably go a lot faster.'

The little girl pauses for a moment, looks at the wagon, at the dog and at the cat, then shyly looks into the fireman's eyes and says:

'You're probably right, but then I wouldn't have a fucking siren, would I?'

Thank you, Steve Crittall, you are an ornament to Soho society