Button up

The France Soir correspondent in Rome, Ariel Dumont, has just been sacked for being anti-Berlusconian. This isn't what the paper says, of course. The editor talks about the need to rationalise its overseas representation for reasons of budget and denies any pressure from the newspaper's owner. France Soir is controlled by 23-year-old Alexander Pugachev, the son of the Russian oligarch Sergei Pugachev, the 605th richest man in the world, ex-Chekhist and close friend of Putin. Berlusconi, by sheer coincidence, is also a close friend of Putin, in what passes for friendship among people of this sort.

By further coincidence, the newspaper has also sacked Natalie Ouvaroff, its Moscow correspondent, who has been less than gentle recently with the feisty bare-chested salmon wrestler from St. Petersburg, the man whose reputation may not be besmirched, or else. The dinky badge to the right, by the way, belongs to the KGB ans may once have adorned young Vlad's lapel, or wherever they used to wear these things.

Still, things could be worse. Getting the sack isn't much fun, but it's better than being shot in the head.

Sardinia shafted

If you'd like to enjoy what's left of the natural beauty of Sardinia (see right) before the entire island is converted into a 'fitness centre' you'd better get a move on. That's right. Berlusconi's glove puppet just became governor. New boy Cappellacci is to Berlusconi as Medvedev is to Putin, so don't expect surprises. In fact, their relationship - in both cases - reminds me of a rather offensive joke about a bad ventriloquist who used to put his hand up his nephew's arse and tell him to keep his mouth shut. Except that Putin and Berlusconi are clearly considered rather good ventriloquists.

A few days before Eluana Englaro died, some gobby cardinal criticised polls indicating a substantial majority in favour of her death by saying that Italians weren't that stupid. He was wrong then, but he's been proved right now. 

(OK, the second picture's actually Dubai, but you get the idea...)

I'll have mine without the polonium 210, please

I've been looking to see where visitors to this blog actually come from and how they get here, in that obsessive way most bloggers seem to share, and I notice that a disturbing number find me through a Google image search for Putin and Dobby. Some months ago I posted a sequence of images in which the Russian thug morphs into Harry Potter's nasty little antagonist and now it's the first thing to come up. So dozens of people from the States, Australia, Spain, Germany and, gulp, Russia have dropped into my blog. And some, rather creepily, have stayed.

Putin is such a sensitive soul I'm expecting a visit from one of his henchmen with a little something for lese-majesté. People have died for less, after all, and not only in Russia.

If you want to see the transformation for yourself, just click on the label 'putin'.

Update, five minutes later. I just checked that the link worked and the fucking picture's disappeared. Now I really am worried!

And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard...

It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. And not only on Bush...

(Hi Dobby!!)

Once again, with thanks, from Bits and Pieces.

Democracy derailed

George Bush says that democratic reform in Rusia has been derailed. You can understand why he's worried. Rigged elections and the illegal disenfrachisement of voters. Prisoners held for years in subhuman conditions without trial. The economy held hostage by a gaggle of semi-legal oligarchs. The ever-growing threat of religious fundamentalism. Constant attacks on basic human rights. Global warming rampant and no political will to curb it.

And that's just the USA! Imagine what Putin's up to...

Yeltsin's inheritance

Once more, from today's Independent:

The state over which Yeltsin presided had installed a democratic political system, albeit one in which powerful sectional interests wielded excessive influence. But, by any economic measure, society as a whole had benefited only marginally, and growing numbers had fallen far below the poverty line. Corruption and criminality were rampant throughout the political and economic structures and deterred the Western bankers who had fed them.

On the other hand, he did appoint Vladimir Putin - "ex-KGB intelligence officer and former deputy to the corrupt former mayor of St Petersburg" - as his heir. So not entirely bad. After all, it isn't every country that can boast a leader who's inspired J.K. Rowling to create one of her least attractive characters: the sly, deceitful, wheedling, essentially sub-human Dobby.