Diaries are great. They let us write down all the things that affect out lives. They can also be very funny.

Curses. They ignored my letters. The fools. The blind fools.

I was hopeful for a little while there, after hearing that Ms Jennie Page had left her job as Chief Executive of London's Millennium Dome, following countless complaints about long queues and poor attendance figures. But now I read that some bloke who used to run Disneyland Paris, a M. Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, is to take over the role.

Nothing against M. Gerbeau, but my application for the post said all there was to say about where the Dome was going wrong. It was supposed to reflect 2,000 years of British life, and yet so many key elements were clearly missing. Where was the British Bad Taste Zone, where clips of 'Carry On' films could be screened and records by Steps, Martine McCutcheon and Black Lace played? Where was the Lager Zone, where animatronic skinheads could have thrown up virtual vomit before standing up to look at the visitors and ask them what they were ****ing staring at? Where was the Snobbery Zone, with even scarier animatronic models of hereditary peers (not much animation required there), yuppies perpetually braying into mobile phones or sniffing suspiciously, and public schoolboys running around barging everyone else out of the way whilst pointing at themselves?

Anyway, apparently there are now likely to be savage job cuts at the Dome. So if you see a giant, hollow, androgynous figure trying to squeeze through the door of your local Job Centre, you'll know that The Body Zone has gone.

This morning I woke up to the sound of a news announcement (I really shouldn't leave the radio on.) I thought I heard that Jeffrey Archer has been expelled from the Conservative Party for honesty, which makes perfect sense. Obviously, he wouldn't fit in at all.
It was only later in the day that I discovered the truth. The distinguished man of letters had, in fact, been suspended from the Tory Party for five years for allegedly bringing the party into disrepute. The incident in which he persuaded a friend to lie on his behalf during a court case had been described by the party ethics committee as 'dishonest' and 'reprehensible'. Of course Archer was appalled by the sentence, and is consulting his lawyers.

Frankly, I am appalled too. The Tory ethics committee has struck at the heart of Conservative Party traditions. A Tory politician being expelled for dishonesty is like a basketball player being dropped from his team for being too tall, or a model being sacked for wearing silly clothes at work. I wish Lord Archer well in his proposed lawsuit against his former colleagues.

And if it does come to court and he needs a witness, I'm available for hire.

Today I heard news of a marriage well and truly made in Hell. A new bid to take over the UK National Lottery has been announced by a business partnership that truly chills the blood.

RICHARD BRANSON AND BILL GATES!!!

Gordon F.N. Bennett!! Can you imagine!? The combined taste, ingenuity and talent of two great pains of the modern age. Branson, whose Virgin Trains network has brought new dimensions of delay and degradation to rail travel in Britain and who is otherwise best known for his awful beard, his dreadful dress sense, and his chronic inability to keep a hot-air balloon aloft.

And Gates, who was clearly made to play far to many games of 'Monopoly' as a child. Not to mention whose, er, DISTINCTIVE Microsoft software has brought all of us who use it endless hours of fun as we try to figure out a way to get the wretched stuff to function properly. But who hasn't noticed as his company's unusual attitude to commercial competition has kept him too busy counting his money.

Still, it occurs to me that the slogan of the British National Lottery - 'It Could Be You' - might take on a new dimension of meaning if the Branson/Gates partnership is given the green light to take over. They could advertise the Lottery with a picture of the new proprietors and the same slogan - and everyone could look at it and think 'Yeah, if those two clowns made millions, then it really COULD be me next...'

Ormondroyd

07.02.00. Front Page

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