Rod Liddle

Greetings from Omaha, Nebraska, where the temperature is colder than it was in the Arctic Circle. I flew out from Heathrow with Delta Airlines, via Detroit. However, I missed my connecting flight because we were held on ground at Heathrow for two hours while some Asians were kicked off the plane. There were seven of them, situated in different parts of the cabin and apparently passengers, or a passenger, tipped off the trolley dollies that these darkies were “a bit odd” and “behaving aggressively.” So they were frogmarched off the plane, all of them, and then everyone on the plane had their seat covers torn off by a squad of security guards and were asked that usual stupid question again: did you pack this carry-on luggage yourself?

Thoroughly enjoying the feminists tying themselves in knots over the case of Julian Assange. I wrote in the Sunday Times a week ago that lefties were compromised over the chap: hero for embarrassing America, less of a hero for allegedly raping someone. Back then the very angry campaigning group Women Against Rape put out a statement which seemed to suggest that they were not unequivocally against rape, if it was committed by someone like Julian Assange. Their concern for the two women whom Assange was accused of raping or sexually assaulting had, somehow, diminished. These double standards are fascinating. I suspect that if Assange regularly blacked up and performed “Mammy” for friends the left would still find a way to exonerate him.

It’s jolly nice to be proved right about everything The most important, and comforting, thing to emerge from all that Wiki-Leaks business was that, by and large, we were right. All the things we suspected, or knew either instinctively or through common sense, were proved to be correct. Prince Andrew — arrogant, rude and with the IQ of a corgi? Yep. The oil company Shell effectively runs Nigeria? Sure thing. Gulf state Arab leaders are a tad duplicitous? No kidding, bub. It is always uplifting to discover that you were right all along, and that, in secret at least, the establishment agrees with you.

The kids are all asleep, the wife is in bed reading feminist propaganda, from outside in the darkness I hear the shocked keewick of a Little Owl. Otherwise, all is silent and at rest. This is the time of evening when I make my way very quietly to my study with a glass of wine ‘to do some work’. I don’t want anyone to catch me at it, so I put my hand over the computer’s little loudspeaker when that annoying Windows ident music comes on. She caught me at it, once, my wife. Came downstairs for a glass of water and saw me hunched and furtive over the laptop, tapping away and making gutteral noises. She just looked disappointed and went back to bed, but it was a bit embarrassing. Anyway, it’s the same procedure every night.

Have to say, I’m getting a little weary of watching Ken Clarke smirking at various bunches of skaghead offenders and telling them he wants them out of prison, pronto, so that they can stab your wife and crap on your living room carpet. The latest of Ken’s media events inside a nick involved him hearing from prisoners about how prison wasn’t really the right place for them. He beamed back at them and agreed before politely requesting a drug dealer to “please stop selling lots of drugs to people”. I’m sure that did the trick, you deluded old buffer. Ken’s been peddling a bunch of misleading stats about how prison doesn’t “work”.

If that had been Millwall supporters fighting with police, invading the pitch and firing flares at the opposition fans, there would have been demands to have the ground closed, points deductions, fines, statements in parliament and the involvement of the UN and almost certainly the Equality and Human Rights Commission. But it wasn’t, it was Birmingham City supporters and the most stringent action taken so far is that the club has announced it will have a quick look at the problem and see if anything needs doing. Premier League clubs get away with it all the time. Just wait until we play them in the FA Cup………………..

Anyone got a shovel? We’re cut off from the world, here in north Kent, a foot and a half of snow in the garden, the lanes impassable and no sign of respite. The only answer is to get pissed, I suppose. That’s usually the answer. But sooner or later I will have to walk four miles to buy fags. The Met Office predicts that this will have been easily the coldest November since 1993, and perhaps beyond. This will, in turn, mean that Autumn will have been slightly colder than the mean, or around about average at best. December is projected to be colder than usual too. Last winter (Dec-Jan-Feb) was 2 degrees colder than the mean, and the coldest winter since 1978/9. Spring was 0.2 degrees above the mean for 1971-2000, summer 0.6 degrees above the mean.

1. Prince Andrew is an arrogant berk. 2. Vladimir Putin is an “alpha dog” 3. Medvedev is his puppet. 4. David Cameron is lightweight. 5. Prince Charles commands next to no respect. 6. Angela Merkel is the only strong European leader. 7. Berlusconi is feckless, vain and ineffective and likes parties. 8. That Argie babe, Kirchner, is hysterical and should be on medication. 9. Sarkozy is ‘orrible. 10. Colonel Gaddafy is a bit odd. I know it’s a bit embarrassing to have this stuff out in the open and, probably like most of you, I find the Wikileaks man Julian Assange a self important and potentially dangerous gimp.