FORMER prime minister Tony Blair is now under scrutiny by the Leveson inquiry into the British media, for his apparently close relationship with press baron Rupert Murdoch and his New International group. Old TV footage screened shows an astonishingly youthful Blair addressing News International before he became prime minister and shortly before News International switched support to the Labour Party.
But something else astonished in this flashback to a youthful Tony Blair. Whatever could it be?
Then Bingo! That's it! The same build, the same colouring, the same poster-boy looks, the same slightly tousled auburn hair. The young Tony Blair was a dead ringer for today's Patrick Lambie.
Advice for Patrick Lambie: Stick to rugby. Don't become prime minister of Britain. Don't invade Iraq. Don't invade Afghanistan. Steer clear of Murdoch and News International.
Sock it to the Lions on Saturday! Sock it to the Bulls the following Saturday! Concentrate on winning your place against England. Then concentrate on beating England.
Don't let that Tony Blair fellow steal your thunder, don't worry about him. He's a total shyster and past it anyway.
Misinterpretations
"SUFFER the children", read the front page banner headline in last weekend's Sunday Times. The report beneath it was about the appalling conditions at a quasi-school somewhere in the bush of Limpopo province.
It's surprising how many headline-writers use this total misinterpretation of the Gospel to highlight cruelty to children. Often the phrase "little children" is used.
The full text (in St Mark) is: "Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God."
It's from the King James Bible. The English is Elizabethan – the language of Shakespeare - and "suffer" means "allow". Christ's injunction to His disciples in no way envisages suffering or hardship for children and in fact suggests the opposite.
It's curious the way this misinterpretation has been used by headline-writers over the decades, overseas rather more than here.
It first happened way back in the sixties when Punch magazine deliberately misused the phrase, and to telling effect – "Suffer the little children" – when a Papal encyclical forbade contraception. Punch's point was overpopulation and economic misery, mainly in the Third World.
It's not for this column to take a position on religion or birth control. But let's at least not use misinterpretations of scripture in our headlines.
Council house correspondence
SOME letters of complaint from council house tenants in Britain:
· It's the dogs' mess that I find hard to swallow.
· I wish to report that tiles are missing from the outside toilet roof. I think it was bad wind the other day that blew them off.
· My lavatory seat is cracked, where do I stand?
· I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is coming away from the wall.
· Will you please send someone to mend the garden path. My wife tripped and fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant.
· I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen.
· Fifty percent of the walls are damp, 50 percent have crumbling plaster, and 50 percent are just plain filthy.
· The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.
· Our lavatory seat is broken in half and now is in three pieces.
· Our kitchen floor is damp. We have two children and would like a third, so please send someone round to do something about it.
· I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would you please do something about the noise made by the man on top of me every night.
· I have had the clerk of works down on the floor six times but I still have no satisfaction.
· This is to let you know that our lavatory seat is broke and we can't get BBC2.
Tailpiece
Reub: "Abner, what's these things buzzin' about mah face?"
Abner" "Them's hossflies, Reub."
Reub: "Hossflies? What hossflies, Abner?"
Abner: "Hossflies is them things buzzin' about the rear end of a hoss."
Reub: "Is youse insinuatin', Abner, that I got a face like the rear end of a hoss?"
Abner: "Ise insinuatin' nothin', Reub. But you cain't fool them hossflies!"
Last word
When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.
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