Inspired by the rousing “Swing Low” indefatigable team spirit of our rugby heroes Lawrence “Garlic Man” Dallaglio and Mike Catt, and the backs-against-the-wall comradely loyalty of England cricket coach Duncan Fletcher, all of whom have published books recently, I’ve decided to pen my own account of my table-tennis side (Belmarsh B)’s astonishing triumph over adversity in last year’s Folkestone Handicap Cup -

“Yeah, we might have won, but our team captain is a tosser, a drug addict and probably a paedophile. His tactics were neglible; I had to make it up as I went along. I CARRIED that team. Oh, and our third team member is hooked on performance-enhancing drugs and sex with random women. Or men. And he’s got bad breath. Is that enough for an advance and the first bit of a serialisation in the Mail on Sunday?”

Just back from an excellent weekend chez Pal Pito, of whom viewers from the glory days of the Sandwich (in the early 20th century) may have a hazy recollection. Luckily, he’s alive and well in the realoplane, and promising to be back here plenty soon.

He did, however, make me cringe with embarrasment when he (justifiably) pulled me up for saying “Can I GET an apple juice?” at Pizza Hut this afternoon. Leaving aside the “can” / “may” question, the whole “get” thing is yet another horrible Americanism which has insidiously crept into our beautiful language. The serving wench would have been well within her rights to have rejoindered: “I don’t know - can you? You tell me. I can only see the top half of your body; you may be paraplegic for all I know” (although obviously she didn’t).

Disenfranchised voters listen up - politics CAN be entertaining! For example, in reverse order, the three most cringe-worthy moments ever in British political history (leaving Boris Johnson aside, obviously):

3) - Neil Kinnock gets an attack of the Springsteens at a Labour rally in Sheffield in 1992. Fast forward to 1.41; apparently, to this day, Kinnock still runs and hides in cupboards in embarrasment when reminded of the speech in question. WELL AWLRAAAGHT!

2) - lamest and duckiest of lame duck leaders Iain Dunkin’ Smith - whose very existence has now been completely forgotten by 97% of the British population - and his “Quiet Man” speech at conference in 2003. Pardon?

and…. at number 1)…. (pause for 20 seconds for dramatic effect a la TV elimination show, not just to show that I’m down with the zeitgeist in the televisual branch of the media, but also because, despite not having posted on the Sandwich anything all week, I actually have very little to say at the moment so am padding this one out as much as I can)… is….

John Redwood, then Secretary of State for Wales, “singing along” with the Welsh national anthem. There’s no real shame in not knowing the national anthem for Wales (although it might have been considered good karma for a government minister responsible for the principality to have done a bit of revision) - it’s the wide-eyed, rabbit-in-headlight panic, accompanied by an uncontrollable bout of David Gray-style head-shaking, and attempt to mouth along to words which he probably couldn’t pronounce even if he’d seen them written down.

Readers, feel free to chuck in your own; I’m sure that our Canadian / Australian readers have their fair share of embarrasing politicians. As for Stateside contributors - your task is to find some footage of George W Bush which ISN’T cringeworthy.

It struck me whilst unintentionally enduring cheesy schlock-filled piece of marshmallow-flavoured gooey shite “Never Be Lonely” by The Feeling that the lyrical sense is the direct opposite of meaty slab of Trevor-Horn-fuelled-power-prog “Owner of a Lonely Heart” by Yes; the former states that “people in love get scared and stupid… at least they’re not lonely” and the latter asserts contrarily that the “owner of a lonely heart” is “much better than the owner of a broken heart”. Of course, Yes are correct, and I’m not just saying that a) because I’m single and b) because I think The Feeling are shit. OK, actually I am.

But it got me thinking about other songs which contradict each other; I didn’t really get much further than looking at titles:

Do You Wanna Dance? (Ramones) vs. I Don’t Wanna Dance (Eddy Grant)
Don’t Stand So Close to Me (The Police) vs. Move Closer (Phyllis Nelson)
Come Into My Life (Joyce Sims) vs. Fuck Off and Die (Green Day, or Venom, or Voivod. The fact that the ratio is three to one in favour of the latter tells you something about the human psyche…)

Can anyone help me out with anything more insightful / funny? Shouldn’t be too tricky…

“Dragon’s Den” is back on the BBC, and I’ve had some wizard ideas for a product: the first was “Opera Opera Sauce”, along the same lines as Levi Roots’s stupidly-named “Reggae Reggae Sauce” (a Jamaican condiment which won backing from the Dragons last year) - but in an Italian stylee, obviously.

Then I realised that this was a rubbish idea. My second, I’m sure you’ll agree, is much better: having stepped inadvertantly in the leavings of what must have been a very large dog the other day, I’ve patented the “Shat-Nav”, which will beep wildly whenever approaching similar turdular obstructions. The only problem I forsee (apart from me not really having a clue how to make such a device) is for the person taking the phone call if Sean Connery decides to order one (do it in the accent and you’ll see what I mean).

And on that raft of abysmality, I’ll bid you farewell and set sail for Plymouth to spend some quality time with a quality guy - the mighty Chez Guevara.

*UPDATE* - I’ve just googled “Shatnav”, and it appears that only 1,730 people have thought of that cruddy joke before me! RESULT!

In perhaps the least surprising development since the world continued to revolve on its axis, Sir Menzies Campbell (leader of our Lib Dem party for anyone who lives abroad / in a cave) has fallen on his sword. Strategically, this was probably the right thing to do, given that Brown has bottled the autumn election; the Lib Dems have been treading water for a while now and need a Spinal Tap-esque “new direction” if they’re to perform at all in the election when it finally does come. So nothing massively out-of-the-ordinary, really.

However, the media hypocrisy which has accompanied his departure is astonishing. From day 1 of his reign, pretty much every singly grubby hack has taken a tack along the lines of “he’s old; therefore he’s probably crap”. I saw Sir Menzies recently on “Question Time” and he performed very well - the fact is that he was a figure of faint ridicule for no other reason than his age. LD Poll ratings were bad not because of any policy decisions, but because he was constantly being undermined by the rank ageism of the political press, which inevitably filtered through to society at large and finally, fatally, to a lot of Lib Dem party members and MPs who had previously liked and admired him.

And then this morning, on 5 Live, I was treated to Nicky Campbell, with his sanctimonious grave-and-slightly-tremulous voice on (you’ll remember it from “Watchdog”), telling Simon Hughes that he’d “wielded the knife”. Absolute rubbish.

It’s come to a sad state in British politics when all of our party leaders have to be shouty young(ish) bully-boys. Ageism in society generally is more sinister, and needs tackling as much as sexism and racism did in the 1960s and 1970s. I certainly wouldn’t want to be a pensioner at the moment.

And what now for the Lib Dems? Will they do any better with a leader who looks like a used car salesman?

Like many others, I’ve been having a bit of a moan about the recent postal strike; return to the dark days of the 1970s, winter of discontent, workshy Trotskyite 3-hour-a-day unionized bastards* etc - but then my first mail delivery since the strike arrived yesterday.Three bills and a speeding fine, plus a letter from the Nobel Prize committee confirming that I’d been unsuccessful in my attempt to inaugurate a “lifetime’s lack of achievement” category. Bah. How about appointing Mrs Thatcher as the new Chief Exec of the Royal Mail to facilitate a quick return to industrial action?

(* - with the obvious exception of my table-tennis colleagues from Burmarsh “B”, both posties, who work heroically like Trojans in all weathers to get vital communications to the good folk of remote Romney Marsh.)

It’s not like me to give a monkey’s about rugby, but our very own Monkey of the Technical variety certainly does, and I’m in total agreement with a point he made to me this morning.

England’s unexpected victory in the rugby World Cup is comedy of the highest order. Not only were Australia 6:1 on in the betting at one stage, they’d spent the week prior to the game trash-talking England, and have spent the time since the game ignoring their own shortcomings and having a pop at New Zealand’s surprise loss to France.

It’s time that the Aussie “sporting” myth was debunked once and for all. They have always propagated a fiction of being “tough-but-fair” - yet they invented sledging, which (apart from being very juvenile) is cheating by any other name, and has more-or-less destroyed the ethic of cricket. They gloat like spoilt brats when they win, and they whine like a bunch of poncy schoolgirls when they lose; eg they lost deservedly to a perfectly legitimate Italy penalty in the footie World Cup last year, yet were meting out moronic abuse to innocent Italians (like me) on chat sites for weeks afterwards. They were even worse losers than the FRENCH, which is going some. AND Kylie Minogue has a handbag made out of the skin of a baby panda(**). Bastards(***).

(* - 10 Sandwich points to anyone who knows what the hell I’m on about here.)
(** - it may actually be an endangered snake, but the principle’s the same)
(*** - with the obvious exception of Shaymus, who remains a prince among men.)

(And I don’t mean BB 2007 runners-up the Marchant Twins singing “Barbie Girl”, which might well be the single most irritating thing ever conceived by man.)

I had my first ever encounter today with Directgov which, when you look at it, seems like a jolly good online idea designed to make dealing with government bodies (the DVLA / Passport office etc) quicker and easier. But try amending your address details… they want to know everything about your entire life. The password hoops which they make you jump through are unbelievable.

And, on a more sinister note, they ask you about your medical records. I have only recently regained my driving licence after problems with epilepsy; astonishingly, I was asked to confirm that I’d had no further problems and was even told that the case might be investigated again! I have visions of my details being processed in a Brazil-esque* office warren, with my innocent input setting off a light in a previously-dormant office containing a mechanical functionary who is now powering up and determined to bring the full weight of his bureaucratic power to bear on me.

All I wanted to do was give them my new address; I’m now genuinely worried about having logged onto directgov at all, and am even slightly concerned about writing this post and including a link to their site.

(* - Referring to the Terry Gilliam film, not the country. Or women with waxed thingummies.)

Speculation has been rife for a few weeks now that Gordon Brine (as posh people call him) is going to call a snap election. Opinion pollsters are talking of a “Brown Bounce”* which is said to have occurred since Gordon took office. So will there be an election? I don’t know, but I’ve had TWO electoral roll forms through my door in the last week - one delivered by post, the other by hand.

Hmmm…. I wonder what that might mean….

(* - I last experienced this phenomenon the morning after a ropey vegetable korma.)