No one remembers Tolkien as a bus thief

In the week of Piggate it's hard to believe that people are still writing articles about whether a politician could be seriously damaged by a photograph of them doing anything as humdrum as hold a prize marrow (albeit Jeremy Corbyn does contrive to look reminiscent of a familiar Roman orchard deity in this one) - but over at the BBC, they still are.

What's been most striking about the whole affair, as so often, is the freedom that comes with membership of Cameron's class, particularly if this is combined (as it generally is) with attendance at Oxbridge. Neither Nick Clegg's arson nor George Osborne's apparent taste for dominatrix-and-coke have caused them lasting grief, and I doubt whether Cameron's placing of his penis in the mouth of a dead pig, even if proved true, will do him as much damage as the picture of Ed Miliband ineptly eating a bacon sandwich did him. (Had it been a live pig, or a dead human, things might have been different, but Cameron wisely steered between the Scylla of bestiality and the Charybdis of necrophilia, thus demonstrating his capacity to navigate the ship of state through choppy waters.)

To other people, however, such incidents stick like ticks. It seems appropriate to remember the fine old joke about the old man in the pub, looking back at his life with a certain bitterness:

"I taught three generations of children to read, but do they call me John the teacher? Not at all.

"I built a hundred houses for the people of the village, but do they call me John the homebuilder? They do not.

"I wrote many volumes of poems, but do they call me John the poet? Never."

*sups pint*

"I shag one sheep..."

Needless to say, this will never be Cameron's fate.


Oh, that Tolkien reference? Here's the smoking gun.

No one remembers Tolkien as a bus thief

In the week of Piggate it's hard to believe that people are still writing articles about whether a politician could be seriously damaged by a photograph of them doing anything as humdrum as hold a prize marrow (albeit Jeremy Corbyn does contrive to look reminiscent of a familiar Roman orchard deity in this one) - but over at the BBC, they still are.

What's been most striking about the whole affair, as so often, is the freedom that comes with membership of Cameron's class, particularly if this is combined (as it generally is) with attendance at Oxbridge. Neither Nick Clegg's arson nor George Osborne's apparent taste for dominatrix-and-coke have caused them lasting grief, and I doubt whether Cameron's placing of his penis in the mouth of a dead pig, even if proved true, will do him as much damage as the picture of Ed Miliband ineptly eating a bacon sandwich did him. (Had it been a live pig, or a dead human, things might have been different, but Cameron wisely steered between the Scylla of bestiality and the Charybdis of necrophilia, thus demonstrating his capacity to navigate the ship of state through choppy waters.)

To other people, however, such incidents stick like ticks. It seems appropriate to remember the fine old joke about the old man in the pub, looking back at his life with a certain bitterness:

"I taught three generations of children to read, but do they call me John the teacher? Not at all.

"I built a hundred houses for the people of the village, but do they call me John the homebuilder? They do not.

"I wrote many volumes of poems, but do they call me John the poet? Never."

*sups pint*

"I shag one sheep..."

Needless to say, this will never be Cameron's fate.


Oh, that Tolkien reference? Here's the smoking gun.