Promising yourself (and the world, or at least the tiny part of it that is reading this) you’re going to write a new entry every 24 hours is honourable in theory, but in practice it’s rather difficult if you are out of the house for the first 22 hours of a day. So, apologies for the shortness of this entry, but you were going to have to get used to my constant flakings at some point anyway.

In this world where the USA and China battle it out for global supremacy, and all the major sociological and technological advances are made in a handful of places in superpower nations, it’s heartwarming to see little old Britain become important again, even in a small way. So that’s why I shed a nostalgic tear when the first scandal hit Obama’s administration, in the form of gubernatorial mastermind Rod Blagojevich selling the Illinois senate seat to Roland Burris. Hey, isn’t that the basketball player who accidentally shot himself? No? Was that funny? No? Never mind.

Anyway, sections of the American media are treating this as if it were some earth-shattering and entirely unheard of event, and are suggesting all sorts of outlandish factors to try and make sense of it. Hello? It’s all been done before. Those poor Yanks are just trying to imitate the wealth and tabloid popularity of Lord Sainsbury*. Who’d a thought it?

Well, if there’s one more thing they can learn from Britain’s fine example, it’s that the cheats and swindlers are always swiftly brought to justice. Well, maybe not. That’s one for the Americans to improve upon, with any luck.

So it wasn’t the world’s greatest ever scandal, but it fills me with national pride to know that while we have become irrelevant in most areas, dear old Britain is still the number one source of inspiration for scumbags and fraudsters around the world. Britannia rules the knaves.

—

* I mainly linked to this article because of the caption under the photo, which appears to insinuate that Lord Sainsbury is in fact a kebab.