Kate Winslet, eat your heart out February 11

As I write this, Toyota has just announced the recall of thousands of its hybrid cars due to a faulty brake pedal. Ironic really, considering how many old people have bought them and drift along the road with their feet poised over the footbrake.

At least I won’t have to be reminded of my lack of green credentials for a few days as I fire up my gas guzzler to pick up a paper from the local shop. What can I say, I lead a busy life.

I have spent all week feeling very sorry for the master spin doctor, Alistair Campbell. He became all emotional in support of his former boss, Tony Blair, at the weekend. Choking back the tears, he urged sympathy for Mr Blair who was only doing what he thought best in taking us into a war in Iraq. He saw nothing wrong in the way information was presented that made it look like Saddam had the weaponry to defeat the might of the West when he could barely defend Baghdad.

What a luvvy he is, so emotional and sensitive. Give the man an Oscar. The weeping wally has put many a poor subject to his journalist sword before entering politics and then harangued plenty of journalists till they were close to tears after.

As with the majority of people who will be celebrating the demise of Ali Dizaei, sympathy for this media manipulator will remain merely a word in the dictionary.

I suspect police officers would more likely believe that other gushing celeb, Paul Gascoigne, who has also made the headlines for the wrong reasons this week. Given a choice in some Fantasy Crime Scene game, I suspect most would opt to arrest the spinning wordsmith over the slurring Geordie.

Before you ask, this is not a real, new game to rival Fantasy Football, Mr Dizaei has done enough inventing for all of us.

If I am a little harsh, it’s just that I understand Mr Campbell drives a Prius and had just heard his car was being recalled on the news that day. Could his tears have actually been real after all? Their owners do get attached you know.

Yours as ever,
Stitch