What do you do with people who are too old to be of much use to society but too young for a direct flight to Dignitas? It’s an ever-increasing problem as the world’s population ages creating a massive burden on the young to keep health services and pension plans sufficiently functional. So what do you do?

America has a great solution. It sends such people to the White House. It waits til they get really old, still hopefully in pre-dementia, except for Ronald Regan who was several lightbulbs short when he arrived there, aged 93, and makes them ‘president’. Makes them feel useful. Appreciated. Important. But the problem of course is that they then allow them to speak.

Biden yesterday said that Putin must not be allowed to continue in power. He was at the end of a prepared, autocue speech and, fired up by his own rhetoric, started to just wing-it. And he wung it wong. Everybody in the world other than 14 Russian overlords and a few thousand peasants who’ve been misinformed and still believe it, would like to see Putin deposed. And you can say that. I can say that. Lila and Joey can say that. Because no-one’s listening to us when we do. But when you are the most powerful man in the world, albeit loosely disguised as a frail and ancient old twit, you can’t say anything you can’t back up. Thus for Biden to utter such words becomes an actual threat that America will go in and get Putin, kill Putin, arrest Putin or some such. The White House later issued the inevitable statement: “no, when President Biden said ‘lamppost’ he actually meant ‘aardvark’, obviously…” as they do when a senile old fool has just put the world on the brink of nuclear Armageddon.

But this is the third time this week that Biden has erred in such a manner. He’s fine when reading, but as soon as he goes off message, he fucks up. In fact, even when reading, I find the tough-guy act a little hard to take from someone who struggles to stay vertical without a zimmer. Too much bluster and it sounds like you’ve entered a John Wayne impersonation contest. And came 9th.

It’s reached the point where the unthinkable is becoming a distinct possibility. That the last POTUS, who we all thought was ‘the worst there could ever be’, is being out-worsted by the present incumbent. Worse than Trump. He’s almost there.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx