My old life ‘luxury’ was always to read the papers in bed on a Saturday morning with a ‘nice cuppa tea’. Then I discovered Tai Chi, or perhaps it discovered me??? (its Chinese, therefore inscrutible, therefore its good to accentuate the mystical) and Saturday morning class is at 8.15 and if you’re late you get a scissors kick to the testicles. Ok, maybe not but you just don’t do ‘late’ for Tai Chi. It’d be like turning up late to see the Queen. Though she’s far less dangerous.

Unfortunately though, on Thursdsay night, my always delicate right shoulder suffered a degree of fuckage in a roll on the mats. Don’t know what happened; didn’t in fact know anything had happened until Friday morning. Such is life in ‘middle age’ (I hate that term almost as much as I hate the term ‘champions league qualification’). So no Tai Chi this morning. My life is empty. My karma well and truly sutra-ed, my yin out of line with my yang, my feng decidedly unshui. But I’ll survive, so spare your (totally fucking insincere) sympathy and bunches of flowers. But not the chocolates. Never spare the chocolates.

So this morning I got to read the papers in bed. And I’ll play some gentle tennis because: a. I think the gentle (phah) swinging might actually be of benenfit to my shoulder; b. its a lovely morning: c. I’m stupid.

The headline read: Lib Dems are pointless.

How is that news? Are they so short of interesting events that the publishers of our daily rags are forced to state universal truisms?

‘The world is round!!!’
Gravity always works downwards!!!
Jennifer Lawrence is divine!!!!
Adolph Hitler was naughty!!!!
The sun’s hot!!!!
Chelsea fans are evil!!!!

You simply don’t need reminding about stuff you already know. That’s not what ‘news’, by any definition, is. Poor Peaches, that’s news. William and Kate racing yachts in New Zealand, though not very interesting, is news. Football is always news.

Virtually every day I have cause to comment, ponder, utter or just think: ‘the Lib Dems are pointless’ but no-one puts it on the front page of the Times. Yet Jeremy Browne, possibly because he is a Lib Dem politician and (I think it safe to say ‘former’-) friend of Nick Clegg, says it and WOOOAAAAAHHHHH, THAT’S NEWS.

Though Mr Browne does have one more interesting insight. That every politician or party should ask the question: if you didn’t exist, why would it be necessary to invent you?’

And the answer is because politics takes itself so damned seriously, its only by the existence of Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems that we can fully appreciate what a total waste of time and space the entire ‘government thing’ really is. Shakespeare realised that there must always be ‘a fool’. And who better than old Cleggers to set the example that other fools can barely aspire to?

Enough talk, its time to go and ruin my shoulder completely

Happy orthopaedic Saturday

A xxxx