Minneapolis yesterday:
Friday August 3rd: Today has been pretty peaceful day for both our protagonists. I have it on good authority that Gordon got £54.57 for his jacket from a Bigfoot obsessive from Denver who routinely covers the walls in his house with tin foil, for fear of being made sterile by the microwaves that "they" have been shooting at him from space. Another happy customer.
Daily Express columnist Leo McKinstry is already counting down the days until the bounce falls flat. Worryingly he also compares Blair to Winston Churchill. Let's be real about this, now. How can you mess up worse than invading a bunch of countries (and base your reasons on a lie in one instance) and then executing a President? Perhaps Gordon could get smashed on Malt Whisky and invite The Cabinet round to watch as he punches in the Trident launch codes "for a laugh". "The real tests are about to come" McKinstry warns ominously. If that's true, we are all damned.
The Sun astutely noticed that Diet Blair has begun to believe that warzones are safer places to be than Central London right now. Afghanistan and Rwanda may be the only two locations where he is not the one person that everyone wants to kill. Maybe he knows that's the only place that old white men who lunch at Claridges and get chauffeured in Rollers won't be able to have him 'touched'. The bounce has him under pressure and he more than likely fears a Caesaresque attempt on his life in the corridors of The Commons. Et tu, Boris?
Ann Treneman in The Times, barracks the new PM for being boring, under the headline "Why Gordon just can't help being a killjoy." He's no 'Fun-Time Tony', that's for sure. Blair had Oasis - the ultimate (or so they would have you believe) blue collar band - round to Downing St. for canapes and bubbly. He chopped it up with Vernon Kay over dinner at Chequers. He asked the world "Look at this face, do I look bovvered?" on Comic Relief - apparently unaware of the irony that was screamingly obvious to everyone else.
Prince got Gordon pretty good today. He had his first show reviewed by Lenny Henry in The Daily Mirror. Big up Lenny for that and also for the use of the word "slamming". I hadn't heard that since 1997. Mr Henry did, however, find fault with the absence of Mountains , Pop Life and Thieves In The Temple. He's gotta save something for the other 20 shows, my friend. It looks like he will confound the record industry further once again by releasing his next single as a mobile phone download. He plays the second of his shows at The O2 tonight and I'm curious as to how it will measure up to Wednesday. Will God reschedule the Rapture so he can get over to London to play keyboards?
His hometown, Minneapolis, suffered tragedy in the form of collapsing bridge, which fell into the Mississippi River during rush hour yesterday evening. Four people have so far being confirmed dead with 79 injured and almost three dozen missing. The Daily Telegraph found out after speaking to Dan Dorgan from the Minnesota Department of Transport that the bridge had been a source of concern since 1990 and reports published as recently as 2005 found "structural deficincies" in the bridge. The cost of rebuilding it is likely to run up a bill of $100 million dollars in federal funds. When Prince steps on stage - or rather rises through it - tonight, he will undoubtedly spare a thought for his compatriots. For all the rockstar eccentricities, this is the man who wrote Sign O' The Times.
PS - Artwork is on the way.
