This Week In The News

Deflation and record debt heralded the arrival of budget week yesterday. Great - if things weren’t bad enough, fags, booze and petrol are now also set to rise in price. Someone break it to Dot gently…..

However, ladies, those of you based in Newcastle can still net yourselves a tasty pint on the cheap. I speak of the Sinners Bar, where a pint is free provided you flash the bar staff. It’ll only cost your dignity, and there’s so little of that left in the country there’s no way the government will start taxing it.

In other news, the Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police Sir Paul Stephensen has been on the offensive whilst defending his officers for their actions at the G20 demonstrations.

He praised the ‘overwhelming majority of officers’ for what he called an 'astonishing police operation'. Anyone who has seen the Guardian's photos of the same events will no doubt be astonished also. They feature plain clothes coppers wielding batons, a female protestor receiving an unprovoked attack and officers concealing their badge numbers.

Other astonishing revelations include the results of a second post mortem of Ian Tomlinson (left), the tragic victim of this over zealous authoritarianism. It seems that internal bleeding has been detected, which runs against the first official line from the Met that his death was the result of a heart attack.

But Sir Paul still claims the Met has a lot to be proud of…  It’s a bit like Hitler’s ethics teacher turning around and saying “Well the rest of the class really took the message on board and had a very sturdy moral compass. Let’s not let the actions of one spoil my legacy though shall we.”

If you're in the mood for reading about more cunning stunts (besides Sir Paul) check out Danny Macaskill’s freestyle cycling genius here.

In other news - is it a bird, a character from mortal combat or some kind of scary alien menace? Oh wait, no, it's Jacko. Just when you though those O2 tickets were a car crash waiting to happen it looks like a new face is to be unveiled. It’s unconfirmed whether or not John Woo will take up choreography duties though.