The orange ape that walks like a man

My hunt for a readable Sunday paper goes on. The Fisk, Cockburn and Watkins Journal is OK, but they insist on including a lot of other stuff that's nowhere near as good. The Obscurer would be good if it could finally puke and call off the pony hunt for a secular Blairite democracy in Iraq, not to mention crank down the upmarket lifestyle quackery a tad. I flirted with the Sunday Times recently, but on reflection I'll make do with the Mick Smith Daily.

Reasons? Well, re-reporting the same Israeli-strike-on-Iran propaganda furphy every three months for two years is one. The latest version claims the Israeli air force plans to "tunnel" into the buried targets with conventional weapons, then drop tactical nukes down the hole. Yes, really. Fortunately, it did make one checkable claim - supposedly, Israeli aircraft have exercised the mission by flying to Gibraltar and back, a similar round trip.

Any readers on Gib: seen any F-15Es overhead, especially ones coming from the east with blue stars on the wings? I await intelligence.

Another reason, meanwhile, via Blairwatch:

We also have a picture of you, taken outside your flat.

Unfortunately, the picture is not particularly flattering and might undermine the image that has been built up around your persona as Abby Lee. I think it would be helpful to both sides if you agreed to a photo shoot today so that we can publish a more attractive image.

We are proposing to assign you our senior portrait photographer, Francesco Guidicini, and would arrange everything to your convenience, including a car to pick you up. We would expect you to provide your own clothes and make up. As the story will be on a colour page, we would prefer the outfit to be one of colourful eveningwear.

We did put this proposal to you yesterday, but heard nothing back. Clearly this is now a matter of urgency, and I would appreciate you contacting me as soon as possible. To avoid any doubt we will, of course, publish the story as it is if we do not hear from you.

Yours sincerely,
Nicholas Hellen

Acting News Editor
Sunday Times

What a charmer, eh? It reminds me of the hack in Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum. For the avoidance of possible confusion, the title of this post is the headline of one of his stories, which may have contained more of the truth than all those Israel-vs-Iran ones put together.