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It's been several weeks since the new year which means that gymns are finally starting to empty out as people once more drop out of their new fitness regime. Personally, my favourite machine at the gymn is the vending machine.

There's not been a huge amount in the news this week although I saw a headline "Shark Swims Ashore in New Jersey" - I didn't know sharks wore jerseys, or any clothing for that matter. That joke is of course also the answer to the question, "What did Delaware"

The ......

Nicola Sturgeon passed her driving test which will come in useful now that she's no longer in power and thus can't employ someone to drive that motorhome. She passed first time although wouldn't say what score she got on it and how many minors they received. Coincidentally the same answer that Prince Andrew's office gave to a question.

A man died after setting himself on fire outside a Liverpool branch of McDonalds. In a tragic twist, the staff could have extinguished him but the McFlurry machine was broken

In Palestine news it was Jeremy Corbyn's turn to spout off about the conflict, saying that the cause will never go away, conveniently forgetting that it absolutely will, for better or worse, if Israeli's use as much force as they're threatening. It's quite strange that Labour are seemingly more certain about their position about joining Hamas than they are the EU. This week saw a bit of a pause in the fighting as some American hostages were released and a number of lorries were allowed in with much needed supplies like food, water, and rockets. I joke but there was actually a story about how Hamas constructed thousands of rockets made from pipes donated by the EU who naively bought the story that they'd be used as part of a sanitation project and absolutely not for making weapons. Let's lighten the mood: Apparently the band Dire Straits are looking for an agent to represent them on a tour of the Middle East. They should check out Qatar George, he knows all the Kurds

There's also still that other war in Ukraine though, which this week saw a strange turn in events after rumour that Vladimir Putin had died of a heart attack and that yet another coup was under way. This was denied and we can presumably assume that it was one of his many body doubles that collapsed. It's quite a strange rabbit hole to go down, if you start looking up videos on Putin's body doubles, there was a similar story about North Korea until the country ran out of enough food to keep multiple Kim Jong Uns topped up. The Ukraine setup is all rather strange though, very few definitive sources of truth about what is actually going on or who's winning, especially when you see the photos of local militias sporting nazi symbology and talk about Ukraine receiving lots of high tech equipment yet seemingly not being able to do much with it. There was a fairly shocking interview this week where it also emerged that the government has been rounding up priests and bishops and throwing them all in jail on the off-chance that they're working for the Kremlin. Wait a minute, blaming Russia for everything? I can kind of see why Hilary Clinton likes that Zelensky guy.

Slight delay this week, was waiting for that cut on my hand to heal up a bit, but I was also waiting on the BBC to respond to the news so in turn they were waiting on Hamas to hand them their latest press release. In the end they mostly seemed to focus on that massive storm Babette, although it's nowhere near as devastating as the Hamas'ive storm brewing in southern Israel.

Angela Rayner made a comment about Israel didn't exist a hundred years ago, although most of us are more concerned about whether anything will exist in a hundreds days from now. So in response, President Biden arrived in the middle east in search of some answers to questions. Questions like "Where am I" "Who am I" and "Is President Obama here yet?" Amazing really, only a few years ago the left was calling Donald Trump an anti-semite yet now the same people are out on the streets calling for a 2nd holocaust.

One curious development this week was the discussion about whether a destroyed hospital had been blown up by Israel as an act of war, by Hamas wanting to then turn around and blame Israel to justify reprisals, or maybe it was by them but as a mistake. I did find it strange that on one hand you had the Israeli government saying that they had no advance warnings that Hamas would breach the border defences and kill 1300 people, yet this week they also said they knew categorically that Hamas bombed the hospital with a followup press release along the lines of "if you don't believe us, here's a recording of them talking about it"

Let's see where things go in the next week, maybe things will get better. I remember seeing a sign in a gymn once that read "Nothing is impossible" - although it presumably wasn't put up by someone who'd try to cancel their membership and stop the direct debits.

What else happened this week? Greta Thunberg was struggling to stay in the news now that her choice of environmental protesting seems a little bit old-fashioned compared to the angry crowds in London demanding WW3. She tried to get back in the limelight by having herself arrested again but barely made the headlines although given her stance on electricity she probably wants to ban limelights anyway.

A lighter story: there's new academic paper our concluding that those who skip breakfast are more predisposed to eat fattier unhealthy food later in the day. To basically they discovered that if you don't eat for a while, you'll start to feel really hungry. That's about useful as the study I came across saying that if you're feeling cold, you should go stand in the corner where it's 90 degrees.

And finally, Michael Caine has said that he's going to retire from acting. Not a lot of people know that.

Ok so let's talk about Israel and Gaza. The war is about a week old now, sort of like that lettuce at the back of my fridge, and the news media is talking a lot about how Gaza will soon be without medicine and fuel and food. Sounds to me like he shouldn't have squandered all his football earnings. No, of course this is the Gaza Strip which now looks worse than an English town centre on a Friday night at 2am

The actual reasons behind the conflict are often portrayed as highly complex and difficult to understand but they're really not. This is less like Oceans 11 and more like Jaws 11. I also take issue with people pushing a moral equivalence, that both sides are equally bad and just as much to blame for the current situation. The Palestinians have lived there a long time but the Jews have also lived in that are since the days of Rameses II so it's just as much their land too. Plus if you look at the outcomes each side is after then they couldn't be more different. If Hamas stopped fighting, there's be peace whereas if the Israelis disarmed then within a week there would be a genocide that made Rwanda look like Disney Land.

Saying both sides are the same conjures memories of when President Trump said there were "very fine people on both sides" on that race riot although to his credit, the Middle East was a much safe place to be on his watch, Saudi Arabia even went so far as to recognise Israel as a state for the first time in 70 years. Except here we are now, thousands dead and apparently nobody in the region has any internet, so presumably Virgin Media got the contract to install it, a nice win for British Business #DespiteBrexit

The main thing I always think IS very important to do is differentiate between the Palestinians, and Hamas, which does seek a one-state solution albeit one where they are the one state and Israel has been wiped off the face of the earth in a show of fire and brimstone. As such it's interesting to note that for many years, Jerusalem actively bolstered it and fed it some support, in order to purposefully prevent a peaceful resolution or two state approach. On the other side of the coin it's not like the arabs are living it up: no Christmas, not television, no football, no beer, no hotdogs or bacon sarnies, no womens' rights or freedom of speech, not to mention being woken up every morning at 6am by some bloke wailing from the top of a tower. You can see why they're angry.

Which therefore brings us to the question of why people with those freedoms living it up at Harvard or London's Zone 1 are so uppity about it, if they're as well read as they claim to be on the situation. Personally, I think a lot of it just a social jolly, now that Ukraine has become a bit passé to talk about. Although I do find it amusing to see the people protesting about Israelis illegally taking over land, when they themselves showed up on a rubber dinghies from France a few weeks ago

It is the start of Qatar world cup, an event that like like Britain's financial mess has been years in the making and which will likely end with England doing very badly. This is a football tournament being played in the desert because the governing body and corruption go together like copy and paste, which is coincidentally the method by which they printed the voting ballots several years ago. I was going to say that they go together like Gin & Tonic or Beer & Football except that brings us to the point that alcohol will be banned at this year's tournament, much to the chagrin on Budweiser. All because once again they're playing it in an punitive islamic police state where even George Best would probably be scared into sobriety. At least that's how I think the the law works there. We've all heard the stories about how it's a brutal justice system, but then I heard someone saying that when it came to shoplifting, the police were fairly hands-off. Either way the absense of any beer makes me feel bad for the England fans, how after all are they supposed to drown their sorrows when they narrowly scrape a 0-0 draw with Wales.

The next item of contension are of course the actual statdiums, most of which will never be used after the tournament and all of which were built to emulate other grand Middle Eastern projects like Babylon or the Pyramids, in so much as they're very flashy and they were built by tens of thousands of slaves and prisoners. The government there has come under international pressure to disclose how many migrant workers died during the construction phase. No number has been released but if you ask me, it's a brave person that eats the stadium hot dogs.

For me the one good thing to come out of this tournament is the fact that questionable teams like Iran might be a force to be reckoned with this time around. They are after all used to the weather unlike teams like France or Germany. This is Qatar's first appearance too at a World Cup, getting automatic qualification in exchange for hosting it. I'm not too sure if they're any good and nobody knows too much about them, I asked a friend if he could name any Qatar players and he responded with Eric Claptop, Brian May & Jimmy Page.

All and all, the thing is going to be a mess, although as a one off experiment in excess I am vaguely looking forward to it. You also have to have admiration for the Fifa officials who have had to defend every single twist and turn of the farce, especially FIFA president Gianni Infantino who deflected from the topic of human rights abuses by claiming that Europe was just as bad and going off on a meanderring rant: "Today I feel Qatari. Today I feel Arabic. Today I feel African. Today I feel gay. Today I feel disabled. Today I feel a migrant worker" I can only assume with that strange list of self-identification, he's thinking of applying for a job at the BBC or with Nicola Sturgeon.

This weekend we were treated to a hung draw at Wembley, and Iran elected a new hardline president which means we’re soon to be treated to a hung draw and quartering at their national stadium next week as the political prisoners welcome in the new government as part of a grisly final 15 minutes of fame.

First of all that England-Scotland football match, it started off with players kneeling for the BLM movement, sparking confusion in the process as some of the Scottish players thought that someone had dropped a pound coin onto the pitch and that there was money to be kept by whomever found it. Anyway that political stunt turned out to in fact be the score in the end: kneel kneel. A pretty dismal performance by both sides, 90 minutes of slow, uninspired rubbish. The England fans can sing “Football’s coming home” all the want but frankly it’s about as likely to come home as Shamima Begum is, and the only shots on target from the Scots were from bottles of Jagermeister in the embarrassing drunken rabble huddled outside Leicester Square tube station. A few weeks ago the wife asked me if Scotland really hadn’t qualified for the tournament since France hosted in 1998, to which I corrected her: “No, that’s the World Cup you’re thinking of, we haven’t qualified for this tournament since England hosted it in 1996” Scotland have not been good this century, and it doesn’t make qualification easier when Yugoslavia get to enter a dozen teams. At least there’s just one German entry to contend with these days.

Anyway, talking of fanaticism ultimately leading to depressing results, Iran has a new president. He’s called Ebrahim Raisi and the BBC call him a strict conservative which could mean anything from him bringing in crucifixion as a form of punishment, to maybe just extreme political views like opposing the idea of James Bond being portrayed by a Nigerian lady. As things stand, it’s very much the first of those. Iran is going to be the same as it ever was, or at least the same as it’s been since the revolution in 1979. Prior to then of course the country known as Iran was still called “Running” and it was surprisingly liberal. Thereafter of course there was a crackdown against western culture, although I once heard they had an 80s cover band called Quran Quran. As to Mr Raisi, I’m sure he has some choice things to say, especially when it comes to Joe Biden’s desire for some kind of nuclear treaty and the lifting of sanctions. All of which will of course be a smokescreen for discussing Iranian social freedom’s and the US support for Israel. The thing that rarely seems to be mentioned as much as it should be is neither side actually wants to compromise. They both see it as a religious conflict where there is no middle group in god’s eyes. When it it really comes down to it, the entire region only therefore gets two choices of government: western liberal democracy, of which Israel is the only one, or brutal sharia autocracy and the sectarian genocide that goes along with it. It’s an argument 4,000 years in the making, though perhaps Joe Biden could get a rehearsal in by flying into Birmingham and trying to settle some kind of armistice within the Labour Party before he travels to the Middle East.

There were a couple non-Covid deaths this past week, notable the Argentine footballer Maradona who finally kicked/punched the bucket at the age of 60. In England the passing was celebrated by many, although he was of course deeply mourned in both Argentina and Scotland. I'm guessing that as a mark of respect there was maybe talk about removing all the white lines from the side of the pitch seeing as how Maradonna largely died at 60 because he cut more lines than an Audi driver in a hurry.

Elsewhere the Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh (fra-keeza-day) was gunned down in his car, raising many questions in the media like "how do you pronounce his name" because it's spelled like something Network Rail would hang outside a train station in Wales. Nonetheless the Iranian regime has been pretty quick to blame Israel for a number of reasons [1] President Trump didn't tweet responsibility [2] Mohsen wasn't a Russian disident [3] an Israeli cabinet minister said he had "no clue" whilst presumably smirking behind a facemark, perhaps secretly sticking his tongue out. Or maybe it was on a zoom call and he was holding some very crossed fingers just out of camera shot. It's an odd time we live in I guess, who'd have thought a year ago that within 12 months you could potentially be arrested for walking into a bank and NOT wearing a mask?

What else? Apparently the UK and France have reached an agreement to tackle migrants crossing the English Channel with "special equipment". Presumably boats? Maybe boats armed with a gun or two? Talk about the obvious though, it's like that Jailbreak song by Thin Lizzy where there's a lyrics "Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak Somewhere in this town" and you think "presumably at the prison?" Oh well, the navy and armed forces are secretive enough at the best of times I imagine; I remember once asking a friend who's an officer what the lowest rank in the army was. He said, "It's Private." I said, "Come on, you can tell me, I've known you 20 years."

There's an old joke about how do you blow up an Italian? Answer: Rigatoni. Anyway, this week it was Lebanon that saw a huge explosion after a blast ripped through the heart of Beirut, I've probably not seen such a massive bomb on tv since the Joey, the Friends spinoff. Perhaps Baywatch Nights would have been a better reference, that was set down by the docks after all.

Nonetheless, it turns out that the cause of the explosion was 2700 tones of ammonium nitrate, being illegally stored and and awaiting sale to either a fireworks company or potentially an agricultural supplier. Indeed it's likely one of the few explosions in that part of the world that wasn't anything to do with terrorism. There's that old expression that in the West the expression "you're the bomb" is a compliment whereas in the middle east it's a job offer.

But here we are though and there's not much to say or joke about this week. Hundreds killed hundreds thousands injured. I saw an article making a comparison to Chernobyl and how that event in the Soviet Union - like the Beirut explosion - was inevitable and simply the culmination of the endemic corruption and negligence built into the system. Certainly Lebanon has had a rough economic time of it of late, and that was before Corona hit; if the ammonium nitrate was destined to go into fireworks then I fail to see what they were preparing to celebrate. Was is evident is that the blast has also triggered an explosion of rage with protestors taking to the street, ironically copying something from France, the country's former colonial power. The famously forage loving french were probably confused and presumed that a cheese factory had been damaged when they heard that there was de brie everywhere. Cheese puns, I thought that was a gouda one. Here's a good joke to finish, what cheese is made backwards? Edam.

There are a couple of good things to come out of the Covid pandemic: there's no pressure to go to the gym, we know that China can unfortunately manufacture things that last longer than 6 months, and most importantly, Greta Thunberg hasn't been getting any media attention, although I guess that when airplanes are grounded it's pretty hard to fly around the world spreading your hypocrisy. But the environment is out there still, at least that's what I hear, I've not left the house much these past few months. This week I thought I'd look at two examples in the news of what the green agenda has left us with, and they're both pretty scary. It's like when you ask where the George Orwell memorial is Google tells you you're living in it. That kind of scary.

First of all to the United Arab Emirates. It's a fairly quirky place with crazy mega-projects and I always thought that if I was designing something there I'd make sure I had a small child on the design team to make sure it was eccentric looking enough and needlessly tall to the point of absurdity. But they can do it because they're a country where a passport and the American Express Platinum Card are synonymous. It's quite easy to spend money when you're sitting on top of that much oil and gas. However, Mae West once said "too much a good thing is wonderful" and the UAE really wants more and more energy (carbon friendly energy!) and so therefore this week saw the UAE start up the Arab world's first nuclear plant at Barakah, just next to the border with Saudi Arabia, a country already embroiled in conflicts with Yemen and Iran. It's probably worth noting that if you look up the UAE in an illustrated book of countries, the country right beforehand is Ukraine alongside the iconic B&W photographs of Chernobyl. This is the sort of management viewpoint akin to when the BBC put Jimmy Savile in charge of a kids tv show with the thinking of "what could possibly go wrong?".

The next power station that doesn't burn oil or gas is in China. It's the 3-gorges dam that is one of the largest things ever constructed by man, if you don't include the EU constitution or the US national debt. It's the world's largest power station and as a point of comparison, take the £16bn Sizewell C reactor: the 3 gorges dam is 6 or 7 times that in terms of output. Dam indeed. Nonetheless there's a lot of talk online including pictures and leaked information from defectors to the west suggesting that shoddy construction and an especially bad flood season make it quite possible that it could collapse, killing millions in the process and causing the sort of economic damage that make President Trump's proposed Covid sanctions look like a tap on the wrist. On the other hand, the deaths of million and final destruction of the economy is hardly out of the ordinary for a country that's communist and I have to sympathise with the engineers who had to interpret the instruction manual all written in Chinese, we've all been there I suppose.

Two big stories coming out of the middle east this week, a part of the world divided along multiple disagreements: islam vs judaism, Russia vs America, whether or not a star should have 5 or 6 points or whether you should just depict a weapon on your flag because nothing symbolises a modern peace-seeking nation better than a big shiny sword.

First to Israel where a tied election has led to a stalemate after Benjamin Netanyahu received slightly fewer votes than his opponent, Benny Gantz. Both would like to form a winning coalition with smaller parties but then I'd like to own a Lamborghini but tough, life doesn't work like that. Unless of course you live in Italy where I think a Lamborghini is the minimum bribe acceptable for selling out and going into a coalition. Alas the past 3 and a half thousand years or so have taught us that things are a bit more complicated in the promised land and they're likely facing another election. History is indeed interesting out there though, when the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah split apart there was no BBC Question time for the people to suffer through. When they Assyrians came through and promised to kill everyone they kept to their election promises. Although you look at beardy hamas-loving Jeremy Corbyn and maybe things aren't so different after all.

Let's talk about Saudi Arabia then. A massive oil processing facility was hit by a drone attack and subsequently celebrated by Iran, Houthi Rebels, as well as anyone who owns shares in BP or Royal Dutch Shell - because the two things to come out of the Middle East are "profits" and "prophets" How best then to respond to a drone attack? President offered up a nuclear strike (go big or go home) before adding "and there are options a lot less than that" The US coincidentally recently became the world's largest oil exporter so there's about a dozen strongly written conspiracies kicking around about what really happened. Fierce language too, not safe for work, it's not just the oil that's crude.

Perhaps Iran should change its name to Irate because there's trouble afoot in the Strait of Hormuz after 2 oil tankers were attacked this week although I've been out that part of the world and frankly I don't see how a fire could have burned the boat worse than the regular day to day weather.

Anyway, the US has been quick to call out Iran as the mastermind behind it all, which seems a missed opportunity. Call me old fashioned but I would have liked to see the US organise a heads of state summit to discuss it, get everyone to agree to holding it on a train and then make it the Orient Express, heading to the scene of the crime, with a lengthy reveal whereby president Trump eventually reveals that he's solved it. And by solved it I mean not the tanker thing but the overarching regional issues at state, by means of a military strike while everyone was messing around on a 19th century steam train for a month.

Of course in the real world. Iran says it "categorically rejects" US claims of it being hind the attack. Contrast that with the US perspective: that Iran is itching for a fight and it's obvious by the way that it's purposefully placed its country so close to all the American military bases in the region

I could quote some proper news here perhaps, "The blasts in one of the world's busiest oil routes comes a month after four oil tankers were attacked off the United Arab Emirates." but let's skip to the end because really this is all he-said-she-said stuff, a topic fairly familiar to the President at this stage. I will say that if this incident were to quickly escalate into full-scale war, it will only be due to the Prime Minister's resignation and the UKs paralysis that the country avoids getting sucked into World War 3. And wouldn't that be a turn up for the books, Theresa May accidentally becoming the best PM ever.

This week has seen a lot of debate, by which I mean politicallyy correct attention seeking, over whether teenager Shamima Begum should be allowed to return to the UK, after spending years living in ISIS controlled territory and discovering that 'ISIS' rhymes with 'crisis' and that like those still holding onto Blackberry telephones, the jihadist extremists are very much on the losing side these days; the territory held has been reduced to just a couple of hundred square miles, approximately the size of a mid-sized Ikea. I know it's a military cliché but this war may well be over by Christmas, but don't tell them that, the overtly Christian religious symbology of that will only strengthen their extremist zeal.

Anyway Shamima's heard that Doctor Who is a lady now, so she wants to return to the UK. She's over 17 now too so she'd even (as a woman) be allowed to legally drive or visit the shops on her own if she lived in the UK. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people say that the caliphate is a great place for women to live, but then you realise they say it's the best place "hands down" and you become very aware that an axe is being ushered in.

For all the talk of international law and the technicalities of her case, the arguments put forward by the lawyers really seem a bit like complaining that the kitchen in the Titanic wasn’t up to code. The same people who say she was young and immature already want young people to be given the vote and at the end of the day, she was already older than that when she publicly justified the Manchester Terrorist attack. Of course it was around that time that the fighters lost interest because they'd put a lot of effort into capturing oil fields just before the price of crude headed south. Something else that of course headed south was a wave of drone fighters from NATO bases in the north.

Jeremy Corbyn of course made some platitudes which were broadly in line with his previous sentiments for extremist organisations starting with the letter "I" Mind you, with his MPs defecting to form their own group, you can't blame him for wanting every possible vote he can lay his hands on. Things aren't going too well really, I saw pictures of him in the press visiting a homeless shelter, it makes you wonder: things must be really bad in London if someone on his salary can't afford the rent.

A couple of week's ago Saudi Arabian journalist and prominent critic of the government Jamal Khashoggi disappeared but this wasn't a magic show and he didn't suddenly reappear on the other side of a stage. It turned out that this was more like the magic trick where they cut someone in two or make them disappear and it was Saudi spies running the show so it was less Houdini and more Whodunnit and they've stayed quieter than the one in Penn & Teller that doesn't say anything.

There are two stories being proposed. One is the Official Saudi one in which Jamal entered the Saudi Embassy in Instanbul, got into a fight and was accidentally killed in the process. They didn't tell us sooner because they were embarrassed, like in those children't story where a vase gets broken and everyone learns an important lesson about telling the truth. Except in this case someone died, if it's a children's fairytale then it's some kind of twisted version of the three little pigs where the wolf ends up in the brick house feasting on barbecue ribs.

There's also the Turkish version of events, in which private jets landed with officials from Riyadh who set about dismembering Jamal with a surgical bone saw and they have evidence in the form of a recording from his Apple iWatch. The Saudi spies presumably went on to synch the device to the bottom of the Bosphorus.

Whatever happened I'd rather focus on the fact that this is a classic example of one death being a tragedy while millions dying is a statistic. Much has been said about the war in Yemen and a criminal justice system that puts ISIS to shame in terms of brutality, but you can also take a look to the other participants. It's one hundred years since over a million other people went missing in Turkey, except the were Armenian and Istanbul would prefer you forgot about that story.

Still lots of football going on out there with more passes than Diane Abbott on Mastermind. But elsewhere, this week saw the US involved in what was either described as mass human rights abuses on the Mexican border, or the culmination of decades of mismanagement when it comes to immigration. President Trump was keen to stress that this was actually the continuation of an Obama-era policy which only made the situation more confusing really, what would possess the president to actually embrace one of Obama's policies?

To do some fact-checking though, president Obama did oversea the deportation of over 2m migrants just as he did a lot of other things that people don't like to remember like when he wasn't relaxing quite a few gun laws in between shooting basketball hoops and of course shooting people from the air with drones all across the Middle East. Nonetheless, we live in a social media age and families (illegal migrants or not) locked up in cages don't play terribly well in an election year. Also, it is worth noting that president Trump got elected largely because of his unwillingness to put the dreams and wishes of illegal migrants ahead of those who already live in impoverished parts of the US.

Nonetheless, the United Nations human rights watch stepped up to condemn the US. This of course is the same human rights council that's headed up by Saudi Arabia which always seemed strange: a bit like making Richard Dawkins the pope or asking Gordon Brown to look after your money. Up until now the Saudi's have mostly used their position of power to line their pockets or occasionally put out a press release about Rohingya Muslims being persecuted in Burma. But then they also started criticising Isreal's behaviour in the West bank and now they're bashing the US itself so I guess it's time for Washington to call for fresh elections, by which I mean presumably give the role to the highest bidder, just as long as it's not Russia, or Saudi Arabia again (unless they've learnt their lesson)

More fun and games in Syria this week, Israel launched an air attack and left the sort of destruction you normally only see when the Daily Mail runs an article about binge drinking and British town centers on a Friday night. In response, Bashar Al-Assad, wanting to look like a strong military leader, no doubt quoted that famous line by Lt. Colonel Custer at the Battle of Little Bighorn, namely "where are all those darned tomahawks coming from?!"

So what's happening then? Well Syria is currently home to Iranian military advisors and the whole thing is a bit reminiscent of the 1950s when the US had military advisors in Vietnam. Sure a decade later that was openly a US-Russia thing but for a long time it was a Vietnamese civil war, just as for now Syria is technically on the winning side because it's fighting itself. Assad has made suggestions that foreign intervention has threatened to escalate the situation beyond a cold war. I don't think there's any chance of a cold war though, have you seen the weather forecast for Damascus? 70 degrees in the shade.

All this is in the same week as the Iranian nuclear deal has started to unwind with the US reimposing sanctions but the EU desperate to keep trade open; largely because they love cars in the Middle East and both Germany is very keen to sell the new S-Class in Tehran. The US is shut for business though as far as Iran is concerned though although that didn't stop Oliver North back in the 1980s and I'm not sure where the UK stands on the whole deal, although I'm sure that the sales director at BAE systems (the weapons division) is following it closely, call me cynical.

One of the problems with Syria is that we can either let President Assad remain in charge or we can force him out and let ISIS fill the power vacuum. It's like in the Star Wars prequels when Liam Neeson helped destroy that droid army but then he died and Jar-Jar Binks became a senator.

Maybe we could force Assad out and have an election in Syria, and the Russians definitely won't try to rig it with the hundreds of personal they have all over the country. If you've ever been to a carnival and watched a stallholder superglueing coconuts to the stands before opening for for business, that's basically an analogy for how Vladimir Putin would organize a free and fair Syrian election.

Nonetheless, this week saw the US, UK and France begin a bombing campaign, supposedly in retaliation to a chemical weapons attack but largely because there's lots of domestic problems at home and they all need a distraction. In the US former FBI director James Comes has been doing the rounds, with a primetime Sunday interview and presumably and appearance on an episode of Sesame Street brought to you by the letter "P"

In the UK, Theresa May always needs something new to keep people occupied when Brexit threatens to make its way onto the news agenda, and in France there'a a big walkout by the SNCF rail workers so they're distracting from a rail strike with a missile strike.

In reality the whole Syrian fight actually comes down to two rival plans to bring oil and gas into Europe via Syria, one American and one Russian. Unless you're a Momentum supporter in which case it's about Israel because of course ISIS are run by Mossad, Rupert Murdoch is personally in charge of dictating UK military policy and the Rothschilds were responsible for Ed Sheeran.

Brexit news: don't look now but apparently it's going pretty well, for now at least, supposedly. People talk about politicians being out of touch but I always think that for those ministers involved in the Brexit process, getting stuff to happen must be a good analogy for us regular folks trying to get an old car to scrape through an MOT for one last time.

This past week actually started out looking quite bleak on the Brexit front, I'm sure Theresa May was imagining the upcoming news headlines in the way that I used to look forward to an upcoming Shakespeare essay at school: you know how it is, it's Sunday night and you know it's due on Thursday and you know that your claims on what you know are further away from the mark than when when Michael Bay made Peal Harbour. But for now things seem to be vaguely on track; sure the Remainers in the cabinet are still trying to haggle the EU upwards on the fee side of things but on the other hand, the EU federalists seem to be increasingly keen to get rid of Britain and get on with the task of subjugating the continental Europeans without pesky nationalism getting in the way.

But if we want to look for a real dispute, proper gnashing of teeth and wailing, let's look to the wailing wail itself in Jerusalem. This week President Trump decided to say that Jerusalem was the Israeli capital. That went down about as well as a visit by Martin Shulz to Alene Foster's house. This annoyed a lot of people: the Palestinians, the Arab world and don't forget the regular pub quiz enthusiasts like myself who was relied on the knowledge that Tel Aviv was the capital to earn themselves an extra point or two every few months. Bizarrely I saw some Scottish Nationalists getting angry on the internet about it, you'd think they'd sort out the Edinburgh vs London capital city debate first really. But who knows, one day the Middle East might reach a peaceful settlement and send an envoy to head to Glasgow and sort out the ancient Rangers vs Celtic football conflict.

This week President Trump has been off on a long trip to the Far East in order to bolster trade relationships, come up with a plan about how to deal with North Korea and of course to make a number of barnstorming speeches about how "crooked Hilary Clinton" failed to win any electoral college votes in that part of the world. The last big trip the president made was to Saudi Arabia in order to, amongst other things, finalise a multi-billion dollar weapons contracts and that part of the world has been getting along fine ever since, as long as you ignore facts, the news and passing conjecture, though you could likely say the same about Theresa May's cabinet.

The Saudi kingdom has been "cleaning house" for the past couple of weeks with an ongoing proxy war against Iran that this week led to the resignation of the Lebanese Prime Minister and the seizure of billions of dollars of assets. Numerous high ranking officials have been whisked away by the government in a classic purge from the Jo Stalin playbook. The Jo Stalin playbook of course should not be mistaken for the Jo DiMaggio playbook which strictly limits using a baseball bat to hit baseballs rather than political opponents. The latest purge though is Prince Bandar bin Sultan who is/was Saudi Arabia's most famous arms dealer, former ambassador to the US, and recent head of Saudi intelligence.

Back to Asia though, supposedly the Japanese love Trump, the Chinese love Trump, and don't forget that Trump really loves Trump. In all reality though, the Japanese would love any commander in chief offering them military support for free, and the Chinese will say literally say everything and anything if it means that Trump agrees to drop US opposition to formal recognition of China as a market economy under WTO rules. President Trump is also going to be doing a tour of Vietnam by the way. Oh well, he dodged that one about 50 years ago but better late than never I suppose...

This week has been fairly quiet in the UK, I guess most politicians have been too busy watching Wimbledon or submitting expenses. There have been ongoing questions about the Grenfell Tower fire and we’re not really going to know all the facts for years. We’ll likely have a public enquiry followed by demands for a second enquiry when some people disagree with the result, as with Brexit, and the press led by the BBC giving a free platform to all the conspiracy theorists.

But that’s life I suppose, politicians and activists devour peoples’ misfortune the way that John Prescott used to devour sticky buns and with the sort of perseverance that reminds me of someone trying to light a cigarette in the rain with a broken lighter.

But elsewhere in the world what’s been going on? Well in the Middle East, we have the growing tension between Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And I could discuss the complicated issues about their ties to Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and the tribal nature of the region, including the involvement of Russia. But, at the end of the day, both Trump and Theresa May just signed off on a massive arms deal to the Saudis and there’s oil & gas involved so I suppose we’re going to just have to trust politicians and big business to do the right thing…

In the meantime, bread and circuses for the masses, as I said it’s Wimbledon so look away and focus on the tennis and the Pimms and the celebrities. My favourite joke this week would be, “What time did Sean Connery arrive at Wimbledon?” The answer is “Tennish.”

Last week President Trump decided to try out his new toys by launching a strike at Syria to show Assad that he’s the boss. This week, Syria’s already fixed the holes in the runway, presumably using some kind of secret military technology that is unavailable to the pothole division at my local council. The problem with the Syrian conflict is that it’s essentially the Assad Regime vs ISIS so if you want to do anything, it means you really have to state which of those two sides you support. It’s as if you’re a bouncer backstage in the green room and a fight breaks out between Bill Cosby and Justin Bieber and you think you should probably step in. Except that actually, you’re not a bouncer, you’re a the hot-tempered owner of the largest army in the world and Russia’s piling billions of dollars of military hardware into that fight in a place where the ground is quite literally made of petrol because it’s the Middle East. And that scenario is ludicrous anyway, Bill Cosby can’t get a television gig these days for love nor money.

While this was happening, there yet another 2 terror attacks, in Sweden and Germany. And the US is, as we speak, manoeuvring an aircraft carrier towards North Korea so that should end well. North Korea is of course the place where socialism grows but nothing comes out apart from tales of human misery. Very much like a dinner party at Ed Miliband’s house I suppose.

Where then in all of this is that Beacon – that guiding light – of liberal democracy, the British Parliament? Well, right now it’s on recess for Easter and I’m sure the cabinet are all observing that religious moment of thought by getting stuck into some chocolate and gorging themselves. How very Christian.

Last weekend things got pretty darn serious and President Trump decided to ban people travelling to America from Iran, Somalia and some other countries, essentially because they’re predominantly Muslim places. I suppose you could maybe try to find the positives: perhaps the US will formally recognise Palestine as a country [?] in order so that Trump can then presumably ban Palestinian people from travelling to the US.

Curiously, Saudi Arabia didn’t make the cut. It’s a brutal Islamic theocracy with regular executions and outrageous human rights abuses in the name of strict sharia law, but Trump looked the place up and down, opened up his report card and wrote: Must Try Harder, C-

Curiously, Sudan was on the list but not South Sudan. Trump’s in his 70s mind, perhaps he’s still using Microsoft Encarta and is therefore unaware that the country actually split in two a few years ago.

And talking about places diving up, Brexit passed it’s vote in Westminster this week so we’re a few yards further into the steeplechase that is getting legislation sorted – then figuring out which cabinet minister can make the most money flogging books on the subject. I imagine Theresa May wishes that she too could just whip out a gold sharpie and get the thing over and done with in a weekend with an executive order, like they do in America.