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There was a scene in Neighbours last night where a girl called Carmella taunted that nice Irish one by pretending to be talking to a boyfriend on her telephone in front of him. The scene’s punchline was the revelation that she had actually only phoned the speaking clock.

What a stupid girl she must be. Everyone knows you don’t actually have to phone somebody to pretend to be talking to a boyfriend on your mobile. And having a long imaginary conversation with the speaking clock is one way to ensure that your phone bill rockets.

The incident took place in Daphne’s coffee shop, only it hasn’t been called that for a while, and I can’t help feeling that Des would be upset. (Des was Daphne‘s husband, before she copped it in a harrowing car crash. My little sister used to call him Desk.)

I don’t regularly watch the programme now that it isn’t the 1980s, but from what I can make out it seems to have recently embraced storylines involving incest, lesbianism and sex-obsessed Italian film stars. Funny to think that the most controversial thing it contained in the good old days was Kylie Minogue wearing dungarees…

They have such great conversations. Years ago, a revue I co-wrote had an entire subplot based on a fragment of a conversation between two Americans that we’d overhead: “I don’t give a damn who he is – unless, of course, he’s Howard”.

Just now, walking to work, I overhead an American loudly proclaim into his mobile: “This is coming straight from the source, okay?”. I wonder what that will inspire me to …

I don’t know why everyone is so shocked at the pictures of British soldiers apparently abusing Iraqi detainees – about which some idiot on C5 last night said “[the British army] knew that people would call it ‘the British Abu Ghraib'” – which we probably wouldn’t have done if he hadn’t mentioned it.

Vapid verbal posturing aside, there’s a deep problem with the media’s coverage of this. Did we learn nothing from the Stamford experiment? We shouldn’t be surprised that people do these things, and we certainly shouldn’t be appalled by human behaviour. Oh, hang on – that’s just more posturing. We aren’t ignorant of our natures, we aren’t ignorant of what we, as human beings, are capable of, of our desires, our bestiality. Morality isn’t innate – if it was, we wouldn’t need books or gurus or the police force, or to talk about it. If morality were innate, we wouldn’t have the Daily Mail.

Everyone has felt the urge to do real violence at some point; many of us have given in to it. Our surprise at the latest photos of wartime abuse, then, is either feigned or – perhaps more worryingly – an indication of our unwillingness to accept ourselves. Humanity, clothed in red.

Which isn’t to say that people should do this sort of thing – or even that they shouldn’t avoid doing it, although that’s a more complex issue. If nothing else, it’s probably unwise for soldiers sent to pacify a region in order to reduce terrorism to use terror tactics on anyone in the region, be they terrorists, insurgents or whatever. But let’s not blame those on the ground for mimicking their seniors – it is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery.

Although, for the record, I prefer chocolate. I get the feeling that General Sir Mike Jackson would have, too.

Former Labour MP Lord Janner, who is a high profile member of Britain’s Jewish community, branded Harry’s action’s “stupid and evil”.

Stupid I might agree with (no, actually, I wouldn’t: it’s foolish, not stupid), but evil is a word too far. Or, indeed, a Labour peer too far, as he goes on to emit the amazing sentence, “I would send him in the army as fast as possible.” Is British English actually this guy’s first language? According to his biography, he’s Welsh, but he seems to speak English like he’s French. But then according to his biography:

He is a member of the Magic Circle and the International Brotherhood of Magicians.

Which makes me rather worried about criticising him. He might turn me into a newt.

When I was a Cub Scout, I attended a Christmas fancy dress party as a pirate. What fun it was, with my felt-tip stubble and inflatable parrot, waving my cardboard cutlass around and shouting “aaarrrr”.

But pirates are not merely fictional creations with wooden legs; for centuries they struck terror in the hearts of merchant seamen, looting and plundering villages and carrying out acts of unbelievable cruelty over widespread areas. What is more, piracy continues today, primarily in the South China Sea and along the African coast.

Clearly my so-called “fun” pirate costume was actually in the worst possible taste, and hugely disrespectful to those who have lost family members to pirates.

I would like to make a public apology for my costume and all the offence that it caused. But if that is insufficient (and I can imagine Michael Howard might be very quick to take up the pirate widow cause and chastise me further) then I offer myself for public humiliation, with photographs of my leering ten-year-old pirate face readily available to be splashed across the tabloids for days on end just so people can see what an insensitive bastard I am. I am fully prepared for this really horribly serious misdemeanour to be ridiculed and criticised in every possible manner, to be discussed in every forum, and to be jeered at by every living soul, so seriously serious was this dreadful, awful faux-pas of fancy dress.

“A heroic war cry to apparently peaceful ends is one of the greatest weapons a politician has.” – Mavic Chen, the power-crazed, insane and utterly evil Guardian of the Solar System in ‘The Daleks’ Masterplan’ (1965)

“History has called America and our allies to action, and it is both our responsibility and our privilege to fight freedom’s fight.” – George W. Bush (2003)

This lunchtime I went to the Post Office to buy some stamps. The Post Office seemed like a logical first point of call for such goods; one might almost have thought that stamps were the prime sales product of an establishment calling itself a Post Office.

Except that if you have visited a Post Office recently you might have noticed that they now sell a variety of other habadashery, ranging from tasteless glittery cards depicting the Queen Mother, cheap videos of films nobody likes such as Hudson Hawk and The Postman, those little snowstorm globes containing plastic scenes of the Houses of Parliament next to the Eifel Tower, and a myriad of Postman Pat merchandise.

And not, it appears, stamps.

“Could I have a book of first class stamps?” I asked the spotty kid at the counter.

“Sorry, we’ve run out,” he replied.

Run out? Of first class stamps? The Post Office?

“Very well, good Sir,” I hissed through my teeth, “I’ll have a book of second class stamps then.”

“We’ve run out of them as well,” the spotty kid responded.

I was forced to buy my stamps in Sainsbury’s, which is ironic really because I kicked up a bit of a fuss there a while ago because they’d run out of macaroons. Perhaps I should have tried the Post Office.

In 1642 Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of this sceptered isle, banned all forms of theatrical production*. It is therefore thanks to him that we don’t have any nasty, corrupt theatre in this country any more.

So I would like to offer my commiserations to the brave Christian martyrs who burned their TV licences outside BBC Television Centre at the weekend in protest against the broadcast of Jerry Springer – the Opera. If only they had succeeded in getting it pulled from the schedules, they would have put an end to swearing in this country. Good on them, anyway, for voicing their anger at a show which has caused them so much offence even though none of them had even apparently seen it! Cromwell would have been proud of you.

And shame on the BBC for not realising that these religious zealots have a God-given right to censor art that is not suitable for everybody else.

* Actually, it seems that Cromwell liked musicals and occasionally made exceptions for them. Which suggests that he was a little bit gay. (He also occasionally wore a diaper.)

I’ve just seen the Lemony Snicket film, which is probably the prettiest thing I’ve seen for a long time. It’s no doubt common for people to compare it to Harry Potter, so I certainly won’t – and mostly because Lemony Snicket should not have been a film. It was crying out to be a TV series being, as it is, a series of unfortunate events. Great fun though it was, it did the road movie thing, which is to say everything goes wrong in one place so they move somewhere else in case that’s a bit better.

Also, if it had been a TV series, they probably wouldn’t have got Jim Carrey. It’s not that he’s bad in it – indeed, I can’t remember seeing him better – it’s just that he’s outclassed by everyone else (except perhaps Billy Connolly). Yes, I’m sure the character is hammy and ridiculous in the books, but hey, this is a different medium, and while the visuals were great, he just took it a bit too far on a couple of occasions.

Three books went into this film – there are going to be thirteen books in total (apparently), although they’ll surely run out of not-quite-relatives before then, meaning that the Baudelaire children will come out from under the shadow of the adults at some point. A bit like Return Of The Jedi, without Mark Hamill.

Actually, why didn’t they get Mark Hamill to play Olaf?

Well, several dresses, really – last night I saw the Old Vic pantomime, Aladdin. Which very much has Ian McKellen as the pantomime dame. (Note that this is in no way worse than Aled Jones singing O Holy Night – it’s entirely possible that Ian McKellen is a better singer than Aled Jones, although probably not a better dancer.)

It’s actually been some time since I went to a pantomime – years, in fact – and although it was heavy on the innuendo and celebrity references, it was still very much a children’s pantomime. Actually, thinking about it, children’s pantomimes are always full of innuendo and celebrity references. Fun for all the family, providing your family knows about sex.

I really want to see the script, though, because there was a scene to music where Hanky and Panky covered each other in wallpaper paste, and I’m convinced that in the script it just said “lazzo”.

Anyway, that’s not the point. Ian McKellen in a dress, on stage at the Old Vic, in a wonderfully camp pantomime. Who’d have thought?