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If everyone responsible for that dossier believed it was based on accurate intelligence – what the hell is our intelligence community doing? Surely a good indication that Saddam could launch WMD in 45 minutes would have been a photo of such a weapon. Or a little ‘X’ on a map. For that matter, surely they’d be required to believe that he had any at all, no matter whether he could launch them in 45 minutes or not?

Okay, so no intelligence is perfect, and we know from the FBI’s story surrounding September 11th that if you have lots of information it doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to pull out the right bits, but being certain enough that someone has something that you’ll go to war over it surely, surely, requires some sort of proof that they actually do. Like a till receipt, or a postcard from Basra with Hans Blix standing in front of a rocket with that three-pronged radition symbol on it.

It’s my taxes that are being spent on this. And I wanted a new DVD player.

I’m sure I’m not the only person who types my name into search engines to check how famous I am. Ever since my Footlights days I have had high placings on Google, which is very satisfying given that other family members and most friends don’t feature at all.

James Aylett is an exception, featuring very very heavily when you type his name into Google. But then, he’s into computers, so he probably has ways of cheating. And it is satisfying to observe that, at present, the first page of results includes the intriguing words “Turning James Aylett into a dog” – which I can take full credit for.

In the meantime I have to battle it out with James W. Lark III for my position. Today, I am happy to report, I have risen above this shady character to second place on the Google leaderboard. What is also interesting is that, for the first time, it is my location on the Uncertainty Division website rather than the Footlights website that has gained me this position.

Are people genuinely looking at me on this website more than on the Footlights website? And if so, who are these people? And why don’t they ever leave comments on the diary?

In the name of expanding my internet profile, I can now also be found at the London News Review website.

The Blairite quango in which I work continues, you will be reassured to know, to hand out money to any old crank who comes in with a new and exciting idea for development.

One of the more innovative recent proposals has come from a man who has invented an explosive which can blow rocks up without making any noise. The strength of the proposal rests upon the fact that he has, apparently, shown it to the Queen. And she was very impressed.

He’s a clever man. What he’s done, you see, is chosen a deaf old lady – albeit one with considerable influence and whose face appears on coins – to confirm that his explosions are indeed completely silent. Of COURSE she was impressed, she couldn’t hear a thing because she’s 78 years old.

The Queen is, in many ways, an inspiring woman. I thought her Christmas speech was very good. But she has no scientific credentials that I know of, and I am sure that she does not possess sufficiently accurate faculties to qualify her in any way to pass judgement upon the actual validity of this man’s claim that he can explode rocks without making any noise.

I just don’t believe that it’s possible. Rocks make noise even when you DON’T explode them. Kick a rock, drop a rock, hit a rock with a spoon, it will make a noise. Don’t try to tell me that you can explode a rock and make no noise. No, don’t even try.

I bet he’s using polystyrene rocks, or something.

Even if he CAN do as he claims and explode real, actual rocks without making a noise – what’s the point? He should be seeking a slot on the Paul Daniels magic show, not Government funding.

(Oh, forgot – Paul Daniels doesn’t have a magic show any more. ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)

Now, I know a thing or two about explosions, and one of the things I know is this: noise is one of the things that makes it an explosion. I have seen a number of explosions in my brief life – here are some of my favourite ones (no doubt you can add your own favourite explosions to this list):

Daleks – Invasion Earth 2150AD: the explosion of the Dalek flying saucer at the end. We’re talking the Peter Cushing film here, not the original TV series, and it’s not actually all that great. But it’s an explosion from my childhood – a nostalgic explosion.

Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves: towards the end, when Morgan Freeman starts blowing up barrels. The brilliance of the first big explosion is of course multiplied many times by the exchange that follows between a Baron (“is this your idea of control, Sheriff?”) and Alan Rickman (“Shut up, you TWIT”).

The Italian Job: “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody…” etc.

Batman Returns: the explosion of the shop front, preceded by Michelle Pfeiffer saying “Meow.”

Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em: every time Frank Spencer touches anything, it explodes. It’s a hilarious joke which never gets tired.

Dr Who – Remembrance of the Daleks: in the final episode of this serial, a special weapons Dalek blows up loads of stuff. When they filmed it, half of London’s fire services turned up because they thought somebody had blown up Waterloo station.

The Death Star: I don’t even know which Star Wars film it gets blown up in, but it’s bloody fantastic anyway.

Mary Poppins: up amongst the chimneys, with the fireworks. Dick van Dyke is in it.

Dr Who – the Greatest Show in the Galaxy: the one right at the end, mainly because it happens right behind Sylvester McCoy and he doesn’t even notice it.

The Hindenburg: is it distasteful to like this explosion? We watched it again and again in science lessons at school, couldn’t get enough of it.

The Bridge on the River Kwai: the best explosion of a thing ever.

Raiders of the Lost Ark: the best explosion of a person ever.

In every single instance cited above, the noise of the explosions is one of the features that make them so memorable. Remove the noise, and the result would be far less satisfactory.

So when a man approaches my office and says “I’ve invented a noiseless explosion and the Queen says it’s wonderful,” my inclination is to tell him to get lost. “Go home,” I want to say, “put the noise back into your explosions.” Now – if he had invented a way of exploding rocks in a NOISIER way, perhaps so that deaf old ladies like the Queen could get the full enjoyment of a proper explosion, that would be something I’d be interested in funding.

Sadly, I am not in a position to make decisions like that; and he’s going to get his money, I just know it.

Well, I’m shocked – that the BBC should want to hire someone with experience of an important area for news coverage, especially since, according to al Jazeera’s own coverage he formerly worked for the BBC anyway – something that doesn’t appear to be terribly unusual for al Jazeera folk.

Except that, again from the al Jazeera report, Ibrahim Helal will be working on “media training projects” – hardly the sort of power-wielding, corporation-rousing position the Express presumably had in mind.

So why does the Express have such a problem with this? Is it just because they’re racists? Or just because they hate the BBC? Or just because they’re stupid?

Or perhaps it’s just a slow news day – nothing else to grab the front page. Yes, that must be it.

The London News Review asks why liberals seem to have a problem with Islam, pointing out in the leader that generalising about Islam is wrong – but then falling into a worse trap, that of attempting to be balanced yet coming off as critical of Islamic writings and practices. In the context of such an emotional topic, this is a bad mistake – and is it any surprise that Robert Kilroy-Silk, backed by half the readership of the Daily Mail, shoots his mouth off and offends half of the Muslim world when reasoned, intelligently-written articles themselves come off as barely-checked criticism?
Generalising about Islam – about anything – is wrong. But dwelling on certain actions carried out in the name of Islam, while ignoring similar actions claiming ties to Christianity, or any other religion, is worse. For instance, most of the LNR article focuses on the attitude to women in some Islamic states, and while it is true that to Western liberal ideals the treatment of women in, say, Saudi, falls short of (the Western liberal definition of) acceptable, it is important to remember that Islam is not the only religion whose teachings have been used to ground this sort of culture. Indeed, Islam is the new kid on the block of monotheistic religions; the limitation, oppression and even persecution of women was prevalent in Western society long before the birth of Muhammed.

There’s not much point in trying to do a blow by blow comparison of passages of the Koran and the Bible; any attempt to show that the scriptures of the two religions are equally restrictive and abusive of women and their rights would either be incomplete and open to criticism, or unreadably long. However it is worth noting that Corinthians, one of the most-quoted parts of the New Testament, has the following:

Few Christians would, I hope, argue that this passage should be followed literally these days. Women’s position in society has changed since the time of St Paul, and to deny women full participation in congregation on the grounds of this passage would no longer seem an appropriate interpretation of the teachings of Jesus. Society has moved on since then, and so has the religious interpretation of scripture.

However it isn’t valid to argue that Islam’s youth compared to Christianity means it will in time ‘mend its ways’ as it co-exists and develops alongside other religions; for hundreds of years after the birth of Islam, the Christian church’s hold over state in Europe prevented women appearing on the stage, and could give hold over a woman to her husband, father or brothers; later, Christian scripture was used to justify apartheid, anti-semitism, and continues to be used to give a moral grounding for wars all around the world. Christianity may be founded on an all-encompassing and unconditional love, but that will never stop people hijacking its name. Throughout the history of humanity, people have invoked positive, respected ideas and ideals – be it Christianity, Islam, Science or whatever – as a justification for all manner of actions that are neither acceptable to the rest of the world nor, in truth, countenanced by the religion or movement claimed to back up those actions.

This, then, is the crux of the problem. Making a link between any extremist and his claimed religion should no more tarnish the religion itself than John Hinkley’s attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan should make us suspicious of people who like Jodi Foster – but, in the case of religion, and particularly in the case of a religion of which many Westerners still are fairly ignorant, that link can have a very negative effect.

We should not blame Islam that its popularity makes it a target for people looking for a moral justification, but rather we should be condemning the nutters, psychopaths and others who claim its backing yet deviate from its tenets as understood and practiced by the majority. Focusing on the religion is about the most dangerous thing we can do right now; the danger of inadvertently generating another Kilroy-Silk, another little racist, a bigot by misunderstanding rather than by choice, is too high.

Perhaps it is true that ‘progressive Muslims should openly admit that Islam lends itself to unsavoury interpretations’ – but more urgently, liberals (and everyone else) should openly acknowledge their responsibility to clear and accurate communication.

I just bought a Cornish pasty and the man gave me all my change in 20 pence coins. HOW annoying.

Well, hello!

Yes, it’s me. James. The other James.

“Where have you been?” you all gasp.

Well, I’ll tell you. I’ve been in the cinema.

Not, as the length of my absence might suggest, watching the final installment of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. No, last night I went to see a film that makes Peter Jackson’s recent efforts look about as significant as Road Trip.

The film I am talking about is Cold Mountain, the latest offering from Anthony Minghella, who is somebody I aspire to be. And it’s superb. I won’t go into unnecessary palpatations over the details, but screenplay, acting and (needless to say) cinematography are all exceptional.

It had me in tears after about twenty minutes, and I spent the rest of the film in a constant state of near-blubber. Interestingly, what set me off wasn’t Nicole Kidman going all weepy, it was Jude Law screaming as he helplessly joined a desperate crowd of soldiers killing everything around them. This depiction of the dehumanising effects of war is the film’s strongest aspect, which relentlessly persists throughout – as the film progresses all sense of the two sides of the war, any idea of “good” and “bad”, are lost in the cruelty and violence; there are just people killing people, and all death is sickening. It’s possibly the strongest anti-war film I’ve ever seen, and ought to be shown to people who think the Army’s “99.9% need not apply” adverts are cool.

Except that, when the film’s “villain” was finally killed, a man in the row behind me chuckled and said “Nice one!” and I was filled with a desire to kick his head in. So perhaps we both missed the point.

• I believe for every drop of rain that falls, a flower grows.
• I believe I can eat three Shredded Wheat for breakfast.
• I believe the Conservatives will win the next general election.
• I believe in miracles.

As reported by Footlights and by James Bachman, Harry passed away earlier this month; I only found out this morning, and today is colder for it.

I was going to write a quick entry about life imitating The West Wing in the announcement today of the first case of BSE in the United States, but I haven’t had time to do the research to do a proper comparison, so you’ll have to just imagine what I might have written.

Even by our sporadic publishing history, this will probably be a fallow period; you certainly shouldn’t expect anything from me until next week sometime. I can’t speak for James, but as he’s awfully busy I wouldn’t hold out much hope.