And a very berry Christmas to you all

I AWAKE in a cold sweat from a frightful dream. I am in the Clarence Hotel in Dublin and I’ve just hit the multi-millionaire owner Sir Bono over the head with a posh leather stool before stamping on his posh sunglasses. Take that, you preening, preposterous, pint-sized pixie prat.

The environmental campaigner who had his favourite hat flown across the Atlantic; the anti-famine activist who could easily feed a village or two with the small change from down the back of his tax-dodging couch. The man who put the hip into hypocrite.

Remember that advert? “Every time I click my fingers, another child dies.” Well perhaps it might be a good idea to stop clicking them then, you clown.

I can’t stand the man, and now he’s gone and blagged himself a Knighthood. Outrageous, even if it is only one of those dodgy ones we give to foreigners. Arise, Sir Bonio, and then kindly clear off sharpish. And please take that other dishevelled dope, Sir Geldof, with you.

Unfortunately, I haven’t even got the energy to properly rail against the disgraceful way NuLabour “leaked” the news of this honour a week before it should be announced. I’ve seen people sacked before for pulling such stunts. What makes Tone think he can do as he pleases? And to think that some people reckon that giving poor Zara Phillips a gong has brought the whole system into disrepute …

RELEASED NUTTERS, many of them failed asylum seekers, are murdering people in the streets; the entire government is mired in corruption and deceit; rampant drug abuse is driving a nationwide crime wave; so what do the cops do? They arrest a bloke for picking berries.

No, really. Mr Ian Blayney, of Lydney, Gloucestershire, was on a canalside walk in Macclesfield, Cheshire, in August when he saw some rowan berries growing in an adjacent field. Being a sad bastard he hopped over the fence, filled a plastic bag, and later made a few jars of jam from the proceeds.

He was therefore somewhat surprised three months later to get a knock on the door from Officer Dibble. It appears that a nosy-parker minimum-wage security guard had spotted Mr Blayney climbing over the fence onto private property and had noted his car registration number. There then ensued a three-month manhunt during which Cheshire Police tracked down their man and then asked Gloucestershire Police to feel his collar.

He was subsequently taken to the police station, interviewed and then formally cautioned for trespass. I understand that friends and relatives who were given the resultant jam may now be under investigation for receiving stolen goods. (Actually I made that last bit up, but in this context you can never be sure.)

Right, let’s make it clear that Mr Blayney was on private property. If someone shinned over my fence and nicked all my tomatoes I wouldn’t be very happy. But rowan berries? Since when have they been a valuable commodity?

And am I wrong to suggest that perhaps a phone call warning Mr Blayney of his misdemeanour might have been more appropriate than a visit from two uniformed officers?

NOT MUCH of a holiday for the Jokeforce, the government-funded body set up to provide material for satirical columnists. No sooner have they been in action in North Yorkshire, where a chap who wanted to organise a Christmas do at the village hall was told that he must display posters warning that the mince pies might contain suet or nuts and that the cocoa content and temperature of his hot chocolate must also be checked, than they’re off to Anglesey in Wales to ruin the Christmas of elderly patients in a hospital in Holyhead.

In this instance they instantly banished the patients’ own portable television sets from the wards because “someone might trip over the wires”. Cases to date of people tripping over the wires in the past 10 years? Zero.

The mostly bed-bound patients have been allowed to bring in their own tellies and DVD players since the unit opened, but a snap inspection by Health and Safety stormtroopers just before Christmas led to the poor old things being unable to watch Pauline keel over in EastEnders or David Platt (surely the Devil Incarnate) lay waste to Gail and Sally’s perfect Christmas. So it’s not all bad news then …

WHAT HAS happened to this country’s spirit of adventure? I’m sitting there watching thousands of people whining because fog had cancelled their flights out of Heathrow. “It’s ruined our Christmas”, they moaned.

Well, not necessarily. Did any of them think of getting off their spoonfed backsides and embracing the challenge? A quick coach trip down the M4 would get them to Bristol Airport, ironically one of the most fog-bound airports in the country, but this time bright and clear. From there it’s just a hop and a skip to Paris where there’s a major air hub with connecting flights to anywhere in the world. And if the M4 proves too challenging, what about the Eurostar?

No, it’s much easier to stand there and complain instead. And it’s not as if they’d all been booked on £5 cheapos and couldn’t afford anything else. Those airlines don’t fly out of Heathrow. The truth of the matter is that we’ve lost any sense of self-reliance. If the advertised flight doesn’t happen, we’re hapless and helpless, left weeping and wailing in the hell of Terminal 3. It’s just pathetic.

Old Adolph must be sitting on a cloud up there kicking himself that he wasn’t around 70 years later.

O The views of Mr Beelzebub are purely personal and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Editor or staff of this website, of anyone who thinks it's a good idea to make the Red Arrows abandon red and blue smoke and just use white because it's less expensive, of anyone who thinks it's a good idea to cancel all parachute training for the Parachute Regiment because we can't afford it, or of anyone who thinks that it's time to stop hoping against hope and bring our demoralised young men home now. The Fifth Test isn't that important.