Parliament

MP's have a lot of fun sometimes. Cameron is having fun at the present time in Prime Minister's Questions pointing out weaknesses in Gordon Brown's "reign" but Matthew Parris in The Times today thinks he is going too far by not concentrating on things that matter to the public but on trivialities; while he is getting a lot of shouting support and laughter the remarks may rebound on him and make him look trivail.
Quite true. Looks like bullying which is the last thing David Cameron should be doing coming as he does from a priveleged background: one might have a vision of that public school rascal Flashman roasting kids over fires in "Tom Brown's Schooldays", and I'm sure that would be the last thing he'd want.
But parliament can be fun sometimes without too much rancour and bullying.
My father told me of an MP who was a very big drinker; he also had a very big pot to go with it. One day Lady Astor was making one of her speeches about the evils of drink and there, across the chamber from her, was the fat, boozy MP chuckling and making snide comments. She turned on him saying something like: "and look at the honourable member for (whatever), over there with his big, fat belly." To which he replied: "I'd put my belly up against yours any day of the week."
I liked a remark made a few weeks ago when Nick Clegg got to his feet. You have first to know that Nick Clegg had (unwisely, I think) admitted to having "had" 30 lovers before marrying. He said: "A young lady in my constuituency came to see me...." He didn't get any further - "thirty-one" shouted some wag.