Alexander's blog

Standing a round is a fine British tradition. It’s also a prohibitively expensive one when a dozen colleagues go out for a swift half after work. (Translation for outlanders: ‘a swift half’ is a flexible measurement covering the range between two and 12 pints of beer.)

Forget all those non-words like diversity, multiculturalism, equal opportunity, the right to [fill in the blank], sexism… and so forth ad nauseam. They denote nothing, but they all connote the same thing: mediocrity is god who will smite any infidel.

You can see the high priests of this god everywhere, and you’re welcome to choose your own field by way of proof. My today’s choice is music, if only to let Dave off the hook this once.

It took an Herculean effort for me to use the socially acceptable ‘neck’ in my entry into the coinage sweepstakes.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that one should never start by saying ‘it is a truth universally acknowledged’. Yet no other phrase could better introduce the First Law of Modernity:

Large-scale government programmes always produce results different from those intended. The likelihood of such results being opposite to those intended is directly proportional to the zeal put into the implementation of said programmes.

The debt crisis exploded in 2008, and its shock waves have lost none of their destructiveness. The fault largely lies with governments whose frenzied borrowing and overheating printing presses turn currencies into Monopoly money.

None of Freud’s paintings could possibly adorn a chocolate box, which proves he’s a true artist (Mr Renoir, ring your office).

Some of his canvases are calculated to shock, some do so simply because real art always unsettles. So, as I walked towards the National Portrait Gallery to see the Freud exhibition, I didn’t expect my senses to be mollycoddled. I expected a shock.

François Hollande’s victory in the French elections raises all sorts of interesting questions, not all of them related to France’s sovereign debt. Such as:

Will Carla stay married to Sarko? My guess is she probably won’t: she doesn’t look like a ‘for better or for worse’ kind of girl. It’s one thing for this ex-model to marry a President of France; quite another to stay married to a failed politician wearing elevator shoes when out and presumably elevator slippers when in.

When a few years ago a Telegraph critic described Maxim Vengerov as ‘the best violinist not only of our time but of all time’, those who understood such matters cringed to the point of gurning. Referring in such terms to a vulgarian whose fiddling is as fast as it’s mindless was like calling Vinnie Jones the best footballer (or actor) of all time.

Last Thursday, Gen. Nikolai Makarov, Chief of Russia’s General Staff, spoke with soldierly directness about NATO anti-missile defences in Eastern Europe.

‘A decision to use destructive force preemptively will be taken if the situation worsens,’ he announced, bringing back fond memories of the Cuban crisis. You may think the general spoke out of turn, but he didn’t. In fact, he merely repeated the threat issued by President Medvedev last year.

Any true meaning  of the word ‘posh’ vanished together with the mode of transportation from which this acronym derives. A jet circling around Heathrow has neither port nor starboard – there’s just the front and back of the plane, and where you sit depends only on how much you paid for the ticket.