Morph hits comeback trail.

At last some good news. Morph is making a comeback. We used to know the bloke who did the voice for Morph. Worked in a hardware shop down the end of our road. His wife was a teacher. Taught our lad in Middle School if memory serves. Will the old Plasticine Trouper prove the exception to the fight game adage,"they never come back"? We shall see.

Taxpayers Alliance will love this.

A Roma voice.

In the acres of newsprint and hours of TV and radio coverage about "gypsy blond child abduction" the voice of Roma people themselves has been very limited. It's refreshing therefore to see this piece in today's Guardian by the young Romany boy Filip Borev. Filip (Pip) is also no mean blogger and you can catch up with him on the excellent Pipopotamus site.

The Cunningham Amendment.

Oh! Joy. Deep joy. After a protracted and detailed vetting procedure I have been accepted as a subscriber to that most august organ The Cunningham Amendment. There really isn't anything quite like  TCA. Amusing but pertinent, wonderful letterpress printing, fabulous graphics, superb production values and as sound a political journal as you are likely to come across these days. Don't bother searching for TCA online, they eschew such fripperies. That's a point - why am I still behind this keyboard when TCA awaits me downstairs?

You can't keep a good man down.

Talking of superheroes....... As John Major slips into a phone box, pulls his YFronts up over his trousers and emerges to save the nation's shivering masses....... Nice little take on the matter here.

Behind every keyboard a superheroe waits for the call.

The idea of criminals, rebels and other marginals being called on by the state and "respectable" society to get it out of the mire is a perennial favourite among fiction writers but is a theme sometimes based on fact. The Dirty Dozen is loosely based on the true life exploits of WW2 proto-punk airborne bad boys, the Filthy Thirteen, and no work of  fiction could surpass the wartime adventures of master safe-breaker, double (triple?) agent and all round loose cannon, Eddie Chapman. Now we hear that jailed hackers will be released to form a special military unit designed to protect the free world from the evils of cyber crime and alien invasion. Mind you, for every one master criminal willing to swap sides for a seat in the Batcave there must be a million wannabee superheroes convinced that they have what it takes. A combination of Crimewatch (Is it just me, or is this one of the most unpleasant programs on TV?) and the publicity given to the blond girl in the Greek Roma family has resulted in the work of British police investigating the disappearance Madeleine McCann virtually grinding to a halt. Apparently the cops have been inundated with phone calls and emails as every loony-tune conspiracy theorist and space cadet crypto-criminologist emerges from the woodwork to lend a hand. Perhaps these poor souls will now transfer their interest to the cyberterrorist prevention squad but at the end of the day only one thing will  shatter their delusions - "NEAL, SWITCH THAT COMPUTER OFF AND COME DOWNSTAIRS, YOUR TEA'S READY."

First cast out the beam from thine own eye.

The case of the blond haired little girl found in a Roma settlement in Greece has sparked a resurgence in all the old tales of Gypsy child kidnapping and the usual suspects in the gutter press have not been slow in linking this case to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann thus heaping more woe, and perhaps misplaced hope, on the McCann family and strengthening the fear and dislike of Gypsies at the same time. Child abduction is a terrible thing no doubt but the Roma couple in Greece seem to have been found guilty before any kind of enquiry has taken place. This all has the whiff of racism about it. The key words here are BLOND, GIRL and ROMA. We might all do well to pause to reflect on the countless thousands of indigenous children snatched from their parents by white imperialists so that they could be "tamed" and "civilised". A Roma settlement in Greece might seem like a holiday camp compared to the "boarding schools" endured by generations of Australian Aborigine and American Indian children.