Am I the only one feeling slightly uneasy about the Iraqi situation at the moment? For it seems that everybody loves a war — at least as long as you win. Readers may recall a certain General Galtieri, who started one, hoping to divert attention from problems at home, but unfortunately forgot that it really helps if your army consists of more than frightened schoolkids. As a result, he got kicked out, and we got five more years of the original Mad Cow. Thanks a bunch, General!

But there are uneasy parallels between then and now. Clinton has certainly got a keen interest in diverting attention from domestic (in both senses) difficulties, though I hope he holds on, if for no other reason than this: I DO NOT WANT TIPPER GORE AS FIRST LADY. This is the women whose campaign against ‘obscene’ song lyrics allegedly began after she caught her daughter “doing things” while listening to a Prince song. True or not, that it’s *plausible* means I will be quite happy for Bungalow Bill to carry on, even if he builds his presidency on the corpses of dead Iraqis. Hey, what’s a few more?

Back here, we have Tony Blair, gagging to show us just how good he can be at foreign affairs. After all, it’s been a long time since Labour had the chance to run a war, and they’ve got a lot to prove. Do they still have the knack of carpet-bombing civilians, after the best part of two decades in opposition? I mean, what we seem to have is a power-hungry despot intent on careering towards war, purely for his own personal gain. And never mind Blair, I’ve heard one or two bad things about Saddam as well. Yep, cheap shot, I know. But it seems that our PM has been taking lessons from the Margaret Thatcher school of diplomacy. I expect eventually a stoic defence of us nuking Iraq, on the grounds that it was sailing towards our ships and posed a definite threat to them.

Perhaps it’s all just pre-millenial tension, a build-up for the Nostradamus-flagged apocalypse to come. And if you saw ‘Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekend’ last night, you will know there are quite a few people out there convinced we aren’t a million miles away from the Big One. I didn’t think it was all supposed to be until NEXT year, but hey, Mr.N. was writing centuries ago, and what’s the odd year between friends: who cares whether it’s 1998 or 1999? Which is another Prince reference, I suppose, putting us over our weekly quota. I’d better quit, and go get the beers in, before Ragnarok hits