Yesterday was the first day of National Anti-Bullying Week, so congratulations to the Tory MP Nadine Dorries for standing up for two victims of bullying – namely poor little George Papandreou and that other hapless little fellow, Silvio Berlusconi, who have been picked on by Angela Merkel.
"Visible outward demonstrations of sneering, lip-curling and behaviour which resembled an out-of- control bullying schoolground were aimed at the Greek and Italian prime ministers to ridicule them in front of the world's cameras at the G20, the subtext being, 'they're an embarrassment to you, we will replace them'," Ms Dorries declaimed on her blog.
Would that all bullies were as generous as Ms Merkel's governments when their victims needed bailing out.
Losing a crust over Rupert's pie
The foam pie shoved in Rupert Murdoch's face when he was giving evidence to a House of Commons committee in July has turned into the most expensive in history. It is reputed to have cost Jill Pay her job after17 years at Parliament. She is the first woman in six centuries to hold the job of Serjeant at Arms, responsible for keeping order in the Commons, and was allegedly the fall guy for the pie fiasco. She announced that she will be retiring in January. It's going to cost the taxpayer a pretty sum too, because the Parliamentary Commission has agreed to create a new post of security director, on a salary of £145,000 a year – more than twice what an MP is paid.
Keen inquiries to Major answers
Soon after Alan Keen, whose death was reported yesterday, was elected Labour MP for Feltham and Heston in 1992, he noticed how the answers that John Major gave at Prime Minister's Questions had only a tangential relationship to the questions. "Would the random nature of the question-and-answer session be reduced if you were to read all the answers first and then we were to ask questions?" he suggested. Mr Major answered: "Yes."
Pepe's rituals are taking the pee
Pepe Reina, Liverpool FC's Spanish-born goalkeeper, reveals in his imaginatively entitled autobiography Pepe: My Autobiography that he is a superstitious fellow, who meticulously observes pre-match rituals, including taking a pee "three or four times" in the hour before kick-off, "out of a fear that if I do anything even a little bit differently it could stop things from turning out the way I want them to". Maybe if he could manage to squeeze an extra pee, Liverpool would not be languishing in sixth place in the league.
Why Larry the Cat's not smelling a rat
Viewers of BBC's News at Ten last week will have been distracted from Nick Robinson's live report from 10 Downing Street by the sight of Larry the Cat, pictured, waiting for someone to let him in.
Larry has a fault more commonly associated with Tory MPs: he is too busy indulging in rumpy-pumpy to do his job. His love is called Maisy, and lives in the keeper's lodge in St James's Park.
Larry was brought to Downing Street so he would hunt, dealing with the rat seen scuttling past the door during a previous live broadcast. But it has been reported that when David Cameron was dining recently, he was interrupted by a mouse. Mr Cameron is standing by his cat – but that is what they said about Liam Fox, and look what happened to him.
A two-fingered salute for Lord King
Tom King, the former Defence Secretary, was giving a self-congratulatory speech in the House of Lords about the passing of the war time generation, and turned to Baroness Trumpington, a Tory peer who worked in the Bletchley spy centre during the war, to illustrate the point about how old they all are. Which did not please the 89-year-old Baroness, who expressed her reaction with a two-fingered salute.
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