Subcontinental drift

Life is full of unsolved mysteries. What caused the extinction of the dinosaurs? Who killed JFK? Does the Bosun-Higgs particle exist? What did Margaret Hodge have on Blair and Brown, and so on.

But here's another question that's had me scratching my head over the last few hours or so: Why is the Man Booker Prize almost invariably won by a book about India?

Answers on a postcard in the comments please...

Now give him his job back, Dave

David Davis says he feels vindicated over the government's decision to scrap its absurd plan to detain terror suspects for 42 days - once touted by the so-called political cognoscenti as the make-or-break issue that would define Gordon's premiership. And so he should.

Meanwhile it is reasonably clear that, for all his obvious intellectual firepower, Dominic Grieve lacks the political clout to shadow a major office of state.

The conclusion ought to be an obvious one for David Cameron: Restore David Davis to the Shadow Home Secretaryship forthwith. Not only would it be right and proper in view of his 42-day triumph, it would also steal some of Brown's thunder in the wake of his astonishing yet still widely-applauded decision to appoint his most implacable political enemy as Business Secretary.

Will Cameron will have the balls to do it? I'm not holding my breath...

Nothing new under the sun

The frequent references in the mainstream media to "binge drinking" never cease to bring a smile to my face. News editors who think that women throwing up in the street is somehow representative of our having crossed the fine line between civilisation and anarchy have clearly never seen any Hogarth prints. In a similar vein, this article provides proof, if ever it were needed, that British men have always been, and always will be, overgrown schoolboys at heart.