Whatever you do, don't mention the Lords
• Europe faces the greatest financial crisis in a generation. So it was right that on Thursday the House of Lords devoted a whole day of debate to the plight of Greece and the meltdown everyone fears. Tory Lord Flight got it going nicely. What about those Germans, he said. What a load of hypocrites for demanding "reparations" from Greece while they were crippled by them after the first world war. "I would have thought that if poor old Adenauer was still around today, he would not make the disastrous mistakes made by the present German administration, which in effect repeats the very reparations-type of approach that caused so much trouble in Germany after the Great War." A comparatively restrained Flight took peers to the top. Ukip's Lord Willoughby de Broke sought to take them over. "What is the remedy prescribed by the EU leeches? It is to take more blood in the form of more wage cuts, more unemployment, lower pensions. 'Austerity macht frei' seems to be the remedy prescribed by the Germans, certainly to Greece and to the rest of the 'Club Med' members of the eurozone when they are unable to meet the German requisites." Arise, my Lord Basil of Fawlty.
• Where are they now? Off on hols, one would guess, for parliament has taken the decision this session not to co-ordinate the half-term breaks for the Lords and the Commons. MPs were off last week. The Lords this week. The decision has caused quite a few problems, for it means that joint committees are not able to meet for two weeks, with all that could mean for pending legislation. So why has it happened? No official explanation, but a source in the Lords says there is talk about those who influence the timetable, and the savings to be had heading for the ski slopes outside of school half-term. Ah, counting the pennies. My Lord Basil of Fawlty does that too.
• And as Jeremy Clarkson escapes unpunished by Ofcom – the regulator reasonably concluding that the star is actually paid to be an idiot – one can reflect on the benefits of living without hindrance of worthwhile reputation. So much easier. No baggage to lose. His Swedish equivalent might be the protagonist in an episode that has them talking in Scandinavian religious circles. The priest from Värmland was caught posting pornographic pictures of himself and his partner on a church computer. Yes, it's bad form, the church authorities have said. Not in keeping with "the level of public trust required of priests". But since he "is not considered to have damaged his reputation considerably", let's just forget the whole matter and carry on as if nothing happened. Something to give Julian Assange fresh hope. A forgiving lot, the Swedes.
• But then, we rub along better with a bit of understanding, and helpfully that attitude prevails among those currently debating the rights and wrongs of gay marriage. "Our strong advice to anyone who disagrees with same sex marriage is not to get married to someone of the same sex," says Ben Summerskill, chief executive of Stonewall. Try that. If it doesn't work, come back in a week.
• Finally, new claims that Lord Lucan lived a secret life in Africa after fleeing Britain in the wake of his children's nanny's murder have alas been rubbished by Lady Lucan. But they do bring to mind Garth Gibbs, the journalist who died last year and who, had he been alive, would doubtless have been suggesting to a newsdesk that he be dispatched posthaste to an African destination. He once said: "I regard not finding Lord Lucan as my most spectacular success in journalism. Of course, many of my colleagues have also been fairly successful in not finding Lord Lucan. But I have successfully not found him in more exotic spots than anybody else." According to his obit in the Press Gazette last year, Gibbs "spent three glorious weeks not finding him in Cape Town, magical days and nights not finding him in the Black Mountains of Wales, and wonderful and successful short breaks not finding him in Macau either, or in Hong Kong or even in Green Turtle Cay in the Bahamas, where you can find anyone." For endeavour without result on the story that gripped the nation, Gibbs was definitely the guy.