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It may be in his own lunchtime – but Gorgeous George is definitely a 'ledgend'
• Delight at Diary HQ at the return to frontline politics of George Galloway, the Man They Could Not Satirise (or, it transpires, defeat in a byelection). And we're particularly chuffed that, thanks to technology's rampaging advance, admirers in Bradford West and beyond will be able to keep abreast of GG's movements to an extent undreamed of when he was last bothering parliament. Witness the GallowApp: "the comprehensive way of keeping up with George Galloway and everything he does", and available now for free download for Android or iPhones. We will resist stooping to some cheap gag about the Diary section of the app being entirely blank – as an irritated spokesman points out, the Galloway team have had a few other things on their plate of late – and instead congratulate them that, even with limited functionality before its full launch, it has already won 14 reviews on iTunes, every one of them a five-star rating. As user queraquera puts it under the headline "George is a super star ledgend": "This app is well good." Watch your back, Angry Birds. You're next.
• Meanwhile, back in Westminster it's the familiar spectacle of cunning political beartrap, ministerial cock-up and comical self-administered punch in the face. We refer (this time) to Francis Maude, the Cabinet office minister whose ill-judged jerry can advice last week was followed by a woman setting fire to herself in her kitchen while decanting petrol. Maude, the Diary has occasionally mused, is blessed with the appearance of an evil genius, just one of the many reasons why one should never judge by appearances. But what's this? A mole reminds us that in the Tories' darkest days in the late noughties, Maude led the "Implementation Team" charged with making the party electable again, and at a 2008 party conference meeting entitled "Preparing for Power" told delegates: "The press demands politicians be held directly responsible for everything that goes wrong" but "we are more grown up than that". In fact, he said, "some failures can be as useful in driving progress in successes." And we thought it was a gaffe! Fools. It's all part of the plan.
• Lucky old Prince Charles, for whom the fun just don't stop – on Tuesday the Sisyphean round of princely grip'n'grimace takes him to Wigton in Cumbria, as a guest of local MP Rory Stewart. Wigton, we are sure, is distinguished by many things that don't involve Melvyn Bragg, so one might consider it a little churlish of Stewart to boast of the honour the visit brings to the town "particularly when it has been working so hard to make so many improvements". It's a step up, all the same, from the Cumberland News, which after a long-running row over the closure of facilities at the Market Hall, was moved to refer to Wigton last week as "a one-toilet town". Kindly insert your own joke here about the royal wee.
• Calling all idiots prepared to spend £250,000 for dinner with David Cameron: Barack Obama is hawking himself about for just $500, "or whatever you can donate". That's because "people like you – not Washington lobbyists or special-interest [committees] – are the ones building Obama-Biden 2012 from the ground up," according to the president's re-election campaign website. He's a man of the people – as his wife told supporters. "I had the chance to go to one of these 'Dinners with Barack' just a few weeks back, and trust me, you don't want to miss out on it." Hang on a minute. He makes his wife pay $500 to have dinner with him?!? The man is an animal!
• The Titanic was made in Belfast, and sank 100 years ago this month. You may or may not be aware of this fact; if not, we gently suggest, you have not recently been in Belfast, which is sparing no energy in ensuring that no carbon-based lifeform can plead ignorance. Sharp-eyed locals have identified one or two voices of dissent, however – among them the stallholder selling T-shirts reading: "She sailed. She sank. Get over it." Brave, since it's only been 100 years. In the Northern Irish calendar, that's last Wednesday.
Twitter: @estheraddley