BRIAN READE: 'Fat-shaming will be new bag-sizing for airlines - start worrying now'
Now that MPs are taking a break from work until a few weeks before the clocks go back, we are officially in the Silly Season.
Which means, between now and the inevitable riots outside asylum hotels next month, us media outlets will seek out quirky stories to make you laugh. Like the one about the teenager who runs Warwickshire County Council for bureaucracy-slashing Reform UK demanding £150k of public money to pay people to tell him what to do.
The season's biggest laugh, though, is Donald Trump's trip to Scotland, as his presence here always raises a titter.
Remember last time, when paragliders flew expletive-ridden banners and comedian Janey Goodley stood outside his golf club with a placard that declared Trump was a thing that rhymed with runt? Sadly, Janey is no longer with us but there's a good chance protestors will repeat her message in 40ft letters on the nearby beach.
Already a sign has been erected outside his Aberdeenshire golf course saying: "twinned with Epstein Island" and bald SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn has said he won't be able to meet the president as 'I'll be washing my hair".
But the best humour will come when Trump gives an after-dinner speech in one of his clubs, after being allowed to win, yet again, the Bestest Golfer In The World Invitation Trophy, with three mysterious holes-in-one while everyone was distracted. I reckon it will go something like this:
'I feel incredibly humbled to be back in the land of my dear mother, who as you know, left here in days when economic migrants with no papers and English as their second language were welcome in America. Because they were good people. And white.
'She often told me I was related to the great Charles Stuart, which I kinda like. Bonny Prince Donnie sounds nice. And that also makes my wife Melania Queen of Scots and my son Barron The Bruce.
'Mel Gibson, who's a terrific guy - and by the way that racism stuff was fake news - told me he based his Braveheart character on me leading the January 6 uprising. Which was nice. Although, unlike that Wallace guy, I got shot and survived.
'So you see folks, no world leader has ever been more Scottish than me. The only food I eat is from Clan McDonald and when people see me in a kilt they say I have the best legs ever.
'And I have great, great plans for my homeland. I am renaming The Firth of Forth the Firth of Forty-fifth and Forty-seventh US President and I'm going to finish that terrible job done by Crooked Hadrian and build a proper wall, a beautiful wall to keep all dark-looking immigrants out.
'By the way, the Outer Hebrides remind me of Greenland, so I'm going to buy them and turn them into a big, beautiful, military base to hit Russia.
'I will be meeting fans from Celtic and Rangers to get them to end their hatred as I need to score a few more points to get that Nobel peace prize. Something Sleepy Joe never would have done because he was in the IRA.
'Anyway, I have to leave you as I've got a high level meeting with Prince Andrew in Balmoral to discuss child welfare. So haste ye back as us Scotlanders say.
And oh, I'm still putting 50% tariffs on whisky, salmon and shortbread.'
It's been sad hearing Fiona Phillips's husband Martin Frizell promote a book about my old colleague's battle with Alzheimer's disease.
Fiona was a proper Mirror person. A loyal but critical friend of the Labour Party with deeply-held principles who often wrote poignantly about her parents' struggles with dementia, only to be struck down with early-onset Alzheimer's at the age of 61.
The book called Remember When, written by our former boss Alison Phillips, charts Fiona's courageous battle against a soul-crushing disease most families have had to cope with, or probably will do.
Because, scandalously, as Martin has been pointing out, for every £1 given to cancer research in this country only 31p is spent on dementia research. Which has to change.
In the meantime, Fiona, may you face your battle with much courage and love.
***
If you break into a cold sweat every time you go through an airport gate fearing you'll be pulled for having an oversized carry-on bag, then you now have good reason to worry. It turns out Ryanair and easyJet award bonuses of just over a quid to staff to spot bulging bags and dish out penalties.
I fear this is just the start, and soon the likes of Ryanair's Michael O'Leary will make us declare our body weight on 'environmental grounds' and charge us by the kilo. Expect bonus-sniffing staff to eye you up, guess you're packing too much timber and force you onto scales, before saying: 'Sorry but Sir's been telling porkies about his porkiness. That will be another £50 please.'
Fat-shaming will be the new bag-sizing. And being a fat-fascist is the best route to a bumper pay packet.
***
Labour MP Dr Simon Opher is set to prescribe free tickets to football matches in a bid to beat depression. The former GP will trial it in Gloucestershire surgeries as an alternative to anti-depressants, saying: "Football is about socialising and roaring on your team, getting excited, taking yourself out of your own life for a short while.'
It's also about, most weekends, at least 33% of fans walking home beaten, gutted, miserable, cursing the donkeys in their team and descending into a depression that dogs them for days. So nice idea, doc, but in practice sending already-depressed people to football matches could be a massive own goal.
***
Over the decades screenwriter Jimmy McGovern has crafted many profound lines but this week he surpassed himself by condensing into one sentence the real reason why the Establishment is resisting the introduction of a full-blooded Hillsborough Law, which would compel public bodies to tell the truth in the aftermath of major disasters.
'What's going on there is people demanding the right to lie." That, in a nutshell, is the truth. And Labour must not let it happen.
THE WEEK'S FIVE BIG QUESTIONS
Isn't it funny how the men who abuse women footballers like Jess Carter on social media were also the ones always picked last on the playground and forced to stand, quaking, in goal?
Can't the princes William and Harry do what feuding aristocrats used to do and walk into a forest with a pair of pistols and have a duel?
Has any political party in any country ever been given as much air time with only four nationally-elected representatives as Reform UK?
Do Andrex, with their advert claiming 76% of students hold their poo in at school, really think kids will all start opening their bowels if the toilet paper is soft?
How long will it be before people can only draw their state pension on the same date they receive their 100th birthday telegram from the monarch?
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