2002-06-04 - 5:45 p.m.

By far the weirdest distraction to the fact that 12 million people are about to be vaporised in a cloud of thermo-nuclear Armageddon supplied by the US and UK governments (don�t worry folks! All the westerners have been evacuated!) has been the Queen�s Jubilee celebrations � for those of you with more important things on your mind (like thermo-nuclear war), old Betty Two-Stroke has managed fifty years as the trout-faced figurehead of a self-perpetuating, though entertainingly dysfunctional monarchy. Like, crack out the bunting! Or at the very least, bundle out the crack.

Last night was the Party in the Park, where pop artists who have been in the charts as recently as 1985 lined up to pay their respects. You know the usual suspects�Phil Collins, Eric Clapton, Paul McCartney, the non-AIDS affected members of Queen. Oddly, Ozzy Osborne performed, though given he�s sidling up to every right-wing powermonger he can at the moment, maybe it wasn�t that odd at all. But the man was exposed for the spent force he really is, finishing with a gentle nod and a mumbled �God save the queen�. You�ve made us laugh for a bit, you crazy old money-grabbing Brummy, but please go away now. HowEVER, the double-take, please-tell-me-I�m-hallucinating set had to come from Brian �I harmonise with the voices in my head� Wilson, being wheeled out for reasons best known to no-one, and bumbling through a selection of surf hits with nary a concern for basic timing, being in the right key or being consciously aware of reality. The fact that he looked like a terminally bewildered reanimated cadaver didn�t really help matters, as didn�t playing an imaginary keyboard about 6 inches above the keys of his actual one. You can only hope Liz was having a synchronised acid flashback.

The sight of Rod Stewart trying to be sexy sent us scurrying off to a party, where some guy tried to convince us that a surefire way to make a fortune was to travel round the world promising your body to medical science in every country before absconding with the down payment. If this job goes badly tomorrow, I�m almost considering it.