Source: Bigstock

I have said it before and will again: If I lived in London I’d have died long ago. This time it was close. As I was leaving my hotel not having gone to bed, the hall porter had the bad idea to ring the mother of my children in Gstaad and inform her that I was not looking my best. It was 6 a.m. After a brief chat I was given permission to go on. At the airport, although flying first-class, I was questioned time and again by a cheeky chappie whether I was feeling well enough to fly. My answer is always the same: I am not flying the bloody plane but sleeping in it. And that I suffer from a speech impediment that makes me sound funny at times. I was taken to my seat and the next thing I knew a kind stewardess was telling me we were back in the Bagel. (How I got through security I’ll never know.)

After a couple of days everything is back to normal. Karate starts today and judo follows tomorrow. ISIS in the meantime has executed 284 human beings in cold blood as the so-called Iraqi army is closing in on Mosul. (The Kurds are doing the fighting along with some Iraqi militias.) While this cold-blooded murder is going on, a UN official is seeking a war-crimes inquiry into the Aleppo bombing. UN officials are as useless as the tax-dodging gigolos of EU infamy. Give me Iona any day and then some.