"For sure she has to go, you bet she has to go," declared Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Alsaud.

"Ethics to me are very important. I will not deal with a lady or a man that has any sliver of doubt on her or his integrity."

 

I for one will change my ways and try to behave as much like a Saudi Prince as possible.

Dodo Strauss-Kahn is of course presumed innocent.

So what about the "perp walk" -- the deliberate process of publicly humiliating those charged with crimes by parading them in front of the media?  How about the special dispensation to allow press photographers into the courtroom?

It's not about vanity. It's about justice. About prejudicing a jury and tainting the right to a fair trial. You see the pics, you think "Jesus, that guy looks bad. Jesus, he looks shifty. Jesus, his lawyer's short. He must be guilty."  But stick me in the dock, send me on the perp walk, I'll look shifty, I'll look bad, I'll have a short lawyer.

And so will you.

But here's where it gets interesting. Reporters asked the Mayor of New York, Mike Bloomberg, about the perp walk. Yes, it was humiliating, he said, but "if you don't want to do the perp walk, don't do the crime. I don't have a lot of sympathy for that."

You don't need a degree in Aristotelian Logic (and by sheer chance, I don't have one, so trust me on this) to work out the syllogism.

1: Dodo was made to do the perp walk
2: If  you don't want to do the perp walk, don't do the crime
3: Dodo did the crime.

 There is only one possible exception: the case of a man who wants do the perp walk. But wanting to do the perp walk is a psychological problem, not a crime. So a man who just wants to do the perp walk can't do the perp walk.

Let's simplify. The Mayor of New York has publicly declared Dominique Strauss-Kahn guilty. At best, if Dodo is judged innocent, Mike Bloomberg is open to an absolute motherfucker of a libel suit, which I'd suggest he brings in England. The libel has after all been published here, in, for example, The Guardian.

At worst, the Mayor of New York has perverted the course of justice. It may even be -- Gitmo notwithstanding -- that perverting the course of justice is illegal in the United States, which may mean Riker's Island for Bloomberg, too.

Either way, it stinks.  Dodo is quite possibly a queutard, a French word meaning, roughly "knobhound" or "pricksmith". But for an old dude to still believe his porker is something appealing to women is not yet a crime.

His accuser has quite properly been (a) listened to and (b) kept anonymous. We can argue about the natural justice of (b) till the cows come home, but (a) is beyond debate in a civilised society.

The police have, quite properly, arrested the accused and brought him into the criminal justice system for the case to be tried.

The judge, possibly improperly, has filled her courtroom with cameras and banged up Dodo in Riker's Island, and, equally possibly, doesn't give a damn what we think about that as long as Dodo gets due process.

And the Mayor's remark may not be surprising, coming from such a glad-handing grandstanding self-regarding wee fellow. But it's a pretty moronic thing to come out with all the same.

Latest thing: if you get an app for your iPhone or iPod Touch from the App Store  then the manufacturers will have to provide subscription from within the app.  And Apple will take 30%.

Boring business stuff? Yes and no.

Take Spotify.  It's been the most transformative thing on my MacBook (and my iPhone) since the web itself. For a tenner a month I get unlimited streamed music.  Right now it's the Poulenc Concerto for Two Pianos.  This morning it was Jordi Savall's indescribably strange and wonderful El Cant de la Sibil-La.  I have John Eliot Gardiner's Bach Pilgrimage -- all the cantatas -- in a playlist and I'm working through them.  At current prices, that tenner a month would get me two or possibly three CDs of the set in a year. I'd be dead by the time I'd paid for the whole lot -- if I could find them for sale.

Not with Spotify.

I signed up at their website, and only later downloaded the iPhone app. But if Apple has its way, that will no longer work, as is my understanding. I'll have to download the Spotify app and subscribe via Apple. The 30% cut that Apple demands will quite likely be the difference between Spotify thriving and going under. Margins are tight.

I never thought I'd see Apple become one of the bad guys. I never thought when -- must have been 1984 -- I had lunch with Steve Jobs in the Red Fort in Soho that his company would start to Just Not Get It.

Lord, was I naïve.

Two things.

First, if you want to subscribe to Spotify (and, believe me, you do, whatever the music you like) do it before June 30th via Spotify's website. Think of it as a line in the sand.

Second, if Apple goes ahead with this greedy and shortsighted plan, my iPhone is going in the bin. I'll buy an Android or something. And if their greed shuts down Spotify then I'll never go near another Apple product or service again.

Big deal. Bet they're quaking in their boots. But... well, "I'm Spartacus", y'know. We all say "enough" then enough it is. But we won't, of course.

(2) A button saying "Exclude anything from an aggregator or a price comparison site."

Because between them, they're making the net useless.

Having been captivated by perfumes since my first trip to Grasse when I was 6 or 7, I am absurdly chuffed.

Boots . . . established itself in Switzerland to 'better reflect the increasingly international nature of our wider group'.

There you are: now you know how stupid Boots thinks you are.

 the latest revelation will raise more questions about possible health risks, and whether the Tate carried out enough safety checks.

Oh come on, Gompertz; you're meant to be an arts editor; don't you realise that you can NEVER carry out enough safety checks? NEVER.

• Vince Cable could utterly tuogh up the Graber government
• He also loathes Murdoch and everything he stands for
• They don't think Wanker Cameron has actually become a Liberal
• Wanker isn't immediately clearly a hundred per cent sincere
• George "Slitherin" Osborne has a capacity to get up one's nose and has no experience of how people live.
• There are some Tories you can live with and others who are beyond the pale
• You have to play the hand you're dealt
• Ken Clarke is a decent man
• Janet Suzman is an admirable figure
• etc.

How is this wearily self-evident stuff meant to support Cameron and his chums? And why pose as LibDem-voting constituents to get the "scoop"? A conversation between an MP and his constituents is neither privileged nor private; it is a continuation of public discourse, no matter how much the Telegraph may wish otherwise, a bit like those old BBC interviews which went

BBC MAN: Today we are privileged to have the Chancellor of the Exchequer to tell us a little about his forthcoming Budget. Chancellor, perhaps you could tell us a little about your forthcoming Budget.

CHANCELLOR: Blah drone waffle etc

[20 minutes later] BBC MAN: Thank you, Chancellor.

Poor politics. Poor journalism. Poor Telegraph.

(1) Under-promise

(2) Over-deliver

In this, I am inspired by the Government.

Promised:

The Big Society, everyone nice to everyone, Citizen Government, fairness, accountability, no education cuts, a spirit of friendly co-operation etc. etc.

Delivered:

Riots, tuition fees, reducing most universities to penury without actually closing down the bad ones, Clegg feeling "really bad, really bad", the country feeling even worse, Julian Fellowes be-lorded as some sort of "arts" representative (but a decent chap, knows which knife and fork to use, won't rock the boat, one of us, may not be so much a representative of the arts as a bogus-heritage peddled of startling genius but as we used to say in the Bullingdon, "Oh bugger, I think I'm going to be sick"), tax-avoider Philip Green as unelected demiurge, "Lord" Sugar, a delisted Spanish shopping-mall outfit fucking up Heathrow when it snowed, British Airways wheeling out that ludicrous little Ulsterman Wee Willy Walsh to not apologise for taking the phones off the hook and the pages off the website after the Spanish shopping-mall outfit BAA fucked up Heathrow, a horrible and cost-uneffective assault on the poor, the damaged, the vulnerable and the losers who are the price we pay for a society in which the winners really really win, GPs running the NHS whether they like it or not (they don't, except the few GPs who were so bad at medicine that they had to go into medical politics... Well, happy Christmas, Lord "Wanking Robot Carved from Ham" Snooty and your blank-faced punch Nick "Lube" Clegg.

That's the way to do it! cries Mister Punch. Just before Jack Ketch comes with his little noose.

(You can see her in action here.)