They're back. Those half-forgotten hounds of that benighted decade, the 80s, have returned, and this time they're out to change our foreign policy. I thought George Michael was gone for good after that unfortunate incident in a Los Angeles public lavatory where he tried, unsuccessfully as it happened, to shag an off-duty policeman. But you can't keep a good man down. He has a new single out and it is a warning to the world: stop all this war! Stop it right now! It's horrible and dangerous! Just stop it!
"Being silent is not an option," he intones with all the self-regard of someone who, in earlier years, was able to rhyme "go-go" with "yo-yo" and not blush in the process.
His single is called Shoot the Dog and was previewed this week in the Daily Mirror across four pages of sycophantic drivel by the paper's editor, Piers Morgan. Five pages, if you count the splash on page one.
The song was partly inspired by John Pilger and is, therefore, a confused rant at those fascists Bush'n'Blair for pursuing the war against terrorism. Piers says the lyrics are "sensational"; well, judge for yourself from these short extracts:
"Nine nine nine gettin' jiggy.
People did you see that fire in the city?
It's like we're getting fresh out of democratic.
Gotta get yourself a little something semi-automatic... yeah."
Or how about this:
"Mustapha, Mazeltov, the Gaza boys, all that holy stuff.
I get the feelin' when it all goes off,
they're gonna shoot the dog,
they're gonna shoot the dog."
Well? No, me neither. I'm sure it must have meant something at the time he wrote it. Maybe we need the music to draw out the deep structure of the piece. Maybe then it will all become clear. Piers says the tune is "upbeat, catchy, toe-tapping". Lord, I can't wait; really, I can't wait.
But George isn't alone in venturing forth into territories more normally inhabited by, say, the Royal Institute for International Affairs, or the foreign affairs select committee. Bob Geldof is right behind him, ready to take part in the official campaign against Britain's adoption of the euro.
I must admit that I have a lot more time for Bob, partly because he looks as though he never washes - and I like that in a man. It makes me feel more comfortable about my own declining standards of personal hygiene. And, it is only right to admit, he has contributed far more good than evil in this world.
But why should we care about his thoughts on the single currency? Leave aside the fact that he's not British and therefore in a delicate position regarding the relevance of his advice. What, exactly, are his qualifications for telling us which monetary system to adopt? Check through his songwriting canon. Is there something there to suggest a burgeoning Chateaubriand? Is there the germ of a clue in Mary of the Fourth Form, or Rat Trap?
All of this is unfair, of course. I'm aiming at the wrong targets. It's not Michael's fault, or Geldof's, that people have suddenly started to take them horribly seriously. Nor is this debilitating process the fault of Piers Morgan and the Daily Mirror. Piers didn't send Bono tramping across Africa, for example, whining about foreign aid and the debt burden. It was the US administration which dignified his absurd trip by sending its treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, with him.
If you want the quintessential instance of a society dumbing down, this is it - the elevation of people who believe John Lennon's Imagine is a salient social statement (rather than an inane, hypocritical dirge) to a position where they can effect real harm upon the world. It is, to cite another example, Geri Halliwell as a UN "Goodwill Ambassador", spreading her cheerful ignorance across the planet like a strange neurological disease.
There have been a few occasions in the history of rock and pop music when musicians have genuinely captured the mood of an angry minority in a way which has perhaps, in time, contributed to a gradual social or political change. Neil Young's Ohio; Buffalo Springfield's For What it's Worth - even The Sex Pistols' God Save The Queen. But back then, pop musicians were not the establishment, as they have since, sadly (for them and us), become. Now, no matter how crushingly stupid the stars may appear to be, there will be a politician or a quango somewhere prepared to give them a bit of influence in order to curry favour with a celebrity-obsessed public. This week, Bono on third world debt. Next week, S Club 7 on steel tariffs and import duties.
The good news is that one man, at least, has had enough. The Republican senator George Voinovich has boycotted a senate environmental inquiry because he's bored of the parade of witless celebrities called to give evidence. Kevin Richardson, from the Backstreet Boys, was the straw that broke the camel's back. "It is a joke to think he could provide us with information on important geological and water-quality issues," says Voinovich, with refreshing candour. Good for him.
Meanwhile, George Michael is still telling us that silence is not an option. Well, don't bet on it, George. In your case it seems a pretty good one to me.
Who reads the Big Issue?
This is unforgivably mean, I suppose, but my heart gladdened when I read that the Big Issue was in trouble. Perhaps it will fold at last, a nasty part of me thought.
I can't stand the magazine. And I don't think I'm alone. I don't believe I've ever seen anybody really read it. Trapped on a tube train without a good book, I would rather read those adverts which offer very cheap telephone calls to Pakistan and Thailand than the Big Issue. When sellers approach me, I hum and haw and pat my pockets for money and shake my head sadly, muttering a shame-faced "sorry mate".
I far preferred it when they simply stood with their hands out uttering the immortal refrain: "Godney change? Godney change?"
It's the pretence and the artifice I object to. The notion that we will be happier handing over our £1 because at least the poor dosser has done a good day's hard work, even if it is distributing something almost entirely useless. It all smacks of the workhouse.
And don't give me any of that fascist claptrap about the dignity and discipline of labour. Why should these people be forced into a mind-numbing occupation simply to salve our consciences? Give them the money anyway. Or, let them return to more socially useful activities, like holding up the traffic at road junctions while squirting soapy water on our windscreens.
· Some English yobs arrested for foul behaviour on Rhodes have been talking about the iniquities of the Greek justice system.
One, Simon Topp, writes to the Daily Telegraph - "the paper that supports our boys" - complaining that the police overreacted by bunging him in a cell "just" for being drop-dead drunk and baring his arse. Normal behaviour, he argues. What's all the fuss about? He thinks the Greek police hate English tourists. Now, why would that be?
And then he says: "I am not a lout but a public school-educated university student."
What, exactly, is the meaning of the word "but" in that sentence?
Geri Halliwell ? But Posh is cuter ?