With Amigos like these

“Amigo! Amigo! How you doing, Silvio? Good to see you!” — President Bush, caught by a microphone addressing Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi at the G8 summit. “I read the courts are after you again. It’s unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it. Constantly after you.” On Tuesday, the day after the lunch, a formal apology was issued to the Italian prime minister for raising the corruption charges. At the next day’s lunch, the microphones were cut off, but a few days later Bush ended a private meeting with the world's leaders to a close with the words, “Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter.” He then punched the air, grinning, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.

He's getting demob happy. The GOP, meanwhile, has been attempting to spin Obama's forthcoming trip to Europe. "I do think that, frankly, Barack Obama looks toward Europe for a lot of his inspiration. I think John McCain is going to make sure that America stays America" says Romney. "Well this is why [Obama] is a popular candidate in Europe, because there is such an anti-American feeling and he is sort of capturing that," says Giuliani. A member of the Bush delegation, meanwhile, approached German Chancellor Merkel's foreign policy advisor, to stymie Obama's planned speech at the Brandenburg gate.

Andrew Sullivan predicts "an extended media orgasm. Europeans are desperate to fall in love with America again. This young, black Kennedy figure will likely create iconic scenes - reminding the old of the America that once inspired them and the young of the capacity for change that America still contains. And it's simply great theater. One thing we have learned about the Obama campaign that has been overlooked: they understand theater. In fact, no campaign has understood theater this way - and its powerful relationship to politics - since Deaver managed Reagan."

The fear that your leader might be popular abroad is new to me. The British are only too used to our Prime Ministers being more popular abroad than they are at home. Typical English self-deprecation or just the fact that our baseline belief in the untrustworthiness of politicians? More likely because nobody cares about our foreign policy anymore.

The new Tarantino script

Check out the typos. I mean I get that Tarantino is a master of the demotic, and that isn't necessarily the same thing as the written word, but you'd think if you'd called your movie Inglorious Bastards, that you'd have to explain the title enough times to enough people so that by the time you actually got to finishing the final draft, you'd know not to write "Inglourious Basterds" on your frontispiece. His hand-writing is almost as childish as Spielberg's and similarly unjoined up, as if the last thing they wrote was an school essay on what they did during the holidays. It's actually rather reassuring, in a way, confirming one's suspicions about the idiot-savant intensity of great talents. Not so reassuring, I guess, if you have handwriting like that but no Pulp Fiction or Schindler's List to show for it.

Cruising for a bruising

"Strait Dave finally came out and got the other fag to fight with him in the ring they ended up making out and about to go down on one another that is when the place emptied out.... as the stands were clearing from the homo activity I looked back and see borat on his knees infront of the unknown man you can figure the rest i never looked back again he is one sick bastard... I hope the production company gets sued for everything they have"

One of the 1,500 disgruntled fight fans who went along to a fight night in Fort Smith, Arkansas, advertised as "Blue Collar Brawlin" with "Hot Chicks" and "1$ beer" only to find Sasha Baron Cohen, as Bruno, making whoopie with the other fighters. Ho ho. Hope he's keeping up with his medical insurance.

Where are all the 'Indie' novels?

A Guardian blogger asks: why, if we value independent cinema, and indie music, do we not value independent writers?

Can you imagine any serious film reviewer refusing to watch anything other than the major Hollywood blockbusters? Can you imagine New Musical Express (in its heyday, at least), only focusing on artists and records from the big corporate music labels, and ignoring the independent record company explosion of the late 70s?.... Who are the big indie writers, those who refuse to compromise by not allowing The Man to dictate what and how they should write, and earn massive respect because of it?"

Independent from what, though? Publishers? Editors? I guess there is a fair point in there chastising people for being too busy chasing the next Harry Potter to bother with finding the next J G Ballard. But surely the publishing industry already echoes the pop/indie split. If by 'indie,' he mean 'read by few people, hostile to outsiders and snooty about the mass market', we already have an indie book scene. Its called the literary novel. I don't think those guys need any more encouragement to seek out smaller audiences.

Against the odds

McCain is a high-stakes craps player who loves the adrenalised rush of the game, according to Time. Obama is a low-stakes poker player who sizes up his odds methodically and rarely loses money.

"Aides say McCain tends to play for a few thousand dollars at a time and avoids taking markers, or loans, from the casinos. 'He never, ever plays on the house,' says Mark Salter, a McCain adviser. The goal, say several people familiar with his habit, is never financial. He loves the thrill of winning and the camaraderie at the table.... Obama always had his head in the game. He studied the cards as closely as he would an eleventh-hour amendment to a bill. The odds were religion to him. Only rarely did he bluff."

Sounds about right. McCain is the one who has gambled big — staking his claims to the presidency to a single issue, Iraq. Obama has been playing a longer game — betting on this being as a 'change' election from the get go. There's no question who I'd want playing from my pot: Obama. And no question who I'd prefer to play with: McCain. (Former state senator Larry Walsh once slammed down his cards on Obama, complaining, "Doggone it, Barack, if you were more liberal in your card-playing and more conservative in your politics, you and I would get along much better").

Hot off the presses

These photographs of news stands in the NYT made me think of my local vendor, on seventh avenue, which is manned by a guy so fast off the mark that the words "New York Magazine" have barely left your mouth before he hands you the latest issue. Presumably there's a brief couple of milliseconds where he's waiting to see whether you're going to say The New Yorker or New York Magazine, his hand poised over either, but then the final syllable is out and — bam. It's wasted on me, of course. I'm never in that much of a rush. In fact, I'm conscious of speeding up my delivery a little, maybe to give him a sense of being useful, but more probably to suggest that I, too, have places to go and people to see. And then I wander off, my nose in the magazine, back to my usual dawdle.

Alcoholics not so anonymous

There's a new series of Intervention, the A&E series which follows an addict/alcoholic around for a few weeks before their family surprises then with an intervention to cart them off to rehab. I'm consistently amazed by how amazed they are when the "surprise" gets sprung; the addicts never question for an instant why this camera crew from LA want to follow them around for a few weeks; they never doubt that the world is just waiting for a documentary of their lives as drug addicts; they throw open the doors to their trailer homes right open and invite everyone in. Don't mind me while I shoot up in the corner. Aren't they supposed to be in, you know, denial? Denial is obviously getting to be a thing of the past, a relic of the time before Oprah/Behind the Music/Intervention/Celebrity Rehab. We're now so versed in the language of recovery that it's lost some of its occult power. When Lindsay Lohan's dad appears on CNN to talk about how she must abandon her will (to him), and Bush jokes on TV about his higher power, you know the game is close to being up.