Catching Kate Hoey and Ken Livingstone on the radio this morning was an interesting experience. I kept thinking Ken was sounding more and more like a Mafia godfather.

Q: So Al, you got a thing against Lemmy, right?

A: Yeh, right. That Lemmy’s gone right off the rails, I’m telling you. I gotta do what’s right for the city, you understand. Lemmy is one bad guy.

Q: You don’t like him, is that right? You tell your boys to go wipe him.

A: Look, liking don’t come into it. If I wiped everyone I didn’t like there’d be far fewer peoples around, got me? It ain’t Lemmy. It’s what Lemmy does. What Lemmy says. So I say to the boys: Guys, we do one devastating critique on Lemmy. Then we drive him into the ground. You understand metaphor, right?

Q: They’re your boys but it’s the city that’s paying for them.

A: Sure the city pays. Yeh, but I’m the city. I’m looking after the city’s interests. The city’s interests is my interests, ain’t that so, Spider?

Spider: So right, Al.

A: Besides it ain’t my system. Do you think I like the way I have to operate. Nah, I wanted it fair and square, all above board. But you gotta take what you’re given. And it ain’t so bad. The city’s got protection now. The boys see to that. And if there’s a problem, it soon disappears.

Q: So, do the boys work for you or the city?

A: They work for me, sure, but that means working for the city. Take the case of Lemmy. When I tell them to go out and wipe Lemmy, they do it for the city, but on their own time. They do it out of love. They love me so much that when I say to them: If anyone asks whether I told you to wipe Lemmy on city time you tell them I didn’t say that, right? And they answer straight away: You didn’t say that, Al. If you’re gonna wipe him, I say to them, you do it out of hours, in your hours, at your place. Not in City Hall. That’s if you do it. Which I didn’t say, right?

Q: Your boys work long hours for you, Al.

A: They do 37 hours for the city. But for me they do 70, 80 even. That’s love. That’s family. You gotta understand love. You gotta understand family. You know what the trouble is with the world? No family values. But we got them. So it’s easy. What they do for me they do for the city in the city’s time. What they do regarding Lemmy, that’s outside the city. That’s family time. A guy’s gotta have clean hands. Look at these hands. Do they look dirty to you? You want a good manicurist?

Q: They must be real keen, Al, to put in that extra work for you, wiping out guys, above and beyond the long hours.

A: I told you. Loyalty. Love. Family. My boys are loyal. They love me. We’re one big family here.

Q: And the creaming off of cash and the cosy deals that people talk about?

A: Look, everyone has a bad deal some time. So money disappears. But we’ll find the bills. The boys are looking into it, right now. They’ll do a good job, don’t worry about that. That’s once they’ve fixed Lemmy.

Q: And the broad that took the holiday on money from City Hall. What did you make of that?

A: I was devastated. Big Pete was devastated. Spider here was devastated. We was all devastated. Were you or were you not devastated, Spider?

Spider: I was devastated.

A: See, he’s devastated. But not as devastated as Lemmy will be.

I think it went a little like that.

Here am I, struggling to work at home in what is universally recognised to be the most miserable week of the year, and wishing I were somewhere completely different. So I turn on the radio for a spot of light relief, and my ears are immediately assaulted by the mindless drivel that is today’s BBC Radio 4 afternoon play (a cultural institution beloved of George Szirtes).

The Nearside, by Jeff Young:

“On an apparently normal day in Tenby, the domestic and the universal collide when a small part of the planet is temporary changed by cosmic events. Local loser Martin Lockheed must juggle calls from NASA, demands from his girlfriend and the sticky subject of paddling-pool party etiquette as he tries to save the planet from being plunged into eternal darkness.”

Actually, it’s not nearly as involved as the blurb above would have us believe. The plot is little more than the “local losers” of Welsh seaside town Dinbych-y-Pysgod (Little town of the fishes) shagging each other with wild abandon. Well, I suppose there’s little else to do in Tenby, but I do wish these South Walians would keep their lewd behaviour to themselves, lest it frighten the animals. The resident feline here is currently displaying a look of abject horror.

Glossary: cnuchio – v. to copulate; fuck

Chavez has another thing in common with the anti-democrat Castro. He’s caused a surge in immigration to Florida. That’s bad news for the Venezuelans left behind.