‘I have got answers, honest guv. I just can’t think what they are right now’.

Admit it Bliss. Your number’s up.

I heard Tracey Emin (of all people) suggest it on Channel 4 News last night. So it’s clearly an idea that’s “in the air” right now.

Not that that means much, of course. Little is going to change because of this. I sense a “keep your heads down, it’ll all blow over soon” attitude developing among politicians (the very same day this thing blew up in the media, I saw an interview with some Labour MP in which he kept insisting that “it’s time to move beyond this and draw a line under it”. The very day it became big news).

The worst offenders will get canned. Aside from that, the others will take plenty of time to make some tiny token gesture. Enough time for something else to grab the headlines. And things will continue on as normal. The Second Home Allowance will be renamed London Habitation Compensation and reduced by 5%. At the same time, a new Security Benefit (what with The War Against Terror and all) will be introduced. It’ll be available to all MPs. It’ll be worth about 10% of the old Second Home Allowance.

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As for the donkey-bashing? I shall respond with a blog post at a later date. Just when you least expect it!

Oh ho. You, Bliss, fire off your donkey-decoy once more and yet complain when I sully its grand vista of tedious discourse by pointing out that it is based entirely – and knowingly, man, knowingly – on comprehensive falsehood.

Any person of standing would defend their good name against such a foul charge, and if said charge were repeated then they would defend themselves stoutly all the more. You imply that any protestations of innocence denote guilt. It’s people like you what burned witches, Bliss.

Still, amidst the bile of the blogosphere, if it were a repetition of just the donkey insult then perhaps I could merely dismiss you as an insignificant turdburger. But we both know it’s a great deal more than that. this is cover for your position as De Burgh’s right hand man (possibly in more senses than one – I note you don’t refute the charge of polishing his bell end).

The shapeshifting aliens are poised to enslave us all and through my assiduous research I’ve uncovered the evidence, even something of the chain of command. De Burgh is the waymaker, the one who is softening us up for the coup. He is amassing alien technology. He has got himself a position as an official of the UN.

And then, oh so coincidentally, you move to County Dublin where his daughter is a champion with lethal weapons and you happen to go to the same college as his son, plotting together like some latter day Burgess and MacLean.

Part of his plan is to distract us from what is good and true. He walks among the righteous donkeys to take some of their trustworthiness upon himself.

Sure you provide links back to the original context, but everyone knows people don’t follow reference links, they just assume them to be accurate.

What a nifty bluff there, lizardman. You cast doubt on all my references at a stroke. Yet I work from published sources and do not hide them. I encourage all readers to investigate the claims and sources and decide for themselves. Nothing could be more important.

An alien lizard overlord? Would that be a bit like a lizard king

Morrison never aligned himself with aliens nor with saccharine music. We know De Burgh has tried to prevent us from having music of meaning. Witness his attempts to physically usurp Nick Drake. It’s no surprise that he moves to one of the other prime contemporaneous figureheads of musical brilliance and sullies him with that alien epithet.

My defence of Chris de Burgh’s artistry begins and ends with the 70s stuff.

Your gleeful declaration of affection for the live version of Lady In Red that you own – a song from after the 70s – proves that your statement is a barefaced lie. And if you’re lying there, what else are you lying about?

And the less said about that song (either studio or live) the better.

Why? Because it exposes you as the Machiavellian conniving fraud that you are. It won’t work, Bliss. We the freedom loving people of the world shall resist your lizard overlords and liberty shall prevail. And you shall be forced into a gladiatorial deathmatch with De Burgh on global TV for our edification. Each of you armed only with a nosehair trimmer and a plastic fork.

Merrick, you’ve carefully selected my words so as to present them in a misleading context… “He’s done enough good stuff” rather than the full quote which ends with “to justify his subsequent offensive twuntishness”. Sure you provide links back to the original context, but everyone knows people don’t follow reference links, they just assume them to be accurate.

That you go to such lengths to paint my position in a bad light suggests you are dimly aware of the pathology inherent in your hatred of donkeys. Don’t get me wrong, you’ve successfully sublimated that hatred and have channelled the energy into a sustained campaign — your life’s work in many ways — against their greatest defender.

When Edward Ka’Spel wrote that classic Legendary Pink Dots track, Madame Guillotine, he was perceptive enough to note that one of the rungs on that fascist ladder to hell is the eruption of society’s latent anti-donkey prejudice into blind rage. Something you have allowed to possess you and run riot.

… then they rounded up the gypsies and the junkies and the donkeys, now I’m scared to whistle swanee in case they ask me for my spit!

“And the donkeys”, Merrick. “And the fricking donkeys!”

Ka’Spel sees clearly the violence inherent in your pathology. Your “donkeys good, De Burgh evil” statement is — if anything — further proof of the state of denial you have entered. The statement begins with “donkeys” and ends with “evil”. As Freud would doubtlessly point out, the bits in the middle are merely attempts to obfuscate your true meaning.

It’s people like you what started Nazi Germany!

My defence of Chris de Burgh’s artistry begins and ends with the 70s stuff. And even then, it’s not like I ever actually sit down and listen to it. But without a contempt for donkeys to blind me, I can appreciate that while he’s not very good, the first couple of albums have nice tunes on, which is more than you can say for Huey Lewis.

Yes, he’s spent a long time making insipid music. And the less said about that song (either studio or live) the better. But he’s done enough in mitigation. That early handful of decent tunes wouldn’t be sufficient by themselves, I grant you. But his tireless work offering sanctuary and succor to that most-maligned of beasts of burden, like some latter-day equine Mother Theresa. That surely tips the scale for any rational person not blinded by an all consuming donkey-bloodlust.

And the lizard-overlord stuff? It seems — once again — that you damn yourself with your own words. In your rush to paint de Burgh as demonic, you are perhaps allowing your true feelings emerge…? An alien lizard overlord? Would that be a bit like a lizard king? It’s hardly a comparison I’d have made. So it begs the question… is your anti-de Burgh stance merely an attempt to mask a secret shame… a love that dare not speak its name?

Anyhoo, I’ll let you get back to your donkey-flesh barbeque.

They were long ago for me to leave my crimpers at one. But anyway, enough of this gay banter, on to the real – and I mean real – meat of what you say.

I’m not defending Chris de Burgh as an artist

Yes you are, of course you are. It’s not society’s crime, it’s yours.

What about when you said ‘He’s done enough good stuff’?

Or your referring to his ‘good songs’?

How about your claim that you don’t own any of his post-1980 stuff, apart from your collection of his post-1980 stuff, including a live version of Lady In Red?

Hell’s teeth, Bliss, we all thought there was no way Lady In Red could get worse, and you went and found it.

You are most obviously trying to liquefy our rational minds, to make them into a semi-functioning unguent to besmear the lizardly takeover of human free will. What possible alternative reason could there be for a live version of Lady In Red like the one you readily concede ownership of, despite claiming not to have any of his stuff from after 1980?

You see the foolishness of your stance? The absolute, unmitigated and brazen doublethink?

So it is that you can claim that I, a man with a fabulously rich history of kindness to donkeys and indeed equines of all forms, could dislike De Burgh for his donkophilic masquerade.

Like you, he engages in doublethink. The Save The Children fundraiser with a carbon footprint like a Yeti.

attacks upon one of the few champions that these poor, downtrodden animals

Here you go with your risible decoys again. I have made my poition sparklingly clear. I even said it in a ‘Merrick Angrily Clarifies “Donkey Approval” Stance’ way; ‘donkeys good, De Burgh evil’.

How much clearer can you get?

Your wilful inability to comprehend the plainest possible language, your obsequious defence of an alien overlord in waiting marks you out as the toady’s toady, the most snivelling pustulent apologist for the most vile threat to humanity. And I bet you polish his bell end too.

Why did you fear that my initial foray into your murky lizardly world was ‘an attempt to flush me out into the open’? Pretty clear implication that you were in hiding, cowering, shielding from us your true intent.

You have subsequently devoted the majority of your waking hours to discrediting me personally in order to deflect attention from that which you would seek to hide from an innocent, free unsuspecting populace until it is too late.

He’s really not very good, but the first couple of albums have nice tunes on, which is more than you can say for Huey Lewis. Am I right?

No, you are wrong. And indeed, despite your Mugabean efforts to stuff the ballotbox (and we all know what his favourite song is don’t we), the people unpick your lizard talons from their gouged flesh and declare with one voice, ‘No! We do not think that! We think he is the conniving minion of totalitarian shapeshifting lizards!’.

You shall not defeat us Jim, Hubie and friends. You and all your javelins may strike us down, but we are not a lizard. We shall not listen to a Chris De Burgh number.

BTW, the clip is from ‘The Mothership Connection’ DVD that can generally be had for a couple of quid second-hand on Amazon. Well worth it!