Lovely piece by Marina Hyde.

Charles Falconer’s tour of the breakfast studios yesterday contrived – almost unthinkably – to take the mental cheating that has characterised the party’s handling of the donations affair and so many before it to a new low.

The government welcomed people’s concerns, explained his Lordship. Good heavens, they were concerned themselves, and wished to take this chance to take a close look at party funding, to further “clean up” the system, adding that they would most certainly be making it compulsory to disclose any loans in the future.

So, if we are to understand him: a tiny cabal of New Labour figures sought a loophole in legislation they had fashioned entirely themselves, exploited it ruthlessly in total secrecy, were exposed, and now seek to have a “public debate” about it, proposing to outlaw a practice that was personally sanctioned by the prime minister in private barely one year ago.

Did you ever hear anything so intellectually weak in your life?

Since you ask, Marina, no.

The website of a company set up by three ex-Apple grandees which went public this week and attracted $150 million in funding despite making clear in the prospectus that the founders have no idea what the company will do. It’s a “special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC”. So now you know.

Update (18 March)… From Good Morning, Silicon Valley:

Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and one of Acquicor’s principals has apparently put the brakes on Wheels of Zeus (WoZ), the wireless technology venture he launched in 2002. Now normally that wouldn’t be such a big deal. Companies are shutting down all the time. Problem is, WoZ’s impending demise wasn’t disclosed in Acquicor’s prospectus. And it really should have been. After all Acquicor is a special purpose acquisition company — a company formed to acquire other companies — and much of its credibility rests with the reputations of its founders. I imagine Acquicor investors would have liked to have been told that one of its principals was pulling the plug on an enterprise that might have have been one reason they invested in the first place.

I kid you not — Windup Noodle Bowls. Only $19.95 for four.

You couldn’t make this up. The head of the Metropolitan Police secretly taped a phone conversation with the Attorney General. And the subject of the conversation? Why, telephone tapping of course!

Er, surely this is a spoof?

A Sudanese man has been forced to take a goat as his “wife”, after he was caught having sex with the animal.

The goat’s owner, Mr Alifi, said he surprised the man with his goat and took him to a council of elders.

They ordered the man, Mr Tombe, to pay a dowry of 15,000 Sudanese dinars ($50) to Mr Alifi.

“We have given him the goat, and as far as we know they are still together,” Mr Alifi said.

Thanks to James Miller for spotting it.

.. is the delicious headline on Dan Froomkin’s column in the Washington Post:

The vice president of the United States shoots someone in a hunting accident and rather than immediately come clean to the public, his office keeps it a secret for almost a whole day. Even then, it’s only to confirm a report in a local paper.