Well, as James Miller (who spotted it) says, you couldn’t make this up.

Police have forced London Mayor Boris Johnson to hand over a cigar case belonging to Iraq’s former deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz.

The ex-MP, who obtained the red leather case from Mr Aziz’s bombed-out home while visiting Iraq as a journalist in 2003, said the situation was “stupid”.

He said: “The police have no choice but to investigate this ludicrous affair.”

Under the Iraq (UN Sanctions) Order 2003, anyone possessing Iraqi cultural property must give it to the police.

Mr Johnson deposited the case into custody on Monday afternoon, following instructions from the police…

Thomas Friedman is annoyed.

Two years ago, President Bush declared that America was “addicted to oil,” and, by gosh, he was going to do something about it. Well, now he has. Now we have the new Bush energy plan: “Get more addicted to oil.”

Actually, it’s more sophisticated than that: Get Saudi Arabia, our chief oil pusher, to up our dosage for a little while and bring down the oil price just enough so the renewable energy alternatives can’t totally take off. Then try to strong arm Congress into lifting the ban on drilling offshore and in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

It’s as if our addict-in-chief is saying to us: “C’mon guys, you know you want a little more of the good stuff. One more hit, baby. Just one more toke on the ole oil pipe. I promise, next year, we’ll all go straight. I’ll even put a wind turbine on my presidential library. But for now, give me one more pop from that drill, please, baby. Just one more transfusion of that sweet offshore crude.”

Hmmm… And Gordon Brown’s energy is significantly better, is it?