"Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!"

And as David Blunkett warns, the worst thing of all:

Councils are reaching the point where they will only be able to carry out their most basic statutory duties.

O....M....G!!!!!

WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE DIVERSITY CO-ORDINATORS AND THE FIVE-A-DAY CONSULTANTS!!!

“Don’t You Know Who We Are?!”

Ah, if only Culture Minister Maria Engel had reached for the intercom on her desk and summoned a constable with the words ‘Please help these two gentlemen. It seems they don’t know who they are…’

Speaking after an event that brought together the heads of 23 of England's leading regional theatres, Boyle told the Guardian that the lack of attention to the arts shown by the culture secretary, Maria Miller, was "outrageous".

"Not one of those [artistic directors, including Hytner] has been even approached by this woman," he said.

"That is outrageous. This is cultural life of our country. She is the minister of fucking culture. I mean, come on."

I thought the ‘minister of fucking culture' was the recently-booted out Mr John 'Secretary Shagger' Prescott?

Boyle, Hytner and the 23 other directors, including Erica Whyman from Northern Stage and Gemma Bodinetz from the Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, had gathered to argue the claims of English regional theatre as pressure on their funding increases.

Ah, yes, we’ve been here before, haven’t we?

English theatre was, they said, a delicate ecosystem of creative life, nurturing the talents on which events such as the Olympic ceremonies depended.

But, they argued, it is threatened by cuts to public spending, especially from under-pressure local authority budgets. Speaking of the value of theatre in the English regions,

Boyle said: "What they provide is something else to believe in … Something in our cities and towns that isn't Wetherspoons and Walkabout pubs and Mario Balotelli and John Terry."

I see the hyperbole and exaggeration is flowing like...well,. like fine wine at the Arts Council events.

He added that politicians such as Miller appeared to want "to just swan around with the blooming glamour stuff" rather than undertake serious conversations with those at the sharp end of supporting creativity in the regions.

Riiight. The 'sharp end', eh, Boyle? Good lord, you're not in the trenches, man! Maybe, just maybe, you aren't as worthy of praise and exaltation as your circle of luvvies keeps telling you?

This is funnier than the time Polly mounted her Steed of Outrage and started hacking about with her Sword of Dudgeon. Or Rosie Millard's weeping and wailing over the failure of the ConDems to keep the money flowing into things the public just won't pay money to see...

Speaking about the situation in Newcastle, Whyman, who is about to take up a post as deputy artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, said her own organisation had been warned that Newcastle council is considering, unwillingly, completely scrapping its arts budget in the next three years.

"This is not the decision they want to have to make; but they are putting on the table the possibility of removing arts funding," said Whyman.

"If they take that decision, or even a decision less serious than that, it will devastate the cultural landscape. [Newcastle] will not be that home that people are as proud of as they are now."

*looks around at cultural landscape* Oh, it seems to be doing OK to me.

When All You Have Is A Hammer…

A driver took a turn for the worse after she smashed through two bollards and ended up on a tramline. The motorist had become confused with her sat-nav and drove onto the tracks on Friday night with a tram only a few minutes away. She couldn't drive off as her car became lodged.

Emergency services were called to the help the woman who drove into trouble near Sandilands tram stop.

Whew! Another clown who shouldn’t have a driving license but all’s well in the end, and we can all laugh about it, right?

Bob Crow, from the RMT Union, who took the picture of the stranded driver, said it was lucky nobody was hurt.

Well, quite.

He said: "The incident also exposes the real impact of cuts to security and staffing which has left our transport services vulnerable to this kind of madness."

Ummmm…. What?

Is Bob Crow suggesting that, but for the cuts to security and staffing, this woman wouldn't have driven on to the tracks?

Is it too much to ask exactly how…?