The Yeti Legend. You decide......

 "It wasn't this big!" Intrepid Lloyd emerges from the Loch, not carrying the monster Picture by James Fraser

In October 2003, a diver called Lloyd Scott walked along the bottom of Loch Ness, Scotland, for two days in search of a legend. The 23 mile slog, in full Tin Tin style outfit, was to search for Nessie, the fabled Loch Ness monster, but after a valiant, end-to-end effort, Lloyd came up empty handed. Not a prehistoric aquatic behemoth in sight. Not a glimpse of a flipper. Not even a tadpole with attitude.
The support boats had echo sounders and fish finders, to no avail. But brave Lloyd was looking for the wrong thing. If you want to find a mythical creature, don't look for a live one. They have an annoying habit of doing a runner, or a swimmer, in this case. Given man's predilection for blasting most living things with a shooter, you can't blame them. What Lloyd, and all those like him, should have been looking for was a dead one. Imagine the trouble an Elizabethan scientist would have proving that Tyrannosaurus Rex stalked the earth. Find those bones, and hey presto!
So it is with The Yeti. Breathless scientific reports from the Himalayas today point to DNA from hair samples. The BBC's Today programme carries an interview with a boffin. Serious newspapers use a picture of a mysterious Yeti-like figure in silhouette, with, equally mysteriously, no caption.  The mountain ape/bear/humanoid/missing link/B-movie-actor-in-gorilla-suit has evaded capture thus far.
Don't bother looking for that guy. Look for his grandad. 

US politics - a weapon of mass destruction?

The Capitol Hill face-off threatens to plunge the world into a new recession, the IMF boss Christine Lagarde warns. The World Bank is wringing its hands. The Chinese are becoming very twitchy - after all, they hold about $1,200,000,000,000 of US government debt. An IOU so big you can see it from space. No way to run an economy, Beijing says. Communists lecturing the citadel of capitalism on how to do it right. Who'd have thought of that ? Indeed, the're talking about the "de-Americanisation" of the world economy. If the Congressional impasse, a domestic problem, leads to the US government running out of money and defaulting on it's debts, it'll threaten the global economy and the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency.

Capitol Hill. The lights are still on - for now.

Has the US political system supplanted the banks to become a weapon of financial mass destruction?
Whatever happens in the run-up to the Thursday deadline for raising the borrowing limit, the damage has already been done. The idea that America is bust, just might take hold. It makes the Eurozone look quite well run. Doubtless, Republican and Democrat congressional leader will broker a last minute, dramatic solution and bask in the imaginary glory of averting disaster. So many small men in such a big building.
So kick back, set your recliner to 'Slob' setting, order in the pizzas, and tune in. Two days to Armageddon - The TV Show.

Return of the Taliban

I was lucky enough and more than happy to get out of Afghanistan in November 2001, about 10 days before the Taliban regime fell. Intact. Working as a photographer for The Daily Telegraph, I, and a group of other journalists, had spent 3 days as their 'guests' in a compound in Spin Boldak, Khandahar province, next to Helmand. The regime leaders had  tried a PR offensive, a little late in the day.A few press conferences, a lot of hanging around. But the game was up.

Taliban fighters in Spin Boldak, Khandahar, Afghanistan in November 2001. Picture by James Fraser

After three days, they returned us to the relative safety of the Pakistani border town of Chaman. When the regime finally fell, we saw our Taliban hosts walk unhindered through the AfPak border checkpoint, beards trimmed and weapons absent, and being embraced by Pakistani soldiers. A Taliban soldier who had been with us in Spin Boldak, approached me and with a rib-crushing bear hug, said " Good luck my friend!" and then melted into the crowd. The West's victory blinded our politicians to one inescapable fact. The border was a sieve. The Taliban would be back. Twelve years on, 444 British soldiers lost( up to May 2013), four times as many injured, £37 billion spent, and counting, and Hamid Karzai, the Mayor Of Kabul says we've let him down. Count on one thing next year. The Taliban will be back in government and Karzai will do a runner, enjoying exile with millions of pounds of our money in his back pocket. The lesson learnt? Ummm, errrr.....

Who is this man and why is he important?

Do you know who this global leader is? No? Correct answer. Why? Because you're not meant to.  He doesn't sit in a black leather swivel chair stroking his white blue-eyed Turkish angora moggy, sending failed operatives to a watery death in a pool of man-eating sharks. He isn't Mr Big, the sinister puppet-master pulling the levers of global finance, nor is he the new Dick Cheney, Grand Vizier of the US war machine, poised to unleash 'shock and awe' on hundreds of thousands of unsuspecting victims in a middle east fireball.
His name is Ueli Maurer. And he's the Boss of Switzerland and maybe the future of power in the world. More accurately, he's the President of The Swiss Confederation for 2013. And the beauty of their system is that he's not the boss. Switzerland has no centre,
it’s regional canton and city governments are known for their direct democracy. Get this. The top people actually believe they can't adequately fulfill the needs of the  people at  local level. They don't just say it, they mean it. This means that local governments have real power. The country is so decentralized that only 20% of the taxes are collected by central government and the other 80% goes to each of the 26 regional cantons. Switzerland is also, spookily, the wealthiest country per capita, in the world. On the power front, the politicians reckon they should spend their time sorting out domestic problems, and step back from international grandstanding and military interventions. Sounds good to me, Dave. I'm always impressed by a political system that knows its limits. The Swiss Army makes a bloody good penknife. And that's as far as it goes. Taxi !

St Bob: "Be Less irish".

St Bob wows his scores of fans at Live 8, Murrayfield, 2005

I often forget why I make it a rule never to take seriously a messianic, faded, third-rate rockstar, bellowing like a dying elephant in the family graveyard, that we're all doomed because of our greed and stupidity. Especially if he's a self proclaimed "equity whore" fronting 8 Miles, a global investment outfit staffed by former  Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan operators, among others. And especially if he's quite legally avoided huge sums of tax as a non-dom since the 70's because of his Irish citizenship.
Then, Bob Geldof reminds me why.

Speaking recently at the 'One Young World' summit in Johannesburg, Saint Bob wailed at the 8,000 international delegates: "We're in a very fraught time. There will be a mass extinction event."  Earth as we know it could end by 2030 thanks to the ravages of climate change, he sobbed.
His solution: "Be Less Irish. Less Cameroonian. Less Chinese. Less Russian. More human." And maybe a bit less Bob. Though why the good people of The Cameroon are singled out for opprobrium, I have no idea.
If I was a quack therapist in Beverley Hills, I would offer the following diagnosis for Saint Bob's despair. "Bob : you're a crap rockstar, get over it". I speak as a survivor of his 2005 Live 8 performance at Murrayfield Stadium, Edinburgh. Topping the bill were The Gods. James Brown. Bono. Snow Patrol. George Clooney. Annie Lennox. Wet Wet Wet. Will Young. From these giddy heights, we descended into the fetid mire that is the Geldof songbook. The Great Song of Indifference was the highlight, opening with the lyric "I don't care if you live or die". I didn't either.

Crap towns? What about the Utterley Crap Towns

The old faithful Crap Town of Britain rears its ugly head again. Check out the link:
 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/10360428/Crap-Towns-Returns-top-ten-worst-places-in-Britain.html?frame=2694573 and see if you agree. Number 3 is Chipping Norton, where I don't live.Talk about crap towns - what a crap article. Chipping Norton's a lovely little Cotswold town, set in great countryside. The "Chippie set " is a media creation, and they don't ever go there anyway. London's a great international city, not a "crap town".

Newport,Gwent. Get your passport renewed as quick as you can, and get out.

 If you want utter-crap, go to Port Glasgow, Irvine, Cowdenbeath, Paisley, Newport (Gwent), Peterhead, Merthyr Tydfil, Rhyl, Crawley, Dover, Gillingham, Rochester, Dymchurch, Luton. Don't deny the good people who live in these monuments to mediocrity, their glorious moment in the sun. It takes years of careful nuture, fabulous political leadership, far sighted, visionary developers, and honest-as-the-day-is-long  planning committees, to delivery this kind of quality. I know, I've been to them all and left at high speed.
The best view is from your rear view mirror.

Colossus with sneakers of clay

"Yes We Can" was the breathless slogan Barack Obama surfed into power on, becoming the 44th US president in 2008. Although re-elected, the honeymoon is now well and truly over, with a world class hang-over and booze bill to boot.

The president enjoying the trappings of world power.

Yet he retains the trappings of "The Most Powerful Man On Earth". An army of no-neck security goons, a behemoth limo dubbed "The Beast", a fleet of 747s, a great address with a lovely garden full of roses. Bono on speed dial. It doesn't get better than that. But the current constipation in Congress threatens the status of the US as the only world super-power, the domestic economy, and Holy of Holies, the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Obama's like a headmaster telling a playground of unruly kids to behave, only for them to drop their trousers, bend over and give him a noxious and thunderous answer. The next slogan should read "Yes We Can - If It's OK With You Guys".

Come fly with me.

Tony telling it like it is

Reports that Tony Blair 'has' a Bombardier Global Express  called "Blair Force One " to trot around the world are wide of the mark. He doesn't own it anymore than you or I own a black cab. He rents it, as anyone can if their pockets are deep enough. You can't blame him can you? For £7,000 an hour you get to travel uber-class. Pull up to the jet at a private terminal in your limo. No long hike from the car park. No queuing for check-in. No queuing for security. No waiting at the boarding gate. No waiting for 175 other passengers to board. No inedible food. No traipsing through endless corridors after landing. No queuing for immigration at the end of a long day. No lost luggage. No stress. Just luxury, security, privacy and convenience. You're not a politician anymore, you're a rockstar. With a livery and interior (double bed and shower - settle!) to grace a playboy's mansion, this is a £30m intercontinental love rocket. You're rubbing shoulders with all the gang - Bono, Tiger, Hef, Branson. No more cheese sarnies with Gordon, another slug of Cristal please.

But the poison in the well is this. The UK's obsession with 'youth' in politics has had a disastrous effect on our political elites. 30 years ago, a retiring prime minister would be at the end of their working life. You wrote the memoirs, sat in the Lords, bathed in applause at your party conference.
Trust Me I'm Tony changed all that. They're out on their ear in the early 50's now, at the height of the ambition and potential. Outgoing prime ministers and their henchmen can now use the office as a springboard to the Big Time. A big player, a Mr Fixit on the world stage, raking in the wonga that  would make an NHS boss go weak at the knees. Surely, though, that wouldn't affect their judgement and policy decisions in office? Would it? The template has been set.

The Beauty Parade

Pickles (right) with  Boris The Beautiful

If politics is showbiz for ugly people, Eric Pickles is a three-time Oscar winner.
Our beloved Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government fell off that plug-ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. No stranger to the dessert trolley, Pickles is a fat, piggy-faced, dollop of a bloke who nonetheless seems quite happy in that large expanse of skin he inhabits. In the telegenic tyranny that is the Westminster image factory, Our Eric has been rejected by quality control.
But is he on to something quite profound? Many observers accept there is a yawning chasm between the image promise and reality delivery of our politicians. The public know it,
the media know it, even if they themselves don't. Dave, Nick, and Ed are a bunch of phonies.
The Holy Grail of Authenticity is sought by many, found by few. Boris is onto this as well. He could comb his hair, but chooses not to. After all, no-one wants to look like Michael Fabricant. 
He relishes the gaffe-prone, bumbling schoolboy late-for-double-algebra-but-hot-and-bothered-because-he-forgot-his-homework look. He looks authentic, even if he isn't. Nigel Farage is home and dry on this one. Scratch Nigel, underneath you see Farage.  MPs like Kate Hoey, Paul Flynn and Douglas Carswell. The late Robin Cook (The Guv'nor of Gurn) all authentic people and good MPs, but photogenic, err, not quite. German politics has just returned their own frumpy hausfrau, Angela Merkel for a record third term. And American electors said no thanks to the uber-chiseled B-movie creepster, Mitt Romney. So in the calm and quiet of the next voting booth, vote for the ugly one. 
Eric Pickles has to be the real thing. You wouldn't manufacture a politician to look like that.

Inside Pippaworld. Despatches from the front line.

"As a freelance investigative journalist, I think it's very important to be happy. Without masses of inner peace and calm, the love of a supportive and ambitious family, and a network of rather dazzlingly funny and rich friends, my job would be, well, just that. A job. Wearing the right outfit is another must. Whether I'm digging deep into corporate malfeasance, analysing legal documents, tax records, government or regulatory reports, or interviewing the latest trending whistleblower, my look is vital. Whether it's a royal blue tuxedo-style blazer, or trusty Alice Temperley summer dress, I'll always be armed with my Modalu clutch bag and Jimmy Choos. You just can't take chances. I'm currently working on an expose of the US military-industrial complex's subversion of human rights in sub-Saharan Africa, so you can appreciate the wardrobe implications for that!
And then, after lunch, it's off to a dizzying round of charity events that caring people have to be seen at. Pip Pip!" You can see more Pippa journalistic missions at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/10335879/Pippa-Middleton-its-bliss-to-be-up-early-for-a-flower-market.html