John Gibson: The war is over – Orla's on the case

WHOLE new ball game in Pakistan with the Taleban right now. Orla Guerin's on the case for the Beeb, so the war will soon be over. The Tale hordes will need only one glimpse of Orla and they'll flee for their lives.

They'll scarper before our warrior princes get to grips. In their macho RAF togs, Willie and Harry (who, we're told, is a total slob round the house) were talking up Afghanistan in let-us-at-'em speak. Get us into the front line, where the action is, they were shouting.

Better watch what I'm saying, else the "Royal Court's PR man", Nicholas Witchell, will be on my back. Aye, congrats, Nick, you snuck out of newscasting at an opportune time.

One fat lady
Right from wrong. Clarissa Dickson Wright has just turned 62. Yep, that's all she is. Been to alcoholic hell and back, has Clarrie, one fat lady having spilled the beans in her autobiography. She's had a "colourful sex life", it's been chronicled in the papers.

We rarely see any of her in these parts now, though. For Clarrie the ran-dan days appear to be over.

Comes to us all. I don't get out much myself now, I must say.

Off on a Rantzen
Ain't easy. Hot contenders for telly's total turn-offs (female) include Anne Robinson, Esther Rantzen, Margaret Beckett and Hazel Blears. Fight among yourselves, girls.

Rantzen slithered into her 70th year last Monday (is that all she is?) and it's enough to have us fall about to have her rave: "I think I get more glamorous the older I get." Yes, Esther, and I'm looking more like George Clooney with every passing day.

A cameraman who worked with her on That's Life alleges that she insisted the camera was raised high above her to make her look small and vulnerable. "We used to call her Esther Rancid," he recalls.

Fancies herself as an independent candidate in the next General Election to boot.

Afterwords . .
. . . Snooty? Do they mean us? A survey by Mastercard claims that gallus, salt-of-the-earth Weegies make friendlier, chattier neighbours than po-faced Edinburghers. Well, we always knew that. Tell us something new.