It’s easy and tempting to blame politicians entirely for this state of affairs.  I should know, I’ve spent the last thirty years blaming Mrs. Thatcher for everything, from the destruction of the mining industry to the fact that our radiators want bleeding and I can’t find the key, but I’m from Manchester and that’s what we do.

I’ve even been sort-of blamed myself; The Thick of It, a political sitcom in which I must declare an involvement in the Register of Columnists’ Interests, is occasionally blamed for painting politicians as the kind of venal, self-serving beasts who would make Katie Price look like Shami Chakrabarti.  But the programme simply wouldn’t work if the people watching didn’t think they were like that in the first place.

So, who is at fault?  Goodness know politicians are the chief architects of this situation, but there is another group who even if they are not actually architects have at the least played a fairly active role on the planning committee: political journalists.

Time was that journalists provided the tremendous service of holding our elected representatives to account, giving them a Dixon of Dock Green-esque clip round the ear when they scrumped an apple or took up extra-marital affairs with women who were sleeping with Russian spies.  Many still do, of course, but increasingly journos seem to be actively trying to catch politicians out for the sake of it in a rather tedious game of cat and mouse.

When I was growing up in the 1980s one of the national playground pastimes was to approach some innocent and ask, “Are you a bummer tied to a tree?” On receiving the inevitable answer “No,” you would then career round the playground, yelling “Bummer on the loose!”  This is what I’m reminded of most of the time when I watch televised political interviews.

Not that the journos ever get much out of them these days.  Because politicians have all been media trained until their fillings can get BBC3, there are few more pointless or depressing things than watching a bigwig pollie take on a bigwig journo.  To take another 1980s metaphor, it’s like watching Geoff Boycott batting against a fast bowler: block, block, block, block, lunch.  The audience just come away frustrated with both of them.

But worst of all is the sneering tone in which most reporting is now conducted.  The BBC’s chief political correspondent Nick Robinson, for example, has caused me to throw so many shoes through the telly that the man in the local repair shop has given me a loyalty card.  “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What a week it’s been for Gordon Brown,” is how he began one report.  To which the only reasonable response is, “Shut the hell up and tell me the actual news.”  It’s the unbearable well-this-is-what-they-say-but-we-all-know-better-don’t-we-ness that has me unlacing my footwear.  Don’t editorialise; we’re smart people, we can make up our own minds.

To any criticism of any kind, be it about privacy, tone, whatever, journalists tend to go all self-righteous and press the button marked “We’ve A Very Important Role In A Fully Functioning Democracy, Actually, So Ner.”  And that’s true, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t part of the reason we’re all so cynical.

*

Disney. So many different things to so many different people.  To children, a source of joy and wonder.  To Scots, the negation of the word ‘does’ (as in “it disney seem right Scottish MPs get to vote on English issues.”)  To others, relentless cause to be all sniffy.

“Disneyfied” is a word used to imply the blunting of edges and the, um, blandening of stories.  Personally speaking, I absolutely love Disney films.  Pixar, the makers of Toy Story etc., whilst now controlled by Disney, continue to make some of the most thoughtful and brilliant films of any genre.  Even more than Saw VI, I would say.  Finding Nemo is about letting your children go, The Incredibles about needing a role in the world.  And all done so that they’re hilarious for kids, heartbreaking for their parents.

So whilst some have expressed concern about their latest, The Princess and The Frog, I’m not worried.  It’s the first from the company to feature an African-American heroine and there seems to be some fear that so much has been done to make sure it can’t possibly be offensive things have gone too far the other way.  The baddies are all white, you see.

Big deal.  The real question is: what else are they?  One is a fat servant with “a plummy English accent.”  I don’t mind that.  It’s rather sweet that 200 years later the Americans, bless them, still can’t quite over us as the bogeyman.  Inferiority complex?  No, no, just a thought.  And the other baddies are estate agents.  Really?  Well, who’s going to argue with that?

*

Jean-Claude, of Christo and Jean-Claude, the husband and wife who were responsible for wrapping the Reichstag and the Pont-Neuf, amongst other things, is no more.

Speaking as someone who can’t wrap the boxiest present without having to get his three-year-old to cut him out of the ensuing tangle, I found their art especially awesome.  And I must confess that I like how they always claimed it had no meaning.  It’s not meant to have a message, they said, it’s just, y’know, Art.

Sometimes it’s nice to stand and look at something someone’s created and simply be amazed by the achievement, rather than having to look for anything deeper.  Is that intellectually lazy?  I don’t really care.  Which genuinely is intellectually lazy.

The Angel of the North, Eliasson’s sun in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, that Faberge egg in Octopussy, Sophie Dahl, I could happily stare at them all day with no further thought.

So goodbye, Jean-Claude and your fabric. ‘RIP’ seems inappropriate.