I don't believe it!

So, the Plebgate plot thickens. CCTV footage seems to dispel the previously widely accepted version of events, showing former Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell, far from being engaged in a foul-mouthed rant, appearing to calmly accept the police decision not to open the main gate to Downing Street, then leaving without fuss through the side gate and going on his way. It's also alleged that a supposed 'witness' to the event was not only not there at all, but may be a serving police officer.

I say 'may be' because, frankly, I haven't a clue what's going on now. I rarely take much in the newspapers at face value because leaks, biased reporting and downright inaccuracy are hallmarks of the press in the UK and no doubt throughout the world, but it seems that the default position must now be utter disbelief in anything I haven't observed with my own eyes. And even then the life works of people such as Derren Brown, David Copperfield and "O-ho, that's magic!" Paul Daniels demonstrate how easily we can be fooled.

We apparently spent a fortune in not deporting Abu Qatada, the planet may or may not be suffering man-made climate change and all of a sudden all former celebrities have become rampaging, predatory paedophiles overnight. Did they really land on the moon? Did President Kennedy have a secret sex-change operation? And is Alan Titchmarsh really a government plot to lull us into a state of meek, dribbling, senile dependency ahead of  some massive conspiracy to sell us all to China? David Icke's giant lizards not looking so far-fetched now, eh?

And all of this on the run up to Christmas when normally sane people turn into gurning fools, engulfed in sticky tape, pine needles and tinsel. Housewives dancing around with sprigs of mistletoe whenever the milkman, the postman or the man from Tesco Direct shows up; workers dancing around offices, work abandoned, eagerly awaiting a chance to put their careers in jeopardy after a mid-morning sherry and a secret Santa ceremony. The world's gone plumb [pudding] crazy and I just don't know what to believe any more!

At least we've got Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, Max Bygraves, Dean Martin, Morecambe and Wise, Andy Stewart and the White Heather Club to keeps us entertained and sane over the holidays. Aren't you glad of some stability in an ever-changing world? Sorry, what? Nooooooooooooooo!