Well I never. It seems that Canon Paul Oestreicher has converted back to Judaism.

He must have done. Why else would he have signed this:

WHAT IS ISRAEL DOING? A Call By Jews In Britain

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I've only just caught up with Sunday's 'The Ethical Awards 2006' special issue of the Observer Magazine. I find it hard to believe it's not a parody.

I'm sure the mag must have been secretly sponsored by Global Capitalism Inc, since I've yet to come across anything more likely to drive any traces of 'green'ery out of my mind and make me run round the flat turning on all the lights at midday, run my tumble drier empty and rush out to buy a patio heater.

In one section, somone called Lucy Siegle visits a series of celebs to tell them what they are doing wrong and how they can live more ethically. I assume she stepped in when they realised GE Moore wasn't available, being dead.

First off is Paul Abbott, the writer of Shameless:

One bonus of the large house is that it comes with a large garden, and Saskia is already using this to good effect, growing potatoes, runner beans and flowers (cut flowers air-freighted from Kenya to the UK last year were responsible for 33,000 tonnes of CO2 emissons) with a separate area for composting. I do notice a number of common-or-garden pesticide and herbicide weed killers, which are confiscated.

My main concern, however, is transport. The Abbotts are a four-vehicle family, owning a people carrier, a BMW , a new Volkswagen Beetle and a diesel Golf. And, unsurprisingly for a TV writer and producer, the house contains two fully equipped offices and a number of TVs - often left on standby. Added to this a tumble dryer (one of the world's most energy-intensive domestic appliances) working overdrive, and it seems the Abbotts are using a large amount of needless energy.

Ms Siegle's criticisms clearly carried weight with Mr Abbott:

After my departure, Paul spends the rest of the afternoon re-setting the digital appliances I have unplugged by way of demonstration on tackling the standby question...

Next up is a TV presenter, Sarah Cawood:

For a flat in north London, TV presenter Sarah Cawood's house smells strangely intensely of fruits of the forest. I later discover that this is courtesy of 10 plug-in air fresheners (and a box of spares kept in the cellar, presumably for fruits of the forest emergencies).

But that's the least of it. Far, far worse, is that she has bought clothes from - ugh - high street shops:

Appearing on The National Lottery on BBC1 twice a week, Sarah also requires a lot of outfits. Her approach to fashion seems very level headed: 'I try to keep things for years, and am slowly moving away from the mainstream high-street stores because I don't think the quality is all that good.' This is fortunate because the continued emphasis on quick, disposable fashion hardly make the high-street chains angels of sustsainability.

She should make her own.

Best of all, though, is Ms Siegle's critique of the actor Julian Rhind-Tutt:

Sadly, it's too late to influence the paint choice - I would have gone for a water-based eco paint, but the decorator has already chosen the standard mix of VOCs (volatile organic compounds) that contribute to indoor air pollution and come with a heavy eco rucksack (they are polluting and water intensive to make) - however, there's still time to advise him on the flooring. Fortunately, Julian is quite keen on a natural carpet, rather than a petroleum-based, nasty nylon carpet that off-gasses xylene among other substances, but he draws the line at good old sustainable coir on the grounds that it's 'too hairy'.

Pathetic. Why should he have comfort in his home, when he could have 'natural'.

As for his cardinal sin: shower gel:

It's not a terrible crime in the greater scheme of things, but he's guilty of falling for big-brand names and marketing hype pushing ever more complex mixes of non-degradable synthetic, petroleum-based chemicals. It takes about 800 years for a standard shower gel to degrade (losing all its constituent chemical parts).

Don't you just love that smug, "guilty of falling for big-brand names".

The final suggestion, though, is simply genius:

To sever Julian's dependency on the internal combustion engine,

[he owns a Merc]

I prescribe him a Segway - the world's first self-balancing, electric-powered transportation machine.

It's a genius idea. There's just one small problem:

...at least for now, the Segway cannot legally be driven on public roads.

There were two more, but I couldn't face reading them. So instead I went on line, logged in to Ocado, ordered 12 shower gels, and booked a delivery slot, at a time - very early on Sunday morning - when I hope no one else in the area will be receiving deliveries, so the van will, if I've planned correctly, be making an otherwise unnecessary journey.

And it's all because of your piece, Ms Siegle.

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I think this has to be one of the most gruesome things I've ever seen.

It's Connie Chung's farewell to her MSNBC viewers after the cancellation of her programme. It makes even the nauseating annual Comic Relief spectacle of newsreaders trying to be funny seem positively wholesome.

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Unless you've been stuck indoors all day — watching the World Cup, perhaps — you’ll have noticed that the flag of St George is flying all over the place. What you may not have realised is that this has little to do with patriotism. The flag wavers are, in fact, supporters of the BNP celebrating their racial pride.

The deputy Comment Editor of The Guardian, Joseph Harker, noticed the flags appearing last month. And guess what also happened last month: the BNP won 28 seats in the local elections. Could it be, he asked (before making clear that the answer is basically yes), that “flag-wavers are in fact supporters of this racist party, glorying in their ‘victory’ and celebrating their racial pride?” Mr Harker’s evidence is overwhelming. He looked at the drivers of the flag-waving vehicles and — blimey — “half of them are in white vans, and the rest are white, male, tattooed, pot-bellied 35 to 55-years-olds: exactly the type I’ve been seeing on TV for the past month complaining about ‘our houses going to the asylum-seekers’, or that ‘we’re losing control of our country’.”

It’s not just Mr Harker who has spotted this. The Independent’s Janet Street-Porter has noticed the same awful “white van men flying the cross of St George”. Good God, they even take pride in their country! And — ugh — they are overweight: “Chubby fellows with paunches.” (Lordy; she must mean me.) Ms Street-Porter has discovered something yet worse: they watch football and drink at the same time. “Why do we consider that slumping in front of a large screen holding a can of beer is an acceptable way to spend our time?”

One might ask why it is considered acceptable to spend time reading the witterings of two such dim-witted oafs. But their assertions do matter, because they typify the liberal Left’s attitude towards its fellow countrymen: scornful disdain. Mr Harker and Ms Street-Porter’s contempt for so many of their countrymen represents the true cancer in Britain: the self-ordained liberal elite of self-declared cultural and political wisdom. From its place above the lower orders,the liberal elite considers it its duty to bring the Untermenschen to heel.

We must meet those who would politicise flag-waving on their own ground. Resist, comrades, resist: fly the flag with pride.

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I've finally given up on Start The Week. Its relentless chattering class liberal smugness is just too much for any day of the week, let alone 9am on a Monday.

This morning we had to endure Rod Liddle lecturing us on why faith schools were a danger to society - unlike terrorism which, it seems, is all a mirage, the result of the 'deranged' reaction to 9/11, a view in support of which Liddle prayed in aid that paragon of clear headed analysis, Mahathir Mohamad, the former PM of Malaysia (he of the "Jews rule the world by proxy" quote).

Then there were Sara Paretsky and ex-Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzem Begg. If anything was deranged it was Ms Parestsky, whose archetypcal 'Bush is evil incarnate' drivel was puerile in the extreme. I have to confess never to having heard of her before, and on this basis will give her books a wide berth. I would not be surprised to discover that she is in reality a creation of Craig Brown. Perhaps the spirit of Bel Littlejohn lives on after all.

Moazzem Begg was, of course, treated deferentially as the font of all that is decent in this world. His admitted support for the Taliban notwithstanding, of course.

I think I'll find something better to do on a Monday morning from now on.

UPDATE: Great minds and all that. Clive Davis thinks almost the same.

I think it's time for a competition. Today's Observer profiles Chris Huhne's wife, Vicky Pryce, and in doing so reveals the dinner party from hell:

At home, Pryce and Huhne are, according to friends included around their Sunday dinner table, a formidable couple. Yet with the hosts setting the intellectual tone, the atmosphere of the Huhne-Pryce salon is decidedly less celebrity mag than political economics journal. Recent guests have included political journalists Polly Toynbee and David Walker, who live just across the private square; documentary-maker Adam Curtis, who made the BBC's Power of Nightmares, and a clutch of permanent secretaries, economists and the occasional Lib Dem peer.

So here's the competition: you have to suggest a dinner party which might rival, or even beat, such a gathering to the title Dinner Party From Hell (and yes, I realise that the list above was stretched over a period of time rather than one dinner party, but I'm using poetic licence).

Don't just send a list of guests from hell. It has to be gatherings which have actually happened.

As for a prize - I think the sheer joy of winning is surely prize enough.

Sartre was wrong. Hell is not just other people. It is these people.

Can you imagine anything worse?