Gloria Steinem finally got married this week. Oddly enough, she is not planning on taking her husband's name, although her husband is famous as the man who introduced the skateboard into Britain. The wedding was held at the home of Ms. Steinem's friend Wilma Mankiller. Really.

Most repulsive revelation of the week: Ronald Reagan called Nancy Mommie Poo Pants. And that's before he went gaga.

The Italian Supreme Court, which has never to my knowledge ruled on any matter that doesn't have to do with sex (or perhaps my British news sources are lax in this regard?) rules that it is ok for wives to commit adultery, but during daylight hours only.

I've been meaning for some time to write about Dick Cheney. Before I forget, it was discovered today that Cheney has rarely bothered voting since leaving public service, and failed to vote in the March primaries. But it's this question of the Haliburton stock options that's been niggling at me, until I sat down to think about why. He's promised to forgo his stock options if he gets elected, so that he doesn't have a conflict of interest. (Interestingly, he didn't even make the case, natural for a Republican I would have thought, that what is good for Haliburton is good for the USA.) But the assumption is evidently that it doesn't matter if a candidate has a conflict of interest. Presumably, commitments and decisions made now do not count, so it is ok if he is ethically compromised now.

It also occurs to me that for the first time in, well, ever, neither VP candidate is one who will ever be president or probably even run for president, unless through a death, of course.

There is a French army major who is preparing to skydive from 28 miles up, wearing a space suit, the first skydiver to break the sound barrier. Normal skydiving reaches c.120 mph; he is planning to hit ten times that. How do you say "splat" in French?