Linda Kennedy - Taramasalata Treachery opens the floodgates on scandal names

Published on Wednesday 29 October 2008 18:38

THE Iron Curtain, Peter Mandelson has allegedly said, is to be renamed the Aluminium Curtain. This is not to promote one metal over another, but so children can practise spelling whilst learning history.

Another day, another twist in the story of politicians, Russians, yachts, influence and funding. Some true, others not.

This tale of 'dip and tell' is almost exhausted, yet crucial angles remain overlooked. The Taramasalata Treachery showed the labelling of political scandals has finally moved on. Formerly everything with a whiff of suspicion received the coda 'gate'. This might so easily have been branded Taramasalata Gate; or, had these controversial conversations happened in Italy and christened after its national dip, we would have had Olive Gate. If the Tories had had a Scottish break, coinciding with Oleg Deripaska taking a gloat float – sailing his yacht over North Sea fields to laugh at their size – it would have been dubbed Water Gate 2. You get the picture.

But the Taramasalata Treachery means the floodgates are opened for the non-gates. Under these freer naming rules, were anyone to seek cash or peddle influence in St Tropez harbour, it could be the Crudite Crudity. In Russia the Blini Betrayal.

However, just when it looked like scandals would at last be more originally baptised, up popped Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand on the phone to Andrew Sachs, an incident now being reported as ManuelGate. I may join the ranks of moaners. Did these celebrities not realise the implication of their actions for scandal christening protocol? It's a complaint as valid as everyone else's.

Let's move swiftly on. There are other unreported yet crucial consequences that will stay with us when the details of the Taramasalata Treachery have been forgotten. These include how well Greece has done.

It's been a while, obviously, since its ancient heyday. These days the Kouros – perfect male statues – have been replaced by the touros – the exact opposite. Drunkobolus became the new Discobolus when Greece emerged as the favourite destination of Britain's worst package holidaymakers, who drank the equivalent of a swimming pool and passed out.

But Corfu's alluring coastline has been starring on TV news bulletins, reminding Brits of the real Greece. It's been a tourist board's dream, which is where George Osborne's luck might finally take a turn upwards, counter to his approval ratings.

The Greek Tourist Board might very well offer the Conservatives a handsome sum, for doing all this in their waters. Maybe Osborne knew this all along and was hoping for Greeks bearing gifts, in return for his allegedly seeking them from Russians in one their harbours. Funny old world.

Getting laid and getting laid off

A RECESSION could be bad news for one in five employees. They're the same people who told a survey this week they've had sex at work. Imagine they lose their jobs. Once they got laid. Now they're getting laid off.

The concept of sex at work bewilders me. Where do these people do it? If on the desk, don't they worry they're lying on a project that's due in tomorrow? Underneath the desk, there are so many cables, you'd end up in a weird form of office bondage. And can anyone relax doing it at work? What if, over the chap's heaving shoulder, a woman spots a Post-It she missed earlier? "Sorry, could you stop, I've got an e-mail to send." Every bloke's nightmare – coitus corporatus. No, no, no. Offices are for XP-rated activities, not X-rated ones.

ANOTHER gleaming bloke car is being developed. This one produces wings and can fly.

It's called the Transition, which sounds like the menopause, but will even men at that stage in their life buy it?

Surely, a car that grows fins and a snorkel might have wider appeal? This week I drove along the flooded M8, where amphibious extras would have been welcome. Until the Transition Aqua is on sale, I shall merely note, not dryly, that Glasgow is often compared to American cities. It's certainly true Scotland's west coast has an ocean highway, alas not in the Californian sense.