Happy Easter Monday to our readers throughout much of the Commonwealth and Europe. In America, alas, it's merely plain old regular Monday, but we hope nevertheless to add to the gaiety this week: I'll be on air every evening for a rollicking hour of Fox News Primetime at 7pm Eastern, starting today and running through till Friday. Please do dial us up if you are in the presence of the receiving apparatus.
As always, I've no idea what will be on the rundown as the week runs its merry course. We may address Gaetzgate, which I don't think I've said anything about since it broke last Tuesday. If you're not following, it's something to do with a congressman and allegations of underage prostitutes at Ecstasy-fueled orgies as a pretext for an extortion racket purportedly over an American hostage in Iran - which sounds like MadLibs on Ecstasy.
Oh, wait, I've missed the Hogwarts wrinkle:
Matt Gaetz and Florida pols played Harry Potter-themed 'sex challenge' game
How does that work?
Rep. Matt Gaetz and fellow Florida lawmakers played a creepy, competitive, "sex challenge" game while working at the statehouse ten years ago — in which participants won varying points depending on who they slept with, according to a new report...
And anyone who slept with one particular conservative female politician "won the whole game regardless of points," said the source, who spoke to Business Insider on condition of anonymity.
That woman was known as the game's "snitch," after the coveted flying golden ball in Quidditch, a magical sport played by young wizards in the Harry Potter book series...
Hey, wait a minute, didn't I do this a couple of decades back? Why, yes, I did:
In Billy Clinter and the Chamber of Semen, Billy realises that he splinched while he was apparating, which had never happened before. This is all the fault of Moaning Monica, the intern who haunts the anteroom at Housewhites and has the rare power of Parcelmouth, the ability to look into the eye of the Basilisk, the world's smallest snake, without being petrified. Is she a Niffler or a Death Eater? Billy cannot be sure... He admits to Hillary that, although he did play quidditch, he never put his bludger in the golden snitch.
As I was saying just a month or so ago:
One of the glummer aspects of advancing years is seeing all your more whimsical jokes become literally true.
Anyway, here's the last time Mr Gaetz and I spoke, a little over a year ago, and not a snitch in sight:
Other than that, my only connection with him arose from my Bad Hair Day on telly in December:
Much of the Internet chatter, alas, was focused on my reach-for-the-skies hair. Look, it's not complicated: There's no shows, no symphonies, no rock gigs, no ballet, no opera, no nightclubs... The last live entertainment in the western world is watching my hair grow. It grew an eighth of an inch during last night's broadcast, and at least one guy appreciated it.
Most did not - and Z00mie dismissed it as a "conservabro Gaetz do":
@MarkSteynOnline ditch the conservabro high-hair Gaetz doo and get a close crop. It looks ridiculous.
Well, thank God I tamped it down. As for the Congressman: hair today, gone tomorrow? His "colleagues" are silent and preparing to cut him loose. We shall see. It's a fast-moving if erratic story - and, as you know, given the last five years, I don't believe a word of anything coming out of the FBI or DoJ - and, in fact, favor their abolition and replacement by far more constrained agencies.
~The Permanent Abnormal's pretext was ChiCom-19, but its guiding ethos has been the Big Climate panic-porn. The best guide to that is Marc Morano's brand new book, Green Fraud: Why the Green New Deal Is Even Worse Than You Think - for which I was honored to write the introduction. Because the woke wankers are already demanding Amazon vaporize it, we've decided to make it available direct from the Steyn bookstore - and with a personal autograph from yours truly. You can also get it with my own tome on the theme as part of a denialist double-bill.
~It was a very busy weekend at SteynOnline, starting with the Good Friday edition of The Mark Steyn Show. For Easter, our offerings included the tale of a great church now silent, a movie on the meaning, and a song for the season. In non-Easter content, our weekly musical selection went full ho-de-ho, and our marquee presentation was the newest entry in my audio adaptation of a favorite book among readers - Mark Steyn's Passing Parade - with my consideration of two broadcasting colossi, the urbane explainer of America to Britons and the maestro of jiggle TV..
If you were too preoccupied with barricading your church door against the closedown coppers this weekend, we hope you'll want to check out one or three of the foregoing as a new week begins.
The Mark Steyn Show and Mark Steyn's Passing Parade are made with the support of members of The Mark Steyn Club. You can find more details about our Club here - and we also have a great gift membership.