Where’s a benevolent dictator when you need one?

Attention is called to the health of our civil society, the strength of the polity and the engagement of the citizenry in the democratic process. After all, there’s an election on.

How does one place a finger on society’s political pulse to determine which issues furrow the commuter’s brow? Hitting the streets would lead to undesirable physical contact with Mr. and Mrs. Citizen and watching television, exposure to harmful mediocrity waves.

In the information age, electronic organs of record can help us keep in touch with the Zeitgeist. So, to illustrate the current affairs which most interest Australians, here is a list of the 10 most popular stories from the http://www.news.com.au/ website yesterday (and a helpful summary of each).

Man levitates outside the Whitehouse –Yogic flying in the no fly zone.

I love The Chaser, says TT host – A cry for mercy destined to fall on smug, deaf ears.

Idol's Dicko canned by US critics – That’s Dicko, people.

Mum cleared of killing babies - Surely that should read “Woman cleared…”?

Schoolgirl, 11, smashes record – ...after mistaking it for a very thin Frisbee.

Local whiz speeds up broadband... – Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Dannii and Shaz in TV 'bust-up' – Minor Minogue fails to pass sugar to Mrs. Prince of Darkness.

Prices jump, rate rise coming – A misprint?

Five years' jail for digital rape – Most readers clicked this looking for digital images (and not of a digit).

Falzon 'stronger' after Sonny – From repeatedly lifting him against the lavatory wall, perhaps?

Careful analysis reveals two indisputable facts. First, a hard news story snuck in at number 8. Second, we do not deserve the vote.

An American friend was recently bailed up by an elderly bore. American, are you?, he enquired. People get the government they deserve, you know.

My friend was too polite to raise the obvious retort: Actually, aged dipshit, I think you mean, 50% of the people get the government they deserve.

However, in the light of this research, the aged one may have been more prescient than he could have imagined.

In case you’re wondering if the popular stories list was an aberration, further research today reveals that “Man levitates outside the Whitehouse” is now the most and the fourth most popular story. So, things are looking up.

Voluptocracy

All human life is a genetically driven struggle for sex and protein. For these 2 things we’re viscerally compelled to strive, to compete. We have no choice in the matter. And yet, our, so called, rational minds have come to view government, business and even recreation through the lens of self-denial.

Fiscal conservatism is another name for stinginess. Efficiency is code for repression. A healthy lifestyle is cipher for a miserable pulse munching subsistence. Those new alcohol guidelines - a conspiracy of the pious, the temperate and the insufferably meek.

The Glibertine turned his head slightly, Oi, Merely, your push.

Taking this as her opportunity to escape the Glibertine’s halitosic, red-eyed rant, the babymaid scampered to the other end of the bar. He shifted his glaze in my general direction.

What we need is government by the fat. No, f*ck that, by sensualists. Hell, yes, what the world wants is sensualist rule.

Those poor Islamists. Do you know why they want to kill us? Because they’re jealous of all the sex and meat we get. They’re jealous that our civilization has better realised the promise locked within our genetic coding. In their minds we loll on beaches, men and women, in a mass meat-greased grope, sucking icy beers and licking drugs from between the natural folds of virgin skin. But we know that’s not true. We know we’ve not yet reached that Arcady. There’s much more to do!

To anybody watching, it would have seemed unlikely that the grey mullet masquerading as the Glibertine’s tongue had ever ventured past his browned fangs to traverse any skin but his own, yet his eyes shone with the light of truth.

The Islamists don’t respect us because we’re equivocal about our freedoms. Because we try to see their side, to view things from their arid perspective, they see us as weak, as having no confidence in our way of being. Bugger perspective! I say, let’s rededicate ourselves to ourselves. Let us show them how deeply we cherish our indulgences, our gluttonousness and our wanton lusts.

Our leaders will be voluptuaries, one and all. This new system of government will be voluptoccray. Henceforth the parliament shall be the Pleasure Dome. We’ll rid it of that dreadful Spartan native timber and procure furnishings befitting our decadence – cushions and the like, really comfy ones, rich brocades, velvets and silks. As they recline and govern, the voluptuaries will be served sweetmeats, sherbet and betel from trays of beaten relic gold. We’ll turn down the lights and get rid of the cameras, other than the feed to Al Jazeera.

The Glibertine drained an Irish and turned his back to the bar. He surveyed the dimly lit room, packed with punters laughing and drinking with admirable purpose.

He outstretched his arms and threw back his head in celebration, This is what we do best! Join with me, brothers and sisters, in love and desire. Hold my hand and together we’ll draw a generously proportioned crease in the sheets. The demarcation between our civilizations will be stark. Voluptocracy here, theocracy there. We will truly live as we were meant to live. We will fight and love and eat and drink and we will deeply inhale. We will lick and suck and nibble. We will use all our resources to scour the earth for protein and pleasures. We will draw to us disciples of the true way.

And, when the opium cloud lifts, we will find the world in our lap, entwined in an exhausted, sweet afterglow, Civilization’s sensory circuitry pulsing the last pleasure packets to the endings of the earth.

We will be as one and, most importantly, have won.

The proxy pratfall

I give a lot of advice, for 3 reasons. I know a lot of stuff, am always available and don’t charge.

The advice is trusted because it’s confined to limited areas of expertise. Don't ask me about habit breaking or organic gardening. Do ask what to read or drink or where to drink and read (The Warren View beer garden on a spring afternoon).

Choose your expert carefully. No diplomatic advice from Dr Mahathir. No medical tips from Tomkat.

Don’t look to Kate Moss for anything other than the clothes she wears and all you should ask of Pete Doherty is fewer hats, though, if he could see his way clear, a gram would be triffic. Fanks, Pete. Preciate it.

Having said that, it’s absolutely right to look to footballers, models and rock stars for guidance on how to live. Indeed, society should demand that footballers get dribblingly pissed before driving high powered automobiles. We should delight when sportsmen violently compete for the dimmest girlfriend. Let's applaud minor celebrity sex in public conveniences and honour supermodels for snorting lines on camera. By the way, what about a little understanding? They’ve got to suppress their appetites some how.

You may not watch them, but I say rejoice every time a B-list narcissist abases themselves on the internet, indulging in what, in this century, passes for sex. But for them, there goes (or comes) someone you may really care about.

Who still thinks it would be a good idea to cruise for oral relief on Hollywood Blvd after Divine attended Hugh? What politician still relies on the discretion of a high-class madam (a wonderful oxymoron, that) or indulges in the toilet two-step?

If, after Paris, Pam, Eva, Britney, Dannii and the lesser Macpherson, your sister can be persuaded to let her boyfriend video them in bed, maybe she deserves the humiliation. And if you haven’t learned from these incidents, when you get caught in the boss’s office with bourbon, Bouncy Betty and a bong, you do too.

You can take that advice from one who should know.