Newfoundlanders, what are we? We're slobbering idiots, slack-jawed simpletons, rustic fish billies living in Dogpatch-on-the-rocks, lower than lower Slobovians, the laughing stock and 'white trash' of Canada.

This satire business, that was one of the worst things that ever happened to me. I was certified funny. From then on, I had to be funny - people expected it. Twice the work for the same pay.

I still get a few dirty looks over the racks in the supermarket, but nobody kicks me in the shins on Water Street. I've made sort of a point, apart from being a social dud, not to fraternize with the people I write about.

I've written just about everything for the sake of putting shoes on the children's feet - and a bottle of gin in the cupboard.

The basis, the corner-stone of this Government, was the perfect equality of the free, sovereign, and independent States which made it.

Of course there are many factors that led to the Iranian revolution, but back in 1951, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company - which would later become BP - and its principal owner, the British government, conspired to destroy democracy and install a western-controlled regime in Iran.

It is not inevitable that the Internet will evolve in a manner compatible with democracy.

The result of the collaborative culture is that corporations or government institutions focus intensely on internal culture and pour their energy into achieving minuscule policy changes relating to workplace efficiency, gender or race.