Don't let us stop you

Good old Michael Caine, he's nothing if not consistent. Not content with trotting out the same old 'cockney bleeder' routine for forty years, he also makes sure that every time he opens his mouth away from the film set he says something graceless and idiotic.

Just last week he was telling everybody that his parents thought he was gay when he expressed a desire to go into acting. In Michael's charming words: “That’s what we thought actors were - all poofs. And sometimes we were right.” Wonder if he's on Sir Ian McKellen's Christmas card list?

This time, the topic is tax rates. That 50% rate on Britain's highest earning 1% of the population is the final straw. Michael's had enough and he's threatening to leave. Furthermore, he reckons that other top talents will follow, making him some kind of shouty, one-note Pied Piper of Hamlyn. Here's hoping he'll take Michael Winner and Jim Davidson with him.

The choice quote in all of this is: "We've got three-and-a-half million layabouts laying about on benefits and I'm 76 getting up at six o'clock in the morning to go to work to keep them."

I'm sure the 600,000 people predicted to lose their jobs in 2009 would be delighted to know that they've already been pre-judged as layabouts, even as they're still clinging desperately to gainful employment. I think in the US they call this compassionate conservatism. Warms the heart, doesn't it?

Not a lot of people know that...

...Michael Caine's a Fidiot. Sorry, that's short for fucking idiot.

He's in town (London for those who live elsewhere) filming Harry Brown, playing a grizzled ex-military man who goes vigilante in response to petty gangsters terrorising his neighbourhood - which all sounds alarmingly like Clint Eastwood's recent Gran Torino. Anyway, he's filming on the mean streets of 'Ackney and is horrified at the crime and violence he's seen "very close at hand".

You see, Michael understands society's ills and knows what's causing all the problems. It's drugs. Not the good kind of drugs that actors and film makers and pretty much everyone in the media industry use, but the ones that people on council estates use. Discussing his recent experiences, Michael told The Sun "We were shooting in Hackney and someone local came up to me and said, 'Welcome to Crackney!'" Now call me old fashioned, but if I was in Hackney and managed to get some lighthearted wordplay AND a friendly welcome out of a complete stranger, I'd be over the moon.

But not Michael. No, he longs for the good old days. Apparently, young Maurice Micklewhite grew up in "a gentler time", when the vicious gangsters at least had the decency to hold 'professional' status, and chose who they hit and robbed. Similarly, Michael's disgusted that these drug addicts commit random violence. In Michael's day, one would fight the people in the next street, which was much better. And there were alcoholics who got pissed, but at least they didn't do drugs. Some addictions must be better than others I guess. We just won't mention the fact that around 3.5 million people used drugs in the last year, whereas 8.2 million people have an alcohol disorder.

So to sum up, the good old days were when people got drunk, had fights and the gangsters were more organised about who they attacked. Certainly sounds like heaven to me.