Who should I meet but a tan puck goat, and he roaring with rage.

In Beirut, not at night, not in a bar, but in broad daylight, in a posh neighbourhood, Comrade Hitchens (who was not drunk) and Mike Totten and Jonathan Foreman find themselves in a bit of a spot, which ends with Hitchens taking a knock on the leg, a scrape on the face and a stomped-on writing hand. It started when the trio came upon a poster for the Syrian Nazi Party on an abandoned bagel shop.

Damn good story. Can't wait for Hitchens' version. And it just goes to show, the world is not made of atoms, but of good stories to tell over pints with your mates. Oh look. Here's another one just now.

Anyway, it seems like only yesterday that a celebration of the 74th birthday of the Syrian Nazi Party - which has its own stylized swastika and an anthem sung to the tune of Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles - was convened in Ottawa, and went wholly unnoticed by the press, even though its guest of honour was the British Mosleyite, celebrity MP and "anti-war" hero George Galloway.