Heresy: Mandela Had It Easy

Taiwan's president Chen Shui-bian, having managed in the last week to annoy friend and foe, foreign and domestic, yesterday met former South African president FW de Klerk in Taipei. Having drawn several customary self-serving parallels in his speech, Chen remarked to the former leader, "It would have been easier to play the role of Nelson Mandela than your role." Sure. All Mandela had to do was rot in prison. Piece of cake.

Less controversial, sadly, is Radio 4's show Heresy (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/heresy) in which David Baddiel and his panel attempt to play devil's advocate to overturn conventional wisdom on various issues. A nice idea, except that when it came to the crunch the panel all baulked at the challenge of saying something nice about Margaret Thatcher, other than that she indirectly spawned their careers. Clearly for any alternative comedian, positive re-evaluation of Thatcher to whatever extent still represents the ultimate Heresy. For more on Thatcher's direct responsibility for causing Wayne Rooney's metatarsal injury, see http://football.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1767020,00.html

Much better and funnier is Down the Line, a spoof phone-in show from the creators of The Fast Show (www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/downtheline). The scary thing is, it's so well-observed that it's barely a spoof at all, a must for anyone who's ever been driven to the brink of destroying their radio in response to the right-wing dinosaurs, irritating faffy liberals and flat-out fruitcakes who seem to make up a sizeable proportion of the UK population. Maybe Chen's not so bad after all - I don't think I'll be going home just yet.