Missing the booze yet?

WASTE not, want not. Full marks to SpaceX, the American company aiming to recycle damn great parts of its space rockets by dropping them many thousands of feet out of the heavens and "soft-landing" them on a sea barge on the Atlantic. Not sure I'd want to be the skipper on that boat.

SO how's Dry January coming along? Missing a nice glass of Merlot yet? Aching for a pint of ale? I spotted this headline yesterday on a feature about alternatives to alcohol: "Soft drinks so tasty you won't miss booze." Oh, yes you will. No pop yet invented can compare with Mother Nature's oldest comedy double-act, the Brothers Ferment and Distil.

TOMORROW sees the TV premier of The Grand Budapest Hotel (Sky), one of the strangest and most other-worldly of films. It may be a bit of a Marmite movie; you either love it or hate it ,and without the wonderful Ralph Fiennes as Gustave, the all-knowing and yet vulnerable concierge, it would probably be nothing special. But I watched it twice in two days, enchanted. I love the unexpected exchange when a villain savagely denounces him as "You goddam little fruit!" and Gustave responds plaintively: "How's that supposed to make me feel?" The delivery is superb.

A COUPLE of years ago, when I warned you to watch out for the Tory Economic Miracle in the spring of 2015, I assumed it would be good news: rising wages, falling inflation, full employment and so on. But this week, with just four months to go to the General Election, the FTSE drops like a stone, the pound slumps against the dollar and economic growth looks like slowing down. And then you realise that for the Tory Economic Miracle to work, bad news may be just as good as good news. The polls repeatedly show the Tories are trusted more than Labour with the economy. I bet no-one can seriously imagine the nation exclaiming: "Help! There's an economic crisis – send for Ed Balls."

ELECTION campaigns always bring out the activists, bitter little people who believe their hour has come and who think they are serving the greater good by giving the Press a hard time. In truth, the nastier they get, the more their masters despair. This week the BBC's blameless political correspondent Norman Smith was harangued as a pillock and told to get back to London by a posse of Miliband supporters in Salford. A pillock? Believe me, most hacks lie awake at night dreaming of being publicly called a pillock by the activists. Suddenly, out of a deathly boring media event, you have a story about control-freakery.

NOT that Labour has a monopoly on objectionable aides. I recall one encounter with a ferocious Conservative lady in a hat at a Tory election meeting who was most indignant that the photographer and I had entered the hotel by the main door instead of using the tradesman's entrance.

IF you've just spent a fortune on presents for a baby who ignores them, this will probably not cheer you up. Watch the video below and you'll see eight-month-old Micah reacting to his father tearing a single sheet of paper (it happens to be a job-rejection letter) into pieces. The best things in life are free, dammit.

AND yes, all you YouTube addicts, I am fully aware that 75 million people on this planet have already viewed the laughing-baby item. I am addressing the 8,925 million people who have not.