One of the point of this blog is that I write in detail only about things I know something about. So if you want detailed analysis of politics in Latin America or Sri Lanka or Nigeria (and above all in the Middle East) you’ll just have to go somewhere else.

This admittedly tedious, limited and unambitious approach contrasts with the pages of the Guardian, a newspaper that gives generous space to people who actually admit they don’t know what they’re talking about!

Take the fascinating but ultimately tragic case of Nicholas Lezard, who burbles on in the Guardian about Ayn Rand and the US Tea Party tendency and admits that he has not read the book he attacks. Mr Lezard is “a literary critic for the Guardian”. Having a literary critic who actually admits that he is not read books he talks about is an important innovation in British journalism.

So far so predictable. But imagine my surprise when I found that to support his argument he had linked to a piece I wrote at the Commentator website — and in the process even managed to fail in the ostensibly simple task of getting my name right!

So much stupidity. So little time