I find the average European's fascination with Colonel (is he still a Colonel?) Gaddafi quite, erm, fascinating.
Generally, the old buffer is seen as something of a joke, though quite often the descriptor ‘vicious' is added on, for all the he's been somewhat rehabilitated of late, probably not coincidentally due to the fact that the larger oil companies are looking at his reserves with interest.
No sooner, though, does Gaddafi come up with a bit of lunacy that panders to the inherent racism that some people are letting rise to the fore than he becomes someone to be listened to and used as a rational reason for doing something.
In this case, the "something" is spreading the good word, if you'll allow me to use the word ‘good' in the context of filthy bigotry. Instead of classifying Gaddafi's crack about Europe having to pay however many billions he mentioned as simply the crude attempt at moral blackmail that is so clearly was, people are going about saying things like "see, that's why we have to be on our guard" and "to the barricades, my brave lads" and so on and so forth.
It's almost as if the stupider the remark, the more important it has been made, purely because it's convenient to make it what it isn't, that is to say something to be taken seriously. What next, Sarkozy rolling up to Brussels and demanding a trillion Euro in order to stop persecuting the Roma, backed up by Berlusconi?
No, they wouldn't be so ridiculous, would they? They'll just cozy up to their right wings and make sure that the doughty burghers of Middle France and the Lega nod in approval that something is being done about those filthy wogs - the electoral currency they're earning is worth more than the billion or whatever that Gaddafi wants, for all that the underlying motivation is probably much the same.
It really is about time he was told where to get off, though to be frank, I doubt he will give much of a damn, even if he does comprehend that he's being told to indulge in two enjoyable pastimes, one of which is travel.
Gaddafi has not given a monkey's about what the world at large thinks since the time when he used to sponsor the IRA and other assorted thugs and it's hardly likely he's going to start giving a damn now.
And, just to underline the point, if he does not get off as told to, what are we going to do about it? Invade? Hardly - the Yanks tried to bump him off many years ago and they made a mess of it and it's even less acceptable now to try to "regime change" anyone into oblivion and after Vietnam and Iraqistan.
The best thing to do with silly bullies is to ignore them, which is just what the media did not do with Gaddafi. He's probably been going around making ludicrous statements like this for years in the desert or wherever he hangs out when he's at home but it wasn't in August when the news media are desperate for something to fill the miles of column inches and volumes of dead air that hang inexorably over editors' heads at this time of the year.
And in the desert, the crypto-racists aren't around to hear and to regurgitate, twisting the message to suit their own ends - not that this message needed much twisting, really.
The German bloke who was over here recently, and the rest of Europe, should have taken a line from S. Fornacari Esq and invited the Colonel to go and make a hole or however it is that the immortal line translates, but instead they all went and skirted cravenly round and round, giving Gaddafi a level of seriousness that he certainly did not warrant.
Such was the depth to which the stupid remark dragged everyone that even the AD, normally so careful to be perfectly correct, slipped into totally unconscious racism when they invited Europe's governments to remind Gaddafi that in civilised countries, things aren't done that way. Yes, we know that, but did they really have to brand Libya as uncivilised? I know that's not what they meant, but the silly season hits us all.