Caught In The Net: Painters and dictators

He may have been an evil, murdering tyrant but Saddam Hussein was a genius at picking out wallpaper.
Described by that other paragon of understated good taste, Julie Burchill, as "wildly original and savagely entertaining", Dictators’ Homes also lets you have a gawp at Hitler’s parquet floor, Mussolini’s inglenook fireplace and General Noriega’s Christmas decorations.
Doing his best Lloyd Grossman impression is Peter York, the English penslinger whose previous claim to fame was coming up with the phrase "Sloane Rangers".
You can pre-order this fascinating 160-page coffee-table tome from www.amazon.co.uk.
Meanwhile, there’s bad news for Burmese despot Than Shwe as he drops to number two in Parade magazine’s annual The World’s 10 Worst Dictators.
Rising six places to claim the top spot is Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese supremo who "has engaged in ethnic and religious persecution since seizing power in a military coup. Sudan has six million internally displaced persons – more than any other nation. Bashir tried to impose Islamic law in a campaign that included aerial bombings of villages and enslavement of women and children."
Caught In The Net is disappointed that our favourite loolah leader Saparmurat Niyazov has stalled at number eight.
In addition to writing a new schools syllabus and renaming one of the days of the week after his mother, the Turkmenistan premier has made it illegal for female newcasters to wear make-up, or men to have beards, long hair or gold teeth. Zero tolerance kind of a guy he is, the penalty for transgressions is public execution. Bertie should follow his lead and make being called Anto or Deko, and wearing tracksuits and wispy moustaches capital offences.
From there it’s but a mere mouse-click to hotzone.yahoo.com where veteran war correspondent Kevin Sites will be posting his blogs as, starting this week, he journeys to 30 of the world’s worst trouble spots.
Reckless but not completely crazy, the American has decided to give Limerick a miss.
Which just leaves time for quick visits to www.surrealcode.com/daisydukedances4you (Make Daisy Duke dance for you); beedogs.com/index_files/page0001.htm (We’re still scratching our heads over this one); and www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1054/1054_01.asp (Fatwa ahoy!).