The ice-man cometh . . .and all that

Power and the sources of power, and the people who wield it, fascinate me. Yet I find the Wikileaks saga, with its cool blonde condom-hating front man, Julian Assange,  an example of a rather spurious type of so-called power - in fact, there's something vaguely  comical about the whole thing.

The organisation is murky in the extreme, the cast of characters are, to put it mildly, unusual in their life styles and behaviour, and it is never obvious who is briefing who, lying or telling the truth, pushing a hidden agenda or simply fantasizing and making some of it up as they go along.  It's a beautifully complex story and God alone knows who and what is at the back of it because for the life of me I can't see anything that tells me who is funding it, and what the overall agenda is.

As Wikileakileaks.org says, Wikileaks' tagline is 'We open governments' yet the organisation itself is about as open as North Korea.

Assange's admirers seem to particularly love him because he's sticking one to the good old US of A.  Yeah, right.  He doesn't seem to like condoms either - though he says himself that women have been very generous to him.  Seems it's not just gentlemen who prefer blondes.

He has a certain star quality, he's photogenic - and, though I hate to use that cliched word, face to face he probably has charisma. My goodness, I'll be saying he's got the X-factor next. Time to move on and ask what he's actually done.

Amid all this fuss and uproar, what has Wikileaks really achieved?   As far as I can see, nothing has been leaked that  most people interested in current affairs didn't already know, or suspect.  So the Saudis have been urging the US to bomb the hell out of Iran?  Come on, is anyone really suprised that having Ahmadinejad as a near neighbour on the other side of the Persian Gulf makes the Saudis nervous?

Where did it all this begin? Maybe I'll take a look at the history of it in the New Year.