The Religious Policeman

Remember the “Fake Sheikh”, the “Pseudo Saudi”, whom I wrote about earlier? He’s the undercover reporter for the UK’s “News of the World”, who convinced Princess Michael of Kent and England soccer manager Sven-Goran Eriksson, among others, that he was “the real thing”, and got them to come out with all sort of indiscreet comments, which were duly printed to their great embarrassment. Real name Mazher Mahmood, but nobody knew what he looked like. Well, now he has been “outed”.

His nemesis? None other than so-called “Gorgeous George” Galloway, although who finds him gorgeous is a mystery to me, unless, like one participant in “Celebrity Big Brother”, you get particularly excited by a balding overweight Scotsman in a white bathrobe and smelling of Cuban cigars pretending to be a cat and licking milk out of your hand. I can however honestly say that’s never been one of my own particular fantasies, perhaps it's something that comes on with age. (Miaoww!)

George Galloway is not one of my favorites. Although we both share opposition to the Iraq War, that's about as close as we get. Like Hitler and I both liking Wagner. And on the other hand, I do have a sneaking admiration for Mazher. But it seems on this occasion that Mazher was a bit too clumsy and GG a bit too smart.

According to Galloway, Mahmood posed as an Indian businessman and, along with an accomplice, encouraged him to make anti- Semitic comments and take illegal payments for his party, Respect.

GG must be the only leader of a UK political party who has NOT been taking dodgy payments recently; the British press is full of these stories. I myself would give Tony Blair £1 million to become a member of the House of Lords, but I'm allergic to ermine robes. However GG is famous for not receiving payments; as he said in front of the US Senate sub-committee, "Who paid me hundreds of thousands of dollars? The answer to that is nobody and if you had anybody who paid me a penny you would have produced them here today."

The report goes on....

Shortly after the meeting at the Dorchester Hotel, Galloway claimed he knew the men were "imposters" all along — and said he had reported their "criminal behaviour" to the police.
Now Galloway has obtained two pictures of Mahmood. One apparently shows him wearing his trademark "fake sheikh" outfit.The other is a black and white headshot taken, according to Galloway, from a Czech passport in the name of Pervais Khan, allegedly a Mahmood alias.
Galloway circulated the photos at Tuesday's press conference and said he had sent copies to other MPs and "to Her Majesty the Queen's private secretary for distribution throughout the royal household".

That last bit is GG's "little joke", because the Royal Family are the favorite target of the "Fake Sheik" and he is probably not the Queen's favorite journalist, especially when he got Princess Michael of Kent to speculate "on the Queen's mental state as she grows older".

Anyway, GG can't resist a good sound-bite, so he came out with this....

Galloway said: "I call on the News of the World to retire him — it's time for the last sheikhdown".

OK, so it's not that good. Had it been me, I would have done my best Johnny Kidd (of "The Pirates") impression and sung "Sheikh - it's all over!" But then, I'm not GG, and you won't find me on my knees purring and pretending to be a pussy cat. Not on television, anyway.

So, after all that, and after a British High Court injunction that was lifted only two hours ago at 1600 BST, here is...

...ta-daaaa

the "Fake Sheikh"!


Of course, he wouldn't fool a Saudi, or any Arab, for a moment, because he looks distinctly Indian, and nothing like an Arab. And GG has spent a lot of time around Arabs, having shaken hands with Saddam Hussein - Saddam Hussein greeted me with a handshake, which, again to my surprise, is surprisingly soft - but did he lick milk out of it? Anyway that's presumably why Mazher chose an Indian persona this time. But, in spite of his "outing", I think there's still some "Pseudo Saudi" mileage in him yet. There is in the UK a TV program called "Queer eye for a straight guy", in which two fashion-conscious gays do a makeover on a "straight" man, and totally transform him. Well I could do the same thing for Mazher. He'd need to lose about three stone (to get that hollow-faced look), grow a very long and straggly beard, wear a big pair of glasses to focus the attention, lessons in swinging prayer-beads, and I could get him to look like our friend up there in the top right corner.

Not that I'm gay....

Not that there's anything wrong with being gay....

But I would draw the line at Scotsmen licking milk out of my hand....