John Edwards: Who the fuck is this nutter?

John Edwards. Don't be fooled by the suit - it's photoshopped in, probably.

Seriously! Howcome I've never read John Edwards before? He's fantastic! Did they recruit him by sending scouts out on buses and tubes to find the craziest sounding drunken nutter? He must have left winners and sinners man well and truly in the dust! I even find it hard to read his column because I keep expecting him to thrust his smelly hand out at me and demand loose change.

His nonsense rambling in 'Speak English? Now it's just a Korea move' (Geddit? Korea - it's a country, but it sounds like career!) is a masterclass in how to write like a ranting madman with a tenuous grip on reality. It's a sight to behold! It starts:

That wasn't Kate Middleton who brought a wave of paparazzi crashing into the top end of Kensington High Street yesterday morning.

It was a tip-off somebody had been heard speaking English. Right out in the open as well, unafraid and to hell with anyone who didn't like it. Just like the old days were coming back.

Laugh? I nearly did! Why am I reminded of being asked if it was 'spot the white man' at my school twenty years ago? Twenty! Can't these silly old sods get a new joke? It carries on:

Only the pavement-blocking swarms of people talking 30 different ways, and most of them sounding as if they had just invented it over a coffee and an onion bhaji.

Nope, it appears not. Stick in a 'hilarious' reference to foreign food and you'll have them rolling in the aisles. Just ask Jade Goody.

From here, we can tell what it's going to be about. That's right - a bunch of lies and exaggerations about people not being able to speak English in London. Never seen that in the Mail before, eh? There are cracking ones like:

Go around central London any time and check out how English is dying as the first language of choice.

Is he a lying bastard, delusional, or suffering the DTs? Difficult to say. I can say for sure that he's talking complete big fat arse, since I've lived in London all my life and can, you know, see and hear. Still:

Even the big banks are going to have branches where English will be number two. They are going to do business in Polish and Russian.

You lying get. The big banks will have branches where Polish and Russian are number two and English is number one. More:

Now there was a cab coming to the kerb in the High Street in answer to a crowd who waved down everything that passed. The address they wanted was printed on the back of a hotel business card.

The hotel name, in Russian, was on the other side. This is how the British and Americans got by in Japan years ago.

Aman had his name and how to pronounce it printed on one side, and his address in English was under that. You never had a conversation with a cab driver. Not even a 'hello'. Show him the card. That was all. It's happening in London right now.

Eh? He's going to say more in a minute, isn't he? Like 'AaahyafuzzawozzawurgahCUNT!' Seriously mate, I haven't got any change.

The cab driver on Ken High Street checked the address. All the people, Russians for sure, settled back in the taxi in a mound of M&S shopping bags, which made this group tourists. Thousands of others are coming to stay.

What people? Oh, the ones in your fantasy story about paparazzi turning up to snap someone speaking in English. This has gone all weird. I'm a bit frightened.

English is a basket case, nobody wants it any more, Steve Brent, director, International House, was told on his doorstep in Piccadilly.

Yeah, by you. Swinging a bottle of White Lightning about while he nervously edged the door gradually closed.

"Why do you say that?" he said.

Well, walk 100 yards in both directions and you'll get 50p for everyone you hear speaking it.

"How much do you think I'll win?"

Not enough for two lagers.

The subs have clearly been at work here. The original was obviously 'Got enough for two lagers?'
A bit later:

Some raspberry growers up there have troupes of blonde Polish girls who are a pleasure to watch working in the sun.

Seriously, this is nuts. I just fired off a comment saying 'Is this man mad?' to the Mail site. I don't think it'll get published.

Its work was with such as this fellow from Brazil - Pedro Moreira was his name - and he was a leading player in the biggest TV soap opera put out in that lovely country.

He said, in a break from learning English, that as an actor he cried when he saw so many famous theatres side by side in the West End.

What fellow from Brazil? Are we still on the doorstep or standing by the imaginary roadside in Kensington or has he rambled off on to something else?

Also in his class was Reza Zakeri from Iran, who was learning English up to British university degree standard and never once gave the impression he would ever see his homeland again. From an airliner maybe, no closer.

"When I have proper English, so many opportunities will become open to me," is what he was thinking about.

How do you know what he was thinking about? What class? You've lost me.

These were the kind of people who were exceptions, though, Steve Brent was told. English would always be a foreign language for the vast majority of people pouring in.

It is fading away in Slough.

Oh, Slough. Of course. Slough. I mean it though, I'm out of change, sorry. Where the fuck did Slough come from?

"Where do you think most people wanting to learn English come from?" was his question.

Your guess was Russia. Not even close. Korea, Steve told you. Numbers two and three were Japan and Italy. Then came Iran, which didn't have a single student ten years ago. After that, Saudi and the United Arab Emirates. Spain, Germany and Brazil were equal next.

English was always going to be safe at a high level.

It wasn't going to help down among the masses. They would never want to learn. There is no category for those people, someone from another busy language school was told.

What, by you, on their doorstep? Did they have enough for two lagers?

Oh, but there was, he said. They were the 'grunt and nods'.

As opposed to you, the drunken sod.

Madness.