NOEL EDMONDS... THE WILDERNESS YEARS

Probably the most surreal moment in the vortex of craziness which was this year’s Celebrity Big Brother was the fleeting friendship between fellow tabloid pariahs George Galloway and Michael Barrymore. At one point the maverick MP even expressed his sincere hope that the embattled TV legend would ‘dazzle’ in the house and subsequently be restored to his rightful position as king of light entertainment. The odds on this happening seemed pretty remote at the time, and still do. But given the news this week that Noel Edmonds is once again to become the highest paid presenter on television, perhaps the prospects of a Barrymore comeback aren't as far-fetched as we might have hoped...

Since the Beeb called time on Noel’s House Party six years ago its eponymous star has shown all the classic signs of a post-career breakdown , retreating from the media spotlight except to take occasional exasperated pot-shots at the government over fringe issues such as wind farms and fox hunting. But now he's back, fronting Channel 4's pointless but infuriatingly addictive gameshow 'Deal or No Deal?' and pushing facial hair fashion back two decades...

Personally, I can't say I'm exactly enthralled by the prospect of Noel's Lazarus-style career renaissance... During his initial reign of terror in the late 80's/early 90's he was to TV what Phil Collins was to music - irksome, reactionary, ubiquitous . His brand of juvenile light entertainment might seem rather quaint and anachronistic now (Mr Blobby, Telly Addicts, gunge tanks, freak helicopter accidents) but at the time seemed to represent the worst aspects of Thatcherite lowbrow hegemony.

Anyway, the only reason I'm really bothering to mention this at all is that Noel and myself do share a tenuous connection, both being former pupils of Brentwood School in Essex. Other slightly unappetising alumni include Holocaust denier David Irving (who was actually invited back to speak!), Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, Britart irritant Keith Allen and the entertainingly unhinged Jodie Marsh who, word has it, doesn't hold particularly fond memories of the place...

SINGAPORE'S INFAMOUS MERLION

This imposing beast is the Merlion, Singapore's semi-official national symbol, a freak of nature which boasts the head of a lion and the body of a fish. As faintly ludicrous as this mythical hybrid might sound (calling to mind Napoleon Dynamite's definition of a liger: "It's pretty much my favorite animal. It's like a lion and a tiger mixed... bred for its skills in magic") the story behind its creation is mildly amusing.

Concerned by the lack of authentic nationalist mythology, the Singapore Tourism Board contrived instead to invent their own, commissioning designer Fraser Brunner to build the original Merlion statue in 1964. Tourism brochures of the time peddled some spurious yarn about the legendary Sang Nila Utama, who saw a lion while hunting on an island believed to have been Singapore.

Unfazed by the widespread derision which greeted the Merlion for its perceived artificiality, the Tourism Board persisted with the project, even enlisting unofficial poet laureate Edwin Thumboo to immortalize the Merlion in one of his poems. Employing the Merlion as a laboured allegory for Singapore's post-war economic miracle, his verse is stirring stuff indeed . Below is an abridged version of the meisterwerk:

'Ulysees by the Merlion'

I have sailed many waters,
Skirted islands of fire,
Contended with Circe
Who loved the squeal of pigs;
Passed Scylla and Charybdis
To seven years with Calypso,
Heaved in battle against the gods.

But this lion of the sea
Salt-maned, scaly, wondrous of tail,
Touched with power, insistent
On this brief promontory... Puzzles

Nothing, nothing in my days
Foreshadowed this
Half-beast, half-fish,
This powerful creature of land and sea

Perhaps having dealt in things,
Surfeited on them,
Their spirits yearn again for images,
Adding to the dragon, phoenix,
Garuda, naga those horses of the sun,
This lion of the sea,
This image of themselves.