THE BBC's venerable Newsnight programme has coughed up its fair share of car crash interviews over the years, from Jeremy Paxman's ill-tempered grilling of Michael Howard to his bizarre chinwag with grime artist Dizzy Rascal following Barack Obama's election to, well, anything which featured Russell Brand and/or Peter Hitchens.

These were all sit-down interviews. On Wednesday, Newsnight presenter Emily Maitlis did a stand-up version but it was every bit as car-crashy (is that a word?) as anything Paxman ever managed, and is equally deserving of its place in the pantheon.

Her interviewee was a man known as “the Mooch” – or, more properly, Anthony Scaramucci, Donald Trump's new White House press secretary. The Mooch, who looks and acts a lot like Joey from Friends, has recently taken over from Sean Spicer, who was tired of being laughed at by the entire world but in particular the writers of comedy programme Saturday Night Live.

The Mooch is a different kettle of snakes entirely, as he showed in an interview with Maitlis in which he continually touched her hand, appeared to give her the old up-and-down once-over and even accused her of being elitist. This was rich – and I use that word advisedly – coming from a man who spent seven years at Goldman Sachs, later founded his own $12 billion global investment firm, and is a member of the World Economic Forum which, as everyone knows, runs the world from a bunker in Davos, Switzerland. “What are you talking about?” was Maitlis's measured (and very reasonable) response.

Predictably, Twitter exploded in all directions at once. Like at the beginning of the universe, or when a water balloon hits a patio at a kids' party. “Kudos to @maitlis for not swearing at this sexist, mansplaining, aggressive, arrogant specimen. The ultimate professional,” wrote one outraged viewer. “This is painful to watch,” said another (she was right. It was). “Scaramucci channelling Joe Pesci playing a 2nd hand cars salesman with issues over invading personal space,” wrote a third, whose Twitter name turned out to be Peter Mannion MP (don't get excited: it's the name of Roger Allam's character in political satire The Thick Of It).

Maitlis was indeed brilliant, and even tweeted a dignified post-interview thank you to the Mooch for taking time out to talk to the Beeb. I don't imagine the online community of GIF-generators, screen-grabbers and meme-makers will be quite so magnanimous.

Where there's mud ...

DID you know you can buy such a thing as mud powder? More to the point, does the Scottish Government know? Now that the price of oil has tanked we should be looking to diversify, and mud is a natural product which Scotland has in abundance so there's no reason we shouldn't be producing the stuff by the tonne in powder form and exporting it to, say, Rotorua in New Zealand's North Island, whose local rock festival is in the market for some.

The festival is called Mudtopia, it bills itself as “an adventure land of muddy madness, music and mayhem” and it takes place in December, which is as close to mid-summer as you can get in New Zealand. Mudtopia's stage area has a specially-designed mud mosh pit and among the other attractions is the Mud Run, “an epic 2km purpose built course rammed with mud obstacles to challenge and enjoy”. And so they need mud powder – five tonnes of it, in fact. The thing is, they're importing it from South Korea at a cost of a little over £50,000 and, predictably, the response in New Zealand to this controversial use of taxpayers' money has been less than enthusiastic.

What do you add to mud powder to make it into mud? Rain, of course. And that's the strangest part, because I've been to Rotorua in mid-summer and it rained so hard and that rain turned the ground so muddy that I simply walked away and left the water-logged tent I'd been camping in. That was 25 years ago, but for all I know it's still there.

It's a point which isn't lost on Rotorua councillor Trevor Maxwell. “I know there's a perception that Rotorua has enough mud,” he told the New Zealand Herald. “But you can't just pull any old mud out of the ground and throw it at people.”

Not in New Zealand, anyway.

Miraging the facts

ANYONE who has ever been lost in a desert will know all about mirages. Anyone who hasn't but who has seen Abbot And Costello In The Foreign Legion will have experienced one vicariously. In the 1950 comic caper, which seems to have been a staple of my summer holiday viewing as a kid, Bud (or is it Lou?) spies a New York newsboy selling papers. More typically, thirsty wanderers see a drinking hole marked by a palm tree and a couple of camels. Or a cocktail bar. Or, if they're really far gone, a dew-frosted Irn Bru vending machine that actually gives change.

For lost and weary traveller Jade Thirlwall, one quarter of all-female pop pantechnicon Little Mix, the image which swam into view was … a branch of Greggs. Admittedly she wasn't in the desert at the time – she's currently touring Australia and New Zealand – but what the heart desires, the mind constructs and this was a mirage by any other name.

“My jet lagged greedy ass thought this was a Greggs for a split second,” tweeted the South Shields-born star, alongside a picture of what looks at first glance like the high street bakers' familiar (to me, anyway) yellow, white and blue signage. It is, in fact, the entrance to a car park. An easy mistake to make, though, right?

A fishy story

I DON'T remember "mermaid" ever being an option when I had my one and only brush with a careers officer in the 1980s, though back in those more gender-rigid times I suppose it would have had to have been merman for me. Either way, there definitely wasn't a leaflet about it. I would have remembered.

Things are different today, as 22-year-old Edinburgher Rebecca Latto has proved. Her life took a turn for the aquatic when she saw an advert for a mermaid camp and signed up. “At the camp I learnt skills that will help me as a professional mermaid such as how to swim in a mermaid tail and safely hold my breath underwater,” she told her local newspaper. “It was a great experience and it made me realise that becoming a professional mermaid was an option.”

In fact she proved so good at mermaiding that she has been chosen to take part in Miss Mermaid UK. If she wins that, her next port of call is Egypt where Miss Mermaid International will take place in November.

“People are initially taken aback when I tell them what I am doing,” she added. “They don’t really understand at first. When it comes to mermaids, they think of Ariel from Little Mermaid.”

I don't, actually. Never having seen The Little Mermaid, I'm afraid I still think of Daryl Hannah in Splash. Still, I take the point.