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David Mitchell is one of the funniest people in Britain today – and very smart with it. His TV projects (Peep Show, Mitchell and Webb) and his now-established role as default panellist for radio and TV panel games (HIGNFY, News Quiz, Would I Lie to You?) have helped to build a comic persona very English in its essentials: self-concious and awkward, but possessing a logic of argument that never fails to reveal the absurdity of whatever he’s dealing with.

Generally, Mitchell’s Observer column is just funny: occasionally it contains some much deeper insights. This week, his column describes why his records collection contains just two titles (Phil Collins But Seriously… and Susan Boyle‘s new album), and he posits a piercing summation of why we buy things:

These purchases… aren’t about taste, they’re about identity. We flatter ourselves that we buy things based on our judgment of quality and price, but that’s a secondary factor. Fundamentally we buy the sort of things that feel appropriate, based on the class we come from, the groups we aspire to be part of, or the opinions we find attractive.

Our purchases are tribal, neo-religious signifiers.

And, for those who haven’t seen it, possibly the best Mitchell and Webb sketch, ever, which deals with tribal signifiers in its own way. (Warning: contains Nazis):

This weekend’s Le Monde has this story covering the Michael Moore-esque “Time to go John“, a series of shorts pulled together by Australian film makers exposing some of the questionable actions of the Howard government.

Interesting to see that a European paper should take notice of political and articistic manouevrings so far from the metropole – if only there was a more active critique in the metropolitan French media of the continuing colonial regime in the Pacific….

The Observer also has a horrifying article giving a glimpse into the extent of the criminal networks abducting and trafficking women and children across eastern Europe. Where is this all heading?

It is ultimately abhorrent that there are people growing rich off the prostitution and abuse of children anywhere in the world. But this is happening on a large scale inside (or at least within spitting distance of) the European Union. Do we actually care? Are we powerless to stop this?