Silvio, have you learned nothing from John Lennon?

In the Telegraph:

Silvio Berlusconi talked himself into another controversy at the weekend by comparing himself to Jesus Christ.
The Italian prime minister's comments, made at the start of official campaigning for April's general election, prompted the scorn of his political opponents and the wrath of the Catholic Church.
"I am the Jesus Christ of politics," Mr Berlusconi told supporters at a party rally on Saturday. "I am a patient victim, I put up with everyone, I sacrifice myself for everyone."
Marco Rizzo, a communist parliamentarian, called it a "grotesque comparison".
"Silvio Berlusconi has as usual with his usual limited sense compared himself to Jesus Christ," said Giuseppe Giulietti, an opposition Left MP.
"According to information that I have, God the Father and the rest of Jesus's family did not take this very well."
A senior Catholic Church official said: "The Vatican and the Italian government have always had good relations but such a comment from the Italian prime minister is quite extraordinary.
"I know he will say he was speaking in jest but such things should not be spoken of in jest."

Also in the Telegraph, a Jack Vettriano story:

The British public loves Jack Vettriano, snapping up more than a million prints and posters of The Singing Butler, but the self-taught Scottish painter is shunned by the art establishment.
Major museums in London and Edinburgh have refused to acquire his work and the only Vettriano paintings on public view are two pictures in the small art gallery in his home town of Kirkcaldy, Fife.
Now Vettriano and his art dealer, Tom Hewlett, have decided to bypass the museum system and set up their own permanent exhibition of his work, which opens in London today.
Ten of his early works, from the 1990s, will go on show in a non-selling exhibition at Mr Hewlett's Portland Gallery in St James's. They include Welcome to My World, a typically sexually charged work, The Picnic Party, and Winter Light and Lavender, depicting a glamorous woman seated in front of a window. The exhibition, which will be changed every few months, has been made possible by the Portland Gallery's move from its previous cramped premises to a much larger space.