I become daily more impressed by Google’s ability to supply me with the information I require even when I give the search engine very little to go on. For example, this morning all I typed in was,“Narcissistic pillock avoids deportation to the USA” and Google came up immediately with a full account of the case of Lauri Love who is accused of hacking into the US Federal Reserve, the army, the Defence Department, NASA and the FBI.

The court decided that Love should not be sent to the US for trial because he suffers from Asperger’s disease, exhibits psychotic episodes, has eczema and gets depressed. Love’s lawyers claimed he would find having to face trial in the US “oppressive.” But the judge insisted that the Crown Prosecution Service should do all in its power to ensure Love is tried in Britain.

I cannot find the correct (and polite) words to describe Lauri Love. Is he a cyber-terrorist? A spy? A pestilential meddler and a bloody nuisance? I would say all of these and more besides. But his main claim to fame or pathology – they seem to be the same thing these days – is as one monstrously self-regarding and the champion of champions when it comes to virtue-signalling.

“Flanked” – as the newspapers say – by his parents, girlfriend and supporters chanting his name…

Good grief – this ego-tripping nutter has a girlfriend! He even has parents!

…Anyhow, “flanked” Love – shouldn’t that be double-barrelled as in “Self-Love”? And he might consider changing his first name from Lauri to Upmyself…

…Anyhow, he addressed the world: “The reason I’ve gone through this ordeal is not just to save myself from being kidnapped and locked up for 99 years in a country I’ve never understood, but to set a precedent whereby this will not happen to other people in the future, and that if there is suspected criminality it will be tried here in the UK and America will not try to exercise its extraterritorial jurisdiction. We’re hopeful that other people may be able to rely on this verdict to ensure they are treated more humanely by the justice system.”

Upmyself Self-Love’s choice of words is illuminating: “The reason I’ve gone through this ordeal…”

Spoken like the true self-declared martyr he is. Let me translate. He should have said, “The reason I’ve been through this fair and fairly conducted legal process is because I have been accused of committing some very serious crimes.”

He goes on: “…not just to save myself from being kidnapped…”

There was never the prospect of his kidnap. He would, had the court so decided, have been transported humanely to the US to face his accusers.

“Locked up for 99 years.”  How does he know? Is that a guilty plea then?

“A country I’ve never understood.”

Were all your hacking exploits merely innocent attempts to understand the USA then? You might have tried visiting the US Tourist Information Office first, as normal people do.

The unavoidable impression give by Mr Upmyself making that triumphant speech of self-glorification, “flanked” by his girlfriend and his parents, is of a tedious fanatic disconnected from the ordinary world of daily experience and living inside his own head.

What a bloody awful place to be!