birthday bashing (with a handbag?)

I missed his debut in the Guardian.

But not his birthday, er, "tribute"(?) to Margaret Thatcher: "I hate Thatcher at 80 even more viscerally".  The laudatory vitriol includes:

You want my real thoughts on Thatch? Unprintable. Suffice it to say my principal concern as she shuffles towards the grave is how best we can dispose of her body, to avoid it contaminating the earth for 10,000 years. Maybe they'd have it in Australia, with our nuclear waste.

But you'd have to be stupid, or perverse, to deny the evil old bag got a couple of things right. Anyone would, given 11 years.

I liked Maggie Thatcher when she took over.  Although living in Ireland, I grew up conscious of the Labour Party in the UK.  But by the end of her reign, I had been in the US too long and was too far removed from the damage she did.

Having been amused by the birthday bashing, I wondered who Norman Johnston is.  Googled the name, of course.  With apologies to them, there are too many "Norman Johnston's" in the world.  And then this: Norman Johnston is a spoof (or two).  Or something more complicated and cutting.