Colonel Mustard

Here in Herault it is calm and balmy. I think a gentle zephyr may have sussurated my lemon tree, but the occasional cool breeze helps to dissipate the heat of the afternoon. Har Har.

You are probably too late to spray now. You should have done this about a month ago. Everything earlier than in England!

I live in Herault and mine came down this morning. Tally Ho!

I was diagnosed with prostate cancer in December and have just had the prostate removed. The PSA test is not infallible, and a single test is of little use - your doctor needs some "history", to see the rate of change. Prostate cancer, like breast cancer, is a hormone-driven cancer. Incidentally, my GP said he didn't go up the Khyber Pass often enough to do the test with confidence, and sent me to a  urologist - just as well, as it happened. First class treatment from the French health service. And I can now give up eating bloody tomatoes.

Recent research has discovered that Napoleon was not poisoned by the British, as the French have always claimed. He did have high levels of arsenic in his body, but it was the accumulation of decades, and, according to the researchers, could have come from "the smoke from wood fires." Now the memsahib and myself enjoy a good blaze from an open fire. Are we poisoning ourselves? Any toxicologists out there? Joke: Did you hear about the man who poisoned his wife with a razor? He gave her arsenic.

"Sadly, we've looked at things very carefully this year, and decided it can't take place," said the current Dean, and race organiser, the Very Reverend Keith Jukes. "The big reason is health and safety. Any organisation which runs an event like this has to go through a number of risk assessments." Ron, are you doubting the word of a Man of the Cloth - not just Reverend, but Very Reverend? Next thing you'll be desecrating the Queen Mother's grave.

Ron, can't a chap have a rant without someone spoiling it with facts? I bet when your missus asks "Is the kettle boiling?" you say, "No, it's the water in it that's boiling."

I have just come back from town, where the kids were having a jolly time celebrating Mardi Gras. They painted their faces, threw petards, sprayed passers-by with gunge (who, expecting this, wore filthy clothes) and a good time was had by all. Then I read that a centuries-old pancake race in Ripon has been cancelled because of elf and safety fears. If I were Supreme Evil Overlord of the UK I would start by putting all the H & S officers on a desert island where they could do 24/7 risk analyses of one another, and the rest of us could get on with our lives. Then I would move on to Ofsted inspectors, caravan owners, dog owners (sorry, Christine A.), and those assistants in Boots who give you the Spanish Inquisition when you want to buy a bottle of aspirins. That'll do to be going on with.

"Labour Friends of Israel", I suppose is being referred to here. Are there "Conservative Friends of Israel", "Lib Dem Friends of Israel," etc etc? Do you suppose there are "Monster Raving Loony Friends of Israel"? What on earth is all this about?

I have been watching a programme where a Biggles-like young man called Ben Fogle chooses people to go off to the ends of the earth. When they are not chosen they blubber. When they are chosen they blubber. One longs for a bit of stiff upper lip. Are there any left in Britain?

Will, is treating other people properly, regardless of the colour of their skin -or their gender - "political correctness"?

Why "ersatz middle englanders", Gluestick? These people are the genuine article. They live behind net curtains in places like Paignton and Godalming; they have valances on their beds, pelmets around their curtains and doilies on their coffee tables. They drive a Toyota Aventis which they spend Sunday mornings washing, they have labradors which slobber all over you, they have firm opinions on black people and brown people, (preferring both kinds to the French, whom they consider unspeakable), they believe Mrs Thatcher put the "Great" back into Great Britain, and they read the Daily Mail. Who would have them otherwise?

I have some blutack you can have. I got a great wodge of it from a slice of carrot cake I was served in a vegetarian cafe in Totnes. I said to the waitress "Excuse me, I found this in my cake" and she said "Oh, that's where it went." I think the French for that is insouciance.

Level 11. It fell over itself praising me.

The British carried out a massacre at Amritsar in the 1920s and the Americans at My Lai in the 1960s. Inhumanity can wear any uniform.