We had a saying at work, usually applied to a particularly scurrilous piece of information, that if it’s not true now it will be in six weeks time.  (Followed by “Lets publish it anyway”)  In that spirit and to get my loyal follower(s) a chance to get ahead of the masses I give you my insider tips on upcoming changes to the law, smuggled out of Downing Street by my pal at the Despatch Box.

I have had reason to do a lot of motorway driving in the last week and I was a little surprised to see that what I had imagined was embargoed information was already widely known.  It will soon, possibly within days, be required to tail-gate other vehicles.  The upside of this is that it reminds dozy drivers who go at the speed indicated by the illuminated signs that they should stop irritating other road users, sharpen up and put their feet down. This has been the preferred option of the forward looking British for many years but is henceforth compulsory.

In fact, many of the legal updates do relate to road usage.  Lorries MUST in future travel side by side at no more than 30mph, whatever the speed limit.  There will have to be an exemption for them from the tail-gating rules but only on busy motorways. On other roads they will stay at a maximum, maximum 2 metres behind the car in front.

As soon as the manpower is available all those signs saying “Stay in lane” will be altered to “Change lane as often as humanly possible” – again a practice which is already widespread.  Any use of the indicator prior to moving will be, I hope it goes without saying, strictly verboten.  There is, it seems, a move to omit them in new vehicles as superfluous, like the man with the red flag walking in front.

Some of you, a very few, may have noticed occasional road signs indicating that a lane ahead is closed.  Complicated though this is, you must get your head round that in this instance you DO NOT change lanes, however much opportunity there is to do so, until absolutely the last minute, causing huge tailbacks and enraging drivers who foolishly moved over earlier. Ignorers will face hefty fines.

There is concern that all these alterations will result in chaos but have a little faith.  Look how quickly the public embraced the idea that it is illegal to leave home without a mobile phone and one’s eyes should only leave the screen in exceptional circumstances.  Like ducks to water!  Early adopters have moved on to applying the same rules whenever their car is paused at traffic lights.  A fine opportunity to check and send vital texts and pictures of your breakfast and a cause for congratulation from other drivers who sound their horns in salute as the lights turn red yet again.

Of course time wasting is a cardinal sin in our busy world so the plan is to rush these changes through Parliament without too much debate.  God knows they already have the wholehearted support of the general public, those stalwarts who stop dead at the top of escalators, can’t find their wallet at the checkout and only after boarding a bus following a 30 minute wait realise that the driver will need to see their ticket.

This is not change, people, with its negative connotations; this is improvement.  Let us join hands and move confidently into our glorious future. It’s the law.

… but unfortunately you only die once which is a shame because according to what I see in the newspapers I should be dying of something different every single day and I don’t even read the Daily Mail.  What a bitter blow it will be to science when I succumb to only one cause.

The brighter amongst you will have deduced that the target for this week’s wrath are scientists and to a lesser, but still meaningful extent,  the media that give them the oxygen of publicity.  Obviously all journalists are terminally idle or they would have proper jobs but even they shouldn’t stoop to filling their empty pages with alarmist nonsense gleaned from people in leather-patched jackets and ‘amusing’ kipper ties who should be put firmly back in the laboratory cupboard.  (Except on particularly slow days in, say,  August.  I’m not entirely without feelings.)

They are crying wolf and anyone who has read about the boy who did that knows that in fairly short order people will stop believing anything they say.  After all, and I am going to be a bit stern here, you test tube folk  have been wrong before.

Was it only weeks ago that we were told not to drink more than two glasses of alcohol a day?  Then we were told as a fact to drink as much red wine as we could force down,  (Hardly a challenge but one particular piece of advice that I did choose to follow.) followed practically the next day by a statement that every single glass of wine will shorten you life by months, possibly years.

Readers, this is nonsense.  Complete and utter piffle.  Fake news and, drum roll please, I can prove it.  Yesterday I had lunch with 14 lovely ladies all of whom had worked for many years for a well known news organisation and drunk like the proverbial fishes.  And were they dead?  No, members of the jury, they were not.  Not even one of them.  The oldest amongst us was approaching 80 and if, God forbid, she had dropped dead at the table it could hardly have been labelled a tragically premature passing.  If there was the smallest grain of truth in what Dr Doom was saying we would all have shuffled off at age 14.  Or something.  Maths, like so much else, is not my forte.

So in the interests of accuracy, another new line for me, I want you to take part in an experiment.  Everyone is to consume at least one alcoholic beverage a day for the next week, and let us just see how many have died by the end of it.  I venture the answer will be none.  Now where’s my Nobel prize?  And drink?

 

 

I might have mentioned my deep dislike of the Easter season once or twice before (17 Times actually. Ed) and this year was well on course to repeat the pattern of every other one  – cold, wet, miserable and a week of weight gain and nausea to follow after consuming a few tiny bites of consolation chocolate.  On the plus side, as every writer knows,  bad news means good copy and I had a piece prepared that Mrs May could have used to reduce Mr Putin to tears, containing enough vitriol to strip your lamb-roasting tin clean in minutes.

Although the overall weather prediction, courtesy of the Daily Express, was for snow and rain on an apocalyptic scale, Good Friday dawned dry and bright.  Relatively.  This being the traditional day to get your pre-chitted  first earlies in (And, yet again, look it up!) I took myself off to the allotment and managed to do so before the first drops fell.  And mulch the asparagus with freshly harvested seaweed, tie in the raspberries and plant out the broad beans.  Aware from childhood of the need to eat hot cross buns or DIE, and mindful of my maternal duties, I had the following text exchange with Useless the Younger.

Me: Did you eat a hot cross bun yet?  You’d better not forget.

UTY: Ma.  I’ve been hanging from a crucifix all day!  No time for buns.

Me: Don’t argue with your mother, Jesus.  Eat the damn bun.

In the afternoon an old chum popped round for four hours of putting the world to rights and some dressmaking.  It was like being in one of the better chapters of Little Women. (Her Meg, me Jo.  Obviously) There was cake.

On Sunday I had a lunch party with an international flavour – French champagne and New Zealand lamb, followed by a Russian pudding – and the guests made the UN look parochial. Naturally we started with an Easter egg hunt (Not raining. For the second time this year.) and it’s a sorry comment on adults that even in my tiny garden it took them HOURS to find them, although in defence of the ladies I did catch one of the gentlemen hiding pink eggs in his pockets to give his team a shot at winning. On reflection I should just have put the blue eggs in socks then they’d never, ever have seen them.

It has been a week of revelations.  Boots the Chemist has started to sell Viagra without a prescription just before the Resurrection. Masterly marketing or what? The Pope has abolished Hell. And I’ve had a lovely Easter.

Whatever next?