Scotland? It will end in tears - or worse

I REFERRED recently to my forthcoming bestseller. A reader asks, what's that all about, then? The novel is in its early stages. It concerns a handsome young man who can eat all the pasties, rock cakes and sausage rolls he fancies but remains slim and elegant. In his attic, however, is an oil painting of him which grows fatter with every mouthful he takes. My book is called The Picture of Dorian Greggs.

SMOKING is the stupidest thing you can do. It makes you ill, shortens your life and steals your money. So why do so many Brits still smoke? Because the habit is as powerful as heroin. It is a compulsive chemical addiction which non-smokers simply do not understand. And while the NHS should try to help people quit, the very worst time to take away someone's fags is when they are in hospital. At a time of fear and stress people need their comforts, even if the comfort in question is slowly killing them. The NHS is trying to root out inconsiderate and unkind nursing, but yesterday's proposal for a smoking ban inside and outside English hospitals would be plain cruel.

OVER the past dozen years, in the quest to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban and create a decent society, more than 3,300 Nato troops, including 446 Brits, have been killed and thousands more maimed for life. This week it is announced that Afghanistan's justice ministry wants to introduce public stoning to death as the penalty for adultery. Makes it all worthwhile, doesn't it?

I WROTE recently that the disgraced banker Paul Flowers looked like Father Christmas. Actually, he's a dead ringer for that gay old rogue, Uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths) in the 1987 film Withnail and I.

THIS Scotland business is going to end in tears, or worse. This week's publication of the independence White Paper saw mutual sneering from the rival camps and there is no way that next year's referendum can bring a happy end. If the independence vote is lost by a 40:60 poll, as seems likely from the latest polls, some two million angry Scots will feel cheated of freedom. They will not surrender meekly and, as they regroup for the next foray, who knows what their lunatic fringe will do? In history, most secessionist movements eventually turn to violence. If the independence vote is won by a narrow margin, which is unlikely but possible, how might almost half the Scottish population react to being told they must become citizens of a foreign country, outside the UK? So far we have seen the sweat and tears of this campaign. I genuinely fear that blood will follow.

THE Government machine is deploying all its energy to drive through the £42 billion (£70 billion? £100 billion?) HS2 against the wishes of most Britons. This week, in a shameless exercise of bureaucratic power, it produced its HS2 Bill, a 50,000-page dossier. In the 60-day "consultation period," objectors are expected to read nearly 1,000 pages a day to digest this proposal in full. I am reminded of the golden age of East End gangsters. They would bury their opponents under tons of concrete in the pillars of motorway bridges. These days, Whitehall buries its opponents under words, words, words.

"I DON'T even know who Morrissey is," Judge Ann Sawetz told a court in Camberwell when some typically bleak lines by the former Smiths singer were quoted. And why should she? Musical knowledge is a generational thing. A team on University Challenge (BBC2) on Monday were well up to speed on 1990s pop music but were almost stumped by the identity of a ukulele-strumming singer describing his Little Stick of Blackpool Rock. A Mr Formby, apparently.