Treat Sherlock as you would a fine piece of lace

LOOK on the bright side, if you don't happen to be knee-deep in water on a flood plain or living on the prom at Aberystwyth, you have so far enjoyed a remarkably mild winter. You are using less gas and electricity than last year, the roads are not icy, the garden birds are thriving and the reservoirs are reassuringly full. With a little luck we might get away without a proper winter at all.

NICK Robinson, political editor at the BBC, has lambasted the corporation for its past failure to allow a proper debate on mass immigration. He is right to condemn his bosses. But he's wrong to suggest all is now well and that the BBC is doing the job properly. You may have noticed that the BBC (and its soulmate the Guardian, naturally), sent their reporters to Romania and Bulgaria seemingly with specific instructions to find people who are not planning to migrate to Britain. Coming soon – exclusive BBC interviews about people who did not get wet in the floods and trees which did not blow over.

SOME months ago a reader described how she came home from her first term at university to discover her mother had burned her bed in the back garden. Another reader tells a stranger tale. He came home to find his parents had moved house. He tracked them down in a couple of hours and asked why no-one had informed him. His father said gruffly: "We told everyone who mattered." Character-forming, I dare say.

FORGET the implausible plots, impossible stunts and impenetrable conspiracies. Enjoy Sherlock (BBC1) as you would enjoy a fine piece of lace. Brilliantly conceived, beautifully fashioned - and full of holes.

THE recurring hole is Sherlock's sidekick John Watson (Martin Freeman) who is allegedly a recently retired army officer. Yet he salutes people while wearing civilian clothes, as no British soldier would do, and claims to have served with the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, a Territorial battalion of a regiment which was wound up in 1968. You'd think Sherlock would have rumbled this imposter by now.

HATS off to a vegan couple, Alan Murray, 68, and 64-year-old Janette Murray-Wakelin, who have just finished running a 26-mile marathon in Australia every day for a whole year. Their 10,000-mile feat proves you don't need animal protein to be fit and strong. But, by golly, you do need a certain fondness for bananas. Between them, this couple devoured 60 bananas a day, plus fruit smoothies, vegetable juice and salads. Imagine that. Imagine waking every morning and knowing that by the end of the day you will have eaten the equivalent of a bathful of vegetables and 30 bananas, and that tomorrow will bring another 30 bananas, and the next day another 30 bananas, and that by the end of a year you will have ingested 10,950 bananas, and that if you followed this diet from birth to the grave, you would have digested 876,000 bloody bananas. If you are what you eat, would you worry about turning slightly yellow and developing a bend?

THE Banana Couple claim fruit is the answer to a long and healthy life. Over the years I can recall many interviews with people reaching 100. Some put their longevity down to total abstinence, others attribute it to chocolate or whisky. But I can't recall a single centenarian who put it down to being a vegan or a veggie.

MY local DIY shop was charging £34 for a big tin of ceiling paint so I bought it online – a snip at £22.45. Except that shipping and handling came to £5.95 and the price didn't include Vat at £5.68. So my £22.45 tin of paint is actually £34.08. Moral for internet shopping: Read the small print and don't buy heavy objects.