Watch out for the comeback in war on sugar

OUT of the freezing fog in front of me looms a shopper. He is wearing shorts. He is part of that new breed of Brits who see cold weather as a personal challenge, to be defied by exposing acres of blotchy, blue flesh. Where are the thermal vests, long johns, woolly shirts, cardigans, quilted liners and overcoats of yore? Where, for that matter, are brains?

FRED Pring died of heart failure in his north Wales home. An inquest heard this week how his wife made frantic 999 calls but paramedics nearby were on "mandatory and undisturbable" rest breaks. When did a patient's life become less important than a paramedic's tea and buns?

YOU ain't seen nothing yet. Scientists have declared war on sugar, blaming it for an epidemic of diabetes and obesity. Now watch out for the counter-attack by the vast, international and well-funded sugar industry. Back in the 1960s American sugar producers faced a similar threat, from artificial sweeteners. Their advertising riposte was slick and persuasive. The message they hammered home was that sugar was essential for energy and that any alternative was "energyless." Deny your kids sugar and you're denying them energy - so you're a bad parent. As this battle heats up, watch for more of the same.

IF YOU can't take Mark Gatiss seriously as Holmes's brother Mycroft, the sleek, super-efficient intelligence chief in Sherlock (BBC1), it's probably because you can't shake off the memory of those wonderful characters he played in The League of Gentleman, the Beeb's darkly disturbing comedy series which ran from 1997-2002. For me, Gatiss's finest hour was as Mr Chinnery, the world's worst vet, who tried to save a breathless tortoise by inserting a compressed-air tube in its shell. The unfortunate reptile shot out of its shell and through the open window where it landed in the bucket of the window cleaner who mistook it for his chamois. Hardly in the Sherlock class of sophistication but great fun.

THE relentless march of "driver alertness" courses takes a sinister new turn. Until recently, police needed cast-iron proof you had committed a speeding offence, usually in the form of a speed-camera image, before offering a place on one of these courses, usually costing about £100 a time, as an alternative to a £60 fine and three penalty points. But following September's mass pile-up at the Sheppey Crossing, Kent Police say they are offering driver courses to 32 motorists. If the drivers decline, they will be prosecuted. The problem is that while speeding is an absolute offence, careless driving is not; it can be a matter of opinion. Do the police actually have evidence that would stand up in court? Are they browbeating drivers into accepting these courses as a means of clearing up a big accident with the minimum effort? Do they believe a bench of compliant magistrates will assume that anyone refusing an awareness course must be guilty of something? And if some motorists were driving "like idiots," and endangering life, as the cops claim, surely they should be properly punished, not sent on a commercial course? The steady extension of penalties imposed by police without using the courts is a threat to British justice. It should ring alarm bells with MPs, yet the silence from the Commons is deafening.

MAXIMUM respect to Chris Packham, posing on Winterwatch (BBC2) with an enormous golden eagle on his arm. There is absolutely no guarantee that a bird so big and strong will not develop a sudden taste for human noses.