A new national anthem?

I REFERRED yesterday to our dirge-like National Anthem. It strikes me that we could do worse than adopt that wonderfully stirring anthem from Les Miserables: Do You Hear the People Sing? Feel free to send me your suggestions for lyrics.

NOTICE how the tone of the reporting changed when it was the Thames, not the Somerset Levels, at risk of massive flooding? Suddenly, this is a PLU disaster. The victims are no longer straw-sucking countryfolk with funny accents and dirty farmyards, miles away down the M4. They are people living in London's commuter belt, real people that everyone in Fleet Street and Television Centre could identify with. PLU disasters are always more poignant, more important than events further from London. PLU = People Like Us.

I OFFER a new word for our time: The apickle. An apickle is an apology which accepts full blame while actually blaming someone else. Named after Communities Secretary Eric Pickles who said sorry for the flooding with something like: "I apologise profusely, sincerely and from the bottom of my heart for taking advice from those numbskulls at the Environment Agency." Pickles has since withdrawn his apickle, but no-one is convinced.

THE wrappers come off a new shop replacing our local £1 store which closed down last year. Now, can you guess what sort of shop it is? Here's a clue: there is a greeting-card shop 20 yards from the premises, another card shop 50 yards away and a third card shop less than 100 yards away. And the new shop is – you've guessed - a card shop.

A READER writes, having shared what she calls my "brilliant" experience of seeing the National Theatre production of Coriolanus, starring Tom Hiddleston, in a live broadcast at her local theatre. One of the joys of theatre is seeing television actors fully showing off their craft. Coriolanus's mother is played by Deborah Findlay whom you probably remember as one of the fussy old ladies wittering away in the BBC series Cranford. In the NT production she is pure dynamite, raging away in a truly fantastic performance. In the same way, this season's big hit at Stratford, Wolf Hall / Bring Up The Bodies stars Ben Miles as Thomas Cromwell. On telly, Miles was the pleasant, dutiful squire in Lark Rise to Candleford. On stage for this six-hour epic he demonstrates a power and passion beyond anything demanded of him in Candleford. No wonder actors adore live theatre – even if the money's rubbish.

A CHARITY called Balance says the North East is in the grip of an alcohol epidemic which is costing the local economy £1.1 billion a year. Auntie Beeb promptly dispatches a radio crew to the blighted area where they find drinkers (or "vulnerable people," as the charity calls them) queuing up for the pubs to open at 8am and sinking six or ten pints before lunch. The most striking thing was that these folk did not sound vulnerable or even depressed. They all seemed very jolly. I was reminded of the grim old joke from the bleak, coal-stained world of the Industrial Revolution: What's the quickest way out of Manchester? A bottle of gin.

I WROTE a few days ago about Georgia, our puppy-walk labrador who, on the day before she left us to begin her training, tried to eat our Welsh dresser. A reader tells me her two cats have a similar gourmet relationship with her house, chewing everything from chairs and tables to picture frames. When the vet complimented her (one of the cats, not the owner) on her dental hygiene, my reader pointed out that the animal regarded the entire house "as a huge box of rusks."