Getting thicker by degrees

MARKS & Spencer proudly unveils its new 580-calorie fish and mushy-peas pie with a lid made entirely of chips. Classy, eh? It's time to open your finest vintage Tizer.

A READER asks, in the wake of sleazy allegations from Westminster, why so many politicians have such weird, wonderful and wildly excessive sex lives. Having watched the species for some years, I suspect that some politicians are desperately needy personalities and are driven to politics by an immense ego and an overwhelming need to be loved. Others are perfectly normal people. The hard part is telling them apart before it all goes pear-shaped.

I ONCE remarked to my GP that, as neither of my parents lived past 66, I was not expecting a long innings. "Oh, I don't know," he said brightly, tapping his computer keyboard and glancing quickly at the screen. "You should do much better than that." I thought of that moment a few days ago when the Government announced plans to give pensioners an estimation of their life expectancy to help them plan their pensions. The trusting part of me likes to think there is a central database where our family and health records can be accessed and converted into a lifespan guesstimate. The conspiracy-theorist in me suspects that Whitehall has acquired the secret of time travel from aliens and knows the exact date when each of us will die. How else could they contemplate letting us cash in our entire pension pot?

WE ARE not like the Yanks. I wrote recently about how some US restaurants use the internet to discover personal details about their diners in order to provide a "wonderful guest experience." American diners may enjoy being greeted by their first names and having a waiter who knows the latest Twitter details about their kid's exam success ("Say, isn't your Chuck doing well in biology?") but we Brits find it plain weird. Some years ago I was in a working party looking at a new computer system and met a succession of American salesmen. There was one who took a strange interest in my wristwatch: "Say, Peter, that's a real cool watch." We met a few more times over several months. He always mentioned the watch and always remembered my first name. He was obviously using the watch as a memory-jogger (Think watch, think Peter). The snag was that while Americans may be flattered when you remember their names, we Brits find it all rather creepy.

A READER tells me he and his wife graduated in the 1960s and emigrated to the USA. Having just returned, they are amazed how much cleverer graduates are now compared to 50 years ago. He explains: "When we graduated it was generally assumed that the top 10-15 per cent would get first-class or 2:1 degrees. Scanning the same university's website recently, we learned that now 74 per cent of graduates get firsts or 2:1s." Well done, my Stateside reader, for you have spotted a remarkable development in British edukashun. We are much briter than wot we woz years ago, innit?

ALLOTMENT vandals are the scum of the earth. They destroy the hard work and love invested by innocent people whose greatest pleasure comes from growing their own fruit, veg and flowers. I was delighted to hear a few days ago that some gardeners are now protecting their allotments with laser devices. Sadly, it seems the devices in question merely detect the thugs instead of frazzling them to a crisp.

"APATHY in old age is an early sign of dementia," declared a headline a few days ago. I really couldn't be bothered to read the rest.