Help your local cops

THE calendar tells us May starts tomorrow. The seasons tell another story. As far as the weather is concerned, it has been May for at least a fortnight.

AND here's a strange seasonal sighting. Remember how timid herons used to be? You were lucky to catch a distant glimpse of these shy, silent predators. A few days ago I walked towards a young heron at the edge of the lake in our local park. Unperturbed, the heron flopped inelegantly into the water, emerged with a small fish in its beak and flew gracefully away. I paced the distance from where I stood to the heron's fishing spot. It was just 25 yards. Any twitchers care to explain the boldness of herons?

NEW York Police Department tried to boost its image with a myNYPD campaign, inviting New Yorkers to tweet pictures of them interacting with the cops. Inevitably, the site was bombarded with images of thuggish police behaving badly. I was reminded of a poster back in the 1960s which read: "Help your local police." Underneath someone had written: "Beat yourself up."

WHILE all attention is on the poor language and medical skills of foreign doctors, when is someone going to address the root problem? Being a doctor is a well-paid, high-prestige job. British medical schools should be overflowing with British students. Instead, we are plugging the gaps with some people that even the NHS admits are Third World and third-class. What's gone wrong? There is a theory that Britain's much-vaunted financial industry, that vast, overvalued and occasionally corrupt edifice which pays itself billions for shuffling money around, attracts far too many bright kids. It is too big, too well-paid and far too attractive for thousands of young Brits who ought to be doing something useful instead. There is a dignity is saving a child's life that you are never going to experience while you're pretending to be Gordon Gecko in the City.

AFTER the fuss over Ukip's electoral posters, I bet the Tories are sitting on a wonderful poster for the 2015 General Election. It is that silly note left by Labour's Liam Byrne to his successor as he cleared his office in the Treasury after defeat in the 2010 General Election. It reads: "Dear chief secretary, I'm afraid there is no money. Kind regards - and good luck! Liam." Expect to see that note, magnified many times, appearing on Tory election posters as a sign of Labour's useless, unapologetic squandering of our money. It's not often your best slogans are written by the other side.

A SCOTTISH government minister Fiona Hyslop thunders: "We must work for the eradication of food banks." So is that official SNP policy, Fiona? And do many other politicians in other parties share that aim? If so, do let us know when you plan to chuck the food-bank Christians out of their own premises and take over the supply of one million food parcels per year currently being provided by food banks at no cost to the taxpayer. Whatever we may privately think of food banks, they are founded on goodwill and compassion, and the politicians who threaten to shut them are the ones who haven't thought it through.

THE housing boom has reportedly created a national shortage of bricklayers with some brickies earning £2,000 a week. I don't actually have any bricklaying qualifications but I do have an unsolicited testimonial. I built a garden wall last year in what I like to call my Almost Vertical Rustic style. A neighbour said: "If I ever want a wall like that, I'll give you a call." Praise, indeed.