True patriotism is an England flag on a Fiat, Citroen or Volkswagen

IS it possible to take a photograph anywhere in Brazil without a nubile woman in a thong bikini getting in the picture?

IS it possible to display your patriotism in any finer way than draping an England flag from your Fiat, Citroen or Volkswagen?

EXCELLENT weather down here in Devon thanks to my brother-in-law who, each year, dutifully fulfils the task performed in the Middle Ages by the village sin eater. When someone was close to death, the sin eater would call and, for a small fee, eat a piece of bread representing all the sins of the dying person. In much the same way, my brother-in-law manages to book his holidays in particularly wet and nasty weeks. He soaks up the bad weather and we get the good stuff. And we don't pay him a penny.

THE Duke of Edinburgh has raised a few eyebrows by describing a wartime battle as "a frightfully good wheeze." Prince Philip was explaining how he fooled German bombers in the Med by casting a life-raft adrift in the night packed with blazing material as a fake target. As the bombs missed their ship, the young naval officer and his mates rejoiced. It's a reminder that war is not always undiluted horror and terror but a blend of experiences and emotions, including fun and friendship. I will never forget my interview more than 30 years ago with an officer of the First World War, Aubrey Moore. He saw his mates slaughtered on the Somme but told me: "We were all worried sick that the war would be over before we got into it! I'll say I enjoyed the war. It might have been just another blinking great cricket match." Moore, then in his 90s, noticed my surprise and paused before adding: "But of course, we were only children."

THEN there was the driver of a Sherman tank who told me, in all seriousness: "I thoroughly enjoyed the Second World War - apart from the fighting."

THERE is serious talk of jailing jurors who go online to research details of defendants or witnesses. Whitehall is even threatening that newspapers could be ordered to remove all references to such people. Five days ago the "secret" terrorism trial which had been given the go-ahead by one senior judge was overturned by the Appeal Court and the defendants were publicly named as Erol Incedal and Mounir Rarmouc-Bouhadjar. So is there a single Google user, or potential juror, who has not trawled through cyberspace by now to find out more about this pair? Of course not. By the time Incedal and Bouhadjar come to court, they will be the most Googled pair in the land. Trying to insulate the court system from the internet is like trying to extract barley grains and peat smoke from whisky. It can't be done, and the sooner our lords and masters in London realise it, the better.

AN exhibition at London's Serpentine Gallery features performance artist Marina Abramovic leading visitors by the hand through white-walled rooms and giving them instructions. She has ordered all mobile phones and other electronic devices to be placed in lockers to ensure no communication to outsiders. Pity we can't extend that to a whole day. National No Blog/Tweet/Phoning Day. You read it here first.

MARINA Abramovic fears the Brits may not take her show seriously, declaring: "The British public is different. You're cynical, you really like the bad jokes and you drink too much at the weekends." At the weekends? What about the other five days? There's a lady who hasn't done her research.