No hiding place

THE RAC says the government is losing millions of pounds of revenue because there are thousands of untaxed foreign cars on British roads. They cannot be that hard to find. They are foreign. They are untaxed. Just clamp them and tow them away.

I HONESTLY don't know whether it's worthwhile, or even cost-effective, to spend millions of pounds of NHS money stapling up the stomachs of the obese, It just seems strange. The NHS is at its best when it prevents illness rather than dealing with the consequences. It has helped millions of people give up smoking or take blood-pressure medication before strokes or heart attacks occur. So where's the pro-active anti-obesity programme? It is hardly a mystery what causes this condition. Plague is transmitted by fleas. Colds are transmitted by a virus. Obesity is transmitted by chips.

WHAT'S the proper name for a stomach-stapling operation, a lardarsectomy?

THIS headline on the security testing of mobile phones comes from the Daily Telegraph. By altering the stress on the words and inserting a comma or two, see how many different meanings you can create: "Charging points at airports so flat devices do not have to be left behind."

A BRITISH couple claim they were robbed in the camper van in France after thieves knocked them unconscious by pumping gas into the vehicle. Asked to comment, the Royal College of Anaesthetists says it's impossible. Whatever we may think we know (usually based on a diet of Dick Barton, Biggles, H G Wells and James Bond), the simple, boring fact is that there is no such thing as knock-out gas.

WE arrived home from our break in Yorkshire to discover our BT landline was bust yet again, only a few days after the last engineer called to fix it. This time it took 24 hours to put it right and the engineer said he expected his repair would last up to 10 years. I suggested: "Fancy a small bet on that?" but he declined.

I REPORTED the line fault on BT's live-chat service, exchanging emails with somebody in a call centre many miles away. After a little line-checking she came back with the text: "Peter, I am really sorry to inform you that there is a BT cable which has been disconnected somewhere close to your property. That is the reason why your phone is dead." I only just resisted the urge to type back: "No ****, Sherlock."

WHY did a cake shop in Northern Ireland suddenly become a battleground for gay rights? We are led to believe that, among all the cake shops in Ulster, a gay-rights group spontaneously chose one run by strict Christians. In fact, the cake-decoration industry had already been targeted elsewhere. On May 30 this year, the Christian owner of a bakery in America lost a court case which had been followed keenly by the gay community. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission ruled that it was discriminatory for the baker to refuse service to someone because of their sexual orientation. A few weeks later the Northern Ireland case erupted. Not so spontaneous, after all?

INCIDENTALLY, in the online version of this column, my recent item on the Ulster cake shop was accompanied by an advert for "Free cake-decorating classes." I swear I have absolutely no control over such things.

MEMO to Editor, Daily Mail. Sir.- at the weekend I received my commemorative First World War replica King's Shilling inside your newspaper. Imagine my surprise this morning when the postman delivered a khaki uniform, a Lee-Enfield rifle and a one-way railway ticket to Ypres.