How to vote – courtesy of the binmen

INAPPROPRIATE adjectives department. A man is bitten by an adder in Dalby Forest, Yorkshire, and rushed to hospital, seriously ill. Invited to comment on the incident, a Forestry Commission spokesman says the forest has "a thriving population" of the snakes. Or "too many" as some of us may think.

I SUGGESTED a few days ago that tabby cats are the closest thing you can own to a wild animal without a licence. I had bargained without the savannah cat, a cross between a serval and a domestic cat which appeals to people who think £800 is a fair price for a moggy. Human nature being what it is, how long before before domestic cats are crossed with lynxes or cheetahs to produce cats which can rip the heads off Staffies?

SO farewell, Chapman Pincher. I interviewed the old spy-unmasker during the Cold War and had a few conversations with him in later life (he died last week,aged 100). Nothing depressed him more than the unseemly haste with which past treachery was forgiven and the wickedness of traitors, including MPs who betrayed their own country for cash, was overlooked. Three years ago, we were chatting by email when I remarked on how people no longer seemed interested in the spies and subversives of the Cold War. "I get the message," he emailed tersely. I never heard from him again.

TWO pensioners fall out in a boundary dispute and the bigger, more aggressive, one chucks the smaller, weaker one over the hedge. It ended up at Burnley Magistrates Court a few days ago where the attacker, in the words of one press report, "escaped with just a fine." Call that an escape? If you are an underclass scally with a string of previous convictions, another one for assault is nothing to fret about. But if you're a respectable man trying to live a decent life, that damning conviction will blight your existence for years to come. It will have to be declared every time you insure the car or the house, or apply for a passport. The system will wring every last penny it can out of you for one moment of madness. You don't want too many "escapes" like that.

WHAT'S this? A card left on our wheelie bin with a large black X. It looks like one of those warnings the binmen leave, telling us they are not prepared to deal with bins containing dead donkeys or nuclear waste. In fact it turns out to be notification that: "The way we all register to vote is changing." Under the old system, as master of my household and lord of all I survey, I would complete the form on behalf of my wife, offspring, mother-in-law, butler, parlourmaids, footmen and grooms. Suddenly, we are all required to register individually and notify the electoral-roll people of our National Insurance number. I bet this is causing a stir in some of those inner-city areas memorably described by a judge as having voting systems that would disgrace a banana republic. I'm sure the new system is a change for the better but it does seem to draw the binmen rather deeply into the electoral process. I wanted to vote but the lads on the dustcart never told me how.

LATER in the day we picked up 10 of the voting-reform leaflets, merrily strewn up the road by the departing binmen.

TELLING it like it is. "My midriff has come to resemble a coastal shelf made from tapioca pudding." Columnist Alison Pearson on ditching the bikini.