The ultimate prejudice – assuming everyone else is prejudiced

THE upside of a summer shower. You put on that anorak you haven't worn for weeks and find money in the pocket. Just under eight quid, since you ask.

TOLD you so. Already, more than 200,000 of the 800,000 souvenir poppies on display at the Tower of London have been snapped up. This is going to end in tears, with thousands of disappointed folk leaving it too late. Some readers wonder whether the poppies, costing £25 each, are available only online. Not exactly. There is a phone number "if you are having trouble buying a poppy online or would like to order more than 10 poppies." It is 0303 770 1914. Good luck.

I SUGGESTED recently that the Government could solve its tax problems simply by confiscating all our wealth and giving us £5 a week pocket money. I wonder how many politicians are nodding in agreement. A Labour councillor in Manchester has suggested imposing a "mansion tax" on any property in her region worth more than £400,000. "In the North," she mutters darkly, "there are people who could be paying more and aren't." The mind-set seems to be that all money is the state's property and anyone trying to hang on to some is an enemy of the state.

S0 here is an alternative suggestion. Let us cut the number of MPs and councillors across Britain by half and divvy out the money we save. According to the old saying, he who pays the piper calls the tune. Somehow we have reached the exact reverse, a situation where the taxpayer dances to a tune dictated by the pipers in Whitehall. We must reclaim the sheet music.

MANY years ago I was in a press party which was magnificently entertained on one of Her Majesty's warships by a very jovial captain. The whisky flowed like water, he told some cracking jokes and a grand time was had by all. Some weeks later we heard he had been disciplined for indecency with a crewman. Today, there is a huge fuss over the dismissal of the first female commander of a warship. Armchair experts are saying this is the inevitable result of mixed-sex ships. But same-sex temptation was stalking the navy's decks for centuries before women were allowed on board. Jolly Jack Tars were jolly for all sorts of reasons.

ONE of the nastiest forms of prejudice is the assumption that everyone else is prejudiced. The former boxing promoter Frank Maloney reveals he is undergoing sex-change treatment and is now a woman called Kellie. Virtually all the coverage on TV and print seems to assume that hordes of wicked, bigoted people will scorn Maloney and either laugh in her face or spit on her in the street. In fact, the reaction to Maloney's sex change has been generally kind, understanding and perhaps a little curious.

STRANGELY, some of the kindest and most supportive online comments about Maloney were on the Daily Mail's website while some of the nastiest were on the Independent's.

A COUPLE in Coventry died a few hours apart after 72 years of marriage, the wife apparently of a broken heart after her husband passed away. With about 40 per cent of today's marriages ending in divorce and the average length of a marriage being 32 years, such lifelong partnerships may soon become rare. And so will that landmark moment for married women when they suddenly realise they have been known by their husband's surname for as long as they had their own. Owing to a huge oversight by the greeting-card industry, there is no name for this momentous event. Any suggestions?