Dying for the Constitution

I SUGGESTED a few days ago that Heddlu (Police) is the only Welsh word you need to know. A reader points out that if we drove more Araf we wouldn't have to worry about the Heddlu.

MIND you, he goes on to admit that speed traps seem specifically designed to catch visitors to Wales and urges us to boycott the place. I wouldn't go that far but, having encountered one speed trap a matter of yards over the border, I always think twice about visiting. (Many thanks, incidentally, to the drivers coming the other way who flashed and waved to warn us).

"A WELL regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." That, with all its curiously-placed commas, is the cherished Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, adopted in 1791. It's the one which has allowed the US to become flooded with between 270 million and 320 million guns (no-one knows for sure) and given it about 32,000 gun deaths every year. You may think it is stretching the Second Amendment just a tad to offer sub-machine gun lessons to a little girl of nine but, hey, it's the Land of the Free. Sadly, the little girl lost control of the Uzi machine-pistol after the first round and shot her instructor, 39-year-old Charles Vacca, dead. That was on Monday. By the time you read this, another 300 Americans will have died of gunshot wounds.

THE gun lobby's usual response to such tragedies is to stress the importance of proper instruction. One emailer in a US chatroom beat them to it with this parody: "This would never have happened if proper semi-automatic rifle use was instituted in kindergarten or pre-school at the latest." Contrary to popular belief, some Americans do irony very well.

AFTER my item about the royal correspondent Nicholas Witchell's full name (I suggested it was a good opening line for a poem), a reader obliges: "Nicholas Newton Henshall Witchell looking rather grand, / Stands outside Royal Palaces,with microphone in hand. / In pouring rain, getting soaking wet. / Why he doesn't use a nice warm studio set, / I'll never understand."

IF ALEX Salmond doesn't understand the difficulties an independent Scotland would face in creating its own armed forces, he need only look across the Irish Sea. Record numbers of youngsters from the Irish Republic are joining the British Army rather than the Republic's tiny defence force. As one emailer to a military website explains: "It's the same reason why a footballer would rather join Real Madrid than Shamrock Rovers."

JUNK mail. This time it's a flyer for a new emergency watch which has a built-in personal locator beacon (PLB). This means, if you get into trouble, the emergency services can find you, on land or sea. Prices start at about £3,000, which rules out the riff-raff, including me. But why spend £3,000 today when, before long we'll all have PLBs inserted into our bodies? The Nanny State would simply love to know where we all are.

MORE from the teachers' aid, Ten Ways to Galvanise a Classroom: "Before a foreign exchange, ask students to make some of the arrangements." And then explain to your governors why the Year 12 French trip travelled to Marseilles and back in a stretch limo.

FRESH back from Wales, a reader reports a notice outside a restaurant near Barmouth announcing: "Sea food platter with pianist." He says it proves the Welsh will eat anything.