Fanny's great urban myth

IF screening for Ebola fever is introduced at British airports, will it fill you with confidence? If travellers' tales are to be believed, the current anti-terrorist screening procedure seems to specialise in picking on little old ladies from Worthing for full body scans, and waving through anyone in a burka. If the same people were in charge of Ebola screening, they would subject hale and hearty visitors from Finland to the full treatment while cheerfully opening the doors to sickly, feverish arrivals from Liberia. Political correctness could be the death of us.

HAVE you noticed how the various armies in Iraq or Syria never capture a dull, unimportant or insignificant place? Is there a single town in the region that is not key, landmark, crucial, holy or of strategic importance?

ROSAMUND Pike, star of Gone Girl, says some folk these days expect too much of marriage: "People have ridiculous expectations of a mate." How true. You have only to look at wedding photographs from 40 years ago to see how attitudes have changed. In the 1970s we lived under the shadow of the Bomb, so we tended to live for the moment. As far as I can recall, expectations had not been invented. If we had seriously thought about the future we would never have worn those lapels.

I STAND accused of cowardice. A reader says I lacked the bottle, in my recent item on Fanny Cradock, to mention one of television's best-loved bloopers. It is widely believed that, as one show ended, the great chef's partner Johnnie turned to the camera and said: "I hope all your doughnuts turn out like Fanny's." Great yarn, shame about the facts. There is, as far as I am aware, no recording of this supposed incident. The alleged words have been attributed to several others, including Frank Bough. The truth, I suspect, is that it never happened. It just sounds as though it should have happened, which is the basis of so many urban myths.

AND let's not get started on the alleged innuendos in Captain Pugwash which are either complete myth or silly people with grubby minds hearing what they want to hear. "Roger the cabin boy" was actually called Tom.

INTERESTINGLY, everyone who wrote to me on the subject referred to "Fanny Craddock." Her surname was actually spelled Cradock, with one D. Might be useful in the pub quiz.

PLAY tape-recordings of baby crying. Smear catty smells on baby's crib. The pregnant expert in Cat Watch 2014 (BBC2) was doing everything possible to ensure that when her baby arrives the cat will not be distressed. The one thing she overlooks is her own human hormones and the overwhelming focus and protectiveness that a new baby brings. Sometimes when a baby arrives, Mummy can hardly remember the cat's name. And if the cat scratches the baby, the cat tends to get relocated.

I DO not often share my innermost problems with you lot but this is a real puzzle. I have recently started wearing thick blue woolly socks. I suddenly discover large quantities of blue belly-button fluff. The socks have been worn only in the conventional manner. Any explanations?

A READER takes me to task for referring to over-60s getting the winter-fuel payment. In fact, to qualify for the coming winter's £200 you must have been born on or before July 5, 1952. The bad news is some sixtysomethings won't get the payment. The good news is that the bad news will probably make them very hot under the collar, thus saving on fuel.