Stand by for brownouts

NATIONAL Grid, facing a shortage of electricity, has warned it may have to reduce voltage, leading to "brownouts" of dimmed bulbs this winter. In this age of dismal, low-energy bulbs, will anyone notice? Remember when a single 100 watt bulb filled your room with glorious light?

OWN up. How many of us are still sitting on stockpiles of wicked old, planet-killing 100-watters? By their bright homes shall ye know them.

"I WAS brought up to believe I lived in a country that celebrated eccentricity." So said the "disappointed" Stephen Gough, aka the Naked Rambler after losing his human-rights case. Simply by invoking the E-word he condemns himself. Genuine eccentrics never realise they are eccentric, and all the others are poseurs.

I WONDER how long scriptwriter Julian Fellowes agonised over the line to be spoken by the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) in Downton Abbey (ITV) when she heard Lady Rose's new boyfriend was Jewish. Parts of the British establishment of the 1920s were virulently anti-semitic. So what might the Countess say in a family with so many dysfunctional relationships, without offending a modern audience? In the end, Fellowes settled for five little words and Dame Maggie delivered her response to the news with perfect timing and not an ounce of malice. She sighed, with just a hint of exasperation: "There's always something, isn't there?" I bet Jewish viewers laughed the loudest.

MEANWHILE, prepare for the sad demise of Isis, milord's labrador in Downton, who is looking a bit peaky. Who could have guessed when they named the dog after an ancient Egyptian god, that Isis would soon become the name of the nastiest terrorist organisation ever?

I HAVE a reader who is bewildered that no publisher is prepared to take on his book. It is a guide to household management, page after page of common sense and thrift which is guaranteed to leave you with money in the bank at the end of each month. I understand the publishers' hesitance for here is a modern example of the Bible parable of the virgins. Society is broadly divided into wise and foolish virgins. The wise ones, being already wise, have no need of such a book. The foolish ones are far too foolish to buy it. I had similar problems marketing my own book, How Not to Hit Your Thumb With a Hammer.

ON the Guardian website, of all places, someone emails: "Why should any man support a feminist movement?" He's commenting on David Cameron's refusal to wear a T-shirt with the logo: "This is what a feminist looks like." You can see the emailer's point. Feminism is about promoting the rights of women, which presumably could diminish the rights of us males. If working-class people who vote Tory are denounced as class traitors, isn't a man who supports feminism a gender-traitor?

IN any case, isn't it a wee bit patronising for men openly to proclaim their support for women? The T-shirt Cameron refused to wear may declare: "This is what a feminist looks like" but who knows what the man wearing it actually believes? For all we know, the right-on wearer of the T-shirt could be thinking: "I'm wearing this because I'm a big strong, rational man and you ditzy little ladies clearly need my support."

IF he's a politician, he's wearing the T-shirt for one profound and principled reason: his PR people told him to.

IF you thought the commercialisation of law had gone far enough with driver-awareness courses, consider a recent case in Wolverhampton where eight men have been ordered to attend a "kerb crawlers' rehabilitation course." Both hands on the dashboard, Mr Jones.