When lamb goes to your head

A GROUP of cat owners have posted images on the internet allegedly proving that, if you create a circle on the floor, a cat will automatically sit inside it. So I made a circle of rope on the lounge floor and our old tabby pointedly stayed outside it and eventually sat down next to it. This proves the oldest feline rule of all. The more you want a cat to do something, the less it will.

THE tear-jerking Sainsbury's yuletide advert, set in the Christmas Truce of 1914, has obviously been working its sentimental magic. A contributor to one of the national newspapers implores us: "Should we not have compassion for the thousands of German soldiers, also sons, fathers and brothers?" I can see why someone might want to extend remembrance to the amiable, photogenic young German soldiers in the Sainsbury's ad. But what about their comrades who sacked the Belgian city of Louvain, torched its priceless medieval library and executed hundreds of civilians, including women and children? Do they, too, deserve a place in our hearts and a chunk of our Sainsbury chocolate? And what about Hitler's death squads, or today's enemy, the Taliban and their fellow beheaders, the Islamic State? Are they all to be remembered with compassion, too? If not, why not? The moment we start extending compassion to all our enemies is the moment we put our soldiers on the same moral level as Jihadi John and begin to make no distinction between good and evil. Not in my name, thanks.

INCIDENTALLY, there's not much evidence that a football match was played between German and British soldiers during the 1914 truce. Most accounts describe the soldiers exchanging gifts, showing each other family photos and talking about football. No matter. The image of a football match is so powerful that it is remorselessly passing into history without the need for any historical evidence. It should have happened, so let us tell the kids it did happen.

CAPTAIN Blackadder contributed to the no-man's-land football myth in Blackadder Goes Forth (BBC) when he says of the match: "Remember it - how could I forget it? I was never offside."

IF you believe the French were put on this planet chiefly to amuse the Brits, enjoy this. A group of leading French chefs are calling for an end to the "culture of violence" in the kitchen of top restaurants. A French TV chef, Christian Etchebest says: "Yes, I have received a few kicks. Yes, I have taken a rack of lamb to the head." I can imagine the gendarmes dealing with such incidents: "Okay, chef. Step away from the profiteroles."

ON the bodge-it-yourself website DIYnot, the conversation turns to the difficulty of finding good tradespeople in London. A contributor in the capital writes enviously: "Outside London all the people are well suited to manual labour. They all wear wellingtons and drive to work on tractors." Yup, that's us.

MY tale about the reader who surprised his wife with the early Xmas present of a new coal shovel stirs gallant memories. Another reader writes: "Our coal was delivered to the side of the house and had to be barrowed to the coal shed at the back. My father, forever thoughtful and considerate, always closed the kitchen door as he didn't like to see mother struggling with the wheelbarrow."

AMID this week's furore over police allegedly refusing to record crimes in order to keep the crime-figures down, news reaches me of a Pc who arrested a card sharp, and offered him a deal.