Were things so bad in the 1970s?

MY item on hot dogs in cinemas inspires a reader to tell me they are his favourite dogs because they are the only dogs that feed the hand that bites them.

CLIMATE-change opportunity. Now that autumn goes on for ever and the seasonal invasion of fruit flies continues into the festive period, is anyone working on tinsel with built-in fly paper? There is money to be made.

THE much-discussed programme, It Was Alright in the 1970s (C4) was little more than an exercise in self-congratulation. A succession of smugly superior, politically-correct modern entertainers gasped and stretched their eyes at the racism, homophobia and sexism in 40-year-old editions of everything from Love Thy Neighbour to The Goodies. The message was clear: how blessed we are to have arrived in 2014 in the sunlit uplands of respect and tolerance for all. But to compare TV's output in the 1970s with today's is pointless. TV is no longer the dominant medium in the home. The internet unleashes a 24/7 tidal wave of paedophilia, sexism, gay-bashing, and racism worse than anything in the 1970s, plus every dodgy old TV programme you care to choose. It is perfectly possible, in the comfort of your lounge, to enjoy a night of hard-core porn, beheadings and even (if you must) the Black and White Minstrels. Over the past 40 years TV may have cleaned up its act but the total volume of vile material available in the home is vastly greater. Things may not have been all right in the 1970s but overall they were probably better than now.

A LABOUR bigwig on the radio was explaining how eagerly his party is recruiting working-class members. So when did you last see a new working-class Labour candidate fight a winnable General Election seat? Labour candidates are overwhelmingly middle-class and it helps if you are married to an existing MP or if your surname is Blair, Straw, Kinnock or Prescott.

SEND for the thought police. I note that the latest Lidl News shopping guide shows a play kitchen and a science set. A little girl is shown playing with the play kitchen. A little boy is playing with the scientific stuff. This is appalling sexual stereotyping. Public outrage? Questions in the House? Full public inquiry?

AND off to Cheltenham for a Cambrai Day luncheon when the old and bold from Britain's armoured regiments mark the Battle of Cambrai in 1917. I admire anyone with the guts even to get inside a tank, let alone fight in one. My personal panicky moment came at the tank museum at Bovington. I slipped into the depths of a Chieftain tank and another two blokes climbed into the seats above me and closed the hatch. Yabba-dabba-do does not begin to describe it.

FEW experiences in civilian life are quite that panic-inducing. But there is one. A friend admits he feels an utter wuss having had a panic attack, entirely beyond his control, while in a hospital MRI scanner. Turns out he is in good company. Panic attacks in scanners are common enough for medics to have a huge array of calming devices at hand, from Valium to eyepads, vanilla essence and soft music. But they don't seem to screen patients routinely to identify the potential panickers. Why not?

THEY say that when you get really old, jokes about death tend to get very personal. Not necessarily. A reader aged 91 is happy to share with us the epitaph she found in a Cornish cemetery which ends: "Prepare, prepare for sudden death / As God can quickly stop your breath."