The freedom to insult

I REFERRED recently to the Scottish greeting "lang may yer lum reek" (Long may your chimney smoke). A reader recalls his Scottish uncle would always add "wi' other folk's coal."

MORE reminiscences inspired by the 30th anniversary of the first mobile-phone call. A reader recalls seeing someone in a pub in the 1980s with one of the early, brick-sized mobiles. No-one was taking much interest in the device until the owner left the bar, used the phone in the foyer to call his own mobile and returned to answer it.

I REMEMBER catching the Star ferry in Hong Kong in 1996 and being surrounded by Chinese people, all chatting on their mobiles. At that moment I was utterly convinced that we Brits would never embrace mobiles so eagerly. One of my many wrong predictions.

WHILE it is fine to see folk pouring on to the streets and into print to defend a satirical magazine in Paris, where were they when the News of the World was closed down?

AND is anyone else surprised at the claim that France cherishes a free and robust media? Operating within draconian "privacy" laws, the French media has a long and undistinguished history of not only toadying to the Establishment but being part of it. For years, journalists in France knew that the former President Francois Mitterand had an illegitimate daughter, kept at the taxpayers' expense. They exercised their traditional "discretion" and kept the public in the dark. In recent years, following the British and US models, the French media has kept a closer watch on its politicians but the old deference is a long time dying.

MEANWHILE, how are we freedom-worshipping Westerners supposed to explain to Muslims that, while we might change the law to keep the names of men accused of rape out of the newspapers, or to forbid the publication of images of pop stars' kids, we defend the right to publish material that insults the Prophet?

THE debate is raging once again about non-English speaking people being allowed to work in the NHS. Medicine is a complex business and there is quite enough scope for confusion even when people are fluent in the same language. At this point in the debate, in my low and vulgar way, I am always reminded of the saucy seaside postcard showing a doctor berating a nurse whose patient is in some discomfort: "No, nurse! I said prick his boil."

THIS year will bring many anniversaries. It is the 100th of the unspeakably tragic Battle of Loos, the 200th of Waterloo, the 70th of the first atom bombs and the 50th , later this month, of the man who was arguably the only prime minister people genuinely loved. We were driving to chapel on a Sunday morning in 1965. The flag at the fire-brigade headquarters was at half-mast. My father turned on the radio. Winston Churchill was dead.

WELL spotted, the reader who corrects my maths on the size of the world population. I suggested nine billion. It is actually seven billion, although it's hard to count them all (dammit, keep still you lot at the back). The reader loses a point, however, for attributing my error to "sinility," which is not actually a word.

ON the other hand, an ageing population may deserve a new word. Sinility = immoral conduct by the old and confused.

I AM also harangued for my "erroneous dross." Wasn't he an artist?