Great timing, or what?

GREAT coincidences of our time. Newly-extended limit for sales of high-interest pensioner bonds: May 2015. Date of next General Election: May 2015

THE news that an English accent is now regarded as the sexiest in the world inspires the Metro news website to give its global audience a mini-briefing on English. We are informed that: "Good day, old chap. 'Tis a fine time to be from old Blighty." is how a typical Englishman says: "Hello, friend. It's a good time to be British." Well, of course it is. The typical Englishman then slings his chimney brushes over his shoulder and dances with that bloomin' Mary Poppins.

YOU read it here first. On Boxing Day this column carried words of warning from a reader worried about the new generation of smart TVs with voice recognition and an internal microphone. The technology allows the seriously idle to change channel simply by bellowing "Sky" at the telly. My reader asked: "If the microphone is active, what else might be transmitted from one's living room or even bedroom?" Good question. The answer came this week when it emerged that Samsung's privacy policy includes this advice for buyers using the voice-command software: "If your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party." It may be 31 years late but doesn't it sound just like Nineteen Eighty-Four?

AND so does the affair in Wiltshire where police officers asked newsagents for the names and addresses of anyone buying the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. When this gross intrusion was exposed and denounced, Wiltshire Police mumbled something about how they had been making "an assessment of community tensions" and promised the information had been deleted. It makes you wonder how many cops think the expression "police state" sounds like a really good idea.

STRANGE-but-true place names. I recently mentioned the Swynnerton military training area near Yarnfield in Staffordshire, the base for many a long night patrol into the surrounding countryside. I recall one yomp when the lads got lost. As the officers argued over a map, someone noticed a road sign. A squaddie was sent to have a look. "So where are we?" the officer asked the returning soldier. "Sir," replied the soldier. "We're at Loggerheads."

WHY, in the week of its tax-fiddling disgrace, is HSBC offering us a super new and improved Advance current account with a bigger withdrawal limit and all sorts of transfer facilities I neither need nor want? Can it be because before very long HSBC and the other banks will slap a monthly charge on all current accounts and they want us to believe these super-dooper new accounts are so wonderful that no-one will begrudge the money? How thick do they think we are?

THE most astonishing statistic of the year so far is surely this week's revelation that the proportion of Brits aged 60-64 with serious disease such as dementia, cancer of Parkinson's is 7.7 per cent. In 2002 it was 13.8 per cent. Thanks to lifestyle changes and medication, the middle-aged are healthier than ever and 60 is no longer regarded as old. Pensioners are fitter and healthier than ever, yet politicians still regard them as a protected species.

THANKS for your suggestions for a new pub sign at the Labour in Vain in Staffordshire. It must represent an impossible task but be politically correct (unlike the earlier image of a washerwoman trying to scrub a black baby white). A reader suggests: "How about David Cameron in open-neck shirt, trying to look like one of us?"