The night we invaded Ireland

I HAVE just bought an old-fashioned hand drill with a mechanism "guaranteed for life." Whose life?

ONE word, two meanings. Strange to see the contestant in The Great British Sewing Bee (BBC2) introduced in the TV text guide as "amateur sewers."

WANDERING around a lake a few days ago, I bumped into a posse of firefighters looking fit, fearless and gung-ho. They were training for "speed swimming" which is not, as the name suggests, about swimming fast. Speed swimming is about swimming in fast-flowing water, especially water which happens to be full of dustbins, caravans, garden furniture, drowned badgers and boats. The lads are training for the next crop of floods, and good luck to them. Public money well spent.

THANKS for your suggestions for a new sign for the Labour in Vain pub. One reader also suggests a pair of politicians who would make a good sign for The Cock & Bull.

THEN there's the suggestion of a new pub sign based on Harriet Harman's pink vehicle designed to attract women voters to her party. The Labour in Van.

ACCORDING to the latest figures, over the past 10 years the number of Muslim children in Britain has doubled. Do you remember voting for this? Inevitably, there will be dark mutterings of Britain becoming a Muslim country. But who would want that? Most British Muslims are as scared of the black-flag waving loonies as the rest of us. You only have to look around the world to see that the most unpleasant and dangerous places for Muslims to live are those places governed by mullahs and sharia law. As one Muslim on BBC News put it: "Look at what's happening back home, fighting, wars. It's not good." We don't want to live in a Muslim country - and neither do British Muslims.

ORDNANCE Survey reports improved sales, possibly because people no longer trust sat-nav systems. Not that an OS map is proof against getting lost. A reader who served in the British Army during the Troubles recalls a night patrol in Ulster back in 1971. It was only when they realised a parked school bus had the sign "Bus Scoile" on its side and all the junction give-way signs read "Yield" that they realised they had, in a small way, invaded Ireland. Swift retreat, no harm done.

IN Aldous Huxley's future-novel Brave New World, published in 1932, the population is kept happy by regular doses of the happy drug Soma. Today, scientists in Scotland and Japan have discovered that the mineral lithium, which occurs naturally in some water supplies, seems to reduce the incidence of depression and suicide. In regions with no lithium in the water, the rate of suicide, homicide and rape seems higher. Some scientists are asking, why not add lithium to drinking water and make us all happier? Soma, here we come.

WHICH reminds me of a rumour when I was in the Middle East some years ago that the Israelis were putting sedatives in the West Bank water supply to keep the Palestinians quiet. As our guide observed dryly, against a background of rioting, tear gas and bangs, it didn't seem to be working particularly well.

HAVING warned you all never to accept an insurance-renewal quote but to demand a lower figure,I followed my own advice. Sainsbury's not only refused to budge but said it really ought to be £37 more. I resorted to another old trick known as begging and pleading.