Call that a scar?

THERE'S nothing like childlessness to give you a sugary, sentimental view of family life. The Pope castigates people who do not visit their frail and elderly parents in homes, declaring: "It is sickening to see the elderly discarded. It is a sin." Memo to his Holiness: In real life, some parents do not like their children and some children do not like their parents.

AND talking of family values, let's not get too sniffy and superior about yesterday's shock-horror news that thousands of babies in China are being sold on the internet. It is happening because China has no law against private citizens offering babies for adoption. There is a grey area between offering an infant for genuine adoption and selling it to the highest bidder. If UK citizens were also allowed to offer babies for adoption, how long before eBay would be stuffed full of adorable British kids, yours for £20,000?

VIEWERS are apparently not convinced by Ross Poldark's (Aidan Turner) "mascara" scar in Poldark (BBC1). It certainly looks like no scar I have ever seen. However, it adds a certain interest to proceedings. How can the make-up people possibly keep it in exactly the same place throughout the series? Watch out for the saga of the Wandering Scar. Why do I keep thinking of Lee Marvin?

MONDAY, Arctic. Tuesday, Mediterranean. Wednesday, perishing again. About par for March, since you ask. I recall the German student who stayed with us 12 years ago. On the first day he laughed at you funny English, always talking about your weather. Within a week he understood perfectly.

A FORMER SNP leader Gordon Wilson says first minister Nicola Sturgeon should declare Scottish independence if the UK votes to leave the EU but Scots wants to stay in. So that's just one single referendum to a) get us out of Brussels' clutches and b) solve the Scottish Question. Bring it on.

DRIVING home a few nights ago I came up behind an old, rather small, sports car. It turned out to be an Aston Martin DB5, as driven by James Bond in the 1960s. Back then, the DB5 was a great big beast of a car. Today it is dwarfed by the traffic around it, a reminder of the relentless growth in the size of family saloons, and the lumpy, ever-growing humans they are designed to carry. Believe it or not, the DB5 is 7.4 inches narrower than a modern Ford Focus and only eight inches longer.

AFTER a savage attack on football fans in Wolverhampton a victim recalled: "One thing that I was left wondering was 'where were the police?' I do not recall seeing one officer." I may have the answer. Over in Lincolnshire an officer found time to threaten to confiscate four-year-old Sophie Lindley's bicycle, complete with stabilisers, when he spotted her cycling on the pavement. She was left in tears. If the constabulary in Lincolnshire is so much in control of law and order that it can afford to target four-year-old cyclists, maybe they could spare a few bobbies to send over to Wolverhampton on match days. Sorted.

EDITORIAL anguish at the BBC. In Radio 4's headlines at 6am yesterday we were told of an execution video showing a child "murdering" a hostage. By 6.30am the script had been re-written and the victim had been "shot dead." By 7am the powers-that-be had decided it was "murder," after all.

CLARKSON? He'll be back . . .