Next in line for the Black & Decker?

THERE. It wasn't too difficult to end the open sale of legal highs, was it? The Government simply declares them illegal. Don't weep for the dealers. They know perfectly well that kids are ingesting this filth but so long as it is marked "Not for human consumption" they consider themselves blameless. They should be dragged out of their seedy little shops and chucked in the river.

SOMEONE scrawled racist graffiti on the wall of a London bar. Someone else, without a shred of evidence, decided to blame it on a local primary-school teacher. The false allegation spread like wildfire on social media. The teacher says he now fears for his life. Meanwhile, in Paris a bridge had to be closed while workmen removed thousands of padlocks fastened to the structure by couples desperate to demonstrate their love. One couple did it some years ago and posted it on Twitter, and now everyone thinks they have to join in. You see the connection? Social media is the death of original thinking. It creates stupid fads and baseless allegations. It turns people from rational thinkers into the Mob. It gives one brainless Tweeter the power to destroy a person's life.

THANKS for all your emails on the subject of DIY-type hardware spotted in operating theatres. A lady recalls a disturbing experience in an NHS hospital. She recalls lying in the anaesthesia room for more than an hour, hearing in the adjacent theatre, the whistling, whirring and grinding of a surgeon using what sounded like a Black & Decker drill – and knowing she was next in line. "It does nothing for pre-op nerves," she says. I bet.

MEANWHILE, the clear message from the new Tory government is that if you need the NHS you must have done something wrong to become unhealthy. Whitehall promises "a major debate" on individual responsibility for the effects of smoking, drinking and obesity. The trouble with these "major debates" in the past is that while you, me and the minister are debating in the village hall, the real agenda is being set between civil servants and the food-industry lobbyists behind closed doors in Whitehall.

BUT obesity is a win-win issue for any government looking to raise billions for the health service. It would be perfectly possible to slap a massive tax on sugar. After all, what politician in his or her right mind is going to defend the human rights of parents to turn their kids into lardarses? This is one tax that could be imposed without a peep of protest from the public or MPs. The food industry will squeal. Let it.

RESEARCHERS claim that anti-male bias in the courts is a myth. They base this on a study which shows applications by fathers to see their kids are "overwhelmingly successful." Well, so what? If an ex-wife changes the agreed visiting times, invents illnesses or simply refuses any access, your court order is worthless - as thousands of heartbroken fathers will testify.

I ADMIT I am addicted to the Herald Scotland website. It is fervently in support of independence and the moment any story appears, the readers pour in with comments, venting their spleen against those terrible Tory Sassenachs who are to blame for all of Scotland's ills. Yet a couple of days ago a story attracted hardly any comment. It began: "A man was arrested after allegedly performing an indecent act in full view of dozens of stunned shoppers in Glasgow." Emails came there few. I dare say Herald Scotland readers knew in their hearts that the Thatcherite colonialist Westminster elite were somehow to blame, but were trying to figure out quite how.