Locked in with a spider

THE big news this week, on the front pages and trumpeted by TV and radio, is that Facebook is to launch a "dislike" button. The small and rather neglected news is that North Korea has fired up its nuclear programme to make bigger and better hydrogen bombs. Interesting priorities.

HOW phobias work. Those of us with a yabba-dabba relationship with spiders will take no comfort at all in this week's news that a British firm has perfected the spider-proof garden shed. The idea is that no spider can get into the silicone-sealed garden hut. Or to put it another way, if a spider enters by the door which is then closed, it has no escape. It's just you and the spider, locked together, sealed together, mutually terrified. The march of progress.

MY own shed is well provided with chinks, gaps, knot-holes and other escape routes. At this time of year as I enter, there is a sudden scurry of small things exiting.

DOZENS of young men were chucking stones and bottles at the Hungarian police lines. It was obvious that the cops, suffering a steady stream of casualties, would react. Most parents would have made sure their children were well out of harm's way. So why were so many migrant babies and small children pushed right into the front line at the Hungarian border this week? Once the tear gas was fired, these terrified mites were paraded for the world's media. This was propaganda at its nastiest, the cynical use of children as heart-rending media images and human shields. The horrendous scenes this week prove that the only humane and workable solution to this nightmare is to keep Syrian families together in comfort, security and with education and employment, within their own region until their own country is fit to return to. And the only European nation to invest £1,000 million in that wise and caring option is wicked old Britain.

AND off for an open day at a glorious old Georgian walled garden. It is a massive place, bigger than a football pitch, which was buried under forests of ivy with roots as thick as your leg. Today, thanks to a team of volunteers, it is cleared, replanted and the million-brick wall is being restored to last another 150 years. I fell into conversation with a chap who knows all there is to know about ancient lime mortar. His enthusiasm was infectious. His only regret is that, thanks to health and safety requirements, hardly any work can be done above five feet without first erecting scaffolding and being lectured on ropes, shackles and safety harnesses. He dutifully paid attention to the lectures on the perils of working at the dizzy heights of five feet-plus, never mentioning that for years he was a mountaineer.

BEING a good citizen, I have just completed and returned what the NHS calls the Bowel Cancer Screening Kit and the rest of us call poo sticks. You'd think there would be a law against putting that sort of stuff in the post.

ANYWAY, that's the test done for another year. In theory, millions of us over-60s are dutifully returning our samples, but I wonder how many folk simply cannot be bothered, or don't want to know, or are too embarrassed. A friend said that until he did his DIY bowel-cancer test, he had no idea how many things he could balance on his knee at the same time.