Overkill, 007?

THIS week's warning about sausages, bacon and cancer pales into insignificance for those of us following Fargo (C4). Whatever has been through your butcher's mincing machine lately, you can be pretty sure it won't be as grisly as the dismembered villain's body reduced to a soggy red-grey mulch in this week's episode. Pity it's not on before the watershed. The kids would love it.

A READER says he cannot take much more James Bond. After so many trailers, guest appearances, premieres, interviews and the rest of the Bond ballyhoo, he feels he has already seen Spectre several times over. He asks: "Has 007 never heard of overkill?" Probably not.

SAUDI Arabia's ambassador to Britain complained a few days ago of a lack of respect for his country and deplored an "alarming change in the way Saudi Arabia is discussed in Britain." A couple of days later, one Saudi prince was detained in Lebanon following the biggest drug seizure in the history of Beirut airport. The next day, another Saudi prince was accused of assaulting three American woman and holding them captive at a mansion in Beverly Hills. Respect? You earn it.

FIRST World problems. We worry about a shortage of pumpkins forcing us to use turnips for Halloween lanterns. A few hundred miles away, on the borders of the Balkans, among that massive trudging queue of humanity, old folk and children, having survived the perils of the Med, will soon be freezing to death.

THE image of the first frozen Syrian toddler to die in Europe is probably only a few days away. This is Europe in the 21st century. In our blessed, lucky continent, kids are not supposed to perish out in the cold, and yet the numbers of migrants are so vast, and the EU's response so pitifully small, that it seems inevitable someone will slip through the net one cold night. That event will supercharge the migration debate in much the way that the image of the drowned three-year-old Aylan Kurdi shifted things to a new level in September. We could at least blame Aylan's death on the wickedness of the people-smugglers or the indifference of the sea. But there will be no excuses for deaths among those who are already within the sanctuary of Europe. Brace yourselves for a continent-wide wave of anger and shame.

THE American Dream is the one that says any American, no matter how poor or low-born, can one day become president. It is inspiring, tear-jerking - and total cobblers. The rather more modest British Dream was explained this week by Lewis Hamilton after winning his third world motor racing championship. Hamilton says his triumph means anyone can enjoy success - "through me." Those crucial two words are searingly honest. We cannot all be world champions. But through Hamilton, who still seems endearingly baffled by his own success, we can share the infectious joy of winning.

WHILE we cannot all become kings, presidents or F1 champs, you might have an outside chance of becoming a duke. The Last Dukes (BBC2) introduced us to the 12th Duke of Atholl, Bruce Murray. He was an ordinary bloke, quietly running a sign-making business in South Africa when a distant cousin died and, by the mysteries of ducal succession, he found himself catapulted into the peerage, wearing a feathered bonnet, commanding the only private army in Europe and awarding prizes for caber-tossing in Scotland. Funny how things turn out.