A Jungle at Dover?

THEY are not cardboard, metal, textile or paper. They are not compostable and they aren't electrical goods. So how do I recycle my old hot-water bottle?

HANG on. We were assured that leaving the EU would give us control of our borders. Yet the latest dire warning from Downing Street is that if we leave, the "Jungle" near Calais would mysteriously cross the Channel, with camps being set up along the south coast of England. Two points. Firstly, we would never tolerate such an eyesore. The Jungle is a disgrace to France and the French should be thoroughly ashamed of it. We Brits have rather more experience in providing neat and jolly seaside camps for the masses. It sounds like a job for Ruth Madoc. Hi-de-hi, migrants.

THE second point? It is the growing, helpless realisation that no matter how we vote, we can't get out of the EU. There are no contingency plans, either in government or big business, to cope with our exit. Ever since the1970s we have been told that the UK could quit the Union by a simple vote in Parliament. Oh, the big black lies. The truth is that the will of the citizens counts for nothing. And that's another excellent reason to vote Out. If we achieve nothing else, let's expose the bitter truth that once you are in, you're in for ever.

THE Kids Company row splutters on. I doubt it could have happened anywhere other than in London. You couldn't help noticing in Camila's Kids Company (BBC1) that in her earlier years Ms Batmanghelidjh was more plainly clothed. As her girth expanded she dressed in a mountain of ethnic wrappings and headdresses, looking like Ronnie Barker emerging from a Black Friday duvet sale. The wackier she looked, the more the metropolitan elite worshipped her. A key issue ignored by the London-based media is the unfairness of taking taxpayers' money from across the UK and injecting more than £40 million of it into a charity working with a few hundred families in London. I don't think the average hard-headed provincial mayor would have fallen for Batmanghelidjh's alleged charisma. He would have taken one look at Camila and her multi-coloured flannel and shown her the door.

SPARE us, please, the attempted posthumous conversion of Terry Wogan. He was a declared lifelong atheist. Yet some want to turn the Godless Wogan into something else. Their argument goes: Terry was a good man, therefore he was close to God. In fact (with a knowing little smile) he probably wasn't aware how close to God he was. The idea that an atheist might be a good person doesn't even enter their thinking. Wogan saw the real, unfair world, including the nastier side of Catholicism, and drew his own conclusions: no God, no Heaven, no Hell, just the eternal goodness of humanity. Wogan was a good atheist and his views should be respected, not turned upside-down by the God-botherers.

AND what are we to make of the bizarre comment by one of Wogan's friends, the priest Father Brian D'Arcy? He says: "Jesus of the Bible would have loved Terry Wogan." As I understand it, the entire point of the Gospel message is that Jesus loves every single one of us. Including us atheists.

JOE Alaskey, the voice of Bugs Bunny, has died, far too soon, at 63. At some stage he must have asked the doctor what was up.