A firing squad for Gay Mountain?

FORGET flowers, chocolates and lingerie. According to a survey, one of the best Valentine's Day gifts a man can give a woman is a kiss. Believe that, chaps, and you may be in for a frigid Friday.

ANOTHER Olympics brings another reminder that almost every country in the world has a better national anthem than us, especially Russia. Why have we never improved on our droning, dirge-like God Save the Queen?

MEANWHILE, Channel 4 has taken a chance on Russia not dominating the world in the foreseeable future . Its naughty Olympic Games spoof, Gay Mountain is set to the tune of the Russian national anthem, complete with rainbow lights, a gay singer, two blokes snogging and a bare-chested President Putin lookalike. If the Red Army's invasion barges ever sail up the Thames, who knows what will await the creative luvvies behind Gay Mountain? A firing squad, if they're lucky.

THE world of television make-up and prosthetics gives us chillingly realistic space monsters, hideously convincing battlefield wounds and an endless assortment of lifelike warts, boils, pus and pustules. But when it comes to pregnancy, there is a tradition of shoving a football up the woman's frock and hoping for the best. In Call the Midwife (BBC1), never have so many perfect babies emerged from so many deeply unconvincing bumps.

THE Bible Society reports glumly that thousands of schoolchildren know little about Bible stories. In a survey, nearly one in three did not know the Nativity was from the Bible and more than a third did not recognise the Good Samaritan as a biblical figure. It is frankly shameful. The Bible is at the heart of our culture and language. If you deny kids knowledge of the Bible, you deny them the ability to appreciate Shakespeare, to comprehend history or to understand some of the finest music and art. You raise a generation who don't understand terms such as the widow's mite or the Prodigal Son. Bible study should be taught from early years, not as a means of imposing what some people call "faith" (and others call "irrational belief") on kids, nor to terrify children with wicked nonsense about heaven and hell, but simply as part of their heritage. One of the most eloquent spokesmen for Bible study is the atheist Richard Dawkins. As he puts it: "An atheistic world-view provides no justification for cutting the Bible, and other sacred books, out of our education." Amen to that, as we wicked old unbelievers say.

ONE reason I would not make a good politician is that I would not take abuse from people who choose to live below sea level and then bellyache in your ear at full volume, in front of the cameras, for failing to make the water flow uphill. The only solution to the Somerset flooding is to give people a lot of money to go and live somewhere else (I have a similar solution to the Falkland Islands issue, which is another good reason why I would not succeed in politics).

INCIDENTALLY, have you noticed in the aerial shots of the flooded areas, the churches are always on dry land? It's a reminder that the Church has spent 2,000 years grabbing both the moral high ground and the real high ground.

WHERE will the Somerset Levels resettlement money come from? Easy. Scrap HS2, save £42 billion and spend the money on something sensible.

AND while it has been a wretched, sodden couple of months for some parts of the UK, consider this. In the period from Christmas until today, how many road users in England have been killed as a result of snow, ice or fog? I suspect the answer may be none.