IT used to be counsellors. Then it was people who wrote self-help books. There’s always some group in society that we can all hate cheerfully together. I’d like to suggest safety officers. I know, I know… they do a good job. Where would we be without them? They are performing a Valuable Service people need. They are Protecting Us From Ourselves. That’s what they said about counsellors and self-help authors and it wasn’t true then either. Actually, safety officers are a scourge. You can’t like safety officers. If I had my way I’d gather up all the safety officers in the world and shut them in a building together. I’d…

MY daughter came back. Can they do that? Aren’t they supposed to go off and find themselves? Become their own person? Visit occasionally. With gifts. I thought we’d seen the last of her until I was 80, when I’d go to live with her so she could wheel me to the lavatory. And she’s brought the dog. And the chickens, Nine chickens. And a goldfish. I don’t know if chickens eat goldfish but I’m going to find out. I’m fairly confident dogs eat chickens. I just have to make it look like an accident. The bonus will be that if the dog eats the chickens she’ll probably want to get…

WHERE does graffiti come from? I need to know. This morning there is a squiggle painted on my gate. It is not unattractive and some people might welcome it on the wall of their lounge room. If you hang it upside down the four-letter word that accompanies looks like a signature. But hey, I’m a grown up. I’ve heard words like that before. And I’m all for a bit of creative self‑expression. When I catch the little bastard who did it I’m going to self-express myself on his head with a length of two by two. Assuming, that is, that we are talking about something human. I mean, have you…

DO you know who Angelina Jolie is? Or Janeane Garofalo? Do you know who Andy Dick is? (And no, this is not a dirty joke). Good. Neither do I. Or I didn’t, but I do now. Angelina is a star. She has moved to England. Janeane is star. She has been shopping in New York. I still don’t know who Andy Dick is, and I’m glad. All I know is that his demented face appears in a magazine called NW. I picked it up at a newsagent. You should try this some time. Instead of picking up the gardening magazine or the home improvement magazine, move two paces to the…

I HAVE discovered a field of scientific enquiry that has provided a whole new range of natural laws. Washing up. The first law is that no matter how carefully you wash up, no matter whether you drain the water through a sieve, or x-ray it, there will always be a teaspoon lurking at the bottom when you tip the water away. This is true even when you never washed up any teaspoons. The second law is that the only time it will not be a teaspoon is when there’s a drought and you hurl the washing up water over the plants in the rockery. Then it’ll be a plate. The…