Killjoys

I opened my Daily Telegraph this morning to a breathtaking picture of a canoeist sliding 300ft down the spillway at Llyn Brianne reservoir in Carmarthenshire, Wales.

The best bit about it was that there was none of the usual "it shouldn't be allowed" condemnation from some petty official. Not that I thought for one moment it would be condoned by the water authority.

And no, it wasn't. By the time a clip appeared here on the BBC website there was a spokesman for Welsh Water saying: "Reservoirs can be dangerous for various reasons and those involved in water sports in inappropriate locations, such as at Llyn Brianne, put themselves and others at unnecessary risk."

No they don't. They put themselves at risk. No-one else need be involved. Reservoirs can be dangerous. Rivers can be dangerous; life can be dangerous thank goodness. That's what makes it worth living.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if just once someone in authority spoke out and said: "This is a wonderful facility for canoeists and thrill seekers. As long as they understand the obvious risks involved we welcome their use of our reservoir in this way."

So what will happen now? Expect warning signs, barbed wire, barriers, CCTV, prosecutions, legal threats and everything else that revels in making life dull and tawdry. The way our society approaches those with a sense of adventure is simply pathetic.

Quantum of Frolics

OK, tons of action, Parkour, flying roof tiles, even a stylish martini, but is Quantum of Solace the Bond we all know and love?

It had lots of good stuff, great locations and bags of atmosphere. I loved the opera scene. But what the hell was it about?

George and Rob have drawn up a seven-point checklist for future Bond productions and looking at this amusing YouTube mash-up they are not alone in their bewilderment:

1. The planet needs to be threatened by some kind of mega death ray. In this one the greedy villain is threatening us with a water shortage at the risk of doubling our utility bills. We've had something like that already this year for real.

2. Where has the witty quip gone after someone is dispatched? The new Bond hardly says anything.

3. Gadgets: where have they gone? What have they done to Q?

4. What has happened to the physically deformed villains with horrific scars, burns, etc?

5. Why can't Bond keep himself reasonably clean? His shirts look like a "before" scene in a Persil ad - blood, sweat, grime, all kinds of difficult stains.

6. Iconic Bond music must be before, during and at the end of the film.

7. For goodness sake he has to get the girl.

"We appreciate that you are trying to make Bond more realistic and believable," say the boys. "But please don't! James Bond is not a hardened killer; he is a warm character who is both comical and light hearted. We don't want Bond to be serious and completely realistic; we already have someone doing that in films. He's called Jason Bourne. James Bond is supposed to be far fetched and fun, not realistic and terrifyingly ruthless. Sort it out!"

Huns, wops and dagos at the palace

Edward Stourton, the BBC Today programme presenter, has recalled in his new book, It's a PC World, a conversation he had with the late Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, about the European Union.

She told him: "It will never work, you know....It will never work with all those Huns, wops and dagos."

While he thought what she said was "nasty and ugly," concluding she was "a nasty old bigot," he has sought subsequently to put the remark in context, arguing that "The Queen Mother came from a generation when people did talk like that."

Ethnic groups

No, Mr Stourton, they didn't all talk like that. I cannot recall any of my grandparents using those words. Certainly my parents never used them. I recall once, when very young, asking my mother what the words "Wogs go home," meant. I had seen them daubed on a bridge. My mother simply said that "wog" was a nasty word for "coloured people".

It's true that her generation did not try to make politically correct references that distinguished people from different ethnic backgrounds, hence the "coloured" reference. I remember it was a problem in local newspapers. At the Huddersfield Examiner discussions with local ethnic groups led to a policy of referring to the two main ethnic groups as "black" or "Asian" and I have stuck with that ever since, never feeling quite comfortable with phrases such as "Afro Caribbean" or "Afro American".

Tar brush

I would love to report that the most derogatory terms had been abandoned but I still hear such words occasionally today among the older generation. I have one shooting friend, a contemporary, who refers to black people as "jigaboos" and another who suggested jokingly to a slightly dark skinned mutual friend that there was a "bit of the tar brush" about him.

I suppose that certain "naming" to denote racial difference will be something we shall always have to live with. I have heard it argued that those black people who voted for Barack Obama principally because of his race were being racist in their choice. If so, could this be an acceptable defence of racism in certain circumstances? I can understand any black American choosing Obama for historical reasons.

Royal form

I wasn't at all surprised to hear about the Queen Mother's language. The royals have form, particularly her son-in-law.

Some of Prince Philip's less than PC remarks have been collected in a book of gaffs that includes the following:

* To a British student in China: "If you stay here much longer, you will go home with slitty eyes."
* To a British student in Papua New Guinea: "You managed not to get eaten then?"
* To a British tourist in Hungary: "You can't have been here that long — you haven't got a pot belly."
* To a Scottish driving instructor: "How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test?"
* To Australian Aborigines: "Do you still throw spears at each other?"
* While on a factory tour, looking at a crude electrical fitting, he suggested it might have been "installed by an Indian."

Funnily enough the Duke of Edinburgh is so broadly politically incorrect that at least he can claim consistency. I have met him a couple of times and can confirm that he behaves the same with everyone. In fact I'm sure his children have suffered his tongue and Prince Charles probably more than the rest, which would explain why Jonathan Dimbleby's authorised biography of Charles portrayed the duke as an authoritarian bully.

Whatever the truth of this, I can imagine Prince Philip would have hit it off with his mother-in-law. They spoke the same language.

The world's best toy

It costs nothing, it's available practically everywhere in the world outside the polar regions and the Sahara, and has amused children probably for the whole of human history.

What is this marvellous toy? It's the stick. Americans have recognised its ubiquity as a play thing by voting it in to the US National Toy Hall of Fame in New York.

It must have those people at Hasbro and Mattel gnashing their teeth. As far as I know, there has not been an attempt yet to market sticks beyond those you can buy for walking and wading.

Prototypes

Yet this has to be the world's best toy. I don't think I went anywhere as a child without finding a stick. My own kids did the same. It started with looking around for something appropriate. One or two prototypes might be considered for a while then discarded, then you found something that was just the job.

What was "the job"? What is the limit of your imagination? The stick must be the ultimate multifunctional tool/toy. Gun, bat, staff, spear, bow, fishing rod, twiddler, swinger, prop, prodder, tripper, brodler - it could be all of these things. You couldn't be Little John or Robin Hood without your stick.

Pooh sticks

You couldn't be much of a boy scout without your stick either. The stick made Sir Donald Bradman in to the greatest cricketer of his generation. His hand-eye co-ordination was sharpened as a child by continually hitting a ball against a wall with a stick. It inspired the writer, A A Milne (pooh sticks)and helped make Tommy Cooper a magician "Juss like that!"

An earlier inclusion in the hall of fame was the cardboard box (invented in the UK in 1817). It seems odd to think that men who fought at the Battle of Waterloo (1815) had never seen cardboard boxes although they were familiar with wooden boxes and chests.

Christmas boxes

I was surprised to find that the simple ball is not yet on the list. For next year's inclusion, however, I would like to cast my vote for string.

I reckon you could have an excellent Christmas Day as a youngster if Santa was to bring you some sticks, a ball, some string and a few boxes. Come to think of it he usually does bring string and boxes. What would Christmas be without them?

Poppy Day

As we walked towards the entrance of Wisley garden yesterday a woman was ringing a handbell - the sort they once used in school playgrounds. It was 11 am and everyone stood in silence for two minutes to observe the act of remembrance.

Afterwards a young couple congratulated their five or maybe six-year-old daughter for keeping still and quiet. It was an opportunity for them to explain what must have seemed an odd thing to happen for a curious youngster.

It's good that people are doing this. Few of us standing there would have had much experience of war, but all of us have grown up with its consequences and most of us have indirect experiences through either parents, grandparents or great grandparents.

Broken branches

Few Germans, indeed, will be able to track back their family trees without finding broken branches from family deaths in one of the world wars.

War must have touched every nation in some way. For this reason in our connected world I wonder if Remembrance Day should be harmonized internationally around the red poppy symbol. If the charitable link were to be maintained through the British Legion, that benefits from poppy sales, there would need to be a rethink around charitable aims. I, for one, would welcome part of my charitable donation being used to help, for example, land mine victims, globally.

Talking to various friends abroad through the internet yesterday it was clear that while many nations do observe remembrance days there is not always the same act of intensity around the ritual as we experience in the UK. In France and Belgium, few people wear poppies. In Germany there is Volkstrauertag, a day of national mourning, but it does not seem to be linked with charity giving to help those injured through warfare.

Anzac Day

The Australians and New Zealanders understandably focus their remembrance ceremonies around Anzac Day, but November 11 seems somehow appropriate. It was a defined end to what was recognised as the first world war, what some, idealistically described as the war to end all wars.

There will come a time when the word "remembrance" itself begins to lose its meaning but a degree of contemplation around the destructiveness and sacrifice in war is worth this tiny annual "time out" in our lives.

White poppy

I don't think the white poppy is appropriate because, while it stands for the admirable aim of "world peace", it loses that linkage of memory and respect for those who gave their lives out of a sense of duty even, in many cases, after they had grown tired and disillusioned with any greater cause.

Remembrance of war also reminds us of the good things that flourish in conflict - a sense of purpose, comradeship, community that are often abandoned or lost afterwards. War can bring out the worst in people but we should never forget that it it can bring out the best in people too.

Obama's win

What it means.

The bald truth

I'm 51 - long past the age for a mid-life crisis but I was patting my hair this afternoon like you do. Don't you pat your hair? No, I'm not sure I do very often either which is probably why I was surprised to find that there didn't seem much to pat.

"My hair seems to be going a bit thin on top," I said to Gill. "Yes there's not much there now," she said. "Your bald patch is showing like a tonsure these days."

Is it? This came as a surprise to me. I tried to look at the back of my head in the wardrobe mirror, turning as I did like a dog chasing its tale, then bending backwards like a limbo dancer. This explained everything. You can't see the back of your head. It's unfamiliar territory.

So I found another small mirror and did the thing that barbers do when they show off their handy work after cutting your hair. It made me realise how clever my barber has been. He must hold the mirror at such an angle that it only shows the lower head hair and not the shiny round skating-rink on top.

The thing is that there is still a bit of hair on the crown so it feels hairy rather than polished. But the inspection revealed more pink than grey. It's definitely going.

The great thing is that this is no big deal. This isn't premature baldness. It's "about the right time" baldness which makes all the difference. I don't feel the need to shave it all off like some younger blokes I know. But it's left me wondering about future trips to the barber's: at what stage can you ask for concessions?