Press it, Principal Skinner!

Press the Independent Thought Alert button, Principal Skinner! Reviewing the papers on Radio 4's Broadcasting House this morning, political journalist Julia Hartley-Brewer stepped out of line. Fellow guest, former BBC weatherman Michael Fish, bemoaned the descent of the Copenhagen protests into violence, saying that he had been on a similar march himself, with no trouble. He warned that global warming will cause millions of children to die of preventable diseases such as malaria, to which she responded that 40,000 children die every day of preventable diseases already:

"So why," she said dryly, "aren't people marching in protest about that?"

For anyone dozing at the back there, it's because dead African children aren't currently fashionable, there being too many of them to fit into a photo shoot.

And one of the reasons there are quite a lot of dead African children is that you can't get a patent for salt, sugar and water so there's no money in selling the rehydrating powders that would save the lives of the thousands who perish from diarrhoea.

Another reason is that DDT, the one thing that would have prevented the spread of malaria across equatorial Africa by killing the mosquitoes which spread it, was banned after it was found to kill most of the plants as well. But you know, boys and girls, being grown ups involves making difficult choices, some or all of which are politically unpopular. In fact, that's entirely what being grown up is about, and we clearly have rather a long way to go.

Whom should you fear, children? Vampires or priests?

How appropriate that the report into the festering sore at the heart of the Irish Catholic church as a whole, and the Archdiocese of Dublin in particular, comes just before Christmas. Just think, children, of all those priests going on about Jesus meek and mild, always with that emphasis on purity and innocence. There's nothing to add, really, except that they've taken a moment out of their busy schedule of covering up abuse to condemn the new Twilight film.

'Dangerous and morally empty' was the phrase.

Give me the vampires every time.

To love them is not to know them

The protestations of Amanda Knox's parents that their Jesuit educated daughter is not only innocent of murder but a model citizen are not so surprising. Knox, sentenced last night to 26 years for the killing of Meredith Kercher, had a rather different reputation in Perugia from her squeaky clean image back in Seattle. Similarly, her former boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito, described by his father as 'an innocent', turns out to have been a keen collector of swords who boasted on the net that he could be wild and 'totally crazy'.

And here in the UK, missing chef Claudia Lawrence is alleged to have had a number of men in her life, some married, of whom her family knew nothing. Finally, this year Ron Smith gave up his thirty-year battle to prove that his daughter Helen was murdered. No evidence was found that she died of anything more conspiratorial than a fall from a balcony at a party in Saudi while - probably - drunk.

Did you tell your parents about all the sex, drugs and alcohol you had?

Do you know anyone who did?

If you want to know how someone really lived, ask anyone but their family.

Guardian readers aren't faking it

We recently took out a subscription to The Guardian, which offers, in return for long-term commitment to that estimable newspaper, a generous discount on the cover price.

A booklet of vouchers arrived, with one for each day to hand to the newsagent of our choice. On the first day, a Times reading friend saw them and warned that we'd have trouble getting shops to accept them due to the increasing amount of fraud.

"People have been making fake Times vouchers, printing them off and getting the paper for free," she said. "So lots of newsagents won't take them."

A tiny frisson of schadenfreude at the thought of a modest dent in Rupert Murdoch's profits lifted my heart for a moment before I set off in trepidation with my first voucher.

"No problem," said the shopkeeper who took it.

Seemingly it's just those lowlife Times readers who perpetrate the counterfeits. Well, it is the organ of the establishment after all.

The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

Those in support of the new vetting and barring scheme for adults who help out regularly at children's sports clubs etc seem to have missed the other reason for the lack of enthusiasm among us tediously uncooperative parents. It's not just the cost, and the nuisance, it's the fact that most of us don't believe that schemes like this protect children from abuse.

The most dangerous place for children, statistically, is their own homes. But we can't vet and bar parents, or parents' boyfriends, or lodgers, so we have this instead. It's a well meant waste of - potentially - 11.3 million people's time, but let's not kid ourselves that it's solving the main problem. For every Ian Huntley, or Ian Brady, there are many abusive and murderous parents. Sometimes it almost seems as though the government wants us not to remember this. I wonder why.

Made from 70% recycled stupidity

I take glucosamine for my knee, which is - marginally - cheaper on prescription. When I went to get it from the chemist recently, I was given the 180 tablets in SIX containers. Each had 30 pills loitering at the bottom of an otherwise empty pot. Ridiculous, I thought, so I decanted the lot into one, and took the other five back to be reused. The pharmacist laughed at the idea.

"Oh no!" she said, as if I were mad. "We throw them away."

I tried another chemist the next time, and got exactly the same packaging - and response. The company responsible for this ludicrous waste? Alliance Healthcare, whose paper bags bear the legend: 'Made from 70% recycled paper', along with the usual meaningless slogan: 'Bringing Healthcare Closer.' Closer to what? Landfill, presumably.

Wakey wakey!

Just in case anyone is still in doubt, we really do have it on very good authority that alcohol and cigarettes kill more people than anything illegal you can name. The latest professional to issue the reminder was Dr Andrew Hartle, a Consultant Anaesthetist at Imperial College, on the Today Programme this morning, while discussing Michael Jackson's unfortunate and probably fatal addiction to the anaesthetic Propofol. Having moved on from the tragic singer to addictions generally, Evan Davies pressed the doctor for drugs people "should avoid". He sounded uncertain as he said it, but was clearly even less sure of himself - even disappointed - when he heard Hartle's answer.

"More people are harmed by alcohol and nicotine than all the other drugs," said the doc quietly. The glimmerings of a laugh you could hear in his voice were presumably the result of having to state the blindingly obvious. Parents and teachers take note: yes, that is alcohol and nicotine, and coincidentally, they do both bring in billions to the Treasury.

Weapon of Maths Destruction

Well done to the BBC Radio 4 programme More or Less which this week demolished a racist and scary video on Youtube, just with the power of maths. Yes, that's right children: you too can work out that the Muslim population of Belgium isn't 25% because it's actually around 6%, purely by using numbers, along with what we call 'thinking'.

The video, reportedly posted by a US Christian group, seeks to frighten us all to bejesus - literally - with what it calls the 'Islamicisation of Europe', ie those dark foreigners are breeding so uncontrollably that soon there'll be no nice white, blonde, God - as opposed to Allah-fearing - people left.

And you might have believed it, for about a minute, if not for those helpful maths geeks at More or Less - and another flaw they calmly and charmingly pointed out. None of the EU countries record the religion of newborns so no-one knows how many of them are Muslims. Oh, and trends measured over the last 100 years show that immigrant groups largely conform over time to the birth patterns of their host nations. In other words, it's all bollocks. Statistical bollocks, as well as ideological. Thank you, BBC: when the airwaves are full of ranting talk shows and 'home-made' news reports, we are going to miss you so much.

Never mind the war on terror: the real enemy of this government is dissent

The government's plan to reduce the influx of undesirables into the UK sounded promising when it was announced. 'New criteria' are to be used to screen out people who don't share British values. Great, we thought. At last they're going to start booting out the 'honour' killers, thieves, terrorists and rapists. After all, we don't need them coming in; we have our own. Uh, no, actually: the only criterion mentioned would be if immigrants show they're unpatriotic by demonstrating against wars, for example those in Iraq or Afghanistan. As Chris Huhne of the Lib Dems rightly said, since when has demonstrating against war been proof of not loving your country? From there it is but a short, almost imperceptible step to the charge of 'challenging government authority', and there are quite a few countries that put people in prison for that. You can get a list of them from Amnesty International.

No room for the faithless on the moral high ground

With swine flu anxiety edging up, the religious/'spiritual' crowd are, as ever, shoving the rest of aside in the scrabble to gain ownership of human values, ie thinking things may turn out for the best and being nice to others.

In Sunday’s Observer Karol Sikora argued - though that's putting it rather highly - that because we have ‘lost’ both our faith and extended families, we’re all falling pray to panic about swine flu as apparently only those two entities can offer freedom from fear, and also support. He claimed that 'When our own mortality is suddenly questioned, we need a shoulder to lean on. If we have no family infrastructure or belief, what is there?'

Well gee, I don't know about you, but I had a family last time I looked. They're a bit ragged round the edges. The extended bit contains stepbrothers and sisters rather than grannies. They even have different belief systems. My mother doesn't like Christmas and my sister does Channukah instead. But I'm fairly sure that if I fell ill they might bung me a card, or hell - even visit. I also belong to two amazing networks known as neighbours and friends. For anyone of the faith/spiritual disposition who doesn't know how it works, you get to know people, either because you like them or live nearby, or you've been to school together, or your children have, or combinations thereof. You hang out a bit, share stuff about yourselves, and do each other little favours. Examples might be, ooh, minding their kids while they go to an interview or the doctor's, or giving them a bag of icing sugar at 10pm when they're making their child a birthday cake and have run out. (No, that wasn't me; it was my neighbour though.) Then, when crisis strikes, you help in whatever way you can. It's easy. Mr Sikora, you should try it. It might open your eyes to the joys of being human, and even make you less cynical.

Try saying 'American Dream' with your mouth closed

Every July in Wise, Virginia, a free dental field clinic treats 2-3000 of the 47 million Americans without healthcare, a miracle of almost Biblical proportions. That's right: approximately one in five Americans have no access to a dentist or doctor because they can't afford private healthcare.

President Obama has now joined the ranks of those brave - and they do need to be - politicians who want to take on the vested interests of the health insurance companies, who in contrast to the warm, caring images in their publicity, go to considerable trouble in their small print to ensure payouts are avoided as often as possible. Examples include cancelling a woman's mastectomy because a previous attack of acne had been mistakenly described by her dermatologist as 'pre-cancerous' and so the patient could be said to have lied about her medical history.

You'd be amazed, therefore, to hear that many Americans oppose free healthcare. Clean teeth and chemo for all: what's not to like? But it would spell financial ruin, or vastly reduced profits anyhow, for the insurance firms whose lobbyists do a brilliant carrot and stick job by filling campaign coffers and scaring people with images of filthy, rundown state facilities. But surely, you say, all they have to do is come over and look at our marvellous NHS. But they don't. Even many Americans who actually live here go private, believing the alternative to be a ‘Third World’ service for the poor and desperate, not the remarkable system most of us use throughout our lives. That’s the power of the private health insurance lobby.

So, Mr President: you know what you need to do. Our amazing doctors and nurses will be glad to show you around.

Don't hold your breath

Hope everyone heard the swine flu advice from Health Secretary Andy Burnham for pregnant women on the Today Programme, which was, er, to follow the advice given a few moments before by the ‘Pandemic Co-ordinator’ at the Royal College of Obstetricians. And all he could tell us to do was to “observe good respiratory and hand hygiene”. I think we got the hand part OK. Any idea what the other bit means? Wear masks? Stay in? Don’t breathe? No, me neither.

Do these people listen to themselves?

To the list of endangered professions in this country, along with car manufacturers and markers of 'A' level papers, we must now add satirists.

It began with parents at some schools being banned from photographing their own children at Sports Days - though you'd have thought they'd have just been grateful that they still had Sports Days. Then Sandy Upper School in Biggleswade stopped tinkering around the edges of paranoia and held the event without the parents altogether. Paul Blunt, of the East Beds School Sports Partnership, was quoted as saying,

"If we let parents into the school they would have been free to roam the grounds. All unsupervised adults must be kept away from children. An unsavoury character could have come in. The ultimate fear is that a child is hurt or abducted."

But, Paul: why stop there? If you want to be really sure, don't let children out of the house at all. Two of them die every week at the hands of their own family, so we look forward to your initiatives for tackling that.

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