YES, it's a wonderful world and we are so lucky to live in such a marvellous part of it, among splendid, upstanding, clever and brave people. Already, you are suspicious or wondering if my personality has had a makeover, one that involves a lot of drilling and a large skip.
I can, however, put your minds at ease. For I have not had a nip and tuck of the brainlobe, and my opening bombshell sentence was indeed sarcastic. There, isn't it nice when you can rely on something in these ever-changing times?
I am prompted to
witter thus by the increasing horror induced by neds hunting deer that have innocently wandered into their jungles. Many times I've drawn attention to the similarities between neds and toffs: the distinctive dresscodes; the patois; the insularity from wider society.
Now the neds are displaying the same savage blood-lust as their blue-blooded brethren.
The result is horrendous, but it's what it says about our fellow man and the barbaric state of Britain (I am using Britain to mean Scotland here) that really causes concern. It's a cliche to say civilisation is gossamer-thin, but on the cooncil estates of Scotland I'd say it was not as robust as that.
As for the motivation, I believe it over-simplistic to say the neds are merely tapping into some atavistic need to kill wildlife. The ghastly origins of man involved killing for food not pleasure. Killing for pleasure is an unnatural, psychopathic activity and, consequently, is overwhelmingly supported by our media. They've decreed it's OK for the toffs or aspirational, and the neds have decided it's fine for them, too. Well, they would have so decided if they'd thought about it at all, but they do not think. They just absorb stray bits of zeitgeist through the airholes in their baseball caps.
Listen to this SSPCA spokesman: "In the majority of deer coursing incidents, the motive is predominantly pleasure. The individuals, as unbelievable as it might sound, take great enjoyment in watching their dogs run an animal down and then maul it to death." A police wildlife officer said the way the animals died was "incredibly painful".
Already, liberals are scrabbling to find excuses for the neds and opposing any policy that involves rounding them up and clubbing them repeatedly on the heid. This, they say, makes us as bad as them, just as – to the liberal – it is as bad to execute a Nazi as a saint. They have a reverence for all life, except that of victims.
It would be a fine thing for our police to deal with the deer-mangling neds, but rozzers remain a rare sight in the real world outside. I was with friends in Arbroath recently and they nearly fainted when they saw two bobbies out on the beat. It was such a reassuring sight, and the two constables bid us "good evening" into the bargain. It was as if the glorious 1950s had slipped through a time-warp into the present. The very presence of the polis acts as a deterrent and so, obviously, the practice of pounding the beat has more or less been abandoned. Our society is wilfully dysfunctional, as a result of managerial madness. Lunatic ways of doing things are just accepted.
Other recent press reports suggest that "hoodies", a sub-species of ned, are stringing up their fierce dogs from trees in order to strengthen their teeth. They also bash the puppies against walls to toughen them up.
This takes us well into a situation where apocalyptic visions of human society are coming true. I do not think there is any need to despair, however. I am going away to think of a solution to the problem. I may be some time.
Smelling of fast food requires a quick getawayI THINK it unlikely that I will be wearing a new male scent that smells of grilled burger. Apart from anything else, it does not appear to come with fried onions.
The new scent is the brainchild – or the somethingchild, at any rate – of Burger King, which people often visit instead of going for something to eat. It has joined forces with Selfridges (which, confusingly, does not sell fridges at all) to produce the scent at £4.99 a pop.
The manufacturers are using Piers Morgan, a top celebrity (can somebody check this?), to front its advertising, leading to suspicions that the whole thing is a hoax. However, plenty of people seem to believe it is true and, as you would expect, the scent is backed by science.
According to a spokesman for Burger King, the stench of burger has masculine connotations. "It is almost like a pheromone," he frothed. Pheromones, for those of you lacking basic biological knowledge, are small organisms – no bigger than a Malteser – that sit under the skin and have nine tentacles each, with which they waft aromas into the presence of females who exhibit breeding potential (ie anything in a skirt, but not a kilt).
If you put your finger half-way between your armpit and your waist, you should be able to feel your pheromones there. They're sort of squidgy.
Irresponsibly, the spokesman also said the scent would boost the libido, a faith-based phenomenon which many experts believe is to blame for up to 90 per cent of embarrassing situations, not to mention world over-population.
Like many men, I wear eau de toilet, mainly on the grounds that spraying it on is less time-consuming than washing. But smelling of fast food is potentially dangerous, particularly in places like Asda, where one might find oneself chased around the aisles by waddling females unable to resist the alluring pong of burger.
