"Portillo plans 'vote-winning' Tory tax pledge" - headline. Our new Shadow Chancellor isn't promising to bring back the poll tax, is he? Well, that's the last tax this so-clever, caring Conservative said was a vote-winner. Remember?

So the BBC are shoving the veteran weather forecasters out into the cold of daytime TV and putting barometer-reading bimbos on at peak times. Well, whether or not it's unfair ageism, most of us don't care a fig what the forecasters look like - we just want to know whether it's going to rain or shine and yearn for the days when they told us the temperatures in the Fahrenheit that we could all understand.

Mark Cook has been banned from a papier mM- ch evening class run by Suffolk County Council because he was the only man in the group of two dozen women. The course, says the council, should have been advertised as 'women only.' Mr Cook should scream about equality rights all the way to court - as what's being ripped to bits in Suffolk night schools, surely, is the law against sexual discrimination.

All new mothers and fathers may be given up to £100 a week by the government to encourage them to take an extra two weeks of holiday while their children are young - whether they are rich or hard-up. What about the taxpayers who have the scrimp and save themselves for their holidays - will they be happy to subsidise a fortnight the sun for hordes of high-earning yuppies and babes, courtesy of the nanny Chancellor?

The snobs in snooty Knutsford, Cheshire, are spluttering into their Chablis over a take-away kebab shop opening in town. "This is the absolute limit," cries Councillor Barbara Austin, owner of a high-class lingerie shop. Knickers, Barbara, don't you know that kebabs are the food of the rich and famous - the sort that classy Cheshire loves to cultivate? Ask Gazza if you don't believe me.

Helmets must be worn by all batsmen under 18, rules the England and Wales Cricket Board. Wimpery! What next - tennis balls? Can't you hear the old-time bare-headed century-makers like Len Hutton and Dennis Compton, who used to slog the bouncer merchants all over the place, spinning in their graves at what has become of what used to be a man's game?

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.