Obama who?

WHEN is a flood not a flood? When it's caused by groundwater. Some insurance companies are refusing to pay up for claims on flooding because the damage was caused not by rivers breaking their banks but by a rise in the water table below the property. In other words, it's the wrong sort of water. This may make perfect sense to the suits who dream up ever-nastier exclusion clauses in policies, but to normal human beings, a flood is a flood. Any company trying to dodge its clear moral responsibility is a steaming pile of a word I am not allowed to use in this column.

AND please, insurers, do not insult our intelligence with the usual piffle about how much they regret the groundwater decisions but "we must be fair to all our customers." Being fair means taking the risks and sharing the costs. Denying help to people in deep distress impoverishes us all. Not in my name.

SO now there are three plans for the future funding of the BBC. The first, from BBC director-general Tony Hall is to insist that everyone who watches programmes must have a licence – even if they're watching a recording on iPlayer. The second, favoured by some ministers, is to decriminalise so-called licence dodging, making it a civil debt rather than a criminal conviction. The third, commissioned by the BBC, says scrap the licence fee and replace it with a "membership fee." So that's three piles of piffle.

FIRSTLY, trying to make more people buy a licence is doomed. It it is hard enough to track down non-payers in houses, let alone if they are wandering around with an iPhone tuned to the One Show. Secondly, decriminalising licence offences replaces an iniquitous scheme with an unenforceable one. Thirdly, the membership-fee, with reductions for the poor, is a morass of red tape. The best way forward is to finance the Beeb from central taxation. Thus, the rich pay more, the poor pay less and Auntie Beeb will have to account for every penny of its £3,700 million annual bung. This scheme is cheap, logical and sensible - which are three excellent reasons for it to vanish without trace.

AT a trade fair in Hanover, David Cameron looks forward to a new industrial revolution when billions of everyday objects such as fridges will be able to "talk to each other" over the internet. That's right, Prime Minister. And at night the toys all come to life and dance around the nursery. Perhaps you've been working a bit too hard. Time for a nice lie-down . . .

WHAT a hoot, eh? Gemma Worrall, a hairdresser in Blackpool, breaks away from the traditional salon chat ("Bin away yet, luv?") and enters the world of politics. She tweets: "barraco barner is our president, why is he getting involved with Russia, scary." Those 13 unfortunate words have gone viral and Gemma has been denounced all around this planet as an ignoramus. This column will not be joining in the derision. We all have skeletons in the wardrobe and these days, thanks to the permanent, unsleeping and unforgiving thing we call the internet, they rattle around for ever. Somewhere in the deep recesses of cyberspace is my online interview from 2007 when I display my enormous political knowledge and liberal credentials by wishing good luck to Obama Barack. Bin away yet, luv..?

I FIND myself buying a new toenail clipper. My last one exploded in a dramatic shrapnel burst of spring, rivets and clippings. That's what you get for paying only £1. Some cheap items (carpets, curtains, shoes, mattresses, etc) should always be avoided. To that list, add toenail clippers.

BOOTS had two sorts of toenail clippers, ordinary ones and big ones for "advanced toe care." Advanced? I must have missed that course.