Feeling overworked? Try not wasting time on Twitter

The Government is inviting pensioners to buy into a new scheme which will boost their state pension by up to £25 per week. To get that extra £25 all you have to do is give the Government a cheque for £22,250. Good to see someone in Whitehall still has a sense of humour.

Your eagerness to hit the seven-a-day target for fruit and veg, without actually eating fruit and veg, knows no bounds. One desperate reader writes: "A savoy is a type of cabbage. I recently stayed at the Savoy. Surely this must count as one portion."

Another reader asks if having a plum job counts. That's enough fruit-and-veg stuff, thanks.

Meanwhile, after the Nigel Evans trial, allegations emerge of outrageous sexual behaviour, often involving predatory older males and younger men, in the Palace of Westminster. I could not possibly comment. However, it is a fact that only once in my life have I ever been approached inappropriately by another man, and that was in the toilets of the House of Lords.

Ed Miliband describes himself as a Jewish atheist. During his trip to Israel, the Labour leader was asked whether British Muslims would ever vote for a Jewish prime minister. I suspect most Muslims would give Miliband a fair chance, bearing in mind the old kinship of "people of the book" which covers Jews, Christians and Muslims. As far as the faithful are concerned, Miliband's big problem isn't being Jewish. It's being an atheist.

The message: "Felt like Twitter constipation" popped up on Michael Fabricant's interminable list of 21,000-plus tweets a few days ago. "I've had Wi-Fi connection problems for the last few minutes. Couldn't upload," explains the Lichfield MP, sacked last week as a vice-chairman of the Tory party. The reasons for his sacking are still unclear. Fabricant says it's because he tweeted about HS2 and Maria Miller, and yet his views on both subjects are shared by many Tory MPs. I wonder if the real reason was not his opinions but the sheer scale and frivolity of his Twitter use and the hours it consumed. For here is an MP seemingly afflicted with Twitteritis. Like so many Twitter-obsessives, he is cyber- incontinent, tweeting away all day and every day. A brief disruption of his Wi-Fi signal is clearly a personal drama. Some tweeters are even more manic. They cannot put down their mobiles for a moment. They cannot see or hear anything around them without informing their followers. I found one the other day who had just spent a couple of hours solidly tweeting and another few hours producing a 2,000-word blog. He was complaining about his long working day.

As Fabricant hit the headlines there were a number of references to "his blond hair" and the MP himself declared: "Blonds of the world unite!" The late, great sketchwriter Simon Hoggart once cast a suspicious eye at Fabricant's coiffure and asked: " How many My Little Ponies were slaughtered to make such a creation?"

A Survey by British Social Attitudes reveals that only 35 per cent of Brits claim to be very proud of being British. So is the country's going to the dogs? Not really. There is no pressure on anyone in this country to be patriotic. We have no pledge of allegiance in our schools, no great show of union jacks, no enormous placards of our political leaders in the streets. If you live in a country where everyone is proud of the nation, the locals are probably chanting from little red books or wearing swastika armbands. A figure of 'only' 35 per cent national pride is reassuringly British.