So why not sue, Mr Adams?

"IT will feel quite warm, given the strength of the May sun, but conversely in the rain it will feel quite chilly." From this month's long-term weather forecast by the Met Office. And I dare say the wind will be occasionally blowy and the nights somewhat darker than the days.

STUNG by reports of its bosses sitting down to banquets of prime seabass and 31-day aged fillet of beef in top London restaurants, the BBC has decided that "an individual's dietary preference" is a private matter. Henceforth, menu details will not be disclosed, even in response to Freedom of Information requests.

SO if menus are a no-go area, how about locations? At present, public servants can be asked to explain why their "fact-finding mission" on septic tanks took them to the Maldives rather than Wigan. How long before the public is kept in the dark about exotic destinations? As a general rule, when public figures plead privacy, they have something to hide.

FANS of Father Ted will smile at the discovery of vast natural conduits running beneath the sea bed off the west coast of Ireland. Limitless amounts of fresh water could be brought to the surface to cure the water shortages suffered by islands similar to Ted's fictitious Craggy Island. I can imagine the foul-mouthed, whisky-swilling Father Jack's reaction to the new supply: "Water? Who wants ****ing water!"

ONE of Britain's top cancer experts says expensive treatments should be focused on those in the prime of life, not the elderly. As Professor Karol Sikora puts it: "Do we really expect that people in their 80s with multiple insoluble health problems should have the same technology brought to bear on their cancer as those in their prime?" Well, of course we don't. (I reserve the right to change my mind about 20 years from now).

I ONCE had lunch with Gerry Adams. It was the launch of his autobiography in London. By the luck of the draw, out of a dozen journalists I got the seat opposite the Sinn Fein leader. We chatted for more than two hours and he was good company. Adams, who has just been questioned for four days over the 1972 murder of Jean McConville and released, was intelligent and witty with an easy laugh. He was the sort of bloke you'd be pleased to have as a friend – assuming you could forget all those images of innocent bereaved families, of bomb-wrecked properties, and the shovelling-up of body parts in Belfast. At the heart of the Adams enigma is his claim, which he has resolutely maintained, that he never served in the IRA. How could it be, I asked him, that Sinn Fein would allow itself to be led by a man who had never bloodied his hands in the Troubles? Adams told me that's how it was. He even claimed he got to hear of the IRA's historic ceasefire only "through rumours circulating in the media." So why, when others repeatedly accused him of murder, had he never sued for libel or slander? "When the time is right we will surely sue," Gerry Adams assured me over the dinner table. That was in September 1996 and from that day to this, Adams has sued nobody.

SCIENTISTS in the States have discovered that old mice benefit mentally and physically from transfusions of blood from younger mice. The next step is to see whether the same effects will be found with humans. Do you suspect a number of humans are already fully aware of the benefits of such transfusions? I wouldn't mind betting some sports coaches are way ahead of the scientists.