A grandfather at 24?

MY piece last week on the new generation of hypersonic airliners reminds one reader of a lecture on "the Future of Passenger Aircraft" delivered to a professional society way back in the 1950s. The speaker, a distinguished aviation engineer, told the audience: "The cockpit of the passenger aircraft of the future will contain a pilot and a dog. The pilot will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to bite the pilot if he tries to touch anything."

TALKING of pooches, university researchers in California have proved that dogs can feel jealousy. Amazing. I wonder how long it will be before serious scientific research reveals that dogs also like having their tummies tickled, enjoy smelling other dogs' bottoms and sometimes go "woof!" Recession or boom, there always seems plenty of work at the Faculty of the Bleedin' Obvious.

I HAD an old friend, Jim, whose alsatian Rusty was a particularly jealous dog. Jim had only to mention the word "Bobby Boo," the name of his budgie, for Rusty to howl piteously and paw at Jim's leg for attention. The dog was almost sick with jealousy over the budgie. And the fact that Bobby Boo had dropped off his perch and died at least 10 years earlier didn't make the slightest difference.

THE stonings have begun. You can't have a proper modern Islamic state without some 10th century punishments. In a jihadist-controlled area of Syria two women have been stoned to death for adultery. In the 21st century some people still think this sort of thing makes God happy.

MEANWHILE in Iran a Christian man has had his lips deliberately burned with a cigarette on the orders of a court after being convicted of not fasting during Ramadan. God must be simply jumping with joy.

THE historian Bettany Hughes knows her stuff. So as you enjoy the new blockbuster movie Hercules, remember her words: "Ancient Greek society was a juvenile one. Most men were fathers at 12, grandfathers at 24, dead by 35." And you still worry about peaking too soon?

COME to think of it, the ancient Greeks are one of the few societies that would not snigger or be horrified at the scrawled roadside banner on the British sink estate: "Happy 30th, Gran."

I DON'T fall in love with cars but I have been but quietly fascinated over the past few weeks by the rare and imposing Volkswagen Phaeton. It's the VW that thinks it's a Bentley, a big limousine which costs nearly £40,000 new but after a few years drops to a fraction of its value. As one who has Bentley tastes but Fiesta money, I quite fancy the Phaeton. So when a friend was driving and we approached one of these sleek motorway-cruisers I asked him to overtake slowly so I could have a good look, not only at the Phaeton but at the sort of high-calibre alpha-person who owns such a beast. The driver turned out to be a plump, stubbly bloke in shirtsleeves who was enjoying a gross and most productive nose-picking session, a highly visible and unabashed second-knuckle root-out. Funny how something like that can change your view of a car.

HOW bizarre, and distressing, that yet another lethal injection has gone wrong in the United States, causing the executed man to suffer for nearly two hours. It is puzzling, too. Every day, thousands of dogs and other large pets are put to sleep painlessly. If we have perfected the cocktail of deadly drugs for animals, why not for humans?