And all I ask is a tall ship

DAVID Cameron says every Government policy should pass a "family-friendly" test. So he's abolishing inheritance tax, then? Thought not.

THE mayor of Rome, Ignazio Marino, has accused our Foreign Office of exaggerating the danger of pickpockets in his city. He may have a point. In my limited experience, the official advice, coupled with dire warnings from tour guides, makes you so paranoid about pickpockets in Rome that you entirely overlook the individuals who will rob you blind, time and again. They are called head waiters.

MY eye was caught by a big, glossy feature on kiddy-carrying bikes. All have some sort of container for small children on the front of the bicycle, which strikes me as the most dangerous end. To some folk, these machines speak of economy and family togetherness. I keep thinking of human shields.

A RETIRED teacher drowned off the Irish coast after his boat capsized. The death of Douglas Perrin in his Drascombe Lugger has a special significance for those leisure sailors, like me, who have the same type of boat. The Lugger is a big, beamy and extremely seaworthy open boat and there are thousands of them. But, if the wind and waves are treacherous enough, even a Lugger will go over. Douglas Perrin was 66, the same age as my father when he died. The difference is that my father had endured four years with cancer. It was a wretched, fearful, panicky time, of hopes repeatedly being raised and then dashed. It ended with him having what proved to be the wrong operation and dying amid the indifference and inattention of an NHS ward. And there are nastier things than cancer. In middle-age you are prey to all sorts of conditions from early-onset dementia to Parkinson's, motor-neurone disease and strokes. While 66 is far too young to die, there are many worse ways to go than pursuing the pastime you love. When the moment comes and the Grim Reaper taps me on the shoulder, I think I would rather be at the helm of my Lugger on some beloved loch than lying alone, wet, witless and frightened, in the dirty sheets of a hospital bed.

SANDRA Howard, the 74-year-old model and wife of former Tory leader Michael, writes a joyous column about the photograph taken of Lauren Bacall when she was 85 trilling: "Every line on her proud, defiant face is a lesson in how to embrace growing old." No it isn't. Every line is a reminder how unkind old age can be to once-beautiful women. If Bacall or any other former beauty could be magically given the face she had at 35, I bet they'd go for it like a shot. Women celebrating wrinkles is like blokes celebrating an enlarged prostate.

I WONDER if the guerillas of the Islamic State army are beginning to have second thoughts about the Almighty being on their side. When you're busy slaughtering and beheading your enemies, sacking villages, stealing woman and burying children alive, and no-one is opposing you, how easy it must be to believe you have divine authority. And then the US Hellfire missiles start whistling down from six miles high, undetectable and quite unstoppable, blasting your armed vehicles to shreds and vapourising your comrades. When retribution comes out of a clear blue sky it must feel a lot like the hand of God.

WRITING in the Middle East 50 years before Jesus was born, the Roman poet Lucretius declared: "Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum" ("so potent was religion in impelling to evil"). True then, true now.