After the poppies, what next?

HOW democracy works. September: Scotland votes convincingly against independence. November: Whitehall announces Scotland to get control over its income tax. To the losers, the spoils?

GREAT names of our age. As the Lego-fest Brick 2014 is unveiled in London we discover that Lego's Scandinavian press officer is one Roar Rude Trangbaek.

MY poppy has arrived. Fresh from the mud of the Tower of London display, it is one of more than 800,000 ceramic blooms which captured the attention and imagination of millions. I can't recall such a successful, spontaneous, effective and efficient means of marking an anniversary and it didn't cost the public purse a penny. The poppies arrive neatly packed in a box with a booklet explaining the history of the display and a certificate of authenticity. Something to treasure.

BUT I wonder how many folk will open the box at one end and wonder how to assemble the rod, washers, spacers and bloom to create their poppy. Curiously, the instructions are printed on the inside of the box.

THIS must not be the end of the Tower's part in the Great War commemoration. July 1, 2016 will be the 100th anniversary of the first day of the Battle of the Somme when about 20,000 British soldiers perished and 40,000 were wounded. The planting of 20,000 white crosses in the moat of the Tower would be a fine memorial to the carnage of that day and to a battle which is forever imprinted in the British psyche.

A READER shares my disdain for modern comedians who popped up in It Was Alright in the 1970s (C4) to express their horror at the racism, sexism and homophobia in TV shows made 40 years ago. He makes the point that if today's enlightened, right-on entertainers had been around in the 1970s they'd have been peddling exactly the same material as Les Dawson and Dick Emery because that's what made people laugh back then. (I can always tell when the mother in law's coming to stay; the mice throw themselves on the traps).

MY idea of a millennium project to rebuild a ruined castle thus creating apprenticeships and preserving craft skills, has inspired a reader. He reckons he has the ultimate plan to reduce unemployment and increase tourism. Pyramids.

NEWS of more dodgy insurance policies foisted on unwilling house buyers and sellers by the banking and insurance industries. A reader tells me he had to pay for two £100 policies, one to cover him against claims that alterations to his house had been done without permission, the other to cover a covenant imposed by the original builder years before. He could prove there was no risk of any claims but his solicitor insisted he buy the insurance "just in case." My reader points out that forcing customers to buy products they did not need was right at the heart of Britain's multi-billion PPI scandal. He is confident that one day he will get enough compensation to pay his beer bills for the rest of his life. Cheers.

MY item on panic attacks inside tanks and hospital scanners reminds a reader of his encounter with the infamous paternoster lift at Gosta Green College (later Aston University) in the 1960s. A paternoster was a chain of open compartments that moved up and down without stopping. The idea was that you stepped briskly in and out. My reader missed his exit moment and was conveyed into the bowels of the building, popping up minutes later "to the astonishment of waiting students."

PATERNOSTERS ("Our Father" in Latin) were so called because the lift installation resembled rosary beads. They certainly inspired prayers.