Long-range censorship, courtesy of the internet

AFTER picking up yet another "energy drink" can in her local park, a reader asks: "Why is it these drinks don't produce enough energy to get the drinkers to a litter bin?"

NOT that those officially entrusted with our litter are any better. Every fortnight the recycling lorry hurtles up the farm lane, to be loaded with all our plastic and cardboard before hurtling off again. In the process some of the stuff (plastic milk bottles in particular) fly off the lorry and into the fields. We then pick them up and put them back in the bins for another fortnight. I suppose it's a sort of recycling. All together now: It's beginning to look a lot like somebody won't be getting a Christmas box.

ONE of the abiding mysteries of television is why weather forecasters have to pack a shirt and jeans to appear on Countryfile (BBC1). In the bulletins before and after the show they wear smart suits. But for the Countryfile seven-day forecast they suddenly dress-down into rural casual. Why? Are we dimwit viewers supposed to believe Tomasz Schafernaker has just come in from the harvest or Nina Ridge is on her way to a barn dance? It's supposed to be factual telly, Auntie, not The Archers.

THE great dream of the internet was that it would create a wired world, where men and women of goodwill could exchange views, create a new Enlightenment and transform this planet into something better. I once interviewed a philosopher who believed that, once we were all communicating with each other, Planet Earth would be transformed into a single, organic entity like a vast living creature. What no-one ever dreamed was that the internet would enable North Korea to impose its idea of censorship on you, me and the rest of the cinema-going world.

A LETTER from America on the continuing thread about paraffin heaters and frozen houses. The writer's home is insulated to Scandinavian levels and, even when the temperature outside drops to minus 8C, the temperature inside never falls below 5C. "Compared to a 1960s council house," she says, "that's Caribbean luxury." Even so, she admits her house is a tad cool which may explain why "guests, wanted or unwanted, don't hang around for long." It may be the temperature that puts them off, but there is another factor. In some super-insulated homes, draughts are eliminated to the point where the air hardly ever changes. Aromas linger and (how can I put this delicately?) the after-effects of the Christmas sprouts may still be with you at Easter. You may not notice it but your guests certainly will. Leaving so soon . . ?

ON the subject of winter blackouts, a reader retells the old yarn of a young woman sitting between two men on a packed train in the 1941 Blitz. As German bombers appeared overhead, all the lights were switched off and a profound darkness fell on the train. Suddenly, the woman exclaimed: "Take your hand off my knee!" And after a few seconds: "Not you, you!"

ANOTHER popular thread is the one of folk trying to outdo each other about how poor they were as kids. A reader recalls a trip to the Black Country Museum where, on seeing a black-lead grate, he explained how his family's grate was cleaned every week with Zebo blacking. Sure enough, another tripper joined in: "Yow musta bin well off. We 'ad to goo down the foundry and get some soot to mek we own."

SOOT? You were lucky . . .