Farewell, Lotte

MIXED metaphors. Auntie Beeb's online report on the consecration of the first CofE female bishop informed us: "While Anglicanism is a broad church, so to speak, they need to keep paddling hard to keep all its members on board." Damn right. Once you stop paddling, the grapes of wrath come home to roost.

WE are assured that the name of the first female bishop will go down in history. I wonder. In the great scheme of things will Libby Lane be more or less famous than Penny Lane?

IT is a terrible tragedy that a Greek air force F16 fighter jet crashed in Spain, killing ten people. But it is also a reminder that poor, bankrupt Greece, a country at peace since 1949, possesses no fewer than 156 F16s costing 50 million dollars each. That's the way the money goes.

ONE of the mysteries about dementia is why there are so many cases. The usual explanation, that dementia is a natural consequence of an ageing population, does not explain why there are so many victims who are otherwise fit and active. Now, researchers at the University of Washington School of Pharmacy claim there may be a link between dementia and some commonly used drugs taken as sleeping aids or to cope with hay fever. It has the ring of truth. Compared with earlier generations, we pop pills for everything. Will anyone be surprised if dementia turns out to be not something inflicted by Mother Nature but something we unwittingly did to ourselves?

SO farewell, Lotte Hass, widow of Hans, who has died aged 86. Back in the 1950s the Hasses hosted a series of underwater films on telly, taking us kids to the depths of the Caribbean or wherever. Lotte, a beautiful, svelte, blonde former model, would slip into her cozzie, enter the limpid water and glide serenely across our nine-inch Pye. As a very small and impressionable boy I remember thinking if I couldn't marry Maid Marion, I'd settle for Lotte.

UKIP takes votes from the Tories. Greens take votes from Labour and the Lib-Dems. SNP takes votes from Labour. Plaid Cymru takes votes from Tories and Labour As the rush toward small parties gathers pace, I am bringing forward one of my predictions The first Conservative / Labour coalition may be less than a decade away.

IF you're getting blasé about Ebola, here's something new to worry about. The death, in the space of a few hours of Thomas Cromwell's wife and two daughters, as seen in Wolf Hall (BBC1) actually happened. It was probably caused by something called the sweating sickness which appeared from nowhere, ravaged England during the 16th century and then vanished into history. It could kill healthy people in a single day and because nobody knows quite what it was, no-one can guarantee it won't return.

AFTER yesterday's item on my flawed use of "soon-to-be-published" to describe the Chilcot Report, a reader writes: "Pedantry: there should be fewer of it." Oh, clever.

WELCOME, ladies and gentlemen to the first all-party and all-embracing pre-election television debate. I'm Jonathan Dimbleby and first let me introduce all the panellists here tonight representing the Conservative Party, Labour, Lib-Dems, Greens, Plaid Cymru, SNP, DUP, OUP, POP, TCP, PLOP, LOL, Monster Raving Loonies, Popular Front for the Liberation of Wessex, Friends of the Badger, Druids for Clean Air (45 minutes passes as Mr Dimbleby introduces all the politicians) and, finally of course, the People's Front of Judea. Unfortunately, that's all we have time for. Goodnight.