● KNIVES and young men now mean danger, but it wasn’t always so. I carried a sheath knife during my boyhood, mainly for cutting baling twine and whittling.

And for fighting Apaches, of course. My mates all had blades and the other reason we were tooled up was because of a game called Splits.

This involved two players, the object being to throw the knife into the ground and your opponent would then place his foot where the knife had landed.

If you found yourself in trouble, it was possible to return your feet together by throwing the knife into the ground between your opposite number’s plates.

Do you recall Splits? If so, write in.

● LONG time no see. I bumped into Worcester mime artist Mick Wall on Sabrina bridge one sunny morning this summer and chatted away before respective appointments beckoned.

Many of you may remember that Mick and one-time partner Alan Heap achieved great things in the 1980s and early 90s, gaining national fame with their TV series Dizzy Heights. Fortune seems to have eluded him in recent years, but if you’re reading this Mick, just hang on in there – you never know what’s just around the corner.

● VANDALISM and allied mindlessness are so frequently reported on our news pages that it seems increasingly pointless to waste ink in condemnation.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – the political party that introduces compulsory community service will be on to a vote-winner.

Recently released figures by the London School of Economics showed that nearly a fifth of all young people between the ages of 17 and 24 are inactive – no college, university, work, anything. This is a scandal that the Government hides under piles of statistics and ‘initiatives’.

It can’t go on.

● ONE of the problems I have with Labour and Conservatives is my perception that some of our socalled adversarial MPs are just too matey for comfort.

I have this growing suspicion that at the end of the day for some people, allegiance to the National Union of Politicians will always have the greatest pull on consciences.

Let’s hope that Worcester hopeful young Robin of Sheerluck will be different if he is elected in 2010.

● OUR letters pages periodically carry correspondence from individuals who style themselves as humanists.

Out of all the belief systems – Christianity, Islam, Hinduism – the religion that is Humanism is probably distinctive because of its unswerving faith in rationality.

These people always seem so certain about everything – how wonderful it is to be a Humanist.

● THE Government wants to abolish local councils and replace them with unitary authorities, in line with EU policy.

If you think this is wrong, then speak out. Otherwise, it will happen and before you know it, life will be controlled by time-servers with no allegiance to anything other than a career.