ID cards mean ID theft

THE thing about ID cards is that the whole concept is based on the state's insatiable desire to poke its nose into the lives of its citizens.

One of the ironies of life in Britain today is that we are becoming more like an old-style eastern European country, while the people of those lands enjoy a more old-style Western lifestyle.

This is partly due to the £1bn of our taxes heading their way, and also because as we become more dominated by government, they are becoming less so.

Our rulers' pretend-logic is that ID cards will reduce the risk of terrorism, but identity is no impediment for the suicide bomber.

When the cards arrive after a taxpayer-funded propaganda costing millions, identity theft will become the growth-crime of the 21st Century.

And just think about all that might entail.

Call me John, not Dwayne

MY Methodist father wanted to call me John Wesley, after the great dissenting 18th Century preacher with whom I share a birthday, but my mother would have none of it.

Very few people are called John these days. However, I was intrigued to see there is a new card game of that name. In fact, I received a pack for a Christmas present.

The game requires a reasonable working knowledge of history. For example, you need to know that John Bunyan came after John Lackland but before John Kennedy.

Companion varieties of the game feature a selection of other common Judaeo-Christian names.

What will the makers of games such as John do when everyone has a non-traditional name?

For example, there might be difficulties in listing the Kylies, Darrens and Dwaynes who have played prominent roles in the annals of the world.

The smell of joggers really gets up my nose

MANY Worcester people become quite agitated about cyclists on pavements. There is no denying that they have a point, although the city's increasingly reckless traffic habits are undoubtedly exacerbating the problem.

Anyway, I'd like to make a contribution to this debate and suggest that joggers have become the latest footpath menace. Cue a great roar of rage reverberating across the Faithful City's suburbs.

Joggers have rebranded themselves these days as "runners" but it all adds up to the same thing. Jogging - for we shall call it that - is a form of self-abuse whereby the participants kid themselves that by indulging in such masochism they will somehow improve or even increase the length of their lives.

Such delusions are now widespread. It always strikes me as a manifestation of people's hopelessly confused states that they should believe that punishing themselves like this will cancel out an otherwise car-driving, sedentary, fags, booze and cholesterol-soaked existence.

Middle-aged men are the worst culprits. Desperate to look svelte at every opportunity, they can be seem pounding the paving stones most mornings and evenings, inhaling lungs full of traffic fumes created by their compatriots, who will soon be garaging the motor and doing a bit of jogging themselves.

Like pavement riders, joggers take you by surprise, pounding past you and allowing mere inches of leeway. It is this - compounded by aroma of tracksuit which hits the nostrils like sal volatile - that really gets up my nose, as it were.

Jogging must therefore be banned. All those who want to indulge in such practices should either do it in the privacy of their own home or in a ploughed field.