SEAGULLS have had a bad press this year and there’s been no shortage of the usual suspects branding these elegant birds as ‘flying rats’ and so forth.

Unfortunately, the mass demonising of our fellow creatures can lead to the sort of unpleasantness in Worcester this summer when a local moron kicked one of the birds, blaming his vile behaviour on the fact – yes, you could have written the script beforehand – that he was “depressed”.

However, I’m glad to say that a tiny handful of intelligent people have pointed out that the proliferation of these birds in recent years is solely due to the fact that so many people in Worcester live like pigs.

They grunt their porky little way along the city’s highways and byways, dropping their junk food and this naturally encourages gulls to multiply.

Nevertheless, we should all be more tolerant, especially the thinon- top. For I have discovered that seagull droppings are actually a cure for baldness.

Yes, it’s true. A few weeks ago, a gull scored a direct hit on my head in the vicinity of the Old Rectifying House. The deposit covered an area of my pate in which I was particularly challenged folliclewise.

By the time I had reached my home, the autumn sun had dried this thin skin of guano to a hard crust. It was with some difficulty that I removed this stubborn veneer, but perseverance with a deftly-wielded fish knife achieved the desired result.

Two weeks later, to my amazement, I noticed renewed growth in the offending gull’s target zone. Now, I’m not saying that the next time you see me I’ll have a Jimi Hendrix afro style, but it certainly does make you think.

And I reckon that far from being a menace and a pest, the muchmaligned seagull could actually be a blessing in disguise.