Forget about mind expanding drugs and meditation. Just give your left brain a good whack with a hammer.

Proof that a dog can indeed be a man's best friend - or a simply a side effect of affluenza?

We're currently spending an incredible 150 million pounds annually cleaning chewing gum off the streets in this country.

However, thanks to this deceptively simple idea, this is all about to change.

I'm convinced we haven't seen the last from the genius behind this inspired effort - in fact I wouldn't be surprised to see this person fast-tracked into central government.

Taken on Westbourne Grove less than 72 hours after Beckham & co failed to qualify for Euro 2008 by losing 2-3 to Croatia at Wembley, I think this picture quite accurately illustrates most people's perception of football in this country.

Not because it's in the gutter and seemingly beyond repair but because it has always been so strongly inflated.

It's only a question of time before we'll be seeing menus in polish at greasy cafs, where the customers will be discussing piłka nożna and reading The Słońce - although there'll be no need to change page 3.

Birmingham City Council's introduction of Winterval in 1998 might be seen by some as an attempt to secularise Christmas.

(For me it just represents rare evidence that there are countries outside Scandinavia with too many people working in the public sector.)

This year's Hamleys Christmas lights seem to have moved things on a bit with their Lucifer-inspired downpointing pentagrams.

It must be added that, according to Wikipedia, these are "not necessarily" satanist symbols.

Presumably in the same way the swastika is not necessarily a Nazi symbol?

It's widely known that the London plane tree was amongst the pioneers of the now all too familiar 'camo'-style.

On Bassett Road yesterday I came across yet another example of the platanus acerifolia's astonishing adaptability to fashion.