The dwarf with a giant sense of humour

AS the most secret of all secret trials begins in London under conditions of extremely secret secrecy and the entire courtroom is sworn to silence on pain of prison, hands up those who reckon it will be blabbed all over the internet before the judge even starts the summing-up. These days secrets are like fairies. Although some people claim to believe in them, we all know they don't really exist.

MANY thanks to Daniela Liverani, 24, from Edinburgh who chose this week to volunteer the news that, having suffered from nosebleeds for some weeks, she finally discovered she had a three-inch leech living in one nostril. I think most of us would have kept that to ourselves.

I WROTE recently about the crooks who built and sold bogus mine-detectors. It now emerges, from BBC film taken only a few days ago, that these devices are still being used by police and security officials in Iraq. This is supposed to be a fully-wired world. Is it beyond the wit of the authorities in Whitehall to inform the authorities in Baghdad that the "detectors" on which the future of their city may hang are utterly useless?

JAMES Lusted was born with dwarfism and stands just 3ft 7ins, two feet shorter than his fiancee Chloe Roberts. They are a familiar site in their home city of Cardiff but the waitress in the local Harvester restaurant had never seen them before. So, in the best Harvester tradition, she seated the couple, gave Chloe a menu and picked up a kids' colouring book for the little chap. It was only when James spoke in his deep voice that she realised her mistake. She was embarrassed and Harvester are mortified. And the couple? Chloe and James think the whole incident was hilarious. It would have been so easy for them to be outraged and to demand payment for hurt, distress, loss of earnings, mood swings and the other usual pseudo-symptoms trotted out by compensation lawyers. Instead, they laugh it off. James, a motivational speaker and badminton star, says: "I am man enough to see the funny side. I would never take offence." Pity there are not more blokes like him. Little guy, big man.

I AM once again in the throes of bricklaying. Another brick pillar claws almost vertically towards the sky, another length of wall snakes its uncertain way around the vegetable patch. Mrs Rhodes says this wall certainly matches the standard of my previous walls. A neighbour says if he ever wanted a wall like that, he'd definitely come to me. I am humbled by the praise.

WE have friends staying for a few days. Their kids, aged nine and 11, are prime examples of the wired generation, as familiar with tablets and smartphones as we were with conkers. It makes you wonder. If we have gone, in a single generation, from conkers to iPads, what will the next generation play with? How long before there is no-one alive who remembers the baking-powder submarine?

WHEN I was their age, middle-aged relatives would amuse themselves by giving us kids false information, which is why I believed for some years that the national anthem of Siam was "Owha Tanas Siam," sung repeatedly to the tune of Ilkla Moor Baht 'at. I probably promised myself that I would never, ever misinform kids so unkindly. But, hell, why should they have it easier than us? The kids are now aware that a) it is impossible to sing in French, b) a capercaillie can kill a man with a single blow and c) orthodontists are naked dentists.

OWHA Tanas Siam? Just keep singing it.