Mark Andrews: Wrist injuries for dog walkers, people who wear watches, and Charlie Kirk's shooting

"if you still wear a wristwatch every day, psychology says you likely have these six distinct traits," says a rather pretentious magazine article.

"You respect time as your most valuable resource, you're intentional with your priorities, you value discipline over short-cuts, you prefer clarity over clutter.  You balance tradition with practicality, you lean toward authenticity."

I would like to think all the above were true. But the real reason I wear a watch every day is to tell the time easily. I wonder what the psychologists would make of that.

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According to research by Raigmore Hospital in Inverness, the NHS spends an estimated £23 million a year treating injuries to dog walkers.

Finger and wrist injuries from a yanked lead are the most common mishaps, it says. I'll bet.

The report recommends people should be taught 'optimal dog walking practices', and mandatory dog training to reduce the number of accidents.

I'm not sure this goes far enough. What we really need is a compulsory dog-walking test before anyone is allowed on the streets. And let's have a theory test while we're about it, too.

But seriously, who do they think is going to organise compulsory training for taking the mutt for a walk? I suspect the cost would be much more than £23 million.

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Like, I imagine, most people in this country, I had never heard of Charlie Kirk. And from what I've read, I have little time for his conspiracy theories about Covid vaccines and immigration, his lack of support for Ukraine, or, somewhat ironically, his opposition to gun control.

Yet what I did like was his approach to people who took diametrically opposing views. Instead of trying to silence them, attacking pejorative labels, or trying to get them banned from campus, he instead invited them to challenge him at public meetings, and prove him wrong.  

I can't help but think that if more people, on all sides took that approach, rather than covering their ears and demanding a safe space when they hear something they don't like, the discourse would be far more constructive - and far less polarised - on both sides of the Atlantic.

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Meanwhile the Green Party have just appointed a new leader, a guy who used to be plain old David Paulden, but now goes by the name of Zack Polanski.

He's an interesting character, to say the least. A former 'immersive theatre' actor, whatever that is, he briefly found fame as a hypnotist who told a Sun reporter he could make her breasts bigger through the power of his mind.  

He describes himself as an 'eco populist', has been arrested for taking part in Extinction Rebellion demos, and believes that shoplifting is ok. Indeed, he says he would consider having a go himself if he was strapped for cash. 

So he believes in blocking roads and stealing from shops. Not sure he's got the hands of this populism lark, has he?