Alex Massie

Well, whaddyaknow, turns out that a rise in obesity is one of the costs of government-sponsored attempts to make smoking tobacco less appealing. Swings and roundabouts. Acording to Chris Snowdon, a study* published in this week's British Medical Journal reports that non-smoking women are twice as likely to be obese as smokers and three times as likely to be seriously lardy. True, obesity is not quite as dangerous as smoking but that's a matter of perspective. If you look at the matter from the Treasury then obesity may well be the greater problem.

It's New Jersey so nothing should surprise anyone. Still, it turns out that the problem is that the cocaine has been cut with levamisole, a drug traditionally used to deworm livestock. So caveat coker if you're in America this summer. Also, of course, one of the problems with illegal but popular markets is that the people who run them are so often so dashed unscrupulous...

How do you measure a place? A community? A spirit? It is a media-driven cliche that all communities, especially when struck by disaster, must be deemed "close-knit". Politicians, meanwhile, give speeches suggesting that chaos is running amok and destroying these supposedly confident communities, leaving us with nothing better than an atomised society in which the ties that bind have been loosed with depressing consequences. This seems something Ed Miliband believes. He should be in Selkirk today. This is the first Friday after the second Monday in June and that means it is Selkirk Common Riding day. This is the most important, grandest day in the town's calendar and one reason why there'll be no more blogging here before Monday.

As yer man said "a good puzzle would be to cross Dublin without passing a pub". A better puzzle would be why anyone would think this a good idea or profitable use of their time. That said, avoiding Davy Byrne's is generally sound advice and never more so than today when it will be filled with jackanapes squawking about gorgonzola sandwiches. Nevertheless, there's a fellow on the internet who claims it can be done. Depending, mind you, on your definition of "across Dublin" and, indeed, "pub". I suspect, alas, that the open source maps he's using are incomplete and that his route runs into trouble in the Harcourt Street area. Nevertheless it's a valiant effort and to be commended. I think. [Thanks to Alan Jacobs whose new book The Pleasures of Reading is also commended unto you.