Melanie McDonagh

Another Christmas, another BBC adaptation of a Julia Donaldson story. This time it's an animated version of Tiddler, the story of a little fish who is always late for school and who makes up tall stories to explain why. The tall stories get around the ocean and when Tiddler gets caught by a fishing boat and tossed back in the sea, he is able to find his way home to Miss Skate and her lesson by following his own stories. Aww. As the CBeebies storyteller observed, 'What make us powerful is not how big we are but by what's inside.' A perfect parable for our day then.

Well, the pro-choicers have got their way. In two years’ time, if Kim Leadbeater’s reassurances hold good, we’ll have the option, if we tick the boxes, of ending our lives with a handful of ground-up barbiturates or some other undisclosed cocktail of painkillers at the expense of the NHS. We now know what is the guiding principle that animates the MPs that voted this through. It’s not solidarity; it’s not the principle that Danny Kruger articulated, that ‘no man is an island’ and what affects one affects us all. No. Austin Mitchell put it concisely: ‘this is about choice’. Or as Kim Leadbeater said obligingly, if we have the choice to die we have the choice not to die; there is no compulsion. Very obliging, I’m sure.

To not wholly rapturous reviews, the movie Wicked, the prequel to The Wizard of Oz, is released this week. Tragically, it’s too late for Halloween, so we can expect alienated witches of colour (green) based on Cynthia Erivo to be absolutely everywhere by Christmas. For anyone who loved the Wizard of Oz, 1939 version, this is one to miss. Could there be any narrative more forward looking, more of our time, than this little story of gender transition? But, in a spirit of goodwill, let me put a better idea to Universal, the studio behind the film. They have missed a trick. L.

Oh. My. Lord. I’ve been looking at Dawn Butler’s spoken verse as presented by her on X and it's difficult to know what to say. It is, it seems, Dawn’s contribution to Black History Month.  The lyrics are at the bottom of the page, though for the full effect you really need to hear her delivery, with the accompanying shots, made up mostly of fetching images of Dawn, but with some material illustrative of her point, if I've discerned it correctly: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHVs4XyKx1E&feature=youtu.be What she seems to be doing is addressing a racist troll, though it might be helpful if she made that clearer at the outset, because at present her unseen interlocutor would seem to be any random white person.

There are two untraditional ways to take your leave of this world in Britain. The bleaker is the ‘direct cremation’ method whereby, with no prayers and no mourners, a funeral director will take your remains from mortuary to crematorium to be burnt without troubling your friends and relations. The other is the ‘celebration’. According to Co-op Funeralcare in its new report, called ‘Go Your Own Way’, no fewer than 68 per cent of people it polled regard funerals as a celebration of life, up from 58 per cent five years ago. Out go prayers, black funeral dress and solemnity; in come Doctor Who themes, glittery coffins and guests dressed in football shirts. Or as the report puts it: ‘Personalisation is key.’ The venues are quirky too.

According to canon 1220 of the Catholic church's code of canon law, 'all those responsible are to take care that in churches such cleanliness and beauty are preserved as befit a house of God and that whatever is inappropriate to the holiness of the place is excluded'. So, if Canterbury cathedral were still Catholic, as it was for 900 years before the discordant event of the Reformation, it is fair to say that the ghost of Thomas Becket would not have been disturbed by the rave in the nave which took place last night and is repeated tonight.

So, another place where men have to mind their language: on mountains. In an article in Scottish Mountaineer magazine by one Dr Richard Tiplady, he advises male walkers never to call women ‘sweetheart’ or ‘darling’. They should not assume that women can’t read a map. ‘If they ask for advice about kit or their route, be polite without being condescending – but don’t offer advice if you’re not asked for it’.  If we carry on at this rate, the human race is going to die out A brief chat about hills, the weather and the man’s intended route is fine, but ‘don’t ask what route they are taking’. If a male walker catches up with a lone woman walker, the rule is a brief ‘hello’, and then onwards.