Goodbye to the belchers

NEW roadside laser cameras are to be deployed to catch the 10 per cent of fumebelching vehicles that cause half Britain's exhaust pollution. And about time too. I do wonder, though, how many London buses will be left on the roads once the cameras come into force. Two? Or perhaps three? Or will public transport miraculously be exempted from the pollution crackdown?

NEW drug being tested in Glasgow, Escitalopram, has shown promising results in making terminally bashful people less shy. Sounds like good news for the one person in 15 said to suffer from "acute social awkwardness" but, excuse me, I was under the impression that at this time of the year the bigger problem was of people not being shy enough.

EVEN as the veteran of 18 school nativity plays now, I can't wait to get down to Chatham to see the postmodern offering at Spinnens Acre Junior School, where a Christmassy offering about a fourth wise man's journey to Bethlehem includes a song called Pay Up, You Scum, and a chant of Get Out, Move On, referring to gipsies near the school.

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