Whacked at 32,000 feet

INSPIRING, wasn't it, to hear of the Delta Airlines flight attendant who, when a deranged passenger tried to open the airliner door at 32,000 feet, slugged him with a litre bottle of wine? It's reassuring to know that at least one airline keeps the full-sized bottles in reserve. Decking a loonie with miniature bottles would take all day.

MY bus pass has arrived. The ID photo is not one of my best. Things went wrong when the lady at the council assured me that, unlike the passport photo, there was no ban on smiling. So I sort of smiled while leaning amiably towards the lens. This created some nasal distortion. Anyway, I look like a leering, half-witted dugong. If this photo says anything it is: “Under no circumstances allow this person on a bus.”

TELEVISION serves different little tribes, according to our tastes, or lack of taste. It's a fair bet that the tribe that watches Love Island (ITV2) never watches Count Arthur Strong (BBC1).

MY recent item on the birth of colour TV 50 years ago this month reminds one reader of his first encounter with the technology. He was at university and he recalls the “great excitement” as he and his fellow students prepared to watch international rugby in colour for the first time. What dazzling new dimension would colour bring to the game? Not much. The competing sides were England (all white) v New Zealand (all black).

GISELA Stuart, the former Labour MP who fought such a brave and honest campaign to get Britain out of the EU, should never be ignored. Today she warns that the Confederation of British Industry is part of the campaign to “keep Britain in the EU by the back door.” It is astonishing, more than a year after the referendum, that such a movement exists and is actively encouraged in Brussels. Do the Remainers and Remoaners, including Vince Cable, ever stop to think what might happen if they succeeded in keeping Britain in the EU? The fury would be unimaginable. Every EU flag would be torn down, every EU poster defaced, every visiting EU commissioner greeted with stony silence or bared buttocks. If Brussels thinks the EU will be harmed by Britain leaving, they should try to imagine how much damage the Brits might inflict if we are forced to stay. The word “ungovernable” springs to mind.

THE saddest image to come out of Mosul in the final days of Islamic State was of a mother carrying her baby in one hand and a bomb detonator in the other. Moments after the photo was taken, she exploded the bomb, killing herself, her child, two soldiers and several citizens. And the truly sickening part is that hundreds of people living in Britain today believe she was doing God's work.

NOEL Sharkey, an authority on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, says it's high time the Government and public decided whether to draw up rules for sex robots. Launching a consultation report a few days ago he declared, in words which will probably haunt him for a while: “I can tell you that robots are certainly coming.”