Ease up on the Photoshop

One of the great inventions of recent years is Adobe Photoshop. Pictures can be edited (for which read manipulated) and unsightly blemishes can be removed (I think Tony Blair would like to Photoshop Gordon Brown out of Downing Street, but that's another matter).

However, some magazines are taking Photoshopping too far. Take, for example, the latest edition of Hello! There is a nine-page interview and photo shoot with the model Rachel Hunter. Rachel is 37 and the mother of two children. Now while no one would dispute that Miss Hunter is beautiful she is, as I said, 37 and the mother of two children. So why has the picture on page 78 been Photoshopped to within an inch of its life? Not a line, not a blemish in sight. Why? Is anyone really fooled?

It's snow joke

I suppose it had to happen. There are few streets in London that now don't have a speed camera on them - even though research proves that they don't actually save lives.

Now in Italy speed cameras have been introduced on ski slopes. Yes, that's right ski slopes.

Police in Cortina D’Ampezzo and nearby Plose in the Dolomites will watch skiers on the cameras and alert colleagues at the end of runs if a skier is travelling too fast. Those caught could face fines of up to €1,000 (£650).

Cmdr Giuseppe Volpe, of the Italian Alpine Police training centre at Moena, said: "The cameras will help the piste police look out for wayward skiers and be able to stop them at the bottom and tell them how reckless they have been. If necessary, and if they feel life has been put at risk, they will also be able to fine skiers for infringements."

Infringements? That's an all-encompassing word.

How long before a British council fines a child for speeding on their Heeleys?

We have lost a sense of proportion 2

To return to my earlier post, I'd like to make two points.

Would Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire be languishing in a jail cell this morning had they tapped only the phones of celebrities and not those close to the royal family?

And shouldn't Helen Asprey, personal secretary to Princes William and Harry, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, the princes' private secretary, and Paddy Harverson, Prince Charles's communications secretary - the three members of staff whose phones were tapped - be sacked for gross stupidity?

After Squidgygate and Camillagate, all members of the royal staff must know that mobiles are not secure, so why would they be daft enough to leave sensitive information on voice mails?