YOU will be wanting to know what I did on my hols.

Chauffeured by the Home Secretary, I ventured south into Ingerland, to see how the natives are bearing up following the reeferendum, when the teuchters rose en masse and voted for rule by Nigella Farrago and his swivel-eyed loons. In truth, no-one seemed much concerned. In Alnwick, the billboard for the local paper was about a farmer who is peed off because his sheep keep getting nicked. Reiving, it seems, is still a popular pastime in these parts.

A day was spent in Craster, on which so many visitors had descended that one cafe had a sign on its counter saying that the kitchen was so busy there was no point trying to order anything. It reminded me of a restaurant in Stornoway where, on asking if there might be a table for two, I was told to come back in half an hour. This despite the fact that the cavernous place was empty. But I digress. In Craster, we found a mobile cafe where the HS opted for kipper on a bun sans ketchup. Adventurous or what! My eye, however, was fixed on the establishment's piece de resistance, namely a roll called The Auchtermuchty. I would offer a prize to the first reader who might guess its contents but I've been instructed never to offer false hope. For the record, they were bacon and haggis, an unusual, if winning, combination. Why it was known as The Auchtermuchty I did not have the wherewithal to ask.

A jogger has bumped into Posh Dave. Literally. Dean Farley, a hospital worker from Leeds, who has dreadlocks and a beard, said: "I dodged in and out and around and the next thing I knew I have got half a dozen suited men haranguing me and manhandling me to the floor." Reports said he was carrying a towel but no ID. Why ever not? Mr Farley was immediately grabbed by security staff and thrown in the clink where he had his fingernails removed and his legs pulled, and not because he had cramp. Immediately, various "experts" were unleashed on a hapless public. One told the Beeb that Mr Farley was "in the wrong place at the wrong time", which is typical of the top-down view of history.

Mr Farley lives in Leeds; Posh Dave disnae! Another dimwit said he was lucky he bumped into the Pee-Em in Ukania.

Had it been anywhere else on the globe, Mr Dimwit chuntered, there would be no more jogging for Mr Farley. On the contrary, he'd now be hanging upside-down in a rat-infested dungeon, being force-fed Big Macs and made constantly to listen to Daniel O'Donnell's greatest hits. Where in the name o' the wee man was Mr Dimwit thinking of? Denmark? Liechtenstein? Tasmania?

Has he never heard of Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian man who was shot dead in London in 2005 by trigger-happy cops?

YOU may recall the Great Blinds Saga, which has been consuming many of the spare hours of the Home Secretary (Soft Furnishing). It began in July when four blinds were ordered from the store that insists it is never knowingly undersold.

When, eventually, they were delivered, one blind fitted, one was the wrong size and two had cords that could not be opened by Lilliputians on their tiptoes. A couple of months on, one blind still fits, two still can't be opened without the HS having a hernia, and the replacement for the one that was the wrong size, which was delivered today, was also the wrong size.

Indeed, the blind man said it may even have been the same wrong blind. All of this from the store whose chairman told us - anent the reeferendum - that prices would go up if we voted Yes. Which is more than one can say for its blinds!

THE news that ScotRail will, from 2015, be run by a Dutch company is still causing a stushie. Abellio is part of Nederlandse Spoorwegen and, in early talks, considered using the name NedRail if it won the franchise. Explaining why this might not be a such great idea, I'm told, was not easy. Can Holland be the only country in the world that is ned-free?

RADIO 4 is to become a musical. I know, I know, at least it's not a farce! Its creator is Kathy Clugston, one of the station's announcers.

One of the characters in it is transparently my dear friend Jim Naughty who, alas, will not himself be starring in the show. I have a vision of Mr Naughty in top hat and tails dancing with his co-presenter Sarah Montague, in the manner of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, while Johnny Humphrys does the cha-cha with Mishal Husain.

I fear I am on the wrong track. Apparently, Mr Naughty's character sings a song in praise of Woman's Hour. One is salivating already.

THE latest twit to fall foul of Twitter is the French culture meenister, Fleur Pellerin. She told her followers: "Deep admiration for the oeuvre of Modiano, which has been so justly rewarded."

Modiano is Patrick Modiano, a novelist who won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature. Trouble is, Ms Pellerin was talking out of a hole in her head, because she's never read one of his books.

"This," said one hyperventilating hack, "is like a British health minister saying he or she can't be bothered to visit a National Health Service hospital, or a Russian defence minister saying he has no interest in tanks and guided missiles." En France, Ms Pellerin has been pilloried for her ignorance, because in that country culture meenisters are, well, expected to be cultured. Here, of course, no-one would ever assume that.

I am pleased to report, however, that my dear amigo, Arry Redknapp, a football manager, has refused to comment on another Twitter row because he prefers to keep his own counsel on things he doesn't know anything about. If only we in this inky business could do likewise!