Dear Mr Coren:

Forgive me writing to you out of the blue like this, as a major national commentator you will have a lot on your plate, but as there will very soon be nothing on mine, I did not know where else to turn.

You will not need to be told that I am poor, on account of you are reading this off of a bit of brown paper bag. I cannot afford nothing white with lines on, let alone Basildon Bond, also you will have noticed that my letter is a bit nibbled under the signature due to where there was a smear of jam on the paper, and you do not turn up your nose at a nice smear of jam if you are as poor as a church mouse. The bag probably had a doughnut in it at some time, whatever that is, I wouldn ’t know, I have never seen a doughnut, I am not an executive mouse, I am not a factory mouse, I am not even a bloody council house mouse, I am lucky to have two crumbs to rub together and a roof over my head, albeit one with the lead stripped off and the rain pissing in, God knows what happened to the appeal fund, that big red cardboard thermometer outside hasn’t moved since a drunk put two bob in the slot in 1964, and that was by mistake, he was after a packet of Woodbines.

And any minute now, I will not even have crumbs. I will not even have a roof with holes in. I will be out on my ear. As a major social commentator with not only his own ear to the ground but also his finger on the wossname, you will by this point have almost certainly twigged that I am writing to you about the news that for the first time since Augustine got here, more women than men are being ordained into the Church of England. With the inevitable result that I shall soon be chucked out of it. Or worse.

Because there’s two things I know about women, and they are: (a) the place has to be spotless; and (b) mice have to be dead. Show me a female vicar and I will show you: (a) a floor you could eat your dinner off of, unless of course you happened to be a mouse — ie, no crumbs, no nice nibblesome lengths of uncooked spaghetti, no tasty green bits of old Spam; and (b) mousetraps. When it comes to female vicars, it is “ Let us sing All Creatures that on Earth Do Dwell Except Mice”, it is “Blessed are the poor, unless they are church mice, in which case use a baseball bat”, it is “And the greatest of these is charity, provided it is not a mouse on the receiving end, if you see a mouse, jump on a chair and chuck a Bible at it”.

I tell you, this is the end of Christianity as we know it. Yours, etc.

• MUCH as I applaud the Old Bill for its latest crimebusting initiative advising householders to grow a stout hedge around their property to keep villains out, may I mention one or two problems with which this breakthrough — or, rather, non-breakthrough — solution is fraught?
  
  While it might seem simple enough, should you wake in the midle of the night to an iffy footfall and a glimpse through the curtains of a skulking balaclava, to gallop downstairs with a packet of seeds and sow a sturdy pyracantha thicket between chummy and your premises, be advised that you may use only reasonable force to protect your property. Your hedge is a defence, not a weapon.

  Were, for example, your vegetation to infect any would-be intruder with black spot, mildew, thrips or similar, you could well find that you are the one facing prosecution. Should he later discover that his clothes have become infested with greenfly, red spider mites, leafhoppers etc, he would be completely within his rights to have you arrested for unprovoked ABH and sent down for five years. If, furthermore, he develops wilt or curl, you may also be liable to a civil suit brought by his wife.

  I raised these points with the Serious Shrubs Squad, and they confirmed that it is incumbent upon the householder to ensure that all hedges are non-aggressive, to which end they must regularly be treated against disease and dangerous insects. But be warned that even this can pose problems: should a burglar find, as the result of pesticidal chemicals, that his eyes are watering on the bus home, or that he has to ask the driver to stop so that he can vomit or, at the very least, have a good scratch, you could be looking at a heavy fine or imprisonment, or — if he cannot stop sneezing — both.

  Mind how you grow.