Plans to put a bronze statue of Ronald Reagan outside the American embassy in Grosvenor Square, London, have been rejected. Westminster council says figures must have been dead for 10 years before they qualify for a public monument (although the Americans might have noticed a statue in Parliament Square of Nelson Mandela, who is still very much with us). Perhaps they could put the former US president there too. It would remind our MPs of Reagan’s driving political dictum – that too much government is bad government. They might even add his famous advice to officials: “Don’t just do something, stand there.”

The phone rings at Radio 4’s Today programme to say Rob Isaacs has arrived for his broadcast. “We’re not expecting any Rob Isaacs,” says Today firmly. But the caller is very insistent. “He’s here to do Thought for the Day.” It took a moment for divine inspiration to strike. The visitor was the chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks. Rabbi Sacks.

Taken for a ride over Olympic mountain biking in Essex

Ever wondered why the 2012 Olympics is costing so much? A clue was revealed in the Commons last week when MP Adam Price wondered why the mountain bike event was being held in Essex.

Essex is a grand county with many great qualities, but you can’t help noticing what is almost its defining characteristic – the complete lack of mountains.

Olympic officials have already complained that the area is too flat, so a special course will have to be built.

“Why is public money being used to create a new track in Essex which lacks one of the key essential requirements for mountain biking – mountains?” demanded Price, the Plaid Cymru MP for Carmarthen East. “There are international standard cross-country mountain bike tracks in Wales, Scotland and the north and the west,” he said.

Sports minister Gerry Sutcliffe replied limply: “I understand there are a few hills in Essex.”

At the last count the Olympic budget was £9.3 billion, but at least the small bore shooting event shouldn’t prove too expensive. Westminster would seem the obvious location.

We must applaud Charles Moore of The Spectator for unmasking the astonishing connection between drug abuse and cufflinks. “I remember being told that I would become a heroin addict because I was not wearing cufflinks,” he says of his school days. Presumably this means Eton, although you wouldn’t put it past young Charles to have cufflinks in his Babygro.

Sceptical at first, he now confirms that he wears cufflinks but does not use heroin. So what of fellow Etonian David Cameron? We know the Tory leader might or might not have taken drugs as a young man. Does he have the political courage to show us his cuffs?

Who says the British have lost all optimism? Somebody on eBay is demanding £64.99 for a signed photograph of Gordon Brown. There were no takers yesterday.

If you planned to continue a tradition established by Gladstone, which would it be: winning four general elections or going for a fish supper? The Liberals Democrats, of course, have gone for the supper.

Unlikely as it seems, Gladstone’s idea of team-building was to take the cabinet down the pub – for whitebait at the Trafalgar Tavern, Greenwich. The tradition has continued, so on July 10 senior Lib Dems will be forking down the fish course and wondering where it all went wrong.

Och, Dr Finlay, you cannae say gay in that sorta way

Yet more doctors and nurses have been told they shouldn’t use the word “gay” in case it causes offence. The Scottish health service instead proposes the term “men who have sex with men”. This is already the case in some English health trusts.

A health adviser explains: “A man in a straight relationship who has the odd sexual encounter with another man might not regard himself as gay.” Fair enough, but wouldn’t he be better described as either “bisexual” or “so deeply in the closet that he’s virtually in Narnia”? And what do you call a man who is gay but never gets lucky?

You know what this is, don’t you? Yes, it’s political correctness gone mentally challenged.

Last week I was in Birmingham and environs, where everybody I met was cheery, polite and helpful. Quite a shock. Was this just luck, or is the West Midlands the cheeriest place in Britain? If not, where is it? And where’s the most miserable?

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