It seems to me that, more often than not, there is usually a simple solution to any problem you might care to mention. This week, for instance, I signed up to the Anthony Nolan Trust to become a bone-marrow donor. I didn’t do this from any particularly innate selflessness; I did it because, to be truthful, I spent more than £200 in Topshop buying my “winter wardrobe”, and I knew that I had to do something a bit altruistic not to feel awful every time I put on my Outsized Button-Down Cardigan, £47, and earrings in the shape of a wolf, £16.

Others, however, might not have such a psychologically complex and, to be honest, unlikely relationship with knitwear and accessories. They might need a little more persuasion to donate a vial of bodily essence under general anaesthetic, and I cannot blame them. General anaesthetic is, after all, a combination of huge needles, unflattering hospital nightwear and mild death. Most people need a bit of an incentive there.

And do you know what I think that incentive would be? Do you know what simple solution would reduce the bone-marrow donor waiting-list to nothing? Laser hair removal. To be honest, if I’d ever been offered the chance to have my moustache removed on the NHS in exchange for some of my bone, I would probably have done it years ago. And if they’d done my eyebrows, I’d have chucked in a couple of pints of blood and a kidney, too.

Of course, it needn’t be just laser hair removal: it could be any of the simple procedures that the NHS is capable of, and that people covet. A nose job, Botox, tits, dental veneers. I know that the idea of “payment” for organ, marrow, sperm, blood and egg donation has been strenuously argued against – but, frankly, I think it’s a bit Y chromosomey to go around arguing some arcane moral point while people live unhappily, or actually die. We offset our flights with donations to carbon-neutral organisations. Why can’t we offset our guilt at our vanity with a donation of some bone marrow? Just by being slightly less philosophical and slighty more realistic, everyone’s happy. The donor has big tits and a sense of having done some good, the NHS has saved millions in long-term treatments and the recipient isn’t dead. Result, really.

So, on to something with the same principle, but on a wholly different scale of importance. For years, the plummeting numbers of children capable of playing an instrument has bothered any number of cultural commentators and government committees. I suppose the presumption is that one day we’ll get to the Last Night of the Proms and the orchestra will consist of a single maraca player. From Poland.

To forestall this calamity, the Arts Council has come up with a very simple solution. Instead of whining on about how embarrassing it will be if no one in a supposedly civilised country can play a musical instrument, and hoping that the Government will “do something about it”, it has simply arranged interest-free loans for anyone who wants to buy a musical instrument. Isn’t that pleasingly straightforward? Under the scheme, “Take It Away!” (www.artscouncil.org.uk/takeitaway), you can now get a drum kit, cello, trumpet, a gold Rickenbacker 12-string (like the Byrds played) – whatever you like, interest free, and paid back monthly. Like the Kays catalogue, but a bit more rockin’.

Having taken advantage of the scheme, we’ve had a piano for the past month, and I have to say it’s changed our lives. Most people will think that they don’t have enough room in their house for a piano.

What I would say is, it’s useful to think of it less as a musical instrument the size of a donkey, and more like a shelving unit on which you can also play Chopsticks.

Although I’m well aware that all you’re supposed to put on top of a piano is a candelabra and a bust of Beethoven – preferably one that comes to life and says “I might be deaf, but that was rubbish” in the voice of Eric Morecambe – I’ve found that the average upright can accommodate a great deal more than that. Currently, we’ve got a Dora the Explorer castle, a pile of books, two breakfast bowls, the car keys and a sewing kit on top of it. It’s more than pulling its weight, space-wise.

The most notable thing about having an instrument in the house, however, is how happy it makes people. The sound of a six-year-old girl diligently practising her scales in a nearby room is as cheering and soothing as the smell of baking bread. It tells you that your life can’t be going too badly, all things considered. The kids, meanwhile, enter a meditative state whenever they sit on the piano stool – particularly when it comes to improvising funereal dirges that go on for 45 minutes, and involve them pretending that one of the cats has died.

And when guests arrive who can actually play the damn thing, they respond in the way that people more usually do when presented with a tray of drugs, or a naked lady jumping out of a cake. We’ve had people runacross the front room to get to it – followed by a second’s silence, and then the opening chords of O Come, All Ye Faithful, or Hello Goodbye. Everyone drifts over and stands around the piano as though it’s a campfire, or a recent kill, and starts singing, often badly – in fact, almost always badly – but always happily, too.

Indeed, it’s only until your house has a piano – or a guitar – that you realise how intense is humanity’s need to sing with other human beings. Football matches, birthdays, Christmas, hen-night karaoke, the terrible Queen-based musical We Will Rock You– they all involve society going to ridiculous lengths to let people sing familiar songs together.

But really, all it takes is a bit of common sense. And a 0 per cent interest loan.

Africa’s good guys will get their reward

Another simple solution: as reported in The Times last week, a philanthropic billionaire has established a new award, the Ibrahim Prize, to be presented to the best African leader. It can be won only by a sub-Saharan leader who has governed democratically and honestly – then quit on time. As the prize’s founder, Mo Ibrahim, has explained in interviews, African leaders don’t get paid much and their pensions are tiny. This is why they are often apt to run “interesting” business deals on the side, or sometimes “forget” to leave office for a few years. Instead of insisting that this is purely a matter for endless debate on morality, Ibrahim has got practical about it, offering a £2.7 million prize, a worldwide publicity campaign and an award ceremony that will be attended by Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan.

Let’s be honest – it’s not just Africa that needs an award like this. It’s fairly safe to say that every government in the world has members engaged in “business deals” that aren’t of particular benefit to its population. And while we obviously don’t want elected representatives creaming off “consultancy fees” for shonky multimillion-pound national IT systems, we don’t yet reward anyone who doesn’t. Maybe we should.

Lots of bottle

Finally, a mixed piece of reasoning. Armed raiders who tried to rob a pub in Battersea, South London, were foiled when regulars threw chairs, ashtrays and bottles of champagne at them until they gave up and ran away, like girls. On the one hand, it’s wonderful that these people were not prepared to tolerate crime any more, and put an end to it in the most effective way possible. On the other hand, what they didn’t take into account was the economics of their defence. Once you’ve thrown, say, six bottles of champagne at a burglar, you’ve surely “spent” more than the average pub’s till contents at 3pm on a Tuesday.

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