Lawyers: hunt them with dogs?

Harry Hutton's really got his teeth into this Cheney hullabaloo.

But I see a deeper story. I find myself wondering, what is the most humane way to cull the lawyer population? For cull them, we must.

I'm not convinced that shot-guns are the right tool - as the veep has demonstrated. However much you recognise the need to control the population, no right-thinking human being can look upon one of God's creatures, once so magnificent in its pin-striped plumage, squirming, writhing, yelping like a pup, shaking buckshot from it's snout.

I am told, by a greater-tweeded lawyer (no less), that hunting with dogs is a more humane approach. At least that way the poor mite gets torn limb from limb in a matter of seconds.

Or, now that we've taken a step down the road to sport, perhaps we should allow these proud beasts one last hour of glory. Perhaps we should put them in a ring and have them taunted by a fairy in buttock-hugging, gold-lamé trousers. That would be the Spanish, and to my mind the best, approach.

The mysterious case of the black sock

A most odd thing happened this weekend past. My doorbell cruelly chirruped at Saturday's hangover. Answering the door I was confronted by Esperanza - an old lady in her eighties who lives across the stairs - and Pilar - an "inqusitive" neighbour from downstairs. They asked if I'd lost a black sock. No, not so far as I'm aware, said I. I must confess I haven't checked recently but I'm fairly sure I have the full set. Why do ask?

Well, last night Pilar heard a terrible crash and a bang at about 2am and Esperanza woke this morning to find her purse missing, footprints on the windowsill and a black, gentleman's sock on the floor of her living room!

It seems someone climbed the stairs to the third floor, took to the window, stepped onto Esperanza's window ledge, climbed in, robbed her purse and left a sock.

The odd thing is, during my first encounter with Pilar, the downstairs neighbour, she offered me a single black sock as a settling in present.

There's more to this than meets the eye.

UPDATE: unloading a white wash at the weekend - a white wash which I personally loaded, item by item - I found single, black sock. I shiver tickled my spine. Like a coward, I hung it up to dry inside the house. This will come back to haunt me.