WASHED AND READY TO EAT

Although the minis are at an age when they're more than capable of making their own breakfasts, they don't. They still expect their poor old parents to wait on them hand and foot in the morning, serving up bowls of cereal and slices of toast as if we're hard-pressed proprietors of a Tourist Board endorsed B&B. Sometimes we try to sneak our own breakfasts before serving the kids. Mrs W calls this the 'oxygen mask principle'. Make sure you've fitted your own mask before offering assistance to anyone else.

Wandering around one of the local secondary schools with a view to furthering the education of mini-W1, Mrs W and I were very struck by the curriculum. GCSE Food was not something on offer in our day. Neither, for that matter, was 'Music of the 80s' - a topic offered as part of a GCSE course alongside baroque. "Ok, class. Open your books at page 24. Today we'll be looking at Howard Jones."

Mini-W1 was talking to me about paint samples the other day, as she is thinking about decorating her room at the new Woodford Towers we're in the process of buying. She was describing the brilliant, pristine environments associated with dental surgeries and suggested the name 'Clinic White'. I wonder if any paint company already uses this?

According to the on-bottle blurb, Domestos offers me 24-hour protection against 'flying toilet rim germs'. I prefer to shoot the little blighters. 'Germs at 10 o'clock high! Scramble!'

Lapping it up: The Independent likes my take on their recent report on exotic dancing

Saw someone with a Ben Nevis t-shirt at Euston station earlier today. The message was 'Been there, done that...' While I admire the adventurous spirit and mountaineering prowess of the owner, I can't help feeling that the author of the slogan was a little slow. Surely it should read ' Ben there'?

If the copywriter responsible for putting poetry on the back of Fairy washing powder is in town, here's my message: Non Bio Creek ain't big enough for the two of us. You have until sundown tomorrow to make tracks or I'll be spinning you out and hanging you up to dry. The latest effort: Jack and Jill went up the hill, For nap time after nursery, Tucked softly in, Mum did begin, A free Timmy Time book from Fairy. Jesus H Christ. My nine-year-old could do better than that. Just as well I don't choose my fast-moving consumer goods on the basis of packaging verse.

I had a truly bizarre dream last night in which I was being paid on a part-time basis to undertake dental work. All procedures took place in a large hall - a bit like some kind of field hospital - where maybe a dozen people were being treated simultaneously by different teams of dentists and assistants. I knew that I was not very well qualified for dentistry, but felt that if they were happy to employ me, I should just go with the flow. The problem was that none of the patients appeared to need straightforward work on their gnashers. Most had life-threatening conditions that really required urgent medical intervention by an ER crash team. The chief dentist was expecting me to extract fluid from someone's lungs, say, and would guide me through the process. (I think this relates back to a film called Ladder 49 which I'd started to watch before I went to bed. In the movie, a rookie firefighter is coaxed through his early shifts by his station captain, John Travolta.) I did eat bl...

Difficult to know whether to laugh or cry over the proposal from the Taliban for a joint commission with NATO to investigate civilian deaths in Afghanistan. Would this be the same Taliban which recently stoned a couple to death for alleged adultery? The same bunch of fundamentalist extremists who deny education to girls, stop people listening to music and who previously acted as minders for Osama bin Laden? Unbelievably, The Guardian reports that the cynical propaganda ploy is actually being taken seriously by the western military forces in the region. What a pathetic and contemptible concession. Perhaps we should have teamed up with the Nazis in World War II to see whether we'd bombed some of their cities a little bit too hard? When will we ever learn? We get nowhere by appeasing people who have a complete disregard for human rights. If we don't think we can beat the Taliban and want to concede defeat, by all means let's bring our troops home. But let's not shame ours...

Sign in the restaurant at Debenhams, Eastbourne: 'We retain Dr Miriam Stoppard as a nutritional advisor on all our children's meals and every meal comes with a free piece of fruit...' I wonder how much this retainer is worth? Dr Miriam also seems happy for the kids' meals to contain jam sandwiches on white bread, Quavers and KitKats. But these concessions to children's tastes don't appear to be trumpeted on the poster though. Strange, that.

I greatly enjoyed the comments of Julie Spence - the outgoing Chief Constable of the Cambridgeshire police force - who claimed that 'speeding is middle class anti-social behaviour'. Too bloody right. Her intervention was prompted by the current trend towards turning off speed cameras on our roads, which is driven by the desire to save money and a crazy ideological objection to the idea of 'snooping'. One of my favourite journalists, David Aaronovitch of The Times, pulled this nonsense apart the other day in his column. If these cameras are so expensive, how come their opponents have always criticised them for being a money-making venture? The 'cost' is a complete and utter red herring. What the pro-speed lobby actually wants is the ability to break the law with impunity. Supporters believe, in their arrogance, that once they are behind the wheel of their car, they should be free to drive at whatever speed they wish, regardless of the consequence to wider societ...

She told me that she's ordered an audiobook of Les Miserables from the local library. I'd go with We Will Rock You or Mamma Mia .

The State of Kuwait advertised in The Times today for specialists to work in a new department of paediatric surgery. The copy reads: 'Successful candidates will be expected to provide up-to-date service and manage all problems in their field including the complicated ones...' Being a specialist just gets harder and harder, doesn't it?

For my 800th post on Washed and Ready to Eat , I return to one of my favourite featured books - Ronald Pelham's How shall I word it? Published in 1948, it provides templated letters designed to help the reader respond to any conceivable situation. Whether you're a butler applying 'for situation', a bridesmaid writing a thank you letter to a bridegroom or a store selling salvage stock after a fire, Mr Pelham knows exactly what you ought to say. Imagine this scenario. You have received a selection of brochures from scholastic agents providing information about boarding schools. From your cottage in Somerley, you write to the educational establishment of your choice, Greyline School in Heacham. "MADAM Your brochure has been sent to me by Messrs. ________________ & _____________, and I am very interested in the school for my daughter, aged nine. Her education so far has been acquired at a private school, but my wife and I feel that the time has now come for her ...

When I stopped off at WHSmith yesterday to buy some chocolate, I was handed a voucher which offered me a free bird bath if I joined the RSPB. This marketing strategy is so flawed that I am temporarily lost for words. The bird bath looks great at Woodford Towers though.

I was reading in The Metro about a village called Firhall in the highlands of Scotland which seems to ban children. According to hack Ross McGuinness, residents of the creepy hamlet - which also tells people not to start their cars before 7am or hang out their washing - is like 'Britain 30 years ago'. What a load of horses**t. Younger WARTE readers will have to take my word for the fact that people did start cars and hang out washing in 1980. And if there weren't any kids back then, we can only assume the good burghers of Firhall were delivered in adult form to their Stepford-style community by a stork.

According to London's Metro, drought conditions are likely to hit the UK next year for the first time since 1976. Experts warn that we'll have to share baths. As I was a kid during the last water crisis, I can't remember the rules. Do you get to choose who you share with? Or are you just told?

When the Woodfords are on the move in the motor, Radio Jackie is our station of choice. The Sound of South-West London not only plays a fine selection of tunes - ranging from the contemporary to the classic - but it also has some of the most entertaining commercials around. Mini-W1 had me in stitches the other day when she picked up on the rather unfortunate script for a local dental surgery. There's a monologue in which a character tells us what a terrible state his teeth were in until he decided to 'put them in the hands of Sutton Orthodontic Practice'. One can only hope that the patient cleaned them and wrapped them up before delivery. (The double meaning reminds me of the old ad for the £9.99 shoes that used to appear in catalogues and magazines. 'We dare you to wear them out!') An ad the kids can almost recite verbatim is for a place called Lynwood Aquatics . If we're to believe the spiel, this self-styled Aladdin's cave is the biggest centre of its kin...

Ever since parlours disappeared from homes, they've only really been associated with massages, tattoos and poodles. As a respectable kind of guy without a dog, I don't have much reason to frequent these establishments. So imagine my delight at the opening of a new outlet close to Woodford Towers selling posh Italian ice cream. If I'm not mistaken, this will qualify officially as a parlour too. And Mrs W won't mind if I pay the occasional visit.