John Gibson: Melting in the march of times

Allow me to take you away from all this. Think summer. Lovely, lengthy evenings and the mouth-watering chimes of the ice cream van. We had 20,000 vans on the streets a decade ago. Today 5,000.

Heston Blumenthal (where would we be without old Blumers?) utters wearisome words. “The decline of the vans is down to a few things – the effect of supermarkets and health and safety.

“Besides, they can’t play the chimes for more than four seconds and, because they’re restricted to where they can go, they need to be really busy to warrant a £40,000 ice cream van.”

Sad. I could use a cone right now.

Stray notes . .

Dingly docs are saying sucking on a dummy stops snoring. I’ve tried it and it works, only when the dummy has been dunked overnight in Jack Daniel’s.

I’ve seen it myself at the Western General and it set me spluttering. Patients in their dressing nipping outside for a sly puff and I’ve wondered how they’ve been getting away with it. Wondered, too, how surgeons can be bothered treating them. Now the SNP Government is considering a ban on all smoking in hospital grounds. About time.

Afterwords . .

. . . Moved me near to tears. A Year With the Military Wives was an emotive, no frills profile of the choir’s charismatic conductor and the wives the troops left behind them while they served in Afghanistan for six months. The Beeb must repeat – prime time.