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Goodness me. I've just worked out how the rest of the world feels.

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred when I quote some kind of proverb or childhood saying, people look at me funny. They claim that instead of repeating a perfectly sensible saying, I'm spouting utter nonsense.

But today a colleague has just assured me that any injury, when he was a child, was greeted by the not-at-all-consoling remark "don't worry, there'll be a pig's foot there in the morning".

Weirdo.

And contrary to telling children rubbish about trotters to terrify them (apparently it did), we also have the truths we try to conceal from children. No, don't worry, eating pips from fruit is fine. They won't grow inside you. It can't happen. Oh, except for that guy in the US who grew a pea plant in his lung.

Current Music: Punish the Atom - I Cry Demolition

The BBC, in attempt to milk as many pages as possible from the White House switch-over, has produced a page of Bushisms. Many are, I think, the sort of mistakes which you'd normally forgive someone who was speaking off the cuff; badly planned sentences and confused pronouns. Some are the statements of the bleeding obvious which most politicians use as rhetorical devices. Some are more worrying. My favourite, however, is a delightful example from the conjoined proverb department.

Talking in Washington in 2004, he described the enemies of free society as those who kill "at the whim of a hat".

Isn't that a lovely phrase ? I shall begin using it forthwith.