The secondary usages of the Cornish Pasty that you highlight have indeed sown several seeds in my ill working brain:

How about their replacement of bricks and mortar to build a house sturdy enough to withdraw the fervent huffing and puffing of any hungry wolf?

Due to their unfortunate shape how about their use as a substitute to the traditional leather rugby ball? Catching one in the middle of a game would certainly add a little more delight to the players faces, additionally it would justify the length and means (i.e. tearing each other apart) to get to the blasted thing.

Sometimes the English can be downright sanctimonious. We cling on to sentiments because we feel it’s the right thing to do. It’s here I’m going to talk about a touchy subject, which shouldn’t be at all sensitive because time is here to help us all forget. The death of Princess Diana was a surprise to all. However, the most surprising thing is the continual existence of this legacy that her death glorified; it still continues to touch people fully. The media have a habit of picking things up and ceasing to drop them and Diana’s death is just one of their fixations. During the ten years since her death we have been continually reminded of her presence. This has come in varying forms; tributes, probing inquiries into the deep abyss of her private life, inquiries into her death itself and pure speculation about her last days. Was she pregnant? Was she engaged? I have to be honest that I am really too young to indeed care; I accept she was a role model to many people and that she was very committed to helping out others less fortunate, but when is the nation finally going to let things rest?

Death is finality, it happens, it’s sad, but then life moves on. There are deeper concerns we all face on a day to day basis. Diana did not touch us to the extent that we can cease to operate emotionally. To prevent people joking about her death because it is too hurtful on the memory of the nation is really too absurd a notion to fathom. The timing of jokes must be careful, but surely ten years afterward our sensitivities on the issue must be somewhat more relaxed.

Since I’ve probably stirred up a hornets’ nest already, can I just mention our nation’s reaction to the Madeline McCann saga? It’s been six months since her abduction and still the nation and the tabloids cling on to every news story they can make, like moths to a lamp. I cannot help but feel that her tragic disappearance has not been somewhat manipulated by the tabloids in order to sell more papers. However, excusals must be made in recognition of the simple fact that it is us the general public who still cling to her disappearance as if it consumes our every waking sense of being.

No disrespect intended, freedom of speech allows.