I wonder, does anyone know where pens go to die? Is it, I ask, the same burial ground to which spectacles, penknives, can openers, birth certificates, driving licences, thimbles, toothpicks, car keys, and notebooks migrate in order to expire with dignity?

Most of the above things turn up in the end, but others seem destined to remain unfound. This is true of my VF5. It is the registration certificate of the right-hand-drive English car I’ve just swapped for the left-hand version, given that I’m now a French resident paying taithes to Monsieur Hollande…and it continues to evade capture.SS, Gestapo, Stasi, CIA and KGB veterans have turned my house upside down, but no trace of it exists.

These are all, of course, the early symptoms of dementia. Ask me to name the Manchester United side that lost on aggregate 5-3 to Real Madrid in 1957, and in a trice I can name all eleven in positional order. Ask me why I’m standing in a room at any point in time today, and I wouldn’t know whether it was to turn on the central heating, or stir the curry.

Mind you, I do know where defunct hitech wires go to die. Mine live in the wires cabinet upstairs, an ironic tribute to a world the tecchies laughably call wireless. Open it, and five thousand miles of multicoloured spaghetti spill out onto the floor.

∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇∇

NEW SHOCK AS VAROUFAKIS FINGERS THAT PART OF HIS BRAIN MISSING WHEN HE AGREED TO FATAL FRIDAY MEMORANDUM DEAL

∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇∇

In a statement of really quite mind-boggling self importance, British PM Avid Cameldung said this afternoon that the callous murder of Russian opposition politician Boris Nemtsov “must be fully, rapidly and transparently investigated, and those responsible brought to justice”.

There is little doubt in my mind that Nemtsov was rubbed out by Putin’s mates, but this kid of showboating by the Old Etonian makes me wonder if he has any idea what a completely pompous eunuch he seems making that sort of statement. I’d imagine Vlad’s cleaning lady has more influence over the Russian dictator than this puffed-up twerp…a man who couldn’t even get a PR job without using his mother-in-law’s powers as a Carlton TV shareholder.

∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇∇

Taylor Swift,it seems, is the biggest pop star on the planet. She has cut her hair, she says, to show solidarity with feminism, because “It’s part of who I am”. Until I read a piece about her in the US press today, I’d never heard of Taylor Swift.

As it happens, I’ve grown my hair lately to show my profound disapproval of hairdressers who – we should never forget – irretrievably sapped the strength of Samson.

On the internet, you can get Google alerts telling you the latest news on any issue, country or person. What you can’t get is a service automatically screening out anything reported about or said by a brainless nonentity. I regard this as an obvious gap in Google’s armoury.

Earlier at The Slog: Why buying politicians means selling out the Constitution