LET'S hear it for William Hague. He is an example to us all.

Relax. This has nothing to do with Tory party leadership, or even with politics. Especially not politics. Instead, it's all to do with never being too old to learn.

The day after he resigned as Conservative leader, following the disastrous election defeat, William Hague drank champagne and looked forward to a new life. As well as travelling and writing, he started piano lessons. Now after two years of lessons and lots of practice he can apparently make a decent stab at Chopin preludes and bits of Bach.

More importantly, he has stretched his mind, enriched his own life and learnt a new way of looking at the world, or of listening to it at least.

Instead of sitting sulking at home, plotting and planning and getting bitter and twisted, he seems remarkably happy.

Likewise Sir Oliver Popplewell.

Sir Oliver is a former high court judge. At the age of 76, when he could be understandably allowed to slide happily into his dotage, he's gone back to being a student. He's a fresher at Oxford, living in a college room and sharing a bathroom and a kitchenette with another undergraduate.

By the time he graduates in Politics, Philosophy and Economics, he will be nearly 80.

Does it matter? Not a bit.

The college gave him a place because they reckoned he would fit into college life, play an active part and enrich it not only for himself but for other people. And Sir Oliver, whose wife died two years ago and who had retired from the Bench and completed his memoirs, is now apparently utterly happy dictating essays to his laptop and drinking in the Junior Common Room.

Learning the piano at 42, doing a degree at nearly 80, there is nothing so likely to keep you young and mentally fit as getting out of your groove and learning something new.

Whatever your age, as Arthur Daley once memorably said: "The world's your lobster." Go for it.

GOING Christmas shopping? Stop and think a moment - especially if you're going to slap it all on the plastic.

Nothing's definite, but all the experts say that interest rates are going to go edging up over the next year. What's easy to pay back now, will be a lot harder in a few months.

A happy Christmas is a wonderful thing - but not if it means a wretched January when the bills come in. Be generous - but not crazy.

SCIENTISTS think they have discovered an obesity gene, the inherited factor that means some people are more likely to put on weight easily. Clearly, it will run in families.

But that still doesn't explain why my sister can eat pie and chips and chocolate and be as slim as a reed, while I just look at a stick of celery and put on half a stone.

Even genetics, it seems, are subject to luck.

ACTUALLY, I quite liked the postmen's strike. I had a birthday at the weekend and London and Welsh friends and relations who were faced with sealed-up letter boxes, couldn't send cards but telephoned instead. Now cards are nice - but a phone call is much nicer. And if a lot more people think the same, then there's yet another dent in the future of Royal Mail.

TRAINS last Friday seemed to be in chaos. A friend with a very expensive ticket spent the entire journey from London standing rammed against the door of the loo. Smaller Son's overcrowded train died a slow and lingering death between Sheffield and Doncaster and delayed his journey by more than two hours. Another friend was unable to get to his reserved seat because there were so many people in the way and when he finally made it - by following the conductor's example and climbing over the seats - it was almost to come to blows with the people who were already sitting in them.

Friday afternoons come round very regularly. Friday afternoons in half term are usually fairly predictable too.

So why do they always take the railways by surprise?

Bravery by any standard

TROOPER Christopher Finney of the Household Cavalry was just 18 when he risked his life repeatedly to save injured colleagues.

Wounded himself in an attack in Iraq, he went back again and again. The citation for his George Cross talks about "complete disregard for his own safety, even when wounded" and "bravery of the highest order".

When many of his schoolfellows are probably still lying in bed until noon and wondering what, if anything, they're going to do with their lives, Tpr Finney is a marvellous example of discipline and courage. The odd thing is, that despite his terrific bravery, he still gets the civilian George Cross instead of the military VC - because the attack was the so-called "friendly fire" from Americans who, yet again, got the wrong target.

The bullets were just as deadly, the danger just as real, Tpr Finney was still fighting a war and was being attacked by foreign troops but, in the niceties of medal giving, it counts as a civilian action.

We have given him the George Cross. I just wonder what the Americans have given him. Apart from pain and injury, of course.

Gnome sweet gnome

WELL, that's our house worth about half a crown and a balloon...

The BBC programme, The Million Pound Property Experiment, has listed a number of things that could knock thousands of pounds off the value of your home.

So OK, we don't have garden gnomes, which apparently can knock £500 off the price, or patterned carpets (£2,500) or stone cladding (£3,000).

However we do have filthy light switches - which can knock £3,000 off the value. If that's £3,000 per switch, then we're definitely in bother. I blame it on the coal fire and all the newspapers we read, which leaves us with permanently grubby fingers. But, inspired by the thought of that £3,000, I've already been busy with the Flash and a damp cloth.

Published: 05/11/2003