SORRY to be a party pooper, but I find myself unable to share the general admiration for Austrian Felix Baumgartner’s 24 mile supersonic leap from the edge of space.

First sour note: helium is a precious resource, not to be wasted on a vanity venture – literally a stunt by a stuntman.

Second sour note: what happened to the balloon and capsule? They are space junk somewhere now.

Third sour note: the Earth and all its wonders are seemingly no longer sufficient for us earthlings. Hailing Baumgartner’s leap as a pointer to space tourism, a London financier said: “There’s nothing to discover on Earth any more. No matter how remote you go, you always find a Coco-Cola dispenser.”

So let’s scatter them in space as well, eh?

At least the queues by Virgin Spaceship tourists will be better than the warfare in space sure to be waged once we have fully conquered this final frontier. We fight on the land, we fight in the air, we fight on and under the sea. Why should we cease in space?

MEANWHILE – we must get the deficit down – everyone agrees on that. But sometimes we don’t help ourselves. A deadly dieback disease affecting ash trees has revealed that we import huge numbers of this native tree, which grows here as readily as any weed.

Indeed, even tree-loving gardeners perforce must treat it as a weed. Though I value a fine, semi-mature ash in my garden I am endlessly removing ash seedlings from our hawthorn hedges. If every gardener in just one large village was asked to pot up all unwanted ash seedlings there would probably be enough to meet Britain’s entire need for ash saplings.

THE solution to the danger at the level crossing on the Wensleydale Railway, where a local car driver was lucky to escape with her life last weekend, seems as obvious as an express train on a branch line.

The task of opening and closing the gates to this farm crossing should be transferred from local users to railway staff, probably the train conductor.

After all, the railway is a fun railway – it runs only to provide pleasure. But local people have their lives to live. And some of their journeys might be life and death for reasons quite other than a hazardous level crossing. Every second might count.

Residents should not be required to open and shut gates, in deference to tourists enjoying the scenery.

FROM time to time this column highlights April Fool news items that don’t appear on April 1.

Two came the other day. First, the Scout movement is banning nicknames based on physical characteristics. Among those forbidden is my own boyhood moniker – ginger. How did I survive? And how cruel was Joyce Grenfell, to name one of her sketch characters “Lumpy” Latimer?

Second, the Church of England is considering plans to spice up church weddings.

Brides might enter to the theme of Match of the Day. A swooping owl might deliver the ring to the best man. The vicar is to be the church’s USP – unique selling point.

Meetings with couples intending to wed should be in the vicarage kitchen rather than the study. (Vicars’ spouses will love