The Third Leader: Questions, questions

Should I reveal that I took the last cold sausage from the fridge? Does the passage of time pardon crime? In which case, should I reveal that this is not the first time I have taken the last cold sausage from the fridge?

Another one: global warming. On a sunny summer day, is it right to enjoy the fruits of something that is bad for the planet? Should I stay inside? Should I enjoy it, but only relatively? How has this been handled in the past? Did our Ice Age-threatened ancestors frown on winter sports?

And what of the wider consequences of warming? Today, for example, we report its effects on our birds, the decline of natives and the increase in exotic colonists. Among those promised: the cattle egret, the great reed warbler and the zitting cisticola. The zitting cisticola! Who would not be excited by that? It's the same appeal as the haiku about how marvellous it would be to see a butterfly in the snow.

Did you know that we now have 20,000 wild parrots? Is it wrong to prefer them to pigeons? Fascinating questions that go to the very essence of existence. Some claim the parrots are all descended from a pair freed by Jimi Hendrix in the Sixties, which also bears pondering on, as they used to say he was God if I remember correctly.