The situation must be desperate when the Government has to release more than 2,500 convicts early to make room for new ones. Some small towns don't have populations that big!

Mind you, the lengths of sentences being handed down seem designed to tackle the problem from another direction, by ensuring that those sent to jail don't stay there for long however appalling their crime.

Take the case of paedophile Timothy Cox, a man so depraved that when he appeared in court this week he was named as the kingpin of an Internet chatroom whose members had collected, distributed and swapped tens of thousands of sexual images and videos of children, including some of babies being raped.

This 28-year-old monster had an indeterminate sentence imposed upon him by the judge. Good, you might think. That means he'll never come out.

Not so, unfortunately. It means that he can be freed only when he is considered no longer to be a danger. When he applies for parole a judgement will have to be made as to whether or not he is sufficiently in control of his urges to be allowed out into a world filled with children and with people who get their kicks making, distributing or looking at sexual images of them.

That's fair enough, you might think. It means he won't be considered for parole until he's an old man.

Again, not so. The judge spoke about an indeterminate sentence yet told Cox that if he'd been convicted after a trial he would have got seven years. However, because he'd pleaded guilty that was reduced by a third to four years and eight months. And because he's already served nine months on remand, he'll be eligible to apply for parole in 19 months!

How "indeterminate" is that? Of course it could be that the parole board will have a better idea than you or I do as to what the judge meant by using that word and then refining it down to a little over four and a half years and will decide that Cox remains too big a danger to be let out even after that limit is reached.

But I wouldn't bet on it. In fact I reckon there's even a danger that if his first application for parole comes up in 19 months and the prisons are still overcrowded,he could be let out on the say-so of some psychiatrist or other to make room for a newcomer.

There's a way round this predicament, of course. Those who sexually abuse children, or who by viewing child pornography cause others to sexually abuse children, are the vilest of the vile and the group of offenders for whom the death penalty should be restored.

That wouldn't solve the prison overcrowding problem overnight, of course, but it would help. And it would make the world's children a bit safer.

Rushdie's title dishonour

Why on earth did the Government put Salman Rushdie's name forward for a knighthood? It should have known that it would enrage and inflame the Muslim world - for reasons that many non-Muslims don't understand any more than they understand why Rushdie is considered to be a key literary figure.

Hands up all those who've read one of his books from beginning to end? OK, hands up those who know someone who's read one of his books from beginning to end? Not a lot of hands showing even now, I reckon.

Whatever the literary merits of Rushdie's work, though, the Government surely can't have forgotten the huge fuss there was 18 years ago after The Satanic Verses was declared to be blasphemous. Nor can it have been unaware that there are people who are ready to seize on any opportunity to revive that fuss and push the Islamic and non-Islamic worlds even further apart.

To award Rushdie a knighthood was thoughtless and downright stupid. It might well be a Cabinet Office committee which made the recommendation, but the Prime Minister can't have been unaware of it and must have understood the ramifications. What a parting gift to the country he's about to stop leading.

Stop preaching, Hockney

Don't you get fed up of seeing David Hockney on television bemoaning the forthcoming restrictions on smoking? It's almost as though the Bradford-born artist still believes, against decades of irrefutable medical evidence, that inhaling cigarette smoke and absorbing the nicotine and tars it contains is good for you.

If Hockney wants to continue to put his own health at risk and pollute the atmosphere around him, that's matter for him and those people who might chose to spend time in his smoky company.

But for him to continue making the case for a smoking free-for-all is just plain silly. It's time he shut up about it.

Gareth's all grown up

A rather belated congratulations to Gareth Gates (pictured), who's performing a free promotional gig at the HMV store on Broadway on Monday, for reviving his career after many people had written him off.

He got off to a brilliant start at a very early age on the first series of Pop Idol but then things appeared to go rather seriously wrong. In fact he faded into obscurity and the general view was that he'd had it professionally.

But now he's back, on his own terms, with a more mature take on life and making some rather interesting music. I reckon this articulate Mark II Gareth will have a rather longer shelf-life than the impressionable, hesitant youngster who came second to Will Young on Pop Idol a few years ago.