Sometimes stuff just occurs to me, and if I don't get it off my chest it just sits there and brews and ferments and I'm in danger of exploding.

But if I do say it out loud, it very often sounds stupid, and earns me a withering glance from someone (usually the wife) or it sounds utterly offensive, and people stare at me as though I'm a particularly mad monster.

For example, all this dreadful Madeleine McCann business. Well, not the actual disappearance of the poor girl in itself, because commenting on that in a column is generally the reserve of all those hard-hearted idiots who think it's perfectly acceptable to pass on their poorly formed opinions about the behaviour of a pair of desperate, grieving parents just to get themselves a couple of clever-clever observations in print or on the web.

No, the thoughts on this matter that I deem worthy of sharing with you are purely along the lines of this: Doesn't that picture of the man who is suspected of abducting her, which was released to the media this week, look awfully like former Beatle George Harrison?

There. I've said it. I won't explode, now. My observation is nothing to do with the McCann case or in any way a slur on Mr Harrison (I'm possibly the biggest fan in the office of his 1988 hit Got My Mind Set On You). It's just something that occurred to me.

You'll be delighted to know that there are a few other things that have occured to me recently.

One of them is this: How much would it cost to give everybody in the country a quick health check every year? And wouldn't it actually save money in the long run if potentially debilitating diseases or illnesses were picked up when there was time to do something about them?

Would anyone out there be willing to fund the research and development of tiny umbrellas which clip on to camera bodies and notepads so members of the press can do their job in incessant rain without getting soggy notes/wet lenses? Can I patent this and make a fortune?

Would it be worth your while if you got a loan for, say, twenty grand (unlikely in the current credit crunch, I know) and stuck the money in a high interest savings account? After you've paid the loan off, would you actually make any money?

If Princess Diana turns out not to have been murdered by MI5/Bodie and Doyle/Mulder and Scully, is there any bloody point in keeping banging on about her death or who she was getting jiggy with immediately before?

If they made it a rule that you could only play for a football team if you were born in the city or town that is home to the team, would this make the game better or worse?

If all the rats in the world ceased to exist, would it matter, really?

Wouldn't it be really funny if the Royal Family was disbanded and they were just told to get out and earn a living? Exactly how much money would we lose from the much vaunted tourism that they allegedly bring in?

Oh, it's just occurred to me that I've run out of space for another week.