Police State-Olympic Torch!

This country gets scarier by the minute. When I studied politics and history at school we used to be aghast at how authoritarian other European states were, and to what level the state interfered in peoples' daily lives. Now we seem to have caught up and left behind many countries in the mithering, interfering state stakes.

The latest example is a chap in Scotland, yet again, who has been visited by two Gestapo, oops sorry, CID officers, after he wrote to his local newspaper announcing his intention to hold a one man protest when the Olympic torch passes through his neighbourhood:

Mr Coull said: ''It (the torch relay) was invented by Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels, to please his boss Adolf. Hitler loved the idea of the relay, and the connection with pagan mythology in ancient Greece, emphasising the Aryan nature of the games.''

The pensioner, who completed a history degree at Dundee University in his late 50s, said in his letter that he would be ''there to protest this fascist display'' on the Angus leg of the relay.

Eccentric? Maybe. But we used to celebrate eccentricity. Now we send round the politzei. God help us.

Full story from The Courier newspaper.