Mark Andrews: Dog poo, car handbrakes, and Coogan's dilemma

On the one hand, he 'isn't keen' on supporters of the Royal Family, because they are 'flag waving idiots' who 'support a power structure that keeps a foot on the throat of working-class people'.

Trouble is, he is also partial to the King's Duchy Original range at Waitrose. Which leaves him feeling a little conflicted.

It's a tough one, Steve, I feel your pain.

You do wonder, though whether even Alan Partridge would be more self-aware than to come out with something like that.

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Big news comes from a car sales website, which reckons the conventional handbrake lever is on the verge of extinction. It says 91 per cent of new cars are now equipped with an electronic device instead.

Car Gurus UK editor Chris Knapman reckons 'the writing’s on the wall for the fabled manual handbrake'.

What sort of fables does he read? I'm pretty sure Aesop made no reference to car handbrakes.

But it also poses the question, of why you would replace a simple cable and lever, which has worked perfectly well for more than a century, with some complicated electronic contraption which will inevitably go wrong within a few years?

Unless it is to keep mechanics in work.

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Dog walkers in Sandwell could soon be fined for the offence of not having a poo bag in their pocket, if measures being considered by the local council go ahead.

More seriously, though, are council park keepers going to be given stop-and-search powers to order dog walkers to turn out their pockets? I can't see that being very popular, and without the power of arrest, I can't see how they will enforce it.

I trust they will be required to record the profiles of the owners, and most importantly, the breeds of their dogs when they carry out these searches.

Something tells me there will be far more poodles than XL Bullies.

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Thanks to a superb investigation by the Sunday Times, we now have an explanation of how the real-terms cost of HS2 ballooned from £37 billion to £100 billion in just 14 years. It didn't.

Whistleblowers allege senior HS2 managers were pressured into providing unrealistic estimates to ensure the scheme went ahead, and then went back asking for more once the work had started. Those who refused to play ball were dismissed.

I wonder how many other public projects that happens with.