Compiled by DON GORDON-BROWN

POOR old Adolf didn't stand a chance really.
Who did he think he was fooling, that Mister Hitler? - that's one of the questions that pop to mind when you take in one of the Proms nights that litter Britain in late summer.
The final, final, Last Night of the Proms is over for another year with the usual knees-up at Albert Hall and various outdoor arenas, and patriotic Poms everywhere are packing away their miniature union jacks and dabbing their eyes for the last time after the final emotional renditions of Jerusalem, Rule Britannia and God Save the Queen dissolve in the autumnal night air.
The other questions, of course, are: why do Britons get all choked up about a foreign city in a far away land, about how they once ruled the world's waves before the then Baron-less Thatcher outsourced the Royal Navy to a mainland European conglomerate in the mid 1980s and extolling God to save old Betty Windsor, who would probably wash her hand immediately if anybody at the Proms committed the gravest of faux pas and actually shook it?
Still, it's all rather good fun, what, and not a little emotional as it turned out, after we had made our way into the East Sussex countryside in general and Bateman's, the 17th Century sandstone home of Rudyard Kipling in particular for the annual Last Night of the Proms. That's right: there seems to be a series of these "last nights", but after you've watched a few thousand Poms pitch their foldaway chairs and lay their foldaway tables with fine linen and finer crystal, light their lanterns, sip their champers, munch on their chicken legs and button up their cardies as the night chills, then the name rights seem rather irrelevant.
The English National Orchestra pumped out some toe-tappers, soprano Janet Mooney was an absolute delight and could sing as well, and conductor Jae Alexander was so witty and clever and talented that he must be gay.
"Are there any Scottish people here?" he asked at the outset. Any Welsh? Irish? And then the mood turned suddenly.
"Any Germans?" he sneered, mentioning the war. Well naff off, he laughed maniacally, his eyes dropping to the sinister muzzle of the 9mm Browning service pistol that had somehow appeared in his right hand, its knuckles menacingly white.
And just in case any Krauts were tarrying as they made their way to the exits, the orchestra let rip with Spitfire Prelude and Fugue, Battle of Britain, Aces High and Dambusters movie themes, not that anyone present needed reminding who won the war.
And through it all - ending with Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No 1 - the Bateman's crowd waved their miniature union jacks and dabbed their eyes, totally convinced they live in the best country in the world. It's such a wonderful night of tradition, nostalgia, beautiful music and rampant jingoism that it would be cruel to put them right on that score.

One does not like to rubbish London but the sad truth is that in late summer when its centre is awash with tourists and city workers, it is full of rubbish.
By the end of a long day, the gutters are deep in litter and the city looks dirty, gritty and very untidy, especially if a breeze is up. And there are no worse culprits than the various above-ground railway and underground Tube stations. But London's citizens and visitors can be excused for littering: rubbish bins are non-existent on these station platforms and concourses. It all goes back some time to when the rail authorities contracted a particular firm to provide rubbish bins, only to find to their horror that a number of these bins kept exploding. Not a great percentage, to be sure, but sufficient for the contract to be cancelled. Legal action is no doubt under way against the original bin provider, and although one could understand British Rail and the Underground's reluctance to give another manufacturer the benefit of the doubt, one hopes they do soon, if only for the city's image at home and abroad.

While on the subject of the Tube, a young boy stood up the other day and offered me his seat. I've put the incident behind me now and I'm just going to get on with what's left of my life the very best way I can.