A radical way to end your Calais crisis, France: try being nice

Bouchart’s reaction has also been a little counterintuitive: she has urged her townsfolk to rise up and blockade Calais. Yep, Natacha, good call — that works for me. Nobody in, nobody out. We can live without the booze cruises for a few months and suffer the English upper-middle classes being slightly discomfited as they attempt to reach their second homes in the Dordogne or Provence. Here’s a suggestion — keep it blockaded permanently. See who benefits most from that, ma chérie.

Bouchart has also demanded that the British government provide more help to Calais. Yes, I too was astonished, reading that, that we’d given Calais any help to begin with. But we have. We’ve given millions. And we’ve offered another £3m recently so that Natacha can boost the town’s non-existent security. Why?

She also wants David Cameron to visit Calais and explain to the asylum seekers that Britain is not the soft touch it is reputed to be, and that they should therefore all go home. But the prime minister could hardly do that and keep a straight face, because we are a soft touch. He knows that, Bouchart knows that and sure as hell the prospective immigrants know that too. Why else would they be there, and so desperate?

They are not in Alsace, clamouring to enter Germany, or thronging the railway junctions of Lille in an attempt to reach the golden nirvana that is Belgium. It is Britain they want. And the reason for this is that we’re a lot, lot nicer to them than anywhere else in Europe.

It is not our language, the new lingua franca, that attracts them, but everything else. A study of the migrants carried out by the hand-wringingly sympathetic organisation Migrant Voice, revealed that the clamorous multitudes truly hated being in France (and worse still Italy and Spain). “Harassment, nastiness and no work” was one explanation as to why they didn’t wish to settle down in the likes of Normandy. The French unions won’t give them jobs. The French government makes them sleep on the street for months on end and gives them inadequate benefits. “They do not want us here,” one man lamented. Another said he wished to move to the UK because there were no random ID checks on the street in our country. Yet another said, tellingly, that you received short shrift from the French until you revealed to them that you were intent upon moving quickly on to Britain. “In France we don’t care where you come from; we just want to make sure you’re leaving.”

In other words, we are paying Calais for the successful manner in which the French have persuaded these immigrants that they are not welcome by being horrible to them. Either way you look at it, we lose. Tell you what, Natacha — instead of paying you millions of pounds, we’ll send over Keith Vaz to explain to the immigrants how lovely France is really, and maybe buy them all a coffee. Deal?

Nazi dogs? Off with their leads

•A French mayor has prevented a dog owner from calling his pets Itler and Iva, presumably because it brings back unpleasant memories. Luc Binsinger refused to sign the licence for the dogs, owned — it is alleged — by a member of France’s National Front.

The dogs are, of course, American pit bulls — or “devil dogs”, as the popular press calls them over here.

Frankly, Itler and Iva seem good choices to me, given the nature of these beasts. But I suppose the owner could always try Pétain and Laval, as an alternative.

Smugness is a mortal sin, cyclists

A new survey suggests that people who cycle a lot have better lives than the rest of us. Their sex lives are better; they are more fulfilled human beings, apparently.

There is no great reason to doubt these findings — smugness is, after all, an under-appreciated virtue and terribly good for one’s health. Being imbued with the notion that you are a wonderful person who is saving the world, whether you’re mounting your Brompton or your spouse, must be terrific for the self-esteem.

Either that or it is simply that, as a cyclist, you squeeze the most out of every moment — knowing that the Grim Reaper is waiting at the next set of lights in a Toyota Land Cruiser.

Is my 72-virgin guarantee still valid?

Still more depressing news emerges from Syria, where many of the brave contingent of British jihadists fighting with Islamic State have reportedly become “disillusioned” and now wish to come home.

The problem is that they cannot be sure that killing other Muslims will qualify them for full and proper martyrdom from Allah.

It is always wise to read the small print on such contracts, in my experience. It may well be that murdering Shi’ites, rather than infidels, does not get you the full complement of 72 fragrant virgins for eternity but just half an hour with some old witch. I don’t know; I’m not a Koranic expert.

These are not the first gripes that have been expressed by some of our 500 or so maniacal Islamists. Previously some jihadists tweeted about the shocking lack of haircare products. And — my favourite — one chap asked if there would be somewhere safe to store his luggage and what kind of plug adapter to bring.

This appeal is a disease. Pass it on

Do you think you could spare five minutes of your time to raise money for a very worthy charity — and also have a little bit of fun?

If your answer is “yes, please, I’d love to — I’m the sort of person who wears a moose costume to the office on Red Nose Day” — then why not take part in my Ice Pick Challenge? What you do is set up a video camera and record yourself driving a large ice pick through the centre of your skull, having first nominated several suitable friends to do likewise.

The Ice Pick Challenge is intended to raise money to fight a cruel and increasingly prevalent neurological condition occasioned by social networking sites and which, untreated, can result in individuals reduced to the state of gibbering, exhibitionist vegetables. So come on, come on — get yourself down to Homebase and buy that ice pick. It’s all in a good cause.