Diary

· We are, as ever, indebted to the news service of Iceland's Western Fjords, Baejarins Bestu, for the news that the remote Strandir region will this weekend host the island's fourth annual ram-groping contest. As in previous years, this prestigious competition is divided into two categories, "one for experienced, and another for inexperienced gropers", who must rate five rams "in order of excellence". The winning contestants are those who come closest to the ranking established earlier, and in complete secrecy, by a group of local experts. We have, we confess, a number of questions in relation to this important item, such as what exactly constitutes excellence in a ram, and how precisely one goes about ascertaining it. But we are much reassured by Baejarins Bestu's promise that Icelandic meat soup will be served, along with a cake buffet.

· Our most sincere commiserations, meanwhile, to composer Colin Matthews, who a mere five years ago penned, for the Hallé Orchestra, a "miraculous" eighth movement for Holst's Planet Suite acclaimed by this very paper as "wonderfully imaginative; a lightning-fast scherzo that ... evaporates as mysteriously as it started". It may now, we fear, disappear altogether, some 2,500 experts meeting in Prague for the general assembly of the International Astronomical Union having just decided that Pluto is no longer a planet.

· Spotted, in the corridors of the Commons with his researcher, the increasingly bearded Mark Oaten, formerly fast-rising Lib Dem MP for Winchester. "Oh do shut up, Mark," says she. "You don't know what you're talking about." The irreverence of young people today!

· The president of Bolivia, we rather belatedly see, has asked the nation to choose its ambassadors, a laudable decision that has thus far led to the promising appointment of a pony-tailed campaigning hard-left journalist to Washington and a Quechua-language speaker to Paris. What, we wonder, would happen were Mr Tony to do the same? Since the response to our latest enthralling reader contest (matching his 'n' hers bottles of Posh 'n' Becks' fabulous Intimately Beckham fragrance to the first person who could convincingly explain why they wanted them) has, strangely, been little short of abysmal, we are now prepared to offer these valuable prizes for a top selection of People's Dips and their Postings. Dare we suggest, for starters, Mr Wayne Rooney as ambassador to Portugal; Mr Salman Rushdie for Tehran; Mr Peter Mandelson for Burkina Faso ("Land of Honest Men", you will recall, in the local lingo); and, for Bolivia itself, Mr Pete Doherty and his lovely consort Ms Kate Moss?

· Sticking briefly with the foreign service, the personal columns of September's Prospect magazine bring us a "Diplomat seeking well-educated girl with extremely pleasant personality; weight in harmony to height; well-aligned teeth and clear complexion." Also, a "GSOH is a must", though we had rather imagined it might be.

· Heartening news from Washington, now, where, according to Paul Bedard of the estimable US News and World Report, the leader of the free world "just can't get enough of fart jokes". President Bush has even, it seems, perfected "the Austin Greeting", in which he derives great amusement from "letting one go" just as a new White House aide is presented to him, then observing the hapless young person's reaction. Could the body of the most powerful man on earth possibly be trapped in the mind of a schoolboy?

· Hats off, finally, to our very own army, doing its level best to bolster below-target recruitment levels through the novel tactic of abusing 11-year-olds. Parents of young children at a Scottish summer school were alarmed to be told by their offspring that, with no prior parental consent, they had been handed over to the armed forces for the day, made to take part in exercises that included "imagining they were in a minefield" and "acting injured", and told by an officer that he was "having more trouble with you lot than with Iraqi terrorists". Sound work indeed.