I'M sitting at my desk, fairly tired, really quite hungry and I've already eaten my bag of salad (it's Dr Atkins time again), and the six cups of coffee I've drunk hasn't had much effect because I'm on the decaff. I'm trying to remember a suitable maxim to describe decaff coffee, but the only one which springs to mind isn't printable in a family newspaper. Even though decaff ground coffee has improved tremendously it doesn't quite have the kick of a large steaming cup of strong Arabica which is likely to have me hanging from the ceiling by the end of the day. Anyway, I'm trying to think of a headline and my brain won't come up with anything even remotely snappy. Headlines are supposed to attract the reader to the story. They have to have something to do with the actual story, which is the snag, and they have to catch the eye. Which doesn't bode well when all you can think of is 'council discusses road scheme once more'. National newspapers have specific headline writers. All they have to do is sit there and think up a few large type headings for exciting stories and then go home carrying their large pay packets. Sour grapes? Moi? We, on the other hand, are faced with dozens of headlines per week and it isn't always easy. Not only should they be snappy, but they have to be suitable for our readership. So no 'Busty Bertha bursts out' on this local paper thank you. So we have to be our own censors. The words sex rarely appears in our headlines, apart from in my gardening columns where I can get away with it when discussing fruit and other trees. Ditto fertilising. The neverending problem of dogs do-doing where they shouldn't produces a delicate problem for the headline writer. We used to have to call the end product, so to speak, faeces which doesn't make for any kind of snappy heading and anyway the spellcheck frequently changed it to faces so people wondered why people were complaining about parks and opens spaces covered in dog faces. Dog mess is a recurring problem and not a new one. The pages of the Cornish Times have been littered with dog mess stories down the ages, the letters' column bristling with indignation. So too has one other subject - lavatories - which not only cause a problem for the headline writer but have to be couched in delicate tones so as not to offend. How many times had I sat staring at a screen, or a typewriter, trying to think of a suitable headline for a story about lavatories? Far too many, would have been my answer had I taken to talking to myself out loud. Which, as yet, I haven't but I fear it won't be long. If you work for a local newspaper you are haunted by stories about public lavatories and it has ever been thus. Look back through the Cornish Times archives on microfiche at the library and it is astonishing how many times you find ancient tales of wrangles over public conveniences. Long hours were spent in council chambers (that isn't a pun) discussing every aspect of the matter, with those in favour pointing out the need for such things, those against no doubt trying to think up good reasons why the ratepayers' money should not be spent on frivolities. When the Cornish Times was first published, in 1857, public conveniences were a fairly new phenomenon. The first one was opened in 1852 in Fleet Street in London. It set the pattern for many more in cities and large towns, and soon they were springing up everywhere. Or perhaps we should say down, because most were built underground, surrounded by iron railings and with steps leading to what were delicately described as WCs and urinals. One can imagine that news of this rather outlandish modern thinking spread slowly outwards and probably reached the rural areas of Cornwall somewhat later than most other places. But arrive they did, and soon every village and town wanted one. Only for gents mind, the prudish Victorians didn't even consider that ladies could possibly want to show a need to use anything so indelicate. In fact, it was only after a pamphlet pointing out the need for them was written by George Bernard Shaw no less, perhaps his wife had been caught short somewhere, that the first 'sanitary convenience for ladies' was built in the early 1900s. It cost an old penny to use, hence the saying 'spending a penny'. Since then the public convenience has provided much fodder for local journalism, with columns filled with wrangles and debates about opening and closing them, about vandalism and graffiti. Public lavatories, or loos as we can now call them (much punchier in a heading) are still hitting the headlines. When the council recently tried to shut some of them in the district because there wasn't enough usage and costs were being cut there was a huge outcry. Great for headlines. 'Local loos to go down the pan', 'Saving pounds of spending a penny' etc. Alright, the Cornish Times may have been more circumspect, but you get the picture. Come the change of heart on at least a few of the loos I was all for 'Flushed with success', but I wasn't allowed. Actually, my favourite headline, thought up by yours truly and probably when she wasn't on the decaff, was when a group of councillors walked around a local town to inspect the public conveniences. 'A trek to loos' I wrote, but nobody really got it. You can't win em all. I should add that the hardest headlines to write are from council and committee meetings where, after long and arduous debates, nothing actually happens and nothing is decided. Many is the time I've sat there like a zombie, wondering if 'Council may decide at future meeting to discuss matter again' is just a teeny bit tedious. But enough of this droning on. I've survived Christmas and New Year and the only thing left in the fridge is a whole Baby Stilton, an unwise buy by someone in our household on the day after Boxing Day which has only a very small slice out of it. We're actually cheesed out, so to speak, having consumed vast amounts of the sort of cheese you only ever eat at Christmas, and only then under the influence of port. Cheese with fruit in it, cheese studded with nuts, cheese covered in sprout leaves (it must exist somewhere). Having tired of looking up Stilton recipes, there was a suggestion that we should freeze it for next Christmas. Quite frankly the thought of freezing, keeping and then defrosting a whole Stilton, like some kind of cryogenic head, turns my stomach even more than another helping of Stilton covered cottage pie. I know I'm always going on about packaging but I don't apologise one little bit for continuing the gripes. As our household is ever short of scissors I snapped up a bargain in one of the shops just before Christmas, a pack of four different pairs of scissors for only £2.99. Knowing that there would not only be lots of last minute present wrapping, which always needs the attention of scissors for paper and sticky tape cutting, plus a lot of packaging which would probably not be breached without scissors, i was delighted. I squirreled away the scissors, hidden from prying eyes, until I needed them, which was on Christmas Eve only, to discover they were welded into their package like gold bars in Fort Knox. Brute strength didn't work and there was no little tab which indicated the way in. Lacking scissors to open the package I finally had to resort to stabbing the thing with a kitchen knife, hence an impaled thumb. Why, why, why, do we have to have so much packaging on perfectly ordinary things? Is it because shops now fear being sued by those who, if scissors were sold loose, might rush out of the shop, hold the scissors blades pointing inwards, trip over a paving stone and commit hari kiri in the high street? Unlikely. All it means is that the price goes up, the dustbins fill up and people like me are rarely without sliced fingers. Let's get back to brown paper bags I say.