Viewers branded it "offensive'' and "inappropriate''. It appears in this case a kiss is not just a kiss and attitudes have not changed as much as we sometimes are led to believe.

Or have they? I was more shocked to learn former Blue Peter star Valerie Singleton had enjoyed a brief fling with her co-presenter Peter Purves than I was when I first heard, the discredited rumour that she was a lesbian.

In an interview ahead of her planned autobiography, Val slammed the gay claim as an "outright lie'' and revealed her romp with Pete.

Wholesome children's TV presenters getting jiggy. With each other!

Now that is shocking.

The need for chip and pan security

There's something intrinsically trivial about the phrase "chip pan fire''but, as any firefighter or victim of this kitchen menace, will tell you the reality is very serious.

So serious, it is sometimes deadly. Every day in the UK, 20 people are killed or injured when cooking chips goes wrong.

The Santos family, of Orton Goldhay, added to that statistic this week. When dad poured water on a flaming pan of overheated oil he caused a fireball that left him and four members of his family nursing nasty burns but also thanking their lucky stars it wasn't a lot worse.

In my younger days I was a bit of a legend when it came to chip-making. I put my prowess down to the magical properties of the chip pan handed down to me by Yorkshire Mother.

Many a drunken night out ended with friends back at mine for my world-famous chip butties. At this point I need to insert the words "don't try this at home''.

I have grown out of this rather risky party trick and have thankfully survived without burning down any of my homes.

In all my chip-making years I have only had one fire – and that, I might add, was in the hours of daylight when chef was stone cold sober.

I'm proud (and more than a little surprised) to report that I handled the flare up in text book fashion – keeping calm, turning the heat off and throwing a damp towel over the flames.

Even so I wouldn't recommend the experience. No plate of chips, not even ones as good as mine, are worth risking your life for.

We have to be able to trust the trust

Nearly 6,000 of us have had our NHS records, ahem, doctored, at Peterborough NHS Trust.

A probe has been launched and a member of staff suspended in what bosses have dubbed a "neutral'' act.

But the trust has said "the error appears to have been caused by a member of staff not following trust policy''.

That policy is presumably to keep true and accurate records.

The trust says the altered records did not result in the hospital meeting Government targets it would have otherwise have missed, unlike the embarrassing orthopaedic waiting list fiddle the previous year.

And it claims no patients have been adversely affected by this "anomaly''.

I beg to differ. It's the hospital's duty to keep our records accurate.

If it doesn't, it affects us adversely.

We have to be able to trust the trust.