Heatwaves, my friends, are all well and good, and I am among the first to appreciate the smiling face of the sun - as long as all I have to do is sit by a pool, fall into it at my leisure, take the helm of a boat, read, swim in azure blue waters, consume summer-type nosh and imbibe a few gallons of half-decent planque. And that is indeed what I shall be doing before too long, when we make our annual family pilgrimage to Provence. Talking of such pleasures, did you know that I am a joint world champion? No, seriously, I am - although, to be fair, I don't think the sport is fully authorised as yet. It all came about like this, you see.

Three years ago, when we were holidaying in Gascony with our friends, the two fathers, one of whom was I, decided that we wanted to become world champions at something. We decided on the make-up of the contest, therefore. Any such sport would require (a) that we could sit down (b) that it should involve the consumption of wine and (c) that in order to be regarded as a proper sport, it would need to contain an element of competition. We scratched our heads for a moment. That achieved nothing. Then, by Jove, we had it. Our idea was simple. We needed two comfortable chairs, one (or more) bottles of vino, two waste paper baskets and two newspapers.

The rules were straightforward. What the players had to do was to arm themselves with a newspaper each, and a wine glass. The bottle (called 'the bottle') was to be opened and placed between the two chairs, not more than an arm's length from each player. Within the time-frame of an hour, when a player had read a page of the paper, it was to be screwed up and jettisoned into the player's bin. At the end of the set time (it doesn't have to be an hour, it could be three, if you wished), the players should attempt to get to their respective wpb and endeavour to count up the number of pages that had been propelled successfully from chair to bin. The one who withdrew the most pages from his (it could be her, of course, but if we're honest, it's probably more likely to be his) bin was appointed world champion. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am no more than a joint world champion, for our scores were identical. (Although I'm not enitrely convinced that the counting was as accurate as it might have been.)

So there you are. If you've ever wondered whether your sons' preceptors sit around discussing educational methodology, you're probably right - we don't. Well, I don't, anyway. And in case you're thinking that my friend is a bad influence and is a member of a less respectable profession, you're wrong. He's a prep school headmaster.

Not really news from Newton, is it. I just thought you'd be interested.