Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:

My three-year-old granddaughter wanted a sucker. I said “No, you can’t eat a sucker in the car, you’ll make a mess.” She said “I won’t eat it, I just want to hold it.” Okay, fine, you can hold it.

Next thing I know, it’s unwrapped. “You’re not supposed to eat that.” “I’m not eating it, I just want to smell it.”

Pretty soon, her tongue is blue. “You’re not supposed to eat that.” “I’m not eating it, I only had one lick.”

Next thing I know, her face and hands are sticky, her coat is sticky, the car-seat is sticky and the sucker is stuck to the carpet on the floor. “I told you not to eat that, now look what you’ve done, you’ve made a mess.”

“It was an accident.”

Sure, it was a totally predictable outcome and any sensible person should have seen it coming. I never should have given in to her demand in the first place, I should have taken the sucker and let her wail and cry about it. That’s not the part that puzzles me.

What I want to know is: how did she manage to teach her technique to the Iranians so they could outwit John Kerry and Barak Obama, without me knowing about it?

Joe Doakes

Or did Kerry learn it from Jimmy Carter, who learned it from some other grandchild 35 years ago?