Peaches are a favourite food, both fresh (although since they aren't grown here we never get really fresh ones) and of course dried ones. In New Jersey we lived close to some peach farms and the taste and above all the feel of a fresh peach is an immediate test of all the senses. We count ourselves fortunate too that we gathered fresh oranges from Floridian groves in December during our stay in the USA.

What we do have locally are some of the best stawberries and raspberries and there are plums in my brother's garden which are ripening nicely. Jewels of such sweetness and flavour all that as August becomes a memory later in the year it is always the quality of the year's fruit that is the benchmark of comparison.

And of course there are apples, especially the old English varieties that may still be found with a bit of effort, not the pale flavoured French ones. Apples and a good cheese and some fresh wholemeal bread, washed down with a pint of lukewarm country beer or cider is the food of the Gods, sufficient to inspire generations to greater heights.

We should relish such simple things before the world really does go to hell in a handbasket which it still appears hell bent on doing. Peace has broken out in the Middle East, but it will not last. The Lebanese army has gone south of the Litani river, but has not one iota of intention of disarming Hezbullah. The Israelis have largely left Lebanese soil, muttering dark threats about "last chances" and, as predicted, the French have sent a peacekeeping force of, wait for it, some two hundred engineers.

The obvious conclusion is that althoug peace may have broken out, it is a purely temporary pause in the War of Arab Eradication and that normal business will resume as soon as both sides have had a decent breather and re-stocked with their favourite weapons.

Someone called Seymour Hersch (sounds like a prescient candy bar) of the New York Times is predicting that Mr Bush and that nice Mr Chainsaw will soon be dropping bombs on Iran to stop them being sneaky and building their own atomic bombs to drop them on Israel. I suppose the Iranians count as Arab, although I have a suspicion they would not think of themselves as such.

Anyway everybody has got fed up with them and nobody believes that they just want peaceful atomic power as they maintain they do. No doubt when their unfortunate country is a smoking ash pile we will find out that it has all been a terrible misunderstanding and what they really wanted was a Big Mac franchise. The secret police in Tehran are busy removing satellite aerials from roofs, just in case the population develops a bad case of the "we'd sooner watch the Simpsons than be the Mad Mullah's canon fodder". The only saving grace is that Mr. Nut Bush City Limits is coming up for re-election pretty soon and so might decide it isn't worth having another war until he's cleaned up the last one. Then again......