Way of the World Michael Deacon

Last month, we learnt of a striking new trend in the NHS. Before being given an X-ray or an MRI scan, female patients had always been asked whether they were pregnant. But lately, we read, some NHS trusts had taken to asking male patients whether they were pregnant, too.

This was remarkable enough. Now, though, there has been an even more intriguing development.

A university has apparently been teaching student midwives how to help male patients give birth.

According to reports, students at Edinburgh Napier University were given a textbook that included the following instruction. “It is important to note,” it read, “that while most times the birthing person will have female genitalia, you may be caring for a pregnant or birthing person who is transitioning from male to female and may still have external male genitalia.”

This news will no doubt have been of interest to the surviving members of Monty Python. In the film Life of Brian, an anti-roman agitator named Stan (played by Eric Idle) announces that he wishes to be a woman and have babies. As he puts it: “It’s every man’s right to have babies, if he wants them.”

Cruelly, however, his comrade Reg (John Cleese) tells him that his wish is unlikely to be fulfilled, on the grounds that he hasn’t got a womb. Poor Stan bursts into tears. So it’s heartening to see that, after all these years, he has at last been vindicated.

Other men, however, should be on their guard. During the rumpus over the NHS a few weeks ago, a reader wrote to the Telegraph letters page with a helpful suggestion.

“If all men who are asked if they are pregnant say yes,” he argued, “the need for the question will very soon disappear.”

At the time, I thought this was an excellent idea. Now, however, I fear that it is fraught with risk.

Because, if I tell the NHS that I’m pregnant, a midwife might rush me off to have an emergency caesarean.

Acampaign group called Right to Roam wants the Government to give greater freedom to ramblers. This is all very well for the ramblers themselves. But what about the people who actually live in the areas they demand to ramble across?

Auberon Waugh, the former overlord of this column, would be appalled. Country folk like him, he wrote, viewed ramblers as “a serious menace and a blot on the landscape of rural Britain”, because of their insistence on “swarming over the countryside and spoiling what little is left of its serenity”. Extending ramblers’ rights will only intensify this type of resentment. Personally,

I blame Tony Blair. The whole problem could have been resolved back in 2004, if New Labour ministers had been willing to take a more conciliatory approach over the Hunting Act. What they should have done is offer rural communities the following compromise.

You may no longer hunt foxes. But instead, you can hunt ramblers.

This solution would have satisfied all parties. City-dwellers would have been happy, because they could rest assured that adorable little foxes were no longer being chased to their deaths by horrid posh people. And countrydwellers would have been happy, because they could still enjoy the ancient sport of riding to hounds. The sight of a bearded, kagoul-clad Guardian reader scurrying at full pelt across the fields with the Quorn and Pytchley in hot pursuit could have become a glorious Boxing Day tradition.

Inevitably, some people will argue that hunting ramblers is cruel. But, as any farmer will attest, it’s important to keep pest numbers under control.

Scientists have proposed an imaginative new way to save the planet. Climate change, they say, is partly caused by methane emitted by cows when they burp. So, to prevent this methane from being released into the atmosphere, they’ve suggested making cows wear special masks.

It sounds highly ingenious. I have only one question.

What should we do about all the methane that cows emit from the other end?

I suppose we could try making them wear trousers. To stop the methane escaping, the trousers would need to be made from a strong, thick, impenetrable material. The ideal choice would be leather, although it’s possible the cows might disagree.

Happily, there is an alternative. In 2014 the EU imposed a directive outlawing the use of fertilisers on any slope with a gradient of more than 15 per cent. This alarmed a farmer in Germany, whose family had grazed their cattle on a local hillside for over 400 years. Brussels, he feared, might rule that cow pats constituted a form of fertiliser. To avoid getting into trouble, therefore, he dressed his herd in nappies.

Perhaps, to tackle the methane problem, we should start doing that with all cows. Then again, there is a potential drawback. Methane is lighter than air. So if it can’t escape from either end, there is a risk that the cow will slowly inflate, and then eventually, in the manner of a hot air balloon, float off. Unless farmers tether them down with ropes, the skies will soon be filled with bemused bulls and heifers, drifting gently over Britain. As well as causing the poor creatures great distress, this would pose a serious danger to aircraft.

Still, the nappies would at least help to avert one calamity. It’s bad enough being hit by a bird dropping. Imagine if it came from a cow.