Hoots mon: a noose loose aboot this hoose

What the deuce - or should that be what the *noose* - is wrong with people these days?

Noose. Lynch.

There, I said them, two perfectly ordinary words, no? Almost on the banal side, altho' I'm not sure how often I use the L word since Jessica and I stopped dating and I transferred my fortunes from Merrill to Three Gorges Investment. Oh and there's Evanna Lynch who played that 007-style bit of skirt, Luna Lovegood, in the Potter/Phoenix romp ... and don't forget the 14 tribes of Galway, of which the Lynches loom proud. Indeed, now I think of it, Hong Kong great-grandma (in her quaint old fashioned way) used to refer to the imposing terrace at Fung Villas as a 'lynch'. Yes, so ... it hasn't fallen into quite such disuse after all.

So why the devil all this argy-bargy over Golfweek magazine illustrating its cover with good old cooiled hemp?

OK, I can see that it might be over-reacting to suggest that the only way to beat Tiger Woods might be to *lynch* the perky putter, but still no reason to suspend that hapless TV anchor for mere overkill.

I have a personal interest in the subject: on my Yorkshire dad's side we boast one Albert Pierrepont, Britain's last hangman and, so the family chatter goes, a thoroughly decent bloke, too.

Quiet fellow, did his job for pay and when it was over he'd as soon go on his way.

He quit this mortal coil in '92 after 400+ hangings sans problem.

Speedy cove, it seems: swung Jimmy Inglis in 7 seconds flat down Manchester's Strangeways nick.