Paul Little: If the doll's shoe fits

Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. Photo / AP

Colonic irrigation sometimes struggles for acceptance as a form of therapy. But this week, in the window of a small-town colonic specialist (colon-ist?) I saw a sign that seemed to settle the argument once and for all.

It boasted that the operator had once watched on a screen as a doll's shoe, that had been inside a patient for 38 years, went past.

This encourages two questions. Does someone really sit and watch the contents of your colon go past on a screen, like a perverse version of the in-utero ultrasound? And if someone has had a doll shoe up their jacksie for the best part of four decades, do they really need to have it extricated?

Colonic irrigation is something people try when they want to clean up their act and really take their health seriously. It's typical of the sort of madness that overtakes generally sane people every January 1, when they make their new year resolutions.

There are a few classic resolutions. Stopping smoking is one of the best known. But if you think putting a red ring around a number on a calendar will help you do that you're a long way from achieving your goal. Linking a change in behaviour to a date lacks logic. On the contrary, it's connected to the superstitious belief that certain numbers are magical.

Take any of the other popular new year resolutions and the same problem applies. (Many are so popular that some people make them every year.)

Be a nicer person. If you need to make that a resolution you are too far gone.

Moderate my drinking. Would there be a worse time to try to cut down alcohol consumption than the summer holiday season?

Eat sensibly. See "moderate my drinking", above.

Exercise more. See "eat sensibly", above.

Change is good. But the ability to change is in our heads, not on our calendars.

For an organisation that is all about friendship, Facebook has a knack for putting a strain on the relationship. If you're not one of the more than 1.5 million Kiwis who are on the social networking site, you won't have grown punch drunk with its dizzying changes of format, rules and policies.

Now the site is introducing a dinky setting which transforms your "liking" of an ad into an ad using your likeness, and reporting that you like it.

So not only does everyone get to be famous for 15 minutes, with Facebook everyone can also experience one of the ultimate markers of fame - the celebrity endorsement.

One important difference between you and slightly better-known people, such as Clint Eastwood, is that you won't get paid for your endorsement. But Facebook will get paid a lot by advertisers to turn ordinary citizens into sales people.

Founder Mark Zuckerberg, net worth US$17.5 billion ($22.8 billion), says the move is necessary to help cover annual development costs of more than US$1 billion.

The thing I love most about Zuckerberg is that cheeky way in which he passes off his new ways of making money as being for the public good.

He knows he's having you on. You know he's having you on. And that way, you can both get on with it.

This won't be enough for that large percentage of the population who delight in being affronted.

They will conveniently forget that, like so many things at which people take offence, they have to go out of their way to put themselves where they can be offended.

Turn off the radio. Change the TV channel. Leave the theatre. And don't "like" ads on Facebook.

Heartening news over the festive season from the mother country, where "thousands" turned out to bother the Windsors as they made their way from church on Christmas Day.

In recent years, the royals would have been unlikely to encounter more than a disoriented badger and someone trying to give the Queen a tea cosy they had knitted.

Not all the family was there, of course - the Duke of Edinburgh had been hospitalised with a dicky heart. The increase in attendance was attributed to the debut of the Duchess of Cambridge.

Few drew the more likely inference that many came because they did not need to fear a tongue-lashing or racial slur from cantankerous Prince Philip.