These limp gags couldn't raise a smile

Professionals use them for jet lag, students to pass exams, soldiers to stay alert. Brain-enhancing drugs are the latest fix – and they're legal

Food, music, drugs and even scents can all help fire up flagging desire. Jane Feinmann reports on how to make Valentine's Day go with a swing

... You take my impotence for example. Up until a few years ago the old todger was as big as a bloody battering ram: I used to fear my erections. Since then, well, I blame Nigerian traffic wardens. They come over here, can't speak the lingo and strut about the place slapping tickets on anything that moves – it's intimidating. I was coming out of the Cross Keys in Wilmslow and there was one of the bastards skulking under the moot hall having plastered a big yellow sticky one right across the Range Rover's windscreen. Well, I went to have it out with the blackguard – I wasn't about to be intimidated! I fought in eight world wars and put down the bloody Mau-Mau, man, armed only with a Martini-Henry! Anyway, to begin with he's cringing and scraping, but then he pulls some ghastly little fetish out of his tunic. Looks like a cat's paw wrapped in a hairball all tied round with kidney stones – fair gave me the willies, ha! If you'll forgive the pun – or rather, anti-pun – because it didn't give me the willies, it took mine away! Ever since I gave that illegal immigrant chappie a rollicking I haven't even caught sight of poor John Thomas, seems he's completely hidden away inside me. Saw the same thing in Malaya during the Emergency in the Fifties, native wallahs would get the damn-fool idea their meat'*'veg were sort of retreatin' inside their bodies – latah they call it – thing is, in their case it was a bloody fantasy, in mine it's a reality. My missus, well, she may be getting on but she has certain perfectly reasonable expectations: a Tory government, no one frightening the horses, no redevelopment in Hungerford High Street, Sunday afternoon rumpy-pumpy right after matins – you get the photo. When I realised I wouldn't be able to service the old mare I got pretty antsy, I can tell you. Went to see the quack sharpish. Well, she's only some junior harridan sporting a Harriet Harman horror mask, ain't she. Has the bloody nerve to tell me I ought to be cutting out the sleepy Ribena and the fags at my age. My age! I explored the Lost-bloody-World and climbed the Empire State Building with my mits up Fay Wray's jacksie so the likes of her could have free school milk. The chit wouldn't even write me a prescription for Viagra, told me it was "contra-indicated" for a man of my age. That wasn't going to stop me, oh no. Jimmie Wemyss, mine host at the Bald Eagle in Netheridge told me about this interweb thing, and how a chap can get anything he needs with a push of a button, so I ordered the contraption from little Freddie Dixon, and when it pitched up, he came up and got me started. Turns out you don't even need to go looking for the stuff, there are all sorts of obliging fellows out there who send jolly emails offering Viagra, Cialis, and even this sleepy Ribena in pill form called Ambien. But before I could even divvy up the old Diners' Club I got rather sucked into correspondence with them. I mean, I'm not lonely or anything, but the trouble and strife spends an awful amount of time with her committee work, and early February... well, the time before opening can lay heavy on a chap's hands. Besides, when you get a tinkle out of the blue yonder headed FuckStickAmpleFloyd, or GargantuanPenisBeau, well, it's a tonic in itself. I began writing back to Karen Knutsin, Stanislaw Baczmonski, Kumar Senthil, and all the other obliging souls out there in hyperworld. Nothing too personal, just stuff about the village, who's breaching planning regs with his fucking dreadful conservatory, and who's dipping his sheep in liquid MDMA then rogering 'em – harmless gossip, really.

Dear Virginia, I'm 48 and a widow. Six months ago I met a wonderful man of 50. We share everything and we love each other. But he won't have sex with me - just the odd kiss. He says I am in too much of a hurry and it was a year before he and his last girlfriend went to bed. Do you think he's impotent and embarrassed? How can I broach this? Yours sincerely, Fiona

Are my downloads from Russia too cheap to be legal?

Despite optimistic noises emanating from Twickenham last night from England's top clubs, all the signs are that the domestic game is in for a summer of discontent.

WE HAVE a new under-minister. Her name is - what is her name? I had it a minute ago. She is responsible for the whale industry. Sketch writers rejoice! She has a mild speech impediment! It's the little things that make us happy in the gallery.

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THE ANTI-BALDNESS cure Propecia will not be available on the National Health Service when it is launched in the United Kingdom next year.

BULLETPROOF LIFE jackets, emergency shelters and heat-activated baby spoons were added yesterday to the list of official millennium products, chosen to represent the best of British innovation.