Has Gnasher had his chips?

Comic highlights the fact that from 2016 all dog owners will be legally obliged to microchip their pet

The Beano (and before you ask, it is still going) made the news last week when it was announced that its current issue finds Dennis the Menace's dog, Gnasher, getting microchipped. The storyline is a first-of-its-kind collaboration for the 76-year-old comic, which decided to partner the Dogs Trust to highlight the fact that from 2016 all dog owners will be legally obliged to microchip their pet.

Surely, though, one of the charms of Gnasher is that he is always running away? Where does his new-fangled microchip leave that recurring storyline? "It's not a tracker chip," the Beano's editor Craig Graham tells me, "so it's not going to stop him going missing. It just means that when he does it will be easier to get him reunited with Dennis. If anything, it's Dennis's behaviour that is modified by the chip, because this is a responsible step for any dog owner to take."

What? So Gnasher's wayward ways are assured but Dennis the Menace is finally maturing? "Not quite," says Graham. "I prefer to think of it like this: when you're five years old you might leave your bike in the park and get it nicked, so then when you're seven you get a chain."

Operation crowdfund

One of the week's more heartwarming stories was that of John Spinello, the inventor of Operation. Spinello sold the rights to the bestselling board game for just $500 in 1964 and now, aged 77, he needs $25,000 to pay for an operation of his own.

Enter two fellow game inventors called Tim Walsh and Peggy Brown, who set up a crowdfunding page to pay for Spinello's surgery. Currently running at more than $30,000, the site (at crowdrise.com) is urging people to continue giving as, apparently, "the financial hardship extends beyond John's medical needs". Better still, at the sister website ILoveOperation.com you can buy a copy of the game – now owned by Hasbro – signed by its creator ($70 including shipping to UK residents).

That's my Christmas present to myself sorted, then. Now the only thing left to do is to hope that the surgeon operating on Spinello has a steady hand.

Hands-on

While I'm sure I'm not the only person who would be happy never to hear the word selfie again, a Danish art director called Olivia Muus has started a project that is surely the last word on That Word.

Muus's Museum of Selfies Tumblr contains a series of photographs of portraits hanging in galleries with the artful addition of a hand holding a cameraphone pointing at the painting's subject. "I was in the National Gallery of Denmark and took the first picture just for fun," says Muus. "As I travelled and visited other museums, I thought, why not make this a series?"

Collecting pictures for her online gallery has not been without risk for Muus. "I have a friend who provides the hands for the portraits of women, while I am always the men's hands," she says. "At one gallery in Amsterdam I had taken off my watch and rings and two hours later I realised I'd left them on a bench in the gallery and I had to run through half of Amsterdam to get them back."

The Cosby no-show

"Is the world starting to turn against Bill Cosby?" ran a recent headline in The Washington Post. The piece was prompted by the fact that the man once known as "America's Dad" had been cancelled as a guest on a high-ranking chat show as stories about the star's behaviour in the 1970s and 1980s circulated.

One woman, Barbara Bowman, recently alleged she was sexually abused by Cosby in 1987. In 2004, Andrea Constand filed a law suit against Cosby alleging that he had drugged and raped her. At that time, 13 other women came forward and agreed to testify if the case went to trial. It never did.

So while this column has no wish to sully the reputation of yet another beloved public figure, it is worth pointing out that now might not be the best time to release a new Cosby DVD with the title Far From Finished.

Dragon misses a date

The Dragons' Den's Theo Paphitis is, it seems, a big fan of the personal diary. We know this because all last week one of the companies he owns, Ryman, has been emailing reminders that tomorrow is the start of National Diary Week and offering "high-res images of Theo with his personal diary".

Just one thing troubles me. If Paphitis really wants to give this campaign a boost, why no mention of it in the diaries his company is selling for 2015?

No rhyme or reason

Another in a regular series of limericks based on recent events:

Half blind from the tears we're all crying,

It seems nothing can stop us from buying,

It's the modern-day fable,

Of Monty and Mabel,

And now off the shelves they are flying.

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