The morning catch-up: batongate, wrinkly old men and petition wars

Notables and curios harvested from around the internet by our political columnist

1. Don't get caught on the downbeat … A photo of the entrance to the car park of Estonian State Opera posted by ClassicFM.

2. Here is Peter Kellner, president of YouGov, having a go at a rival opinion poll company in the form of a rigorous analysis of why Scottish referendum polls produce such widely differing results. His conclusion: it's not a close race; No to independence is well ahead.

3. David Cameron has written a surprisingly moving letter to an Unknown Soldier (please note, however, that I share with Ed Balls the tendency to blub at The Sound of Music). Thanks to top former colleague Matt Chorley.

4. As Ian Leslie says, this YouTube of Mick Jagger on Monty Python is so good: "They're just a bunch of wrinkly old men." (Also features Charlie Watts.)

On the subject of age, if you are not following Sadie Smith (@smithsky1979) on Twitter, you should be:

"Years ago when I was young, I had dreams and ambitions. Today I'm feeling chuffed because I haven't spilled yoghurt down myself."

5. Childish of me, I know, but I was so irritated by the Mumsnet petition to change Prime Minister's Questions that I started a counter-petition, to ask Change.org to stop hosting petitions that don't know what they want. The Mumsnet petition does not propose specific changes: it just says it doesn't like PMQs because people shout and changes "could include", among other dreadful things, "rapid-fire Q&As" and questions from the voters on social media.

How utterly marvellous, therefore, that a self-selecting write-in poll for Mumsnet found that its members actually think PMQs is a great tradition which holds the Prime Minister to account. (Thanks to Robert Hutton.)

6. Finally, thanks again to Chris Heaton-Harris:

A hungry traveller stops at a monastery. In the kitchen a Brother is frying chips. “Are you the Friar?” he asks. “No I’m the chip monk.”