The most brilliant ideas are usually the most

simple. Morgan Spurlock decided to investigate America's relationship with fast food and obesity in the most authentic way: with his own body. His plan was straightforward: he would weigh himself, record

his cholesterol level, his blood pressure and his body fat. Then he would go out and eat only at McDonald's for a month.

The rules were simple: he had to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. He had to eat everything on the menu at least once. And if the attendant behind the counter offered him super size, he had to say yes. (This happened nine times.) Throughout the experiment, he decreed, his health would be monitored by health professionals.

At the beginning of the experiment, Spurlock clocked in at a svelte 6' 2'' and 185lbs. His cholesterol was a healthy 168, his blood pressure 120/80 and his body fat measured 11%. What happened next is astonishing. After a month, his weight had gone up to 210 pounds, his cholesterol was 230 and his body fat had increased to 18%. He became depressed, lethargic and uninterested in sex. He suffered headaches. One doctor said his liver resembled a pate; others were so alarmed they told him to stop the experiment. Even as Spurlock self-destructed, he couldn't stop. Just two hours after stuffing his face on a Big Mac, he was hungry again.

Spurlock has made the story of what he did to his body into a chilling, funny film called Super Size Me, which is breaking box-office records for documentary movies. The impact upon Americans, two out of three of whom are overweight or obese, has been considerable. As it has been on McDonald's, which at last seems to have met an opponent it can't bully or silence through the courts. The fast-food empire has launched ''healthy'' options such as Caesar salad, which contains even more calories than a burger, and is to stop selling super-size portions.

Two teenage girls are suing McDonald's for making them obese and more lawsuits look set to follow because the film - due to open in Britain in August or September - presents a scathing indictment of the practices used to lure people, especially children, into eating fast food, such as Ronald the clown, toys and ''happy meals''.

The impact on Spurlock has also been considerable. The pounds he gained in one month took him 14 months to lose and he still craves fast food. He has, nevertheless, earned himself a place in the hall of fame as a movie director who might just have changed the world, as opposed to the shockjocks who would like to think they have, when it fact they've just brain-deadened it. When Michael Winterbottom resorts to making movies such as Nine Songs, a film about a couple having real sex for 90 minutes - it's not porn, silly, it's art for the middle classes - and Tarantino declares there is not enough violence around and that he wants to shoot ''the most violent film ever made'', Spurlock's achievement starts to look something like social responsibility of the most wonderful kind.

Flying in the face of common sense

They are anti-social, destructive and frightening. They create mess, havoc and disrupt normal life for everyone else. They are aggressive and intimidating; physical attacks by them are becoming more common. Some of them have been described as psychos; playgrounds have had to take special measures to protect children from them.

I am, of course, talking about one of two big problems in Scottish society today: either disruptive children or rogue seagulls. Which one? If I tell you that the Scottish Executive has decided to act firmly, launching a parliamentary inquiry and committing thousands of pounds to find a solution, then you'll know for sure that I'm not talking about the children.

A year ago, The Herald was a forum for teachers pleading for an end to the policy of social inclusion at school of children with social, emotional and behavioural problems. They were disrupting classes and stopping the majority of children learning, they said. The situation seemed desperate.

A year on, nothing seems to have been done. Despairing teachers are closer to giving up and well-behaved children are more frustrated. The Nasuwt union says the education of the majority is suffering; a survey shows one in five teachers has been assaulted and 55% experienced verbal abuse; 91% reported refusal to follow teachers' requests. Meanwhile, the Secondary School Teachers' Association wants Jack McConnell's famous anti-social behaviour orders extended to schools and the EIS union is threatening strike action. Surely grounds for urgent action? But no. A spokesman for the executive dismissed accusations of complacency and said a study has been commissioned to find the true scale of the problem because of inconsistencies in local authority reporting.

Subtext: we'd rather be divebombed by herring gulls than admit social inclusion isn't working.

How we all could have been cup winners

My husband fancies Germaine Greer something rotten. The original unreconstructed man, he hangs upon her every word when she appears on Friday's Newsnight review, mesmerised by her sexiness, if not by her talk of deconstructionism, male oligarchies and the diminishing role of the penis in literature. Ms Greer is an invincible 65. It was with considerable amusement that I read of Ms Greer's one-and-only known husband, a certain Californian called Paul de Feu, who managed to stay married to the great lady for three-and-a-half weeks (''and that was three-and-a-half weeks too long'') sometime back in the early 1970s. Paul said: ''On the third Sunday after we married, she got up earlier than me, so I suggested she made the tea. She shouted, 'I'm not getting any [add your own adjective] tea.''' She created such a fuss that I said, 'Well, if that's how

you feel, go away [substitute your own verb].' And so she did.

''To be quite honest, it was a

bit of a relief.'' So, now we know. Making tea is where the rest of us went wrong.

l I know this is a rather flippant thing to say (it's never stopped

me before), but shouldn't the Fathers-4-Justice protester who threw the bag of purple flour at the prime minster be a shoo-in for the England cricket team? A 40ft throw, from an awkward angle, with no opportunity to practice, and he hit the target fair and square between the shoulder blades. He deserves to be in Wisden as well

as Hansard.