A handbag sold for more than £200,000 last week – and it wasn’t even new. The bag was made of Himalayan crocodile with gold detailing and lots of diamonds and was officially the most expensive handbag in the world. But its real value lay in the bragging, showing-off rights it would give its new owner. Hey ho. If it makes them happy…

If you suddenly had £200,000 to spend would your first thought be a crocodile handbag? No, me neither. Meanwhile, the WAGs are about to hit France in a fine display of flesh and high fashion and doubtless Kim Kardashian is still posting ever more ridiculous selfies. Sometimes the world seems mad.

So I thought I’d remind you of two stories in among the general vacuousness. The first was the story of Sue Burton, whose son died suddenly at 16. She gave permission for his organs to be used, to save other lives. When she met the young man who’d received her son’s heart, she placed her hand on his chest and could feel it beating. I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like.

The families of organ donors are heroes. To agree in the depth of their own grief to give the gift of life is staggering.

Then there was Leslie Binns. He was nearing the summit of Everest, in sight of his long dreamt of ambition when he saw another climber in distress. He turned back to rescue her, giving her his oxygen and abandoned his own attempt at the summit to carry her back down the mountain . “No summit is worth a life,” he said.

Meanwhile, every day in this paper there are numerous stories of people working hard to raise money for good causes – walking, running, biking, baking, stuffing envelopes, doing a million boring but essentials tasks in order to make lives better for others.

These are the people who matter. They represent the basic decency and values that most of us admire.

Luckily for us all, they far outnumber the celebs and the show-offs – and those who can spend a fortune on a handbag.

SO there I was driving through the village on Sunday morning – steep hill, narrow road, sharp bends – and what do I meet? Around 50 cyclists coming up the hill towards the bend, on both sides of the road, and even both pavements. Madness. Selfish, stupid and incredibly dangerous.

I know cyclists are often treated badly by thoughtless motorists – but consideration and common sense worth both ways.

So well done to the hundreds of cyclists pedalling through Wensleydale later in the day. Most of them rode tucked in single file, and so bikes, buses, motor bikes, cars, caravans and cattle wagons could share the narrow roads in reasonable civility and safety. Makes a change..

MEANWHILE, Wensleydale was looking its best on Sunday. It’s a brilliant year for buttercups and the dale still has masses of wonderful buttercup meadows – a sight pretty well lost in many parts of the country..

It’s a treasure on our doorstep. Get yourselves up there to see them. Just watch out for bikes.

AS if there wasn’t enough to think about when you get divorced – kids, house, dogs, money, who has to take Aunty Marje’s hideous wedding gift, there’s another modem problem. Tattoos.

Inking your loved one’s name onto your skins is all very well in the throes of new passion but not as easy to remove as an unwanted wedding ring. So Laurence Fox, who once had the date of his marriage to Billie Piper tattooed on his arm, was this week flaunting a much more elaborate design to cover up that date now they’ve split. But he knows and she knows and we all know, that it’s still under there somewhere. He’s got her under his skin, whether he likes it or not.

David Beckham is pretty much the celebrity tattoo king with hardly an inch not covered. I don’t suppose he has any thoughts of leaving Victoria. But if he did, the thought of almost a body’s worth of designs having to be inked over, would probably make him think again. There’s only so much pain a chap can stand.

'YOU must have really good brains to speak Welsh,” the Duke of Edinburgh told a group of school children in Cardiff this week. A remark that has been scorned as yet another of his foot-in-mouth gaffes.

But he’s right. To be with Welsh children, even infants, slipping fluently from Welsh to English and back again without a second’s hesitancy is actually quite humbling. What’s more, recent research has shown that people who are bilingual have developed more pathways in their brains and so have a noticeably lower risk of dementia.

So last laugh to those children, I think.

ACCORDING to a top ten of the Queen’s favourite music compiled for BBC Radio 3, she’s apparently a huge fan of George Formby. My mind is now filled with an image of Her Maj strumming an ukulele and warbling “When I’m cleaning windows.”

Wouldn’t that make a wonderful change next time they’re all on the balcony at Buckingham Palace?