POLICE in America were baffled by the death of a mild mannered 46-year-old pizza delivery man forced to rob a bank last week with a bomb, which later exploded, strapped to his body.

But what Brian Wells's neighbours in Pennsylvania found more puzzling was the fact a man his age delivered fast food for a living. "He was quite strange," said one. "He didn't seem to want to better himself or get on in life. He was just happy being a pizza delivery man."

Well, all right, Wells wasn't exactly a go-getter. He may not have wholeheartedly embraced the typically bullish American spirit of endeavour and free enterprise. But he was happy. Wasn't that enough?

In fact, wasn't it more than enough? After all, being happy is what all of us, including the most materially and professionally successful, aspire to. Yet how many, unlike Brian Wells, never attain it?

THOSE irritating new government adverts attempting to lure people into teaching remind us it's not just Americans who are guilty of defining people by what they do rather than who they are. Patronising and offensive, they feature workers in ordinary, run-of-the mill jobs - just like Brian Wells's - with no heads and the slogan "Use your head. Teach". Of course, if those responsible for such insulting adverts had used their heads, it might have occurred to them that, no matter how dull or unchallenging these jobs seem to be, somebody has to do them. Being told by your own government that you may as well be walking about without a brain doesn't exactly make it any easier.

FASHION designer Karl Lagerfield is celebrating his 65th birthday this week, although German newspapers claim he is, in fact, 70. I have never understood people who shave a few years off their age. If you're going to lie, why not claim you're five years older than you are? Then everyone will rave about how fantastic you look for your age. As it is, Karl's friends will be feeling sorry for him, looking so old beyond his years.

MOST people are astounded the Beckhams plan to fly their son Brooklyn back to Britain from Spain for school lessons. Yet, all over the country, many parents transport their children in rush hour traffic, often taking as long as an hour each way, to schools outside their catchment area. How many youngsters are being turned, like Brooklyn, into long-distance commuters from the age of five?

IS magician David Blaine, who plans to remain suspended in a glass box for 44 days, really surprised Londoners are not taking him seriously? The image he projects may be cool and mysterious but that supply of nappies stacked by his side shatters all illusions. It's too much information. Couldn't he just say the magic word and render them invisible?

A TV programme this week about the Friends Reunited website, which puts old school friends in touch again, accused it of being responsible for wrecking marriages. All over the country, old flames have been re-ignited as people have embarked on e-mail flirtations with sweethearts they last kissed behind the bike shed 20 years ago. But it's wrong to blame the medium. Infidelity, unlike the Internet, is as old as the hills.