At a random police check in Colchester, Essex, last week, a driver was slopped for driving a van while wearing wellington boots - filled with baked beans in tomato sauce (presumably out of their cans). He was cautioned and a police spokesman said: "The driver did not have proper control of the vehicle while wearing boots full of beans. He presented a hazard to other road users."

Presumably we will never know why this driver was doing what he was doing. I have never driven a car in this way. It may, for all I know, be the biggest 'turn on' in the world, but I will have to be advised by others. What I liked was the dead-pan police statement. It may have been made with a twinkle in the eye, of course. On the other hand, if the newspapers want a statement, a statement is what they must have ...

It reminded me of the driving test where the candidate (male or female, I say not) veered off into a canal. The examiner struggled out and reached the bank, trying to keep his clipboard dry by holding it above his head. When asked why he was bothering to do that, he said: "My notes on the progress of the test are an important document and it is my responsibility to preserve them".

We live in a world of quick-fire comment and, as far as the media are concerned, if we give no answer it suggests we have something to hide. The Church is often asked to give a response off the cuff to some situation or other, and the responses sometimes seem a bit flat or strained. Better to say nothing, but then that suggests we have no view.

Like so many wise men of old, Jesus seems to have avoided giving direct responses. Instead he resorted to quotations, to proverbs and to ambiguous remarks. "Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests"; "leave the dead to bury their dead"; "where the body is, there the vultures gather". In these answers, he is providing just enough material for the questioners to work out the answers themselves. He is also implying that some questions do not deserve, or do not have an answer. Jesus would doubtless have approved of Eric Cantona who, when asked to comment on football, would come out with some obscure piece of French philosophy about seagulls ...