More than 250 people have already signed up to be on your Virgin Galactic's space trip in about 18 months' time.

They are willingly paying £100,000 each for the chance to be one of that very select group of first-ever space tourists.

The question now is: How are you going to top that?

No doubt, for your next trick you will already be thinking about the possibility of establishing an enormous space station up there, probably one large enough to accommodate any survivors from Earth when this planet succumbs to too much global warming.

Now I know you are not antisemitic and you would therefore not debar any Jewish survivors from being included, but have you actually sat down and had a long hard think about what they would require in their new homeland?

No, I thought not. So allow me to help you out with a list of just a few basic requirements. Did I hear you suggest a synagogue? My dear innocent friend, one synagogue just will not do. You will need at least three - one each for the Orthodox, Reform and Liberal Jews.

Or, to put it another way, one for the person to go to and two others that they wouldn't be seen dead in.

Now apart from the obvious need for shops that have constant supplies of kosher food, you will also need a shop that sells large black hats and long black coats for the very Orthodox Jewish gentlemen, and another emporium that sells the very latest fashions for the Jewish princesses. Sadly, you will eventually be needing a Jewish cemetery, but before that you will have to make available something that is known as a mikvah. No, I haven't the space to explain. Go and ask your local rebbetzen.

We are a very cultured people so we shall be needing at least one concert hall complete with orchestra, an art gallery with a selection of masterpieces (no rubbish, please) and a theatre and cinema would also be nice.

We should like a reliable bus service, trains that run on time and a nice kosher hotel where we can go for our holidays. We shall obviously need schools for the children - Jewish schools, please - and several rabbis to ensure that the boys are up to scratch when it comes time for their barmitzvah.

You can't leave the girls out. Fair do's. They need the same assistance to get their batmitzvah ready. And have you thought about kosher caterers for our simchas? No, I thought not.

Now why are you holding your head in your hands? Is it something I said? All right then, be like that. We didn't want to come with you anyway. We'll stay put and take our chances here on good old planet Earth.

And, as the late Samuel Goldwyn would have put it, you can include us out.

Why I am so bitter about litter

YES, I do know that I'm always going on about litter, but I hope you will forgive me for returning to the subject because something happened last Shabbat which opened my eyes to the fact that it was not as I had previously supposed, always your stereotypical litter lout who was to blame.

Walking home from shul, I had gone only a few yards when I looked down and noticed - guess what? No, not just the badly cracked flagstones which have blighted my path for a couple of years now (are you listening, Ivan Lewis?) but a discarded wrapping paper from either a biscuit or a chocolate bar.

And what's so unusual in that? This one was printed in Ivrit.

Detective Donn duly surveyed the scene of the crime and mulled over the obvious clues. It was unlikely that the biscuit or chocolate had been acquired by anyone who wasn't Jewish - it had been dropped in a Jewish area within clear sight of the shul.

It had not been there when I had gone to shul and, as I had stayed behind to clear up after a kiddush, it followed that the miscreant had left before me and had dropped the offending item on his or her way home.

Quad erat demonstrandum. The offender was a very young Jewish person who had not been brought up properly and who didn't know it was wrong to drop litter.

Or, if he or she really had been properly brought up and did know it was wrong, the said young Jewish person didn't care anyway.

I know we can't always blame the parents for a child's misdeeds but, if parents have any influence at all, they would surely want to emphasise to their recalcitrant offspring that some things are just not on. Like dropping litter.

If the little darlings are still young enough to believe everything you tell them, try telling them that "thou shalt not be a litter lout'' is a kind of eleventh commandment.

Oops, sorry, I forgot - there is already an 11th commandment: "Thou shalt not be found out.''

Well, anyway, perhaps you could pretend that this is the twelfth.

Clever, but stupid too

BRILL: The Audi lettering

IF you have seen that advert for the new Audi Avant, you will probably be wondering, as I am, how the authorities could ever have allowed it to be displayed on billboards at the roadside.

No, there is nothing obscene about it. In fact, it is fiendishly clever.

It says "THE NEW AUDI AVANT SEES THINGS BEFORE YOU DO.''

But you would never be able to read it at first glance because all the letters are made up of different road signs.

I have to admit that it is brilliant, but I am absolutely horrified that it is intended for drivers to read as they pass by - and that is my objection.

They would have to concentrate hard to decipher it, and we all know what can happen when a driver's attention is diverted from the road ahead.

I have seen it in the Radio Times and it is doubtless in other magazines too, which is perfectly fine.

What is not fine is the stupidity of displaying it where it can distract drivers with potentially fatal consequences. Whoever gave approval for that needs their head examining.

E-MAIL: ldonn@jewishtelegraph.com