The threat of a nuclear attack on the tea-loving UK in the 1950s caused concern over the supply of tea, top-secret documents which have now been released expose.

Government officials planning food supplies said the tea position would be "very serious" after a nuclear war. "It would be wrong to consider that even 1oz per head per week could be ensured," they stated.

The papers were released under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Archives at Kew in Surrey, England. The documents said a nuclear conflict would result in the loss of three-quarters of tea stocks. For Brits used to turning to tea as other nationals might seek air to breathe, this would be a national disaster beyond comparison.

One Government paper from April 1955 said: "The advent of thermonuclear weapons... has presented us with a new and much more difficult set of food defence problems."

A year earlier the Topkapi Palace, which had formerly been the seat of the Ottoman Sultans, had been turned into a museum. A color photograph taken for Albert Kahn's "Archive of the Planet" project, using the Lumiere brothers' autochrome process, was taken on November 24, 1922 in the palace. It features the gigantic throne upon which the Sultans had sat.

The Ottoman Sultanate had lasted from 1299 until the start of the 20th century, but it reached its peak of prosperity and power in the 16th century. The ruler who schemed to invade Christian European territory was the second Ottoman Caliph, Suleiman I. In 1521 Belgrade, capital of Serbia, had been captured by the Turks, and in August 1526 southern Hungary had become a Turkish dependency after the Battle of Mohacs. Three years later, the Siege of Vienna took place. Suleiman's forces failed to take the city, and apart from a second attempt to invade Vienna in 1683, this was the furthest that the Turks pushed into the European heartland.

A conference was recently held in Qatar, entitled: "Mecca, the Centre of the Earth, Theory and Practice." The meeting was attended by scholars and scientists, though there was remarkably little science on show. The scholars suggested that Mecca was the real "centre" of the earth.

Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawy, spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, claimed that "modern science" had "evidence" to show Mecca was the center of the earth.

Another speaker, a geologist, claimed that the English had imposed Greenwich Mean Time upon the world, and it was time that the situation changed. He also claimed that the longitude of Mecca placed it in perfect alignment to magnetic north.

The geologist obviously does not understand what current notions of longitude represent. Greenwich is the site of the "Greenwich meridian", a line that is used in maps to indicate 0 degrees of longitude. It also represents the geographical point from which all other time zones are measured.

Magnetic north, on the other hand, is not a fixed point. It is constantly moving. In May 2001, data showed the North Magnetic Pole is currently moving northwest at 25 miles per year. In 2001, the North Magnetic Pole was located at Latitude 81 degrees and 3 minutes North, Longitude 110 degrees and 8 minutes West.

The gist of the piece was about how Glen's imaginary daughter had turned to Islam, how she somehow (after all she doesn't exist) looked forward to the day when Islam would "rule the world" (another preposterous fantasy). It was written by some illiterate (generally evidence that it actually came from someone from ASWJ / Al Ghurabaa / Al Muhajiroun / whatever they call themselves nowadays to escape immediate arrest) and inspired the Mrs and I to have a good chuckle when the full oeuvre popped up on my Blackberry. I even contacted Glen (first time in a while) and exchanged a few laughs, congratulating him on lifting another virtual stone and finding yet another real worm underneath to add to the growing collection - he has unique talents which are very useful.

Of course, rules are such that I am bound to report any abuse by these misfits to the authorities, who, like the Evil Eye, prefer to be omniscient. That done, I didn't want to pass on my breakfast, so readily tucked into my usual (solidarity, Danish) bacon and eggs and scanned through the morning papers - full of stories about Bristol bombers, Abu Izzadeen and the latest scandals perpetrated by these extreme Islamists, who abuse the benefits system, considering it a non-believer tax to themselves for the privilege of sharing their planet.

It must really hurt these men of make-believe to be caught out on Newsnight, humiliated daily in the press and exposed as perverts and feeble men who must rely on our charity to feed and house them. Yet, however much of a daily reality-check they receive, they still come out with this twaddle about how they are going to rule the world, which is all the more extraordinary when they have the national appeal of skunk-fiddlers - "Join us and get free accommodation at Belmarsh". Although not seasonal targets, these extremists remind me a bit of pheasants, who step out into country lanes just as cars are passing - they still seem so sure they will get to the other side of the road even when they are three-quarters compressed by a Pirelli.