DON T all rush at once, but make sure you do not miss out on entering a top competition. The deadline for entries is fast approaching. You only have a few weeks left. The search is on to find the UK s most beautiful clay tile roofs. People are urged to ph

DON'T all rush at once, but make sure you do not miss out on entering a top competition.

The deadline for entries is fast approaching. You only have a few weeks left.

The search is on to find the UK's most beautiful clay tile roofs.

People are urged to photograph and describe work carried out on their home, a new build or refurbishment project they have been involved with or which just takes their fancy. It can be anything from a garage to a cathedral.

The awards are organised by the aptly-named Clay Roof Tile Council and are designed to celebrate all that is great about clay roof tiles produced in Britain.

I must admit that I cannot get myself fired up about clay tiles. Like the next man, I appreciate that they have their place and do a good job but I do not wander around looking skywards at buildings and bumping into lampposts.

So I won't be getting out the camera. I much prefer a night on the tiles to tiles in the day.

* How much notice do you get of a sneeze or a cough? If you are anything like me, it is often measured in split seconds. And then there is only time for the reflex action of lifting a hand to one's face as the blast of air emerges.

So it came as a bit of a surprise to discover this week that the Department for Health had spent some of my taxpayer pounds on research into what people do when a cough or sneeze comes along.

This showed that two thirds of people in East Anglia incorrectly use their hands instead of a tissue.

This isn't because they are too lazy to find a tissue, apparently. A whopping 63 per cent of those surveyed believed that using their hands was the best way to reduce the spread of germs that cause colds and flu.

But they are wrong, advises the DoH. The spread of colds, flu and other illnesses can be reduced by people catching the outburst in a tissue, disposing of it straight away and then washing their hands.

But the research does not address the real problem of getting a tissue in place in time. I can't see the Government coming up with a solution to that.

Another bit of research commissioned by civil servants, this time those at the Department of Work and Pensions, was into young people's plans - and how to finance them - for later life.

And it shows that many of the bright-eyed ones with youth on their sides are likely to have their dreams shattered.

They don't intend to retire quietly, it is concluded. Young people today expect to be able to afford the things they enjoy now when they leave work behind with foreign holidays, satellite TV and gym membership as standard.

But here's the rub. More than half the nation's under 34-year-olds are not saving anything at all which puts them at risk of becoming the big dreams, small assets generation.

Like us older ones, they will discover that life can be a bitch.