EARLIER this week, we learned that online trolls using the website Paltalk told a 43-year-old father from Cardiff that his life was not worth living and that he should kill himself.

So he did. He set up a webcam. And live on the internet, he hanged himself.

Now, if I was one of his friends I would want to know the names and addresses of those who’d goaded him into doing such a thing.

But that’s the problem. If they were breaking the law, and it’s not certain they were — because being a bastard is not illegal — the police can find out.

The security services can find out. But you and me? We cannot.

Many years ago, my daughter was catfished. I’d never even heard of the word and had no idea how to find the person who was pretending online to be her friend. As a father, I was desperate but powerless.

Happily though, because she was a child at the time, CEOP — the brilliant child online protection agency — could find out, and did. And it was stopped.

But if you are being bullied and you are not a child and no one is threatening violence or breaking the law, you’re stuffed.

This is the big problem with the internet. Much bigger in my view than porn, or drugs being sold on the dark web, or digital piracy.

It’s the way bullies are allowed to be anonymous.

There is nothing to stop me setting up a fake email address then using it and a silly name to hurl abuse at anyone who comes into my warped crosshairs.

Yes, I can say unkind things here, and I often do about Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott.

But you can see my face at the top of the page and you know my name and it would only take about five minutes to find out where I live.

One online British news website has a comments section where readers can post anonymous comments, and their cruelty beggars belief.

They have said things on there about my children which have made me want to go round to their houses and hit them on the head with a hammer.

But I can’t because I don’t know where their houses are. And I can’t find out.

This has to stop. And there’s no point expecting the police to help because they are way too busy processing motoring fines to even catch a burglar, so they are not going to be bothered if someone has called you “fat”.

Instead, the solution has to be private enterprise.

Because if the security services can find out who sent an email, it’s technically possible — and if it’s technically possible then half of the world’s kids could do it.

So if you are computer literate and if you’re young, don’t bother with university or getting a dead-end job at the supermarket.

Set up a business that will sell the name and address of anyone who posts anything online.

That way, if you or someone who you love is being bullied, you can pay, say, a fiver to get the culprit’s name.

Then you can pop round with some of your bigger friends to show them what real bullying is.

This is probably against the law, but so long as you stick to the speed limit on your way to and from their house, it’s fairly certain you won’t get caught.

IT’S never nice when the pilot of your plane aborts his landing and, with a mighty roar, you shoot back into the sky.

He’s too busy sorting things out to tell you what’s gone wrong, so you just sit there, imagining the worst.

Well, last weekend, when my Finnair flight was coming in to land at Heathrow, it was very obvious what was wrong. It was very windy.

The first landing was aborted at about ten feet and on the second attempt I really did think one of the wings would land first.

We were all over the place.

Obviously, because you’re reading this, all was well and the pilot was given a round of applause.
I’m not sure why, though.

We don’t applaud petrol station cashiers when they do their job properly.

YOU join me on an island in the Indian Ocean which, like all tropical islands, is full to overflowing with hilariously dreadlocked surfer dudes and their skimpily dressed girlfriends.

They seem to be living a perfect life filled with sunshine, sangria and sex.

But what I don’t understand is how they pay for it all.

“Dealing drugs,” my son suggested.

Possible. But unlikely here as the penalty for doing that is death.

EVERY single decent driving road in the Alps is impassable in the winter because of snow and in the summer because of all the wizened, nut-brown Italian and French men on their stupid racing bicycles.

I don’t know why they bother, because in recent years, the Tour de France has proved that they’re actually not very good at it.

AFTER Britain got most of the world to expel Russian “diplomats” following the Salisbury Novichok thing, we were warned that Putin would not retaliate at the time because he didn’t want to spoil the World Cup.

But, said the quiet voices of doom, when the football is over he will get his revenge on Britain.

He would bring us to our knees. Cripple us. Bankrupt us.

And so we waited, and now, finally, we know what’s he’s done.

He’s told his rich mates to stop sending their kids to British public schools.

I think we can cope with that.

Secret footage shows that on one farm with the Red Tractor endorsement piglets are killed by having their heads bashed against the wall.

And that on others, there are electrocutions.

It’s all very horrific but I’m afraid I’m not even slightly surprised.

When it comes to Guardian-friendly veg-head labelling, I’m fairly sure that Fair Trade means nothing of the sort, that shade-grown is impossible, and that “organic” means that instead of fertiliser they’ve used human faeces.

MEN are weird. I know this because last week, in China, I was having supper with the crew when I dipped my sushi into a small splodge of wasabi and popped it in my mouth.

It was like I’d eaten a hand grenade.

Both my eyes felt like they’d shot out of their sockets, my ears whistled and there was a jet of acid in my nose.

“Jesus Christ”, I shrieked at the top of my voice. “Don’t, whatever you do, have the wasabi. It’s green napalm.”

The girls thanked me for the advice and ignored the wasabi, whereas every single man decided to try it for themselves.

Which meant that pretty soon, all of them were on the floor, whimpering and calling for their mothers.

On the next shoot, I’m going to pour petrol on my head then set it alight, to see if they all copy that as well.