Last week Blogof noted that Indian security services planned to use ultra-hot chillies in grenades as a means of subduing rioters or making them all dash to the loo, at any rate.

But this week's shock development in foodstuffs-used-as-behaviour-control comes from rather closer to home.

All Saints Roman Catholic Primary School in Anfield, Liverpool, is pioneering a bizarre new technique designed to keep its kids' minds in the right frame.

The school's resident Thought Police are pumping the smell of peppermint into classrooms, in a move that will supposedly boost the students' levels of concentration. Or make them rush out and buy packs of Polos on lunch-break after hours of subliminal olfactory product placement.

Apparently aromatherapists have long known that peppermint oil, as well as scaring off ants, can also "clear brain fog", according to suppliers such as The Natural Beat.

Perhaps that explains why Blogof, whose schoolrooms hummed with a heady brew of stale fags, near-toxic levels of Lynx deodorant and scampi & lemon flavour Nik Naks, only just scraped its much-prized Sociology O-level.