YOU can learn a lot from penguins. Especially the way they look after each other... which is clearly more than can be said for some humans.

Bournemouth University, rightly has expressed its pride at the way former student Joe Casey exposed on Panorama the shocking abuse of people with learning disabilities that was being carried out at a residential hospital in Bristol.

You judge society by how it treats its vulnerable members and what Casey’s footage revealed – showing patients taunted, slapped and punched – made most of us cringe with utter shame for some of our species.

But it should be remembered that for every cruel scandal that gets exposed there are a legion of kind people quietly working with vulnerable people in our society, treating everybody with dignity and gentleness.

They won’t be the subject of Panorama programmes or make the Honours Lists but their contribution is worth its weight in 24-carat gold.

Perhaps humans who fail to look after one another should take note of Emperor penguins. They huddle to keep warm in the minus 50C temperatures and every 30 or 60 seconds, it seems, take tiny steps… making an imperceptible wave that allows those on the outside to move inside and get warm.

We can, indeed, learn a lot from penguins. Unless you are hoping to learn to fly.

SO a former opera singer, who retired to a property near Bridport, has objected to the offensive pop music used by the nearby primary school for its five-minute wake-and-shake exercise sessions each morning.

You can’t help wondering if the soprano still practices her trilling.

And, if so, what the pupils think about that.