If your other half is spoiling for a fight, stick a lolly in their mouth and say: “Who loves ya, baby?”

Apart from the obvious affection implicit in the remark – and making them smile at your retrospective humour as they try to remember the actor and character of the hit 1970s detective show – the sugar content of the lolly could help lower their antagonism.

And before frustration sets in about the identity of the lolly loving cop, yes, it was Telly Savalas who played Kojak all those years ago.

He might not have known it at the time, but a glucose hit could stave off feelings of aggression.

According to a new study, people with low levels of blood sugar could be prone to letting a niggle of irritation turn into a blazing row.

Professor Brad Bushman from Ohio State University said: “We need glucose for self control. Anger is the emotion that most people have difficulty controlling.”

He said when people get hungry, they get cranky. “We found that being ‘hangry’ – hungry and angry – can affect our behaviour in a bad way, even in our most intimate relationships.”

Which raises two questions.

Hangry? And is this why chubby people are supposed to be jolly?

The professor studied 107 married couples for three weeks. Their levels of blood sugar glucose were measured at night. So far, so serious, but here comes the bizarre bit. He gave each participant a voodoo doll that represented their spouse and told them to stick pins in it if they got aggressive feelings.

Those with lowest blood sugar levels stuck twice as many pins in their dolls as those with the highest levels. Three people put all 51 pins in their dolls at one time — and one person did that twice.

Oo-er. Shouldn’t that person’s other half be warned? Or, at least, the pin-sticker should be put on a diet of chocolate bars.

Researchers said that fruit and vegetables are a better long-term strategy for keeping sugar levels up, but eating a candy bar might, actually, be a good idea if spouses are about to discuss something touchy.

“Does my bum look big in this?”

“Er, why not have another candy bar, love?”

The practice of some primary schools to send the class teddy bear home with a pupil for the weekend has apparently come a cropper because some parents have used it to show off.

Ted takes with him a diary into which is entered an account of his exciting weekend, usually illustrated with a photograph or drawing.

The idea is to strengthen the link between home and school and to encourage quality time between child and parent.

“We’ve got Ted. We must do something special.”

But, some say, it has been seriously abused by mums and dads who go overboard in one-upmanship. Forget walks in the park, some have taken Ted (or whichever soft toy the school uses) to the opera, sailing, to meet Premiership footballers and attend corporate entertainment.

What? No CBeebies or shopping at Morrisons? How can normal mums compete?

This childish state of affairs was revealed by the Times Educational Supplement. Readers responded to a report about the practice and said having Ted was no picnic. Mind you, glancing through the pages of Ted’s diary did give a riveting insight into the lives – or pretensions – of other parents.

The equivalent to this when I was at school was having to write an essay on: What I Did On My Holidays. As I never did very much on my holidays, the most exciting activity I could recount was running rampant through the rhubarb field at the top of the road. Others might have been camping, or taken a touring holiday. One lad, I recall, actually went to France for two weeks, but then his dad was really posh.

So I can sympathise with the mums and dads faced with competing with Mr and Mrs Pushy, especially when things didn’t always go according to plan. One mum reported that as soon as Ted arrived home, the dog ate him. Another that he went missing for 24 hours (he was probably down the pub before he was force-marched to the opera again).

There were also those who responded with reverse psychology. The diary was returned with a picture and caption that said: “The bear wandered aimlessly around B&Q, looking at taps.” And another mum wrote that Ted had “enjoyed the afternoon spinning around the washing machine to clean off the ingrained dirt it had accumulated during the school year.”

TES Editor Ann Mroz said some schools may now ditch the idea because parents used it to “judge and compare.”

Which is what I would do. I would compare the diary entries and judge which parents I wanted to be friends with – and go looking for those with a B&Q sense of humour.