Best of Peter Rhodes - April 4

Here’s a selection of the best of the Peter Rhodes column taken from the Express & Star for the week ending April 4.

SIX POPULAR baby cough and cold remedies are to be restricted on safety grounds. Ah, well. Back to the old gin.

A READER says he’s not convinced by the news footage of a massive iceberg breaking away from the Antarctic ice shelf, allegedly through global warming. He says the line is dead straight and is exactly what you might get if you faked it by cutting a block of ice cream with a knife. Tut, tut. Such cynicism.

ANOTHER reader, fed up with our “green” Government constantly showing off its fleet of Jaguars in Downing Street, suggests the perfect zero-emission transport for busy Whitehall. Rickshaws.

IT IS a rule of tabloid journalism that whenever a plane crashes, the reporter will find a witness who describes how the pilot fought heroically at the controls to miss the local school or kiddies’ playground. True to form after Sunday’s crash in Farnborough, the Sun told how the pilot avoided “20 youngsters playing in a park.” Hard to square that with the Telegraph’s witnesses who described the stricken executive jet “spiralling to the ground.”

APPROPRIATELY, All Fool’s Day sees the launch of Gordon Brown’s “Policing Pledge” which will allegedly give us a greater say in which crimes we want tackling. How about the ones we reported last week? We’re still waiting for a bobby to turn up.

OXYMORONS for our time, this one from my dentist: A small filling.

ONE of the reasons people distrust the experts is that the experts are often wrong. Experts announce some dazzling new truth and proclaim it, sometimes for decades, before quietly admitting they were mistaken. Mouth-to-mouth resuscitation has been preached and practised for generations. Millions of first-aiders have queued up to breathe into Resusci-Annie plastic dummies and watch the artificial lungs inflate. This week, after half a century of all that blowing and slobbering, the American Heart Association announced that mouth-to-mouth is out. Chest compressions alone are just as effective. Those of us of a certain age can remember when the experts who are now warning us about global warming were predicting the next ice age was just around the corner. Don’t hold your breath.

THIS week’s centenary of the Territorial Army celebrated an organisation which has always been able to laugh at itself. Some years ago, a Punch cartoon appeared in TA drill halls all over the country. It showed a TA firing squad. The blindfolded prisoner was still standing, the wall around him was pockmarked with bullet holes and the ground littered with empty cases. “Okay, lads,” says the officer. “We’ll try again after lunch.”

EVEN if you are the right weight for your height, you may still be at risk of heart attack, stroke and other fat-related illnesses. Doctors at an American clinic claim to have identified a new condition, “normal weight obesity” which affects people with a high percentage of body fat. Is there no escape from this ever-growing panoply of modern ailments? After normal-weight obesity, I live in growing fear of normal-height dwarfism, normal-brain dementia and alcohol-free alcoholism.

JOURNALISM for beginners. When people talk secretly, a pseudonym is sometimes used to disguise their identity. Thus, the Guardian carries an interview with “John Smithers”. He is a compulsive user of prostitutes and deeply ashamed, so no wonder he wants to remain anonymous. However, the Guardian informs us that “John” is in his 70s, was a magistrate for 25 years, has two failed marriages, was divorced last year, suffers from Parkinson’s disease, inherited his father’s business and ran it almost to bankruptcy, was banned from driving earlier this year and now lives in poverty. Not so anonymous, perhaps? (Any ideas, e-mail me at p.rhodes@expressandstar.co.uk

MEANWHILE, as Whitehall scratches around for troops to be sent to Afghanistan, it was reported yesterday that Britain still has 22,500 troops busy washing their tanks and polishing the regimental silver in Germany, still awaiting the Soviet invasion. Meanwhile the Soviet Union has collapsed, the Red Army has gone home to Russia and the communists have become capitalists and gone into the gas business. Pass us the Brasso, sarge.

* Has this whetted your appetite for more of Peter’s gems? Make sure you read his column every day by picking up a copy of the Express & Star.