Peter Rhodes: We're all lions now

MORE from the instruction book for my new battery charger: "Please put the charger at draughty and dry place, and don't at high lighting place." Well, naturally.

"VAL Doonican: Ireland's Bing Crosby" declared a headline on the BBC website. As any Crosby fan will tell you, Bing's mother was Irish by descent and young Bing was raised in strict Irish-Catholic ways. Val Doonican was a fine entertainer but you could argue that Ireland's Bing Crosby was Bing Crosby.

A READER denounces me for my "Little England" views which he says are: "very different to what the man/woman on the street actually thinks." Thank heavens for that. As a rule, the man/woman on the street is not too well-informed. For example, how many would you have to question before finding one who could name the Home Secretary?

AND if women's football is intended to prove the female of the species can play the beautiful game just as well as the men, why were the England team universally hailed as lionesses? Lions, surely.

PERHAPS we should not be too shocked at new research by the National Crime Agency suggesting one British male in 35 – that's about 750,000 - has an interest in online child pornography. Humans are by nature sinful, curious, compulsive creatures with a deep-rooted irresponsibility gene. The more accessible the sin is made, the more tempting it becomes. Which is why some people get hooked on payday loans, others on online gambling, some on cheap booze and millions more, unable to resist the lure of a global glut of fatty foods, seem hell-bent on joining the Nellie the Elephant Appreciation Society. The internet has made child porn available in a way it never used to be and, while most of us are puzzled and revolted by such things, a certain sort of man cannot resist having a look. The one thing the irresponsible have in common is a belief that it's never their fault, that someone else is always to blame for their addiction. Every kiddy-porn watcher must know that children are suffering for his entertainment but he chooses not to think of such things. If he thinks at all.

FOLLOWING last week's item on the shop assistant who insisted on using first names with customers, a reader suggests this is American sales practice being forced on an unwilling UK. She says: "Most Brits would be more likely to buy something from someone who addresses potential new customers as Sir or Madam ." Quite right, me duck.

DALLAS Campbell was clearly petrified as he was lowered into potholes, sewers and mines for Britain Beneath Your Feet (BBC1). His descent into Gaping Ghyll managed to combine fear of heights with claustrophobia while the "fatberg" in a London sewer made him retch. Yet no matter how much we admire the intrepid reporter, wherever he went someone had boldly gone before, unseen and unsung. The cameraman.