Express & Star

Take care with your private areas

Blogger of the Year PETER RHODES on full-frontal folly, an undemocratic space shot and Mr Cumberbatch's premature peaking.

Published

GREAT euphemisms of our time. Commenting of Kim Kardashian's latest full-frontal photo shoot, Entertainment Daily website accuses her of "giving no discretion to her private areas."

I'M thinking of putting a lock on our backyard gate. I want to give some discretion to my private area.

CURIOUS sales slogans. A reader reports a trip to his local computer store which was plastered with billboards proclaiming: "We start with you first." He couldn't resist challenging a sales assistant with: "Don't you start with me." Looks like a sales slogan dreamed up in the USA which hasn't survived crossing the Atlantic.

PEAKING too soon? According to the Radio Times's review of the new movie The Imitation Game, Benedict Cumberbatch "gives the performance of his career." Let us hope not. Cumberbatch is only 38.

I AM taken to task by some readers for daring to suggest that the Rosetta project was not only a waste of money but undemocratic. Its supporters are keen to tell us that, divided between every citizen of the EU, the flight to the comet works out at just £4 each. So let's turn that argument around. A sum of £4 a head works out at a compulsory levy of £33 million on London. The rest of us were required to chip in as follows: Birmingham £4.3 million, Wolverhampton £1.17 million, Dudley £1.25 million, Telford £660,000 and the Channel Islands £655,000. Whichever way you look at it, it's a hell of a lot of money.

AS for the democracy issue, let's imagine someone had said to us 20 years ago: "Look, fellow citizens of the EU, we're going to spend £1,000 million on something really big, so what should it be? Shall we end world famine, find a cure for cancer, supply clean water throughout the planet or launch something the size of a fridge into space and land it on a comet 300 million miles away?" I doubt if many of us would have opted for the comet option, which probably explains why we were not asked. Instead, the European Space Agency and the European Commission organised a "consultation process" which ended with a grand conference at Paris in 2003 attended by 400 politicians and scientists who voted to make Europe a global player in outer space. With breathtaking cheek they announced the vote in a press release headed: "Europeans say 'Yes' to a strong Europe in space." No we didn't. Nobody ever asked us. A more honest headline would have been: "Geeks vote to spend our money on geeky stuff."

A READER says that during the coverage of the escaped tiger in France, he's sure he spotted a police officer carrying a fire extinguisher and wonders whether the cop had been reading William Blake. I wonder how many people these days get the connection between tiger, fire and Blake.

ONE envelope dropping on the doormat is louder than the honeyed words of a thousand politicians. Over the past 30 years successive governments have closed down old power stations before the new ones were ready. It is rumoured that one cold snap could lead to blackouts and yet all we get from Whitehall are sweet words of reassurance. And then a letter arrived a few days ago from Western Power Distribution, covering most of the Midlands. It has issued its 7.8 million customers with glow-in-the-dark fridge magnets with the phone number to contact them in the event of power cuts. Start buying the candles.

Sorry, we are not accepting comments on this article.