Express & Star

Peter Rhodes: Something for the Jams?

PETER RHODES on a new social group, an island of creativity and the new, fire-resistant Jeremy Clarkson.

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IN tomorrow's Autumn Statement, Chancellor Philip Hammond will seek to help yet another social group. After Yuppies, Skiers, Dinkies, Sinbads and all the rest, meet the Jams. It stands for Just About Managing. I bet it applies to about 65 million Brits. We are all just about managing. The tricky part is figuring out who are Jams because they are genuinely under-rewarded and who are not really Jams at all but Tubs. Totally Useless Budgeters.

SINBADS? Single Income No Boyfriend Absolutely Desperate. Or as we sometimes call them, Bridget Joneses.

TOLD you so. After all that post-election baloney about the "special relationship" between the United States and Britain, President Obama declares that his "closest partner" during his time in the White House has been Germany's Angela Merkel. As far as most Americans are concerned, Britain is just one little country in the continent they call Yurp. Half of them can't even find us on the map.

THE latest production at Stratford is The Tempest, a play set on an island. The publicity material includes a computer image of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre sitting on an island. Some will call it imaginative. Others, recalling how many times the Avon has flooded the theatre, will see it as tempting fate.

Lamenting the loss of the Top Gear team to Amazon, one of Fleet Street's finest declares: "The BBC will wonder if they did the right thing in letting their most lucrative talent walk out the door." Reality check, please. It is less than a year since Clarkson formally apologised for calling his producer a "lazy Irish ****" and punching him in the face. How on earth could the Beeb continue to employ someone like that? And how long, you may ask before Clarkson manages to get himself sacked by Amazon? He said last week: "It's very unlikely we'll be fired now – we're on the internet." But he always seemed bomb-proof at the Beeb, too, didn't he?

IGNORE all the reports of viewers being shocked at the "raw savagery" of Planet Earth II (BBC1). It is carefully stripped of the soundtracks which would make it frankly unbearable. I recall a lantern-lit meal in Kruger National Park when, somewhere off in the darkness, something (probably a leopard) began killing something else (probably a gazelle). Terrible, furious roars were interspersed with pitiable screams, whines and whimpers as the killer began devouring its still-living prey. It took that poor gazelle at least half an hour to die and put me right off my spare ribs. Believe me, the Planet Earth version of nature is sugar-coated.

THE Duke of Edinburgh and I have something in common. Somehow, we have both dodged the flu for the past 40 years. My last bout was in 1972 and it was like having toothache in every joint from big toe to finger tips. Since then, nothing. Like HRH, I fancy I may have gained some immunity from that one infection. Which is why so far, as in every previous year, I have not volunteered for the flu jab. I explained my theory to the practice nurse last week. "So shall I put you down as having declined it?"she smiled sweetly, pen poised. Not at all, I insisted. I'm still considering.

NOW I think of it, I once shook hands with Prince Philip. I tell myself the royal immunity may have passed to me. Anything to avoid a jab.

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