Budget 2016: Digging out George Osborne's nasty surprises

PETER RHODES on dissecting budgets, debunking myths and a night out in Moscow with that nice Mr Michelmore

YOU can generally spot when the marketing men have been at work, elevating some humble product into a fancy-sounding must-have commodity. In my local garden centre a "Lawn patch repair kit" turns out to be a box of grass seed.

THE Yanks may have their bullseye smart bombs and the Brits their pinpoint Brimstone missiles. But President Putin, having gone in, secured Russia's bases and pulled out half his forces, seems to have one item in Syria which all the rest of us are lacking. A plan.

TODAY is Budget Day. Okay, technically last Wednesday was Budget Day. But the golden rule of budgets is that until the pundits, analysts and media have thoroughly digested the details in the so-called Red Book, all the juicy and unpleasant stuff is hidden. Gordon Brown was a master of slipping stealth taxes into a Budget, knowing no-one would spot them until a week later. By today, the Sunday papers have given the small print a final filleting and most of George Osborne's nasties will have been flushed out.

INCIDENTALLY, my prediction that income tax would fall while council tax rose seems to be coming true. Money into your left pocket, money out of your right pocket.

SO farewell, Cliff Michelmore who has died aged 96. I met him on an assignment to Moscow in 1990 at a time when the Soviet Union was collapsing and there was talk of civil war. The rouble was in freefall and the leather-jacketed money-changers, so furtive when I had visited 16 years earlier, were blatantly doing business in the main streets, handing out huge fistfuls of roubles in exchange for a few pounds, dollars or packs of Marlboro. The tourist rate of exchange had been slashed, so the champagne that cost us £7 a bottle on our first night in Moscow was suddenly 70p. Feeling as rich as sultans, our party descended on a little restaurant offering a "typical Russian meal," which turned out to be a multi-course banquet fit for a Tsar. By chance, Michelmore arrived at the door as we entered and we invited him to join us. Bald, shiny and full of anecdotes, he sat at the head of the table like a jolly little Buddha. Unlike so many pros, Michelmore was exactly the same off-screen as he was on, like a favourite old uncle, and it was a privilege to make his acquaintance.

TALKING of obituaries, who in the BBC thought it was a good idea to mark the death of Paul Daniels with the footage of Mrs Merton (Caroline Aherne) suggesting that Debbie McGee married Daniels for his money? Tacky, tasteless, execrable.

THE Daily Mail illustrates a news report on baffling English phrases with a selection, including the old chestnut about "brass monkey weather." The Mail tells us the "monkey" was a brass tray on warships which held cannon balls. In cold weather, the brass would contract and the balls would fall off. It's a great little yarn, spoiled only by the fact that there's not a single historical reference to it. As the excellent myth-exploring website Snopes.com explains, the cannon-ball cobblers is down to "somebody's fanciful imagination."

PS. The same goes for that cherished old line about "posh" standing for "port out, starboard home" on cruise ships. Nice idea, shame about the facts.