Best of Peter Rhodes - Feb 1

Here's a selection of the best of the Peter Rhodes column taken from the Express & Star for the week ending February 1.

WHEN the power companies announced big rises in "average" fuel bills earlier this month, you might have braced yourself for a 12 or 15 per cent hike. A pensioner reader opened his electricity bill yesterday and found to his horror that the tariff for the first 4,572 units has risen from 4.412p to 6.127p – almost 39 per cent. As a low user, he reckons his bills will rise by a quarter, proving once again that there are lies, damned lies and averages.

IT IS not all bad news that Gordon "British" Brown has removed Britannia from the 50p piece. The new designs for the coin offer all sorts of opportunities. For example, until now the only way to get a Victoria Cross was by doing something extremely foolhardy involving bullets. One of the new 50p pieces bears the image of the medal. Simply drill a small hole in the coin, affix a purple ribbon and wear your VC with pride.

MORE wasted research. Bright young things at Aberdeen University have discovered that mongrels are brighter than pedigree dogs and less likely to fall ill. We already knew that, kids. Everyone knows it.

IN THEORY, if you build a house and no-one notices it for four years, you can demand planning permission. Surrey farmer Robert Fidler built a mansion concealed behind a massive pile of straw bales. He might have got away with it if he was on the nicest, sweetest terms with his neighbours. But as soon as they spotted it, they shopped him to the council. He may now be ordered to demolish it. Did Mr Fidler's other development on his land possibly antagonise the neighbours? A go-karting track.

A GROUP of scientists in Maryland is busy breeding the world's first artificial bacterium. Let's hope another group of scientists is working on the antidote.

NO, I haven't a clue what Paxman is on about in his tirade against M&S underpants. Support? The last time I looked, everything Down There was entirely self-supporting, thanks to a miracle of nature which rhymes with totem. The only time I had anything Down There which required any support it rhymed with fernia.

BRITAIN'S top black police officer, Kent Chief Constable Mike Fuller, says surges of immigration are adding to crime levels. No kidding? I understand the Pope still has a balcony and bears continue to empty their bowels in wooded areas.

THE only party-pooper on the Big Garden Birdwatch, when thousands of Brits were counting birds, was Her Majesty who was busy ringing their necks (the birds' necks, that is, not the Brits') at a shoot. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds responds: "We have no opinion on the ethics of shooting game birds as long as it is done within the law." Guess who's patron of the RSPB?

QUANTUM of Shollish. Latest James Bond film, as pronounced by Sean Connery.

* 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.