Best of Peter Rhodes - July 11

Here's a selection of the best of the Peter Rhodes column taken from the Express & Star for the week ending July 11.

THE Iranian spokesman threatening Israel with destruction by rockets is one General Salami. A banger in charge of the fireworks.

A READER points out that electric cars, as recommended by a Mr G Brown of Whitehall, London, are only as green as the power station producing the electricity. In Britain electric cars are probably coal cars.

A PLAGUE of locusts is the latest tribulation facing Beijing as the Chinese prepare for the Olympic Games in August. This follows freak snowstorms, appalling air pollution and a massive accumulation of green sludge in the watersports area. There is still time to adapt the games to the conditions with some new and imaginative sports, such as:

* Algae shovelling

* Locust swatting

* Snowballing

* Breathing

UNTIL the weekend screening on Film 4, I had not seen Easy Rider since its launch in 1969. Oh, Lordy, how we change. Back then, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper were the smartest, coolest things we had ever seen, cruisin' on wild bikes through an uncomprehending landscape of rednecks and cowboys. Nearly 40 years on, the cowboys look cool but Messrs Fonda and Hopper, mumbling through some atrocious dialogue and wobbling at every corner, are the biggest plonkers ever to straddle a chopper.

AT A school near Stoke on Trent a teacher wanted to show how Muslims worship . So she told the kids to kneel down and pray to Allah. When some refused they were put on detention. And when they complained to their parents, well, you can guess what happened next. In an increasingly mad world, the Press is one of the few places where Joe Public can get a sane hearing. Big headlines followed. The deputy head declares sniffily: "I think that it is a shame that so many parents have got in touch with the Press before coming to me." On the contrary, a silly misjudgment by a teacher has produced a very valuable lesson for kids, parents and teachers alike. You see, it is all very well trying to teach children about other cultures. But never forget that at the heart of our own British culture is the right of everyone to pick up a telephone and speak to a reporter, and the right of the media to report things that some people may find inconvenient or, in that modern buzzword, "unhelpful." It is called freedom of expression and you tend not to find it in those lands where the mullahs are in charge.

KNEE-jerk department. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith says if hospitals are forced to report all knife wounds it will "establish the true scale of knife crime in Britain." No, it won't. It will merely reveal how dangerous it is to be a butcher or a carpet fitter.

CHOMP, chomp, slobber, drool, burp, slobber, chew, chomp, glug, slobber, burp. Don't you just love these G8 conferences on the food crisis?

HERE'S a brilliant line for anyone caught in possession of an offensive weapon. It comes from the trial in Gloucester this week of a man who allegedly threatened someone with a martial-arts weapon. The prosecuting solicitor explained: "The reason he gave for carrying the weapon was for his own protection, as he was worried the police would be going on strike and needed it to protect himself."

Can't think when I've laughed so much.

DAVID Icke, one of the candidates in the Haltemprice & Howden by-election, tells the lady from the Times: "You want to take the p***, so take the p***!"

Bet you didn't expect that from the Son of God.

THE REAL problem with women bishops, approved this week by the General Synod, is that they will hasten the process of feminising the Church in exactly the same way as primary education has been feminised. Already, more than half of those entering the priesthood are women. Before long the Church of England will resemble the average infant school where male teachers have become a rarity. In such a culture, female values take over. Before long, perfectly normal male behaviour is seen as some sort of dysfunctional disease, to be subdued. The male-run Church spent centuries oppressing women. Now it's payback time, lads. (Or at least it would be if anyone bothered to attend).

AS ALWAYS, a number of loonies have been injured in that annual festival of animal abuse, the Running of the Bulls in the Spanish town of Pamplona. And as always, it serves 'em jolly well right.

DEREK Rigby, a vicar in North Wales, decided to test his congregation. He disguised himself as a drug-taking tramp. First he sat outside the church as his flock passed by. Then he took a pew, surrounded by used syringes, and drank beer. No-one offered him any money or other comforts and he later denounced his congregation as "a stingy lot." This seems a harsh judgment. The worshippers encountered what looked like a plump, well-fed layabout with enough money to buy booze, fags and drugs. This is not "the poor" as defined in the Bible. It is merely someone enjoying an alternative lifestyle. If Jesus and his disciples had come across the Rev Rigby in wig and scruffy clothes, I dare say they would have smiled politely and passed on by.

ANYWAY, it could have been worse. The Rev. Rigby's congregation might have beheld this drug-crazed, lager-soaked, fag-stained wreck and said: "Morning, vicar."

AN ARMY cadet trainer has been forced to resign in Preston after claiming on Facebook that he served in the SAS and killed more than 100 people. Turns out he actually served in the Army Catering Corps. So he may have killed a few, but 100 seems excessive.

CHOOSING a career? A teacher from Spalding offers this brief summary of her profession on the BBC Have Your Say website: "Money OK, but not brilliant and kids sneeze over me and dribble."

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