Best of Peter Rhodes - March 21

The best of this week's Peter Rhodes column from the Express & Star.

MORE of your musings on what happens to imperfect professionals:

* Are failed bedmakers debunked?

* Are failed politicians devoted?

* Do failed song writers decompose?

ON A slightly different tack, a reader asks, are skin-cream manufacturers despots?

DILEMMA. On the one hand, I am horrified at the UN population projections showing Britain's population soaring from 60 million to 72 million by 2050. On the other hand, it would make us bigger than Germany. How kuhl is that?

A FRIEND has volunteered to appear in a telly version of The Full Monty, based on the lives of tradesmen during the recession. He calculates that, as they are required to be naked for only five seconds of the performance in Credit Crunch Monty (Sky), this means only five seconds of embarrassment. If only. The sad truth is that this strip will be freeze-framed and immortalised for all time. It will pop up on YouTube and the video sequence will be sent by mobile phone to friends and family and strangers far and near. There is no such thing these days as a fleeting folly.

FROM February 16 it has been illegal under anti-terrorism laws to take a photograph of a police officer without "a reasonable excuse." It will be only a matter of time before some innocent old lady is banged up for accidentally including Plod in a holiday snap. However, one of the Muslim burkha squad at the Luton demo last week was cheerfully snapping away with her digital camera while her colleagues screamed their hatred of the British Army. Was she arrested or even spoken to? What do you think?

OF ALL the millions of words spouted about this recession, one brief snippet from Wake up to Money (Five Live) sticks with me: "In a few years from now the banks will be up to their old tricks again." Somehow, it has the ring of truth.

ALWAYS look on the bright side of life. Commenting on a 20 per cent drop in house prices in six months, a property expert says: "For many homeowners this will simply be a paper loss." Yup. That's a loss of about 6,000 pieces of paper (some people call them tenners).

I SUGGESTED last week that if the American Revolution had been defeated, George Washington & Co would be regarded today as a bunch of ungrateful losers. But what would America be like today if the Brits still ran it? It would probably be much bigger, having merged with Canada and Alaska, but much less populated and more agricultural than industrial. It would have a proper health service, far fewer guns and many more Native Americans. One of the great tragedies of history is that we have never found out how good the Apaches, Sioux and Cherokees are at cricket.

MORE suggestions on the fate of failed professionals. Do:

* Failed freemasons get dislodged?

*l Failed Egyptologists get deciphered?

* Failed drinks merchants get a decider?

* Failed taxidermists get deferred?

* And are ex-boxers unabashed?

THEN there was the Anglo-Italian budgie breeder, Hugh Zapretti-Boyden.

BRITAIN'S new electronic border controls, unveiled this week in all their oppressiveness, are designed to protect us from terrorism. This seems odd because, so far, the only terrorists have been home-grown rather than imported and borders are hardly an issue.

The e-border system is the greatest peacetime invasion of our privacy for years. We will be obliged to inform the authorities every time we leave Britain. If a sailor decides to pop over to Ireland and fails to report it he could be fined. Channel swimmers and booze-cruise day trippers will be e-logged in and out of the UK.

A Daily Telegraph reader, speaking for middle England, foresees an end to his habit of crossing the Channel "on a whim". And this is the crux of it. In the alleged fight against terrorism we are entering a whim-free zone. Nothing must be spontaneous. Everything must be planned, and informed, in advance.

Before long it will be an offence to leave home without an ID card.

And if Home Secretary Jacqui Smith or any of her bright-eyed e-lieutenants in the Whitehall bunker can explain how any of this will protect us from some fanatic mixing explosives in his bath and detonating them in the high street, I would be delighted to hear it.

THE DANISH government is awarding compensation to women who developed breast cancer after years of working night shifts. Apparently the experts have know for ages that the cancer risk associated with night working is almost as high as for working with dangerous chemicals. So that's something else we've never been told. As I may have observed before in this column, if you want to know the truth, ask a foreigner.

A READER says it's time for a recession cookery book, full of recipes reflecting not only the current hard times but the attitudes of those responsible. For starters he suggests Sheep & Lemming Pie. Any other ideas?

OTHER readers, I have to report, are still exercising themselves over what happens to failed professionals. Do failed:

* Mechanics get deMoTed?

* Customs officials get declared?

* Lap dancers get dilapidated?

* Nail technicians get defiled?

* School leavers get deformed?

A REPORT from the village hall at Broome in Worcestershire describes the local MP celebrating the completion of some refurbishment: "Dr Richard Taylor MP and his wife arrived and Dr Taylor kindly performed a small ceremony in the new toilet." They'll do anything for votes, won't they?

* DOES a failed athlete get discussed?