Best of Peter Rhodes - Jan 8

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

A READER asks: "Why is it that when it snows, the only people who clear their drives are of pensionable age?"

ANOTHER reader admits he is puzzled by the latest suggestions to turn Post Office branches into convenient neighbourhood banks. He is sure he remembers something called Girobank.

IN THE week that an American academic, Thomas White, suggested dolphins should be regarded in law as "non-human persons" because they are so intelligent, Horizon (BBC2) presented The Secret Life of the Dog. It was a timely reminder of how smart some pooches are. The footage of a Polish collie recognising and retrieving more than 300 different objects was simply jaw-dropping. We are fascinated by dolphins (which are basically failed fish) because they are enigmatic and remote. We overlook the humble pooch because he's right under our nose. Yet the bond between dogs and humans is unique, profound and hugely successful. The more we discover about it, the more astonishing it becomes. It is no coincidence that while all the other great apes are endangered species, the one that controls the world is the one that walks with dogs.

ORANGE will be launching something called "High Definition Voice" (HDV) on its mobile network during 2010, promising "crystal clear, superior sound quality." And jolly good luck to it. The snag is that while a new generation of mobiles and infrastructure may be crystal-clear, your average customer is not. We Brits are turning into a nation of incomprehensible mumblers. What is the point of high-definition transmission if the low-definition user sounds like he is talking through his hoodie, yer know, like, er, innit?

THE TURIN Shroud: The New Evidence (C4) attempted to overturn the carbon-dating of Italy's most visited duvet cover. According to new research, the piece of cloth taken for scientific tests was contaminated with cotton threads from the 1500s. Well, maybe so. But consider this: Even if the whole damn shroud were tested by every university on earth and dated to 1250, even if it were found to have a label reading "cool wash only," even if the stars in the heavens were divinely rearranged by the Almighty to spell out: "It's a bleeding mediaeval fake," the faithful would still cling to the belief that this was Christ's grave sheet. Fighting faith with science is like fighting killer whales with a fly swat.

"AS light as a Swiss army knife keychain" is Google's description of its new Nexus One mobile phone. Seriously, does this mean anything to anyone?

BRING it on. Call off the cops, forget any idea of injunctions. Let's just step back and allow Anjam Choudary to carry out his plan to stage a procession through Wootton Bassett with 500 supporters carrying black coffins.

So far, Choudary has been rewarded for his suggestion with acres of headlines and hours of television exposure. So let him go ahead, if only because we need to know what level of support his movement, Islam4UK, commands.

If Choudary can recruit 500 British Muslims who are so deranged and disaffected that they are prepared to take part in this grisly pantomime, then we should be very scared indeed. It would be the biggest wake-up call Britain has had since the 2005 Tube bombings. Ever since those killings we have tried to convince ourselves that only a tiny handful of Muslims have extremist views.

If Choudary can lead a parade of hundreds who are happy to spit on Britain's most sacred memories and traditions, that would suggest that many more agree with him.

If nothing else, a parade at Wootton Bassett would let us see who they are.

But how many could Choudary actually muster? Coincidentally, this week saw the trial of Muslim men who screamed abuse at the Royal Anglian Regiment as it paraded in Luton after a tour of duty in Afghanistan last March.

Here were the British soldiers who, according to Anjam Choudary's demented view of things, are the baby killers, rapists and terrorists sent to do the West's evil bidding in a war on Islam. It was the perfect opportunity for Choudary's legions to make their feelings known.

So how many Muslims turned up at Luton, used allegedly insulting words and were brought before the courts. How many hundreds, scores or dozens?

There were precisely seven.

And if we just stood back and let the loud-mouth Choudary stage his Wootton Bassett parade, I bet he couldn't rustle up seven coffin carriers, let alone 500.

The pitiful sight of so few loonies in the main street of the little Wiltshire town would be an image to cherish, and to unite us.

A HEALTH club in Bristol has been accused of insensitivity for using the following sales pitch: "Advance health warning! When the aliens come, they will eat the fatties first." Actually, this is not so much insensitive as plain wrong. If aliens arrived they would obviously be from a highly advanced civilisation. Clearly, such beings would not plough straight into the main course. They would be looking for stick-thin, Twigglety sort of humans for starters. First the goujons of Posh Spice, then the Dawn French en croute. Yummy.

AND yet more from the physics examination:

Q. Describe a magnet.

A. A magnet is something you find crawling over a dead cat.