Best of Peter Rhodes - Jan 29

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

MEANWHILE, in the history examination: "The King wore a scarlet robe trimmed with vermin."

PLANNING a rare rail trip to London, this week I consulted the internet railway timetable to read: "Warning: Certain combinations of outward and return journeys would result in you needing to leave your destination before arriving at it". Life does not get any simpler, does it?

A REPORT to the French parliament on the vexed issue of Muslim women wearing burkas recommends that anyone showing "visible signs of radical religious practice" should be refused residence cards and citizenship. Which raises a simple, one-word question. Nuns?

MICHAEL McIntyre is one of Britain's funniest comedians. He has just signed a £500,000 contract with the BBC. Oh, dear. I have a suspicion, based on a few years of idle observation, that the more money comedians are paid, the less funny they get.

ON a train back from London more than 20 years ago, the second-class carriages were stuffed full and sweltering hot. A group of us drifted into the air-conditIoned luxury of the first-class section. After a few minutes a guard arrived and very sternly tried to make us pay the extra fare. Unfortunately, he picked on a wonderful old Home Counties matron who lectured him on the appalling service provided by his employers and refused point-blank to give her name, address or any payment. The guard vanished with a flea in his ear and we never saw him again. I thought of that typically English little rebellion yesterday when the consumer group London Travelwatch called for a change in the rules. When there is "clear evidence of overcrowding on a regular basis," it says first-class carriages should be declassified and opened to all. This seems a hugely reasonable idea but we live in bullying, money-grabbing and thoroughly unreasonable times, so I expect it will vanish without trace.

FROM the parish magazine: "Don't let worry kill you off - let the Church help".

WE all know which foods are healthy: vegetables, fruit, salad, nuts and so on. The problem is that if we eat only foods that are regarded as healthy, we will starve to death. A new survey of nurseries in Hampshire revealed that the children's meals were low-calorie, low-salt, low-sugar and low-fat. But the poor mites were not getting enough fat, protein or carbohydrates to give them energy. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, and sometimes with muesli bars.

I FINALLY got around to seeing Atonement, which was a far better film than I had gathered from the reviews. But there was one curious mistake. As the soldiers retreated to Dunkirk they picked apples from an orchard and trudged through burning autumn stubble. The 1940 Dunkirk evacuation happened in May.

"WE are the south of England," Dominique Dupilet, leader of the county council at Calais, declares proudly. By promoting this part of northern France as a little bit of England, Calais is attracting foreign teams to train for the 2012 London Olympics. It raises a fascinating prospect. If we Brits ever got fully immersed in the EU, how long would it be before England resumed ownership of everything from Calais to Toulouse - and how eagerly might the French join us?

THE writer Martin Amis suggests provocatively that we should have voluntary-euthanasia booths on street corners where the old and crumbly could slip quietly out of this life. Bad luck if you thought it was a superloo.

THE national alert state has been raised from "Mind How You Go" to "Keep 'Em Peeled" (I forget the precise details) but no-one has told us why the state has been raised or what we should be looking out for. The rumour machine suggests the terrorism may come from Northern Ireland or possibly via an airline bomb from India. I can only advise you to keep a special look-out for anyone wearing a veil who has an Irish accent. Meanwhile, I find myself wondering whether the people in charge of the alert-state warnings are in any way connected to the Met Office.

IN YET another bid to wrap itself in the Union Jack, our beloved Government says all veterans of the armed forces will be given priority for NHS treatment. Really? So a former National Serviceman who spent two years counting blankets in the stores at Catterick jumps ahead of a seriously ill child? And what about those men and women who were in wartime reserved occupations? How do you explain to a civilian who endured five years of air raids building Spitfires that he must make way for a WRAC clerk who spent her time in a cosy office in post-war Germany? Bright ideas like this are dreamed up by people who not only have no understanding of service life but of any sort of real life.

WHOM do we blame for the wickedness of the "Devil Boys" of Doncaster who are now behind bars for torturing two other children? The parents, perhaps? The grandparents? How deep in the gene pool should we look for an excuse? I once knew a lad from a loving, caring family. Despite their efforts, he was a bullying toddler who grew into a bullying child and a bullying teenager. When a girl rejected his advances he strangled her and was jailed for murder. Of course, nurture is significant but nature, too, has a nasty side. In some cases, kids are simply born evil.

THE rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This week's National Equality Panel report showing the wealth gap is wider than at any time since the Second World War is the stuff of revolutions. The wealth of the nation is being hoarded by the upper crust while pensioners survive on a pittance. The perversity of banks sentences millions to the dole yet bankers glide by in Bentleys with £1 million bonuses in their accounts. In the 17th, 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, this sort of rampant, grinding unfairness took the justice-loving English on to the streets and made the ruling classes shudder. But not any longer. Who would have thought that one unpromising invention in the 1930s would have kept us in our homes and killed our appetite for revolution? Marx (Karl, not Groucho) declared that "religion is the opium of the people". These days it's television. The workers' flag is deepest red / But let's watch Emmerdale instead.

AND in the science examination: "Marsupials are poached animals."