Best of Peter Rhodes - November 19

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

I CAN only advise you republicans to hide under a rock for the next nine months or so while the rest of the nation goes bonkers. I forget who it was who lamented that there would never be a workers' revolution in England because the proletariat would desert the barricades to wave at the Queen going by.

INCIDENTALLY, be resigned to the Yanks calling the happy couple Bill 'n' Kate, just as they referred to the groom's parents as Chuck 'n' Di. They can't help it.

IT COULD be decades before King William and Queen Catherine take their thrones. So wouldn't it be grand if they let it be known now that they'd like the law changed so that their firstborn child succeeds them, no matter whether it is a girl or a boy? Male succession belongs in the Dark Ages and our present Queen has been the perfect monarch. We may not be around to see it but what a great twist of history it would be if, in 50 years or so, the Crown passed to William's daughter, Queen Diana.

MEANWHILE, the Prince of Wales seems to be adopting his father's habit of operating mouth before fully engaging brain. It was enough for Charles to congratulate William and Kate on their engagement without adding: "They have been practising long enough." We are immediately reminded that Prince Charles spent rather more than enough time practising with someone else's wife.

REGULAR readers will be aware that there are a number of ways of spotting a cultured man, including:

* Left alone in a room with a tea cosy, a cultured man will not put it on his head.

* Presented with a sink plunger, a cultured man will not do Dalek impressions.

* Hearing the William Tell Overture, a cultured man will not think of the Lone Ranger.

Today, I add a new definition, thanks to a reader who admits he failed this test. A cultured man does not fall about laughing when he turns on a radio programme about London and hears the commentator say: "We are just approaching Bow locks."

Shame on you, sir.

COME to think of it, the phrase " approaching Bow Locks" deserves a place in modern English usage. Confronted with someone who is vaguely odd, Londoners will say: "He's East Ham," because on the Underground, East Ham is one stop short of Barking. In much the same way, as you leave London you reach Mile End just before Bow Locks. Thus, "Mile End" could mean something which is not entirely Bow Locks but approaching it.

As in: "Sarah Palin for president? That's a load of Mile End, innit?"

TUESDAY, bought a new boat. Wednesday, made a new will. A coincidence but a slightly worrying one. Thursday, decided to cancel the new boat and keep the old one. Buying a faster boat when you can't even manage the one you've got is entirely Mile End.

AFTER flat-screen televisions, along come flat-back Christmas trees. Tesco are selling artificial trees designed to stand tight against a wall. As houses get tinier, rooms get smaller and everything has to shrink to fit. Apart, of course, from people. We get bigger all the time.

A SIMPLE one-hour operation was unveiled this week. It effectively cures high blood pressure by burning away some nerves close to the kidneys. It sounds promising. And only a hard-boiled old hack (with high blood pressure) would find himself thinking that, given the billions of dollars invested in the blood-pressure drugs industry, a simple cure which would wipe out all those profits will probably vanish without trace. Blood pressure is known as "the silent killer". Money, on the other hand, talks.

AND more definitions for our time.

Committee: A body that keeps minutes and wastes hours.

Conference. The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.

Robot: sore area suffered by oarsmen.

Tumbling: belly-button jewellery.

THE River Wye with its magnificent viewpoint known as Symonds Yat has been voted Britain's favourite river by organisations including the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. I am reminded of the defendant from Dudley in a court case many years ago. His alibi was that, at the time of the offence, he had been at the beauty spot.

"I wor at Symonds Yat ," he told the court. The judge, puzzled by the Black Country accent , asked him to say it again

"I wor at Symonds Yat," the defendant repeated.

At which point his barrister intervened helpfully: "M'lud, I think he's saying he was on someone's yacht."

THE debate on whether to pronounce H as aitch or haitch rumbles on with this memory from a reader who recalls a Royal Marine sergeant-major lecturing the lads thus:

"Some people 'ave difficulty in pronouncing the letter aitch.This makes it difficult to tell if they are saying, for instance, the word edge or 'edge. To clarify this situation we in the armed forces use the word edge for edge and the word 'edgerow for 'edge so there is no 'orrible confusion."

MORE in sorrow than in anger, a police inspector in London declares that many of those arrested after the student-fees riots are "thoughtful, articulate people". In which case, they must surely realise that if one trashes a building, kicks in windows, starts fires and drops missiles from a rooftop, there will be consequences. Save your sympathy for those who don't know any better.

AFTER the student-fees riot, this wicked email on the hardships facing students was sent to Sky News: "I suggest that female students will turn to escorting and prostitution to pay their fees. Although this has its health issues at least they will have regular contact with their MPs."