Best of Peter Rhodes - November 26

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

MORE (alleged) school work: "I would like to be an accountant but you have to know a lot about moths."

THE cold-weather fuel payments have started. Lots of lonely little old ladies will now be getting surprise visits from grandchildren they haven't seen since the last winter-fuel cheque arrived. I wonder how many millions of pounds intended to pay for gas and electricity end up buying Nintendo Wiis.

A 20-year-old security guard is awaiting sentence after admitting a charge of impersonating a police officer. Daniel Bunce, from Tipton, fitted blue flashing lights to his Ford Focus. He pulled over a motorcyclist and gave him a ticking-off for not wearing a crash helmet. Bunce told the rider he was not going to fine him on this occasion. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? Frankly, this is not a very good impersonation of a police officer. Over the years I've seen dozens of motorcyclists breaking the law and never seen a cop anywhere in sight. A far more convincing impression of a police officer would involve sitting in a nice warm office with a pizza while filling in lots of forms.

SO the Government wants to get "natural leaders" into the classroom by helping servicemen and women to retrain as teachers. Someone might point out to the Government that in the armed forces "natural leaders" are not always as natural as they appear. Every commander has the backing of Queen's Regulations, the Manual of Service Law and the courts martial. In the classroom, lieutenant, you're on your own.

FROM the moment his arrogant, unrepentant face appeared in the papers 15 years ago, we all knew Learco Chindamo was nothing but trouble. He killed headmaster Philip Lawrence. He used human-rights law to stay in this country after serving 14 years in jail. Today he's back in custody having been arrested for an alleged violent mugging. He is a waste of space. He should be booted out of the UK and sent home to his native Italy. But even if he was, how long would it be, in these borderless-EU days, before he was back here again? Learco Chindamo is part of the price we pay for allowing England to become a parish of Greater Europe.

DID you hear one of the bright young things on The Apprentice (BBC1) tell a German customer that the new and totally untried crisps were "very popular" in England? It was a big lie but Alan Sugar didn't even mention it. Nice.

YOU may be astonished that one Fleet Street paper can offer its readers a William-and-Kate commemorative china plate free when the RRP (Recommended Retail Price) is claimed to be £75. A reader recalls that RRP is merely the successor to FRP which he knew when he was in retail 40 years ago. FRP stood for Fair Retail Price. It was quickly replaced by RRP because "Fair Retail Price" sounds exactly like "fairy-tale price."

THEME for this Sunday's sermon: Why God does miracles in Chile, but not in New Zealand.

STRANGE times. Over the past couple of years, crime suspects have been relieved of more than 1,000 knives by security staff in the West Midlands. In shopping centres, perhaps? Or maybe this massive haul of bladed weapons was confiscated in night clubs?

Guess again. The knives were actually found by staff using hand-held scanners at the entrance to court houses. If you ever needed proof of how irredeemably dim the average defendant is, here it is. One thousand thick-heads actually packed a knife for their big day in court. And we seriously expect them to understand something complicated, like what a suspended sentence means.

MIND you, the idiocy does not end with the criminals. After the knives were confiscated, many were returned free of charge, even if the owners had been convicted of a violent offence.

A spokesman says: "Her Majesty's Court Service takes the issue of security within courts extremely seriously."

Fine. And what about our security outside the courts?

SCENES from life. At the supermarket check-out, proud mum plonks toddler on the desk and goes into the kiddy-bonding thing at full volume: "Now you sit there and hold the bag for the lady. Can you hold it? Can you open it? Can you touch your nose? Good boy. Now, where's daddy left the car? Can you see the car? Is it out there? Yes, it is. Yes it is. Yes it is. That is called the car park. Now, can you touch your nose . . .?"

Don't you long for the days when parents were seen but not heard?

ED Miliband says it is time to rewrite Labour policies, starting with a clean sheet of paper. I bet one of the first words on this sheet will be that essential for any modern politician: "Change."

Mindful of this, a reader sends me the old tale of the sea captain whose first mate reports that the sailors are stinking and it might be an idea to order a change of underwear.

"Fine," says the Captain. "Jones, change with Hughes. Brown, change with Godber. Lewis, change with McCarthy."

The point is that change doesn't always make things better.

MORE definitions for our time:

Barium: alternative to cremation.

Cantaloupe. Obliged to get married in church.