Best of Peter Rhodes - March 4

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

AFTER HMS Cumberland's mercy mission to Benghazi a reader asks, was it not insensitive to sail into a Muslim country in a ship named after a pork sausage?

PSYCHOLOGISTS in Holland claim to have proved that people make better decisions with a full bladder. In my experience, you certainly make quicker decisions.

CRAIG Oliver, David Cameron's new spin-doctor, is an expert on image so we must assume he gave some thought to his high-profile arrival in Downing Street this week. What we saw was almost a Spitting Image parody of the right-on, metrosexual male, complete with man-bag, designer headphones, cycle helmet, iPad, trendy scarf and foppishly exposed shirt cuffs. Oliver, 41 going on 15, is supposed to communicate with the lumpen hacks of the world's media. I suspect most of us took one look at this walking jumble of accessories and were united in a common thought: Gawd, what a plonker. An own-goal before he even started work.

PC John Hine spotted a petty crook, Marlan Davis, breaking into a car and gave chase. Davis launched a savage attack on the officer, punching him unconscous, kicking, biting and threatening to stab him. At Wood Green Crown Court, in London, Davis admitted assaulting a police officer. He was given a six-month suspended sentence. That's right. In an England run by a Conservative-led government, it is now possible to knock the living daylights out of a police officer and still walk away from court with a smile on your face. Those whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make soft.

SO farewell, the Census. The 2011 one may be the last, and no wonder. The days are long gone when Brits lived in neat nuclear families and meekly answered any questions their rulers asked. I have a pal who worked as a census officer in 2001. He said it was almost impossible to collect the data, even in a genteel little Middle England town. In the inner cities it must be a nightmare. In any case, the whole purpose of the Census is to enable governments to plan the NHS, education, social care and so on. That's right - the shambles we see all around us was actually planned. If this is what we get by planning, isn't it high time we tried guesswork instead?

SCIENTISTS in Germany claim that drinking one glass of wine a day could reduce your risk of getting dementia by one-third. So three glasses a day . . . ?

Sadly, it doesn't work like that.

WHERE do you catch anti-Semitism these days? Watching John Galliano's drunken ramblings in a Paris bar was like seeing someone suffering from leprosy or bloody flux, or some other hideous condition from biblical times. Jews are the most assimilated of all Western minorities. Even if we knew who they were, why would anyone choose to hate them with the bile we saw in the face of Galliano? It is a mystery.

GOVERNOR of the Bank of England Mervyn King says he has not seen much "real anger" from the people about the recession. That's because the people don't know where he lives.

MISS America 2011 Teresa Scanlan was appointed a few weeks ago and has begun her official duties with a visit to see wounded servicemen in Washington. The 18-year-old blonde blogs: " I went into hospital rooms to meet with wounded soldiers, who were so excited to see Miss America. "

I bet.

WHICH raises that age-old mystery. Why do Americans choose from 50 contestants for Miss America, but only two for President?

COMETH the hour, cometh the hardware. Just when we thought that Cold War icon, the Eurofighter, was redundant, along comes a possible job for it - patrolling a no-fly zone over Libya. Then again, it could be a case of cometh the hardware, cometh the hour. If politicians have squadrons of shiny new warplanes, they will always find something to do with them.