Best of Peter Rhodes - March 25

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

JUST back from a few days on holiday in Oxford. I trust nothing has happened while I've been away. No wars, nuclear disasters, important government statements or suchlike?

WE broke the journey at Woodstock, the pretty little town next to Blenheim Palace which has (you may wish to sit down at this stage) free parking. It also boasts some fine eating houses, one of which has pushed the boundaries of pretentious menus. It offers: "Hand-dived West coast scallops and langoustines." Hand-dived?

WOODSTOCK also has an all-electric 10p-a-time superloo which illustrates what happens when technology outstrips human nature. Even the loo paper is dispensed by an electronic gizmo. Wouldn't you assume that the big red button beneath the loo-paper button is the flushing device? Not so. It turns out to be the SOS emergency button and the moment you touch it, the door flies open to let your would-be rescuers dash in. No, I don't think we will be visiting Woodstock again for a while.

ANOTHER pointless technological leap forward was the basin in the hotel bathroom. Hand basins were perfected by the Victorians. They were big white china things, standing rock-solid on a plinth with a plug on a chain, two simple taps marked H and C and somewhere to put your soap. The 21st century replacement is a ceramic bowl sitting on a wooden shelf with a single tap, which no-one understands, and a plug which not only leaks but can only be opened by immersing one hand (which you have just dried) in the water. If this is progress my name is Armitage Ware.

OXFORD was hot and busy, full of young kids with back packs. As this Libya nonsense develops, I wonder how long it will be before every backpack is seen as a potential bomb and the old IRA-style checkpoints return.

THE theory behind the no-fly zone was that the anti-Gaddafi forces would form a proper army, march on Tripoli, depose the evil dictator and create a shiny new democratic republic. The reality is that they will put their feet up in Benghazi and live happily on UN food parcels for the next 50 years while the grandsons of today's RAF pilots patiently patrol the skies in case the grandsons of Gaddafi decide to reclaim their turf. One of the things you learn very early at military college is the maxim: No plan survives first contact with the enemy. And that's assuming you had a plan in the first place.

THE hotel at Oxford came as a pleasant surprise. The room was bigger than advertised and the bill was smaller; it often tends to be the other way around. On one hotel-reservation website is the sad tale of a lady who went into labour one night in a Lake District hotel. She dialled 999 and an ambulance took her to the nearest hospital where the baby was safely delivered. Her husband called at the hotel the next day and paid the bill. When he later checked it, he found the hotel had not only charged them for the two breakfasts they missed but also for the 999 call. Nice touch.

CAN we all please stop banging on about how polite and orderly the Japanese are in the wake of the tsunami, and how the Brits would be rioting all over the place? From the 1940 Blitz via the Lynmouth and Aberfan disasters to the flooding at Tewkesbury and Cockermouth, there was no civil disorder. The only place you'll see post-disaster rioting is at the movies.

MORE from that great national treasure UK4NET where computers do the translating. This, on Prince William's trip to earthquake-hit New Zealand:"The 6.3 bulk trembler struck on 22 February. Prince William was greeted during Christchurch's puncture government centre by a apportion for trembler liberation Gerry Brownlee, and Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker. A St James's Palace orator pronounced a revisit had been organised following invitations from a primary ministers of New Zealand and Australia. The orator added: 'The Royal Family have been examination a healthy disasters with a same startle and unhappiness as everybody else'."

CHERIE Blair says that even after 30-odd years of marriage, Tony still excites her. He raises all sorts of passions in the rest of us, too.