Best of Peter Rhodes - July 1

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

A READER asks: "If two pheasants are about to collide, do they brace themselves?"

WOOLWORTH, Thornton's, T J Hughes, Habitat, Comet. The list of high-street shops facing closure seems endless. And yet the tattoo parlours thrive.

How hard-up must we Brits get before £200 worth of Chinese dragon up your biceps looks like a foolish extravagance?

THE Daily Mail urged us all to show "the Dunkirk spirit" in coping with the public-sector strike. As the dwindling band of brothers who were on the beaches in 1940 can testify, the chief sentiment at Dunkirk was to retreat as quickly as possible.

THE Wolverhampton South West MP Paul Uppal says Britons of all ethnic and religious backgrounds should define themselves first and foremost as British. Ah, but we used to, Mr Uppal. And then the Irish, Scots and Welsh decided to go their own ways. These days, the only people in the UK who call themselves British are the English which seems rather pointless.

THE rioting in the Greek capital is a reminder that this so-called cradle of democracy is not the most photogenic of places. You go there dreaming of ancient gods and classical architecture. You find a noisy, sweaty, gridlocked dump. Take away the Acropolis and Athens must be the most disappointing city in the world.

MIND you, in my travels only one city actually exceeded expectations and touched all the tingle-buttons at once. Jericho.

NATION in regret. A survey of 1,000 residents of Jamaica reveals that most believe the island would be better off if it were still ruled from London as a colony. This is terrible news for progressives who shudder at the very word "colonialism". But not all British colonies were unhappy places. I wonder how many former colonies, now posing as democratic republics, would give the same answer as the Jamaicans in an opinion poll. If only they were allowed to have opinions.

IS ANYONE alarmed by the report suggesting that elderly women are not offered the same surgery for breast cancer as younger women? Cancers tend to grow more slowly in the elderly and if surgery has to be rationed, isn't it better to concentrate it on younger people? Twenty years ago my father, then 63, was told he qualified for a cancer op by just 18 months. No-one considered it a scandal. Sadly, it turned out to be the wrong op anyway.

THE PRINCE of Wales is an easy target but why should anyone criticise his growing budget? He is spending, expanding and creating new jobs. Isn't that what we want every British company to do?

OUR changing language. Fashion buffs have coined a new word to describe Gucci's latest collection which combines purple and orange. They are calling it porange. This fills a gaping hole in the English language. At last we have a word that rhymes with orange.

THIS, from a defence analyst on Radio 4, sums up the problems of fighting a primitive enemy such as the Taliban better than anything I have heard: "We have all the watches but they have all the time."

IT was madness, as some of us argued at the time, to embark on a single currency for Europe without first creating a single European economy. But the experts prevailed, the euro arrived and today lazy, unproductive old Greece is going bust.

It was also madness, as some of us argued at the time, to create the European Arrest Warrant without a common EU legal system. But the experts prevailed, even though the Greek legal system regards plane spotting as espionage while ours regards it a hobby.

And it was certainly madness to embark on a European Constitution when, in their hearts, the French and Germans still want to control their own borders.

The problem with Europe is that it is led by silly people with huge, revolutionary dreams which invariably come crashing down.

How about a few smaller dreams from Brussels? They could always start with that long-overdue project, the Single European Plug Socket.

ZARA Phillips's fiance Mike Tindall and his pals allegedly ran up a 20,000 dollar booze bill for his stag party in Miami. That famous appetite for alcohol may explain why Tindall, who is only 32, looks just about due for a bus pass.

THERE is no better way for this Government to show its support for marriage than to let spouses exchange their tax allowances, as proposed this week by a group of Tory backbenchers. Fine idea. It will, of course, vanish without trace.