Peter Rhodes on wildfires, gladiators and the shame of Britain's hospitals

And is it mere coincidence, among the many echoes of Western civilisation going the way of ancient Rome, that one of our favourite entertainments in 2025 AD was also a box-office hit in 190 AD? Bring on the Gladiators. 

I wonder how many old and infirm flu victims have quietly chosen to die in their own homes this winter rather than face the unspeakable horrors of an NHS hospital.

The worst dread is not the fear of being stuck for hours in an ambulance, or even being decanted into a crowded corridor in the hope that a bed may become available. It's the loss of control, the loss of dignity, the humiliation of being unable to get to a loo, the fear of being left next to some vomiting drunk or drug abuser or, worst of all, a corpse.

I can't read some of the eyewitness accounts from patients and relatives without being reminded of Scutari, the filthy, crumbling hospital taken over and improved by Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War in 1854. She would have been horrified and ashamed at the conditions in some hospitals in Britain, 171 years later. 

A number of you have questioned my assertion last week that the list of winter-visiting birds which are driven to Britain by cold weather should include penguins. I fully accept that none of you have yet seen penguins at your bird tables. All I will say is, keep watching. Being flightless, penguins have no choice but to walk here from Antarctica and it's about 9,700 miles. They are plucky little chaps. Give them time.