Best of Peter Rhodes – October 26

AS the US elections approach, the master of one-liners Milton Jones explained on Arthur Smith's Balham Bash (Radio 4) how close his own father came to being President of the United States. He was an undertaker on an army base. A barrack embalmer.

A READER writes: "I have a door stopper. Could it be Wedgwood?"

MORE strangely-modern lines from Downton Abbey (ITV) where Ethel the maid says: "I'll give it a go" and Matthew declares: "I've been on a steep learning curve." Coming next: on being released from prison, Mr Bates says: "Freedom, like it's wicked, innit?"

THE organiser of a bonfire party next to a pile-up on the M5 had been charged with seven counts of manslaughter. I wonder how many November 5 bonfire organisers have resigned since this story broke a few days ago.

OUR recent correspondence about people's attitudes towards folk in wheelchairs reminded me of Ron Burns of Tipton. He was an amputee diabetic with heart trouble yet he was one of the funniest natural comedians I've ever met. He died in 1999 and in the final months of his life he was forced to use a wheelchair. He noted that when he sat in it he was just 4ft 2ins tall, which inspired his bitter little poem about meeting someone he knew perfectly well but who failed to recognise him. It began: "We met this man in Bilston / Well, my daughter did./ He didn't recognise me; / They never do when you're four feet two." I dare say plenty of people in wheelchairs know the feeling.

THIS may save you a trip to the police station. A reader who was sent a copy of the Chinese-inheritance scam, featured in this column recently, took it to his local nick where the officers referred him to the website Actionfraud.Police.UK . He tells me that after filling out the Actionfraud report form, he was advised to contact his local police station, which is precisely what he had done.

I WON'T be voting in the November 15 elections for police commissioners because I don't see how scrapping a committee and replacing it with one person improves democracy. Seems I'm in good company. The former Metropolitan Police chief Lord Ian Blair declares: "I've never said this before but I actually hope people don't vote because that is the only way we are going to stop this." Any other members of the Establishment care to join the boycott? Could these be the first elections in Britain when it is our civic duty not to vote?

ONE reader speaks for many about police commissioners: "Has it not occurred to anyone that one person is very much easier to corrupt than a body of people?"

MY PARENTS spent their honeymoon in the Yorkshire Dales, 10 miles from their home. My wife and I spent our honeymoon in Glastonbury, 100 miles from our home. My daughter and her husband are currently on honeymoon in a rain forest in Mexico. Makes you wonder where their children will honeymoon. Mars?

USEFUL phrases for our time. A weighty tome: something you do when the store is supposed to be delivering your new washing machine.

MY heart sinks at the news that Whitehall plans to mark the centenary of the First World War in 2014 with a scheme to send pupils from every British school to the cemeteries of France and Flanders. I once witnessed a coach load of English teenagers running riot though the immaculate avenues of Tyne Cot cemetery in Belgium. Two of them actually swung on the cross of remembrance. Kids are best kept away until they develop a sense of reverence. In my experience of many trips, it is the 40-plus age group that gets the most out of battlefield pilgrimages.

AND now, a sneak preview from the television schedules for this time next year, October 2013: Newsnight asks whether significant facts were overlooked in Panorama's investigation into the Guardian investigation into the Daily Mail investigation into the Blue Peter investigation into the One Show investigation into the Panorama investigation into the Newsnight investigation of the Jimmy Savile scandal. In-depth analysis by Zippy from Rainbow.