Best of Peter Rhodes - January 11

"FASTER, higher, stronger" is the motto of the Olympic Games. It may need rewriting following a new debate about making darts an Olympic sport by 2020. Sir Clive Woodward, Team GB's director of sport, tweeted a few days ago: "Darts definitely an Olympic sport" So that's faster, higher, stronger - and fatter.

TERMS to watch out for in 2013. "Cyber hygiene" is the responsible use of computers by individuals, companies, state departments and the military to prevent us from being overwhelmed by enemy powers.

IT HELPS, of course, if you actually believe there are enemy powers remotely interested in crashing the UK National Grid, immobilising our nuclear submarines or disrupting the production of HobNobs. Every century needs its enemy. Napoleon, the Kaiser, Hitler and the Communists have been disposed of. The "war on terror" has lost credibility and the Martians show no signs of invading. So nothing fits the bill for a future enemy quite like a cyber attack. It is silent, invisible and devastating. It is also probably a massive fabrication but I dare say we will end up spending billions of pounds to protect ourselves from it. Think cyber hygiene. Wash your chips and wipe your outbox. And remember: firewalls have ears.

IN TIME, age catches up with even the coolest vocal chords. According to one gushing guru, the first David Bowie single for a decade, Where Are We Now? has "echoes of classic Bowie". It also has echoes of Clive Dunn warbling his way through Grandad.

NAMED and shamed in a survey for its terrible customer relations, one high-street bank puts up a spokeswoman who trills blithely: "Improving the service we provide our customers remains our top priority." This is bunkum rolled in claptrap and served with a massive side order of whoppers, and the sheer brass-necked gall is breathtaking. As we all know full well, the top priority of any bank, to the exclusion of almost anything else, is making money. In pursuit of that aim, customers will be deceived in their millions and staff will be sacked in their thousands. I am reminded of the cartoon about a company which once boasted: "Our members of staff are our most precious asset" but then conducted an audit and repositioned the staff just below the paperclips.

A READER inquires: "Is a man who sells fake shoes a brogue trader?"

OUR changing language. David Cameron declares that the Coalition has "a full tank of gas". This is England, not New England. We don't run cars on gas. Whatever happened to petrol?

I REFERRED recently to us "sad old souls" who enjoy spotting the errors in period dramas. A soulmate writes to tell me his finest hour came in Heartbeat, set at the time of the Torrey Canyon oil-spill disaster. The oil tanker ran aground in March 1967 but a car tax disc in the same episode was dated December 1969. Double Ovaltines all round.

WE are told that Jeffrey John, Dean of St Albans, is front-runner to become Britain's first gay bishop. He fits the latest criteria announced by the Church because he is in a civil partnership with another priest but insists the relationship is celibate. If this is the truth (and who can doubt the word of a man of God?) then Jeffrey John and his partner are not gay in any meaningful sense. They are merely long-term friends living together. And if they are allowed the tax breaks and inheritance rights that go with civil partnership, then why are other long-term friends who live together denied the right to have civil partnerships?

JULIAN Fellowes, creator of Downton Abbey, was criticised for putting some modern and most unlikely lines in the mouths of his 1920s characters ("I've been on a steep learning curve," etc). But Fellowes has form for tinkering with facts. In the recent TV repeat of The Young Victoria, we saw the assassination attempt with gallant Prince Albert (Rupert Friend) throwing himself across Queen Victoria (Emily Blunt) and being wounded by the bullet. In fact, Albert was not hurt in the incident. Fellowes, who wrote the script for The Young Victoria, cheerfully admitted adding the scene to enhance the drama and underline Albert's devotion to his young wife. In real life, the bullet struck no-one. Maybe it was on a steep learning curve.

"THANKS to the internet it is now possible to be extremely well informed and completely wrong at the same time." Emailer's comment to a motoring DIY website.