Best of Peter Rhodes - June 14

GREAT understatements of our time: "Those silly things." Term used by former Netherlands prime minister Ruud Lubbers to describe 22 American nuclear bombs still in bunkers on Dutch soil.

WITH a hint of disgust, Jenni Murray complains that young women who succeed in classical music are "the ones who are prepared to go along with the idea that sex sells." Why single out classical music? One of the mysteries of our age, after 40 years of strident feminism, is that men can become rock, pop or classical stars wearing normal clothes but women have to do it in their underwear.

POLISH doctors have set up a practice in London, offering 30-minute appointments seven days a week, until 11pm. The surgery boasts spotless premises, friendly receptionists and has almost 6,000 Brits on its books, even though appointments cost £70 a time. How can such a clinic possibly flourish when our beloved NHS is free? Simple. I have a friend who wanted a short appointment with her doctor at her local GP surgery which is, of course, closed at nights and weekends. She will have to wait 11 days. She is actually relieved because in the past she has had to wait over three weeks for an appointment. What's the point in having a free service if it is so useless? So here's the key question. If a doctor could see you today or tomorrow, at a time to suit you, for a full 30 minutes with the chance of a speedy referral to a specialist, how much would you be prepared to pay? In affluent London, the rate appears to be £70. How long, faced with the dismal service offered by some NHS surgeries, before paid-for surgeries on the Polish pattern spring up across the rest of Britain?

A LADY reader of a certain age sends me a sad letter about her childhood. She recalls the flashers, self-touchers, low-level molesters, knicker-peekers and other assorted dirty old men that she and her childhood friends encountered on an almost daily basis. Behaviour which was considered merely unpleasant or puzzling back then will today land you behind bars and on the sex offenders' register pretty damn quick, and a good thing too.

MORE on BT. Or should that be Moron BT? A reader tells me she has just challenged BT over her 85-year-old mother's phone bill. She discovered her mother had been charged every quarter for the use of a phone which had been disconnected 15 years ago. BT nobly paid up £6.84 compensation.

MANY will be shocked at this week's revelation by researchers that 25 years of screening for breast cancer in Britain has not been proved to save lives. So what's new? The history of medicine is a long, long story of practices which are enthusiastically practised by all the experts for years and then suddenly discredited. Remember mass radiography, the wholesale X-raying of factory and office staff in the hunt for TB and lung cancer? That was quietly dropped. So, too, was the idea of X-ray machines in every shoe shop to ensure you got the right fit. Then there was mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, taught to generations of life savers before it was discovered that chest compressions were just as effective. Well within living memory, British soldiers posted to the tropics were deliberately overexposed to the sun, on the advice of doctors, in the belief that sunburn would toughen up their skin. And so it goes on, all the way back to bleeding, leeches and magic potions. This year's medical wisdom is next year's old wives' tale. Breast-cancer screening is not the first "modern miracle" to fall from grace and it certainly won't be the last.

A BIZARRE case of theft is reported from Middlesbrough where a man visited a goldsmith, asked to see some diamonds and suddenly swallowed them. The thief later handed a bag of excrement to the police but the diamonds have never been recovered. Where can they be? Sherlock Holmes would have known: "Alimentary, my dear Watson."

ISN'T the final series of Poirot (ITV) a disappointment? The great thing about the old episodes was Poirot's relationships with Captain Hastings (Hugh Fraser), Miss Lemon (Pauline Moran) and the ultimate old-fashioned copper Inspector Japp (Philip Jackson). This was the human chemistry that made you overlook Agatha Christie's creaking storylines. Take these characters away and you're left with one peevish Belgian and some deeply improbable plots.

IN A clerical tiff over gay marriage on Facebook, the Rev Marcus Ramshaw (for) denounces the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby (against) thus: "He does not speak in my name and I think he is a w***** but I'm not going to stop being a Christian or a priest." Wise decision. How many other professions allow their minions to call the boss a w***** and not get sacked?

THERE'S an interesting little spat about Ramshaw on the right-on Independent website which will not allow contributors to use the word w***** in full. One suggests: "Use banker. It's just as insulting."